+ inload: Breachers +

+ inload: Breachers +

+ Ancient Romans: Legionaries with tower shields. Ancient Greeks: Hoplites with hoplons. Heavily armoured, disciplined, and frighteningly tough to fight if you're not equipped with the same stuff! Both cultures are huge influences on Space Marines in general, and Ultramarines in particular.+

Roboute Guilliman and his Honour Guard hold the breach!

+ I built some Primarch Honour Guard a few years back that were loosely based on pop culture hoplite imagery. While I liked them, they did't quite fit in with the rest of the old army, and I've wanted to come back to them since.

+ Forge World released 'Breacher squads' some time ago, which are essentially assault squads with large shields. I love the look, and thought this was a great way to revisit the idea of marines with shields.

+ To top that off, the new breacher shields have a great clunky sci-fi aesthetic that has some obvious parallels with Roman tower shields. Perfect! Here're three WIP marines:

+ I'm aiming to create a sense of a shield wall – probably not quite obvious with just two in the correct pose here! I think once the remaining seven are added, it should look great on the table. It's worth pointing out that I'm going to build them up with a view towards them working as a squad. This might mean that the individual poses are fairly conservative, but should work better as a whole.

+ Here are a few more 'glamour shots' of the standard marines:

+ ...and the sergeant. Not convinced about the head at the moment, so that might change. On the other hand, sometimes its the things I'm unsure about that actually work best once they're painted, so I might stick with my gut instinct and resist the urge to tweak him.+