The Space Sharks Space Marines

Welcome to the first of what will hopefully be many Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 army articles on the TargetGaming.com blog! This is will be a regular series about the armies collected, modelled and painted by our gaming group. Hopefully theyll inspire you to create your own imaginative armies, with their own backgrounds and inventive conversions.

The first article in the series is about one of my own armies The mighty Space Sharks Space Marines. Who, I hear you cry? Well, many years ago, back in 1988, when the 40K background was less fixed than today, White Dwarf ran a short article by Rick Priestly entitled The Badab War. This described a conflict between several chapters of Space Marines, some rebelling against the Imperium, some loyal. The part of this article fondly remembered by most gamers of a certain age was the colour spread and bear in mind that most of White Dwarf was printed in black and white in those days. This featured colour schemes for all the chapters involved in the Fourth Quadrant Rebellion (as the Badab War was also known) in total around fifteen chapters, complete with alternative schemes for special units like the Red Scorpions Pursuit Squad. It would probably look crude to younger gamers today, but was filled with imagination and ideas, and inspired many a Space Marine army to be built from the original plastic boxed set, the RTB01 Space Marines. Fast forward to 2004 and Warhammer World in Nottingham was starting to run a series of campaign weekends each year. These were fun gaming weekends deliberately designed to be less competitive than the Grand Tournaments with a different atmosphere. In a stroke of genius, the first 40K campaign run that year was

to be a re-run of the Badab Campaign, with special rules and scenarios written, complete with a lovely A3 reprint of all the colour schemes featured in the old White dwarf article. It was to be gamed at 1500 points, but the brilliant feature was that if you took an army painted in one of the old chapter colours, you were allowed to use for free! one of the unique units featured in the rules pack. Most of these units were based around the units featured in the colour spread. Thus, if you painted and brought 1500 points of Red Scorpions, you were allowed to add for free the Red Scorpion Pursuit Squad. Needless to say, the tickets for this weekend sold out almost instantly. What no-one (not, I suspect, even the organisers) expected was the take up of the special armies. Remember, none of the armies featured were any of the big chapters for example, no Space Wolves or Ultramarines were able to get the special rules. The most well known chapter featured was the Salamanders. As it turned out, dozens of entrants had bought and painted entirely new Space Marine armies, partly to be able to use the unique units, but mainly, I think, to get into the spirit of the campaign. It certainly added to the experience of the weekend, seeing Astral Claws Space Marines up against the Star Phantoms and Rainbow Warriors battling the Mantis Warriors. Around half the 100 or so gamers had made the effort to buy and paint a new army for a campaign weekend. I was one of them. Now as anyone that knows me will tell you, I love Space Marines and dont need much of an excuse to start a new Space Marine army. But the opportunity to paint and game with a cool old-school chapter from a great old bit of background I couldnt pass that up. With rules pack in hand I chose the Space Sharks partly because they have a cool name, partly because they had a cool unique unit a team of move and fire heavy bolters. They also add a really nice chapter badge (they actually have had two over the years I chose what I consider the better of the two) which turned out to be a lot easier to paint than it looks. The final reason was that with the campaign four months away and a 1500+ point army to paint, the scheme needed to be quick (Well, that certainly ruled out the Minotaurs!). Two things were chief in my mind the army needed have and old-school 40K feel, despite using the then-current range of models, and that I wanted it to be fairly realistic well as realistic as a 40K army ever gets. I wanted to as get as close to the look of the article as I could. To do this I resolved to use only Mk VI Space Marine heads (hey kids, in the past there was no Mk VII armour!) on my models. After rummaging through my bits box, I had around twenty heads (I have a BIG bits box) a lot, but still not enough. Fortunately, my gaming group rallied round and searched through their boxes and I soon had enough parts thanks guys! Once Id assembled some marines, the next stage was to paint them. The paint scheme was designed to be close to the original and quick, consisting of the following:

The power armour was painted with a Codex Grey Base Coat over a black undercoat. The armour was then lined with a 50/50 Codex Grey / Chaos Black shade in the recesses. This was pre-mixed to speed things up and also used as the Chaos black highlight below.

The armour was then given a single highlight of Fortress Grey.

Guns, armour seals and other worky bits were painted bl ack and highlighted with the above 50/50 grey/black mix and then a neat codex grey, with trim painted Boltgun Metal and washed with thinned down Black Ink.

