+ inload: Quad-launcher +

+ Thudd! +

A faint thrumming was all the warning he got – and despite the warning; despite his posthuman reflexes; despite all the advantages that made him a god of war, the only thing that saved him from an ugly end was the density of his helm. The flat, broad ammunition embedded itself in the thick plate and lodged. 

Already reacting, the quad-launcher's distinctive barrel array swung round as the integrated systems slaved to the techmarine's armour responded to his command, as instinctively as though the heavy weapon had been his own hand. The autoloaders' ratcheting heralded four ominous, heavy clunks, so close as to blend together.

Point-blank. The techmarine's helm-autosenses cut out the detonation of the first shells before the third and fourth had fired. He thus felt, rather than heard, the distinctive thudd-thudd-thudd-thudd of the quad launcher. 

Direct fire: immediate and brutally effective. Despite their caution, spacing, stealth and grace, four of the advancing Mabracs simply vanished, while the rest of the squad were blasted backwards by the brutal munitions through the crumbling shopfronts. The techmarine caught a flash of one pinwheeling away; a snapshot of its colourful blood in a strange, stark arc. 

Dust and smoke completely filled the air; though that was of little consequence to the preysight of the Blood Angel. +Threat neutralised +

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+ Painting the quad launcher +

+ Bit rare for me to do nothing at all to a model, but here – unmodified, unchanged – is Forge World's quad launcher [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+], as nature intended. +

+ A splash of red ensures it fits into the Blood Angels project. I've included the Chapter symbol and Company icon on the front plate (see above) and the campaign (army) badge on the side. +

+ This lovely little kit, along with the Rhino, was part of a very generous birthday present from the PCRC, back in 2018. The cast was pretty clean, with some minor slippage on the barrels. The heavily weathered, beaten metal look I opted for has disguised this to some extent. +

+ Models with lots of metal need breaking up visually; I've used different techniques and different colours to vary the metallics, and included some red and grey-green flashes, too. Close inspection might reveal a Rogue Trader-esque bit of graffiti. +

+ The campaign badge is just a small blue dot; at the back left, to mirror the marines themselves. +

+ As a functional artillery piece, rather than the heraldic splendour of the Astartes themselves, I wanted it to be a bit more muted than the marines. I haven't taken the shading nor highlighting so far, and have applied minimal weathering. All of this reduces the contrast and impact, allowing this to fade into the background somewhat against the rest of the army. I want people to look at the squads, not the guns. +

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+ Theoretical: Planning the personalities +

+ Let's be fair, a crewless artillery piece is not the most exciting inload ever, so I thought I'd also talk a bit about my plans for the remaining parts of the army – the characters and support. Most of the following is fairly meandering, and I'm very open to ideas and opinions. +

+ This handy annotated pictcapture enumerates the remaining figures +

_1 The thudd gun, as seen above, is complete. The plans for the Techmarine gunner are also starting to come together. As mentioned in the previous inload, the sculpts chosen for the army are amongst my least favourite of the then-available options. I used to have this very techmarine, and I didn't like it then, either. The head is peering at some sort of sci-fi monitor on the wrist, but owing to the necessarily slightly flattened composition of single-piece sculpts, he just looks slightly distracted and bowed to me. +

+ The image above shows the rest of Mark Copplestone's techmarines, and I think you'll agree that they're a characterful bunch. The two central ones are the weakest poses to my eye, but the rest are brill. Lovely sense of weight and purpose to the tools. +

+ While I was sorely tempted by recreating one with a massive spanner or blowtorch, I think they'll look out of place in the less-stylised proportions of the modern sculpts. Also, I like the one on the lower right best of all. + The raised bolt pistol, sense of weight to the toolbox and general posture is understated but effective. That's the one I'll go for. I've got some parts picked out already, including a Mark VI helm with a bionic from the Devastator sprue. I would have used a Forgeworld one, but I've already used them on the missile launcher marines in the Devastator squad, and think it would be best to add some variety. +

+ I think I'll replace the clawed hand shoulder pad (then the mark of a techmarine) with the modern skull-on-cog Opus Machina symbol to update him, but will otherwise aim to keep the charm of the relatively simple sculpt. I won't add a servo harness or anything, but might add a few extra widgets and doobries to the silhouette to make it clear he's a specialist. +

+ Because I won't include a servo arm, I might paint up a servitor companion with servo arm; both for fun and to ensure things are clear in-game. He'll be a bit like an ammo runt – not really there for game purposes, but a useful clarifying measure for the other player. +

_2 The Landspeeder is built, primed and awaiting paint. I'm in two minds whether to paint the marines with yellow helms (as suits assault marines), or keep them red. I'm also still up in the air on whether to paint the Land Speeder itself yellow. +

_3 The Librarian is built – or rather a Librarian is built. When I put Epigines together for this army, I kept the conversion quite simple. He doesn't really match the figure in the original army at all, besides both being Librarians. Can't decide whether to keep him as he is, tweak some details, or start from scratch. I suspect that I'll paint him up and see what I think then. +

+ Looking at the figure again, perhaps it's just the head that's bothering me, I've been trying to use this head here, there and everywhere. It's got some lovely detailing, and I like it in isolation, but it never seems to quite go with any figure I put it on. Swapping it out for a Mark VI helm would kill two birds with one stone – resolving the indecision on this head, and tying it more closely to the original figure. +

+ I think the banner here is going to be key in making it recognisable; but perhaps I ought to also look at some other details, like putting a scroll in his raised hand. +

+ In terms of painting, I think I'll follow the 'red legs, blue upper body' approach of the original. It'll tie him to the inspiration and make him stand out from the rest of the army. It's a bit garish for my taste, but happily the robes here will help. I'm a bit unsure on what colour to use for the robes – both white and yellow will be rather, uh, bold colour combinations with red and blue; so perhaps I'll go for a muted leather coat? +

_4 The apothecary – medic, if you're feeling classy; sanguinary priest if you're feeling modern – is unbuilt, but the one that I'm most enthused about. For whatever reason, I've always loved including combat medics in games. From tabletop to roleplaying to computer games; I think I just like the support role, as it really brings home the collaborative aspect of play. +

+ In addition to personal bias, the Rogue Trader-era medic paint schemes were cool and creative:

+ Marine 04 here – armed with a hand flamer, which rather brings home how far from the Hippocratic oath far-future medics are! – is the sculpt used in the original army, though the gun was chopped off to replace it with an enormous banner. I won't be adding a giant standard to my version of the medic, though I might scale down the image for a freehand back banner. +

+ The pose is quite a nice one; and I think that my conversion will include the broad strokes of the original – the slight lean, chainsword, hand flamer and laurels on the helm. Given that I'm updating the original sculpt, I think I'll get away with changing the scheme. Nice as the white with red pads is, I prefer the half-and-half red/white split of Medic 01 above. +

_5 Which leaves us with the Chaplain. I'm afraid to say that The Rogue Trader sculpts were amongst my least favourite of all Space Marines, and I don't think they've improved with age. Fortunately, I've got some other era-appropriate inspiration in the form of David Gallagher's amazing artwork of Blood Angels versus Genestealers:

+ The white? Silver? Chaplain here is – to my eye at least – the clear inspiration for the first Chaplain that came out with the original Death Company sculpts during 2nd edition. I think that model will be a good place to get the head, and then it'll just be a case of building the rest of the model. I've already got a period detail from a banner top that will be ideal for the crozius. +

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