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Repainting my Space Marine army: Tactical squads

 Space Marines

It’s been a while since my last post, but that’s because I’ve started a pretty big undertaking. I’m going to repaint my old Space Marine army! Or, you know, at least a significant part of it.

Painting the Space Marine Armour through the ages box set got me in the mood to paint some more genetically modified super soldiers. I’ve started with two full squads, including two veteran sergeants, and some extra models with heavy weapons so I have options. That’s 23 models in total. 

The figures are a mix of one-piece plastic tactical marines from the old Battle for Macragge starter box, multipart plastic models, all metal veteran marines and plastic/metal models from the old devastator squad box. Quite a few of the figures are now out of production and those that aren’t haven’t changed since the early 2000’s. Although not quite Rogue Trader old, you could by some definitions call these Oldhammer. But that would make me old too, so let’s not... 

Space Marine Sergeants
Two veteran sergeants with their identifying white helmets and black crotch flap thingies.

My favourite colour is red, particularly dark red, so I chose to paint my marines as Blood Ravens. I don’t think GW makes official decals for Blood Ravens, but some aftermarket ones from Ebay came to the rescue. 

Painting Space Marines is perfect for improving your edge highlighting, something I didn’t have  much experience with before. So far I’ve learned two things. Firstly, it’s better to use the edge of your brush than the tip. In tighter areas this won’t be possible, but using the edge of your brush gives you much better control. And secondly, edge highlighting can get pretty tedious when you’re painting in larger batches, but man does it look cool in the end! 

Space Marines with heavy weapons
Heavy weapons. These half plastic, half metal minis are seriously top heavy!

Considering I will be painting quite a few figures, I chose a limited colour palet: 

Armour: Vallejo Gory Red 72.011, mixed with White 70.951 for the highlights

Pauldrons: Vallejo Bone White 72.034 and Black 70.950

Leather: Vallejo Flat Brown 70.984, mixed with White 70.951 for the highlights

Guns and aquilas: Vallejo Black 70.950, highlighted with Medium Sea Grey 70.870

Eyes: Vallejo Golden Olive 70.857

Gunmetal: Vallejo Gunmetal grey 70.863

Skulls: Vallejo Gold 70.996

Purity Seals: Citadel Mephiston Red

Bases: Amsterdam Burnt Sienna 441 mixed with coffee grounds, drybrushed with Citadel Dry Eldar Flesh 


And another group shot. 

So what’s next? I’ve already stripped and primed some Space Marine scouts and I have five terminators soaking in isopropyl alcohol at the moment. After that, there’s an assault squad, maybe a rhino... We’ll see if I haven’t moved on to other things by then. I have a habit of jumping from one thing to another.

Click here for part 2

Click here for part 3

Click here for part 4

Click here for part 5

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