Red trim was painted with Scab red and a Blood Red highlight in particular a red vertical stripe down the centre of the helmet, in the same style as the article.

Bone / scroll work was painted in three layers Graveyard Earth, Kommando Khaki and Bleached Bone. The helmet eyes were painted with regal blue, with Ultramarine Blue highlight and Skull White reflection dot. Finally the models were based with a drybrush of Graveyard Earth, Kommando Khaki and Bleached Bone with static grass applied. Id sanded the models prior to undercoating to speed thing up again. A bit of planning ahead can greatly speed things up! In another nod to the old Rogue Trader artwork (The first edition of Warhammer 40,000 was called Rogue Trader but then you knew that already didnt you), I painted some daft slogans on the Marines power armour see the photos below for details. With the colour scheme nailed down, the army was soon together some of the highlights are featured below. Chaplain with Jump Pack Leading Assault Squad Although the campaign weekend was aimed at being fun rather than no-holds-barred competitive, I still wanted some decent units in the army. Back in fourth edition 40K, the Space Marine Chaplain with the Jump Pack was one of the best HQ units going especially when leading a fully equipped Assault Squad. To make this unit a bit more special, I modelled them on scenic bases using the 40K ruins sprue. This was to give the impression of their bounding along using their jump packs and also to raise them up, giving them the prominence they deserved. I also used the Chaos Raptor jump packs as I felt their more streamlined look fitted the pointed Mk VI helmets. These had the rivets, arrows and stars filed off to give them a less Chaotic look. The flamer operators were given Cadian Imperial Guard flamers with the fuel tanks mounted on the Marines sides. This was to give them a more heavy duty, military look. The Sergeant was given the Power Fist from the plastic Space Marine Commander sprue and the servo skull was added for variety. It also provided a bit of a counter weight, as he was quiet unstable. Originally, the models were mounted on standard 25mm round bases, but these were later uprated to 40mm round bases due to the stability issues cause by metal jump packs on tall plastic models.

Tactical and Devastator Space Marines The Tactical Marines were originally constructed as several smaller squads, as was common in the previous edition of 40K. Theyve since been modified and had the relevant markings added to ma ke them the 10-man squads required today. Many feature slogans and graffiti on them. The Veteran Sergeants come from a previous Space Marine Veteran boxed set. The Veterans were a later addition to the army for a later tournament. Theyre the only unit not to feature exclusively the Mk VI helmet, as theyre metal models. Sadly, the squad is no longer fully legal due to the introduction of Vanguard and Sternguard veteran squads. In the original army, they had the specialist skill infiltrate. This was represented on the model by the camouflage pattern on their tabards. This was painted in a NATO standard woodland colour scheme that the NATO troops based in Germany used during the Cold War, and I think looks great on model soldiers. It was painted with a Catachan green base coat with curved blobs of Chaos Black, Graveyard Earth and Desert Yellow painted in layers up. Ive since used it to good effect on a couple of Imperial Guard infantry models, but it would take a while for a whole army

The Devastators likewise are made from the remnants of the old smaller tactical squads and a Veteran as the Sergeant.

Predator Destructors In Warhammer 40,000, some of the best (and most fun!) units have been those with large amounts mobile firepower. In the Space Marine army of the time, the best of these were Dreadnoughts, Land Speeders and Predators so I took some of all of them. The Predators, especially when kitted with the Autocannon of the Destructor version look great and really look like they mean business. However, I had one main problem with the kit the sponson mounted weapons. Now in real life, most countries stopped using sponsons in their tank designs in the 1920s. Theyre mounted too low down to be as useful as a turret weapon and they dont have the 360 f ield of fire either. They also add weaknesses to the side armour and add complication in operating through the track units on the sides. For these reasons, I moved all the guns to the turret. One Heavy Bolter became a co-axial weapon next to the Autocannon and the other was moved to a pintle mount on the turret hatch (Unfortunately Im forced to count them both as sponson weapons regardless apparently mounting all your guns on a turret with a 360 turret traverse is cheating. You hear that 1920s tank designers? Youre CHEATING). I also added some extra armour to the sides, made from layers of 0.060 and 0.040 thick plasticard, cut to match the silhouette of the Rhino hull, along with the Imperial Guard dozer blade for extra mobility. The whole tank was then covered in stowage, some from 40K kits, but most from Tamiyas excellent Modern US Army Equipment set. This gave me loads of jerry cans, bed rolls, junk and also the modern Friend or Foe panels designed to lessen friendly fire incidents. These I stuck on each side of the extra armour of the Predator. To one of the tanks I also attached a crewman to the turret hatch. As a finishing touch, I added some mud to the tank. Ive seen PVA glue mixed with basing sand applied in a similar manner before, but it s just not the right scale it looks like rocks have been glued on. I used a mix of PVA, flour and a small amount of fine sand (okay, some small rocks were stuck to it!). This gave a much more real appearance I felt, but the only problem was that the flour/water/glue mix shrunk after drying, leaving some vacancies. I still havent really sorted this problem out, unfortunately. The Predators were painted in the same way as the infantry, complete with names, and some

aircraft-style shark faces on the nose of the tanks. Hate and Obey refer to a couple of quotes from the old rulebook The Emperor asks only that you HATE and The Emperor asks only that you OBEY, which led to a certain amount of theological discussion. If the Emperor asks onlythat you hate, you cant be doing any obeying, as youre doing something other than hating and vice versa

Land Speeder Tornado Land Speeder Tornadoes were almost compulsory Space Marine armies in 4 edition 40K. Fortunately the skimmer and Assault Cannon rules have been toned down now slightly, but theyre still worthwhile. To make these guys look a bit more heroic, I replaced the regular sitting gunner with a Heavy Bolter Devestator, to have him standing whilst firing. Gung ho!
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Dreadnoughts The Dreadnoughts went in as, a) theyre cool and, b) theyre a quick way of getting painted points into an army. Two of them became tank hunting Venerable Dreadnoughts, the last a regular Dreadnought with a Power Fist. They usually get deployed as a unit DREADNOUGHT SQUAD! to be shouted in the same voice as ROBOT HOUSE! They were given the same mud effect as the Predator and modelled to look as though they were wading through it, with a foot submerged in it (This was at least partly because some of my Dreadnought kits were missing their feet). Again, they had plasticard extra armour added. The venerable Dreadnought ability to re-roll the damage results is hugely frustrating for your opponent. Often it means hell essentially do nothing to the Dreadnought. On other times, after hes wrecked it in close combat, the re-roll will come up with an explosion! Immediately killing all those Orks/Tyranids/Eldar that just took it out. Hit that self destruct button!

Heavy Bolter Squad The Heavy Bolter squad was the unique special unit that Space Shark players received for free during the campaign. They were basically a five man space marine combat squad equipped with two Heavy Bolters and the addition of the Slow and Purposeful rule, allowing them to move and fire in the same turn, albeit with their movement confined to as though they were moving through difficult terrain. Seemed like a decent unit to me! But there had to be something special about the Heavy Bolter gunners if they could move and fire. So, in keeping with the military theme of the tanks, I modelled them as a pair of robots with their controllers, where the robots counted as the two Marine Heavy Bolter gunners. The models were made from Epic Leman Russ hulls for the track units, with plasticard side armour, with sprue for larger exhausts. The guns were Steel Legion Heavy Bolters with Land Raider lascannon mounts, trimmed, for the mounts. A gun sight was added to the top and ammo boxes were added to the guns to complete them. The controllers were given plasticard laptops with clear plastic (from blister pack fronts) screens. Finally, some Cadian Vox Caster units were trimmed and added to the Space Marine back packs to show the radio control devices they use. They were all painted in the same way as the rest of the army, with the guns name Huey and Dewey (ten points if you can name the film reference).

In terms of gaming, the army was very successful right up until the release of fifth edition! The units worked very well together there was a lot of synergy between the various move-and-fire vehicles. It won three out of the five games during the Badab campaign and came fourth out of 50 at Vanguard Vanquish 2008. Its also a very fun army to use, as the units are constantly moving around. I dislike static armies as you simply dont get to do as much it doesnt feel very heroic if your troops are hiding in ruins with high tech heavy weapons. And Space Marines are nothing if not heroic. Having them bounce towards the enemy on jump packs, whilst tanks crush all in their path, as giant robots lumber into the enemy is hugely rewarding, and one of the reasons I like Space Marines so much. And the future for this army? Well, whilst its had some overhauling to make it legal in 5 edition, it needs a little work to make it competitive again. It would be a shame if the Space Sharks didnt have any further outings, but writing this article has inspired me to get them fixed up, sort out the units and get them going again. Bulking the Assault squad up to 10 men would be a good start and giving the Tactical Squads Rhinos built in a similar style to the Predators would be ideal as well. Watch this space!
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