+ Brolo: Death Eagles Kill Team +
'Make the mark count. Mark the count. Count your marks and see victory done.'
[//Death Eagles catechism+]
+ With the Kill Team challenge receding into the past, I wanted to make sure it wasn't forgotten immediately(!). You can see all the entries in an article on our sister blog, here. +
+ Good gracious me, that resulted in more than I'd anticipated. Expecting perhaps half-a-dozen Kill Teams, we ended up with 44 – and quite a few that just missed hit the deadline – but that I hope we'll see finished and featured soon. +
+ Death Eagles II +
+ There were a number of Chapters from the War of the False Primarch that I had absolutely no concerns about seeing, but the Death Eagles II – that is, the black and bone coloured ones – were considerably harder to dig up. There simply seemed to be none at all at the 'Primaris' scale that was being used for the project, and precious few of the older scale. I'm sure there are some, here and there across the world, but not easily accessible. To that end, I decided to put together a Kill Team of my own of the Chapter. +
+ Doing little groups like this can be a lot of fun, because you don't really need to worry about any consistency in the future. You simple paint them up as a batch and enjoy. +
+ For the Kill Team, I had three main aims:
- Evoke the idea of the Space Marine XBox game
- Avoid similarities with other black and white Chapters
- Bring out the themes of Imperial-on-Imperial combat in the War of the False Primarch project.
+ Ilmarinen's awesome transfers allowed me to put on the Chapter markings easily. If you're looking for transfers for the broader project, let me know on the Facebook group and I'll put you in touch. +
+ Space Marine backsides. They don't show much, but do demonstrate the blue-purple tinge I worked into the black for this squad. I wanted to avoid dead black and white (far too Black Templar), so instead used a magpie-inspired scheme of layers of inks and glazes. +
+ The squad was a fairly quick kitbashing exercise, with conversion work restricted to trimming, cuts and removal of detail. The figure above is a good example – but I left the Ultramarine detail on the sword. Is it a gift from a Primogenitor sponsor, or a looted piece of archeotech from the battlefield? Little decisions like this add to the spirit of the project. Note also the 'Rose of the Pentarchy' on his kneepad. +
+ The ogham script on pauldrons and elsewhere is a detail added to try to give the Death Eagles II a bit of character. A 'canon' Chapter – that is, one made up by GW themselves – the Death Eagles have little detail beyond the scheme and Chapter badge. My preference for Space Marines in general is for their imagery to draw primarily from 'Space Marine' and only secondarily from X chapter. Too much wolf spoils the Space Wolves; just as too much seasoning spoils the meal. +
+ The scheme was relatively quick and simple; I initially envisioned the squad being used as an example of what you could bash together quickly, in order to encourage people on the sidelines to get involved – but the weight of people sending awesome conversions and paintjobs over quickly made me reconsider! I think I would have pulled my finger out a bit more, had I foreseen the time, effort and energy other entrants made. +
+ Anyway, following are a few more shots of the squad; hope it's been interesting, and hope to see more work from you all. The War of the False Primarch has entered its third stage, and there's plenty to get involved with. +
+ Tactical markings were 'Codex', drawn from the Horus Heresy-era Ultramarines. I wanted to make clear that despite the Death Eagles supposedly drawing their geneseed from Corax (and the Raven Guard), the Codex Astartes was considerably more influential than Legion lineage in the the subsequent foundings – even at this point in the 40k universe's history, thousands of years have passed since the Great Crusade. +
+ The Sergeant's backpack includes a little shrine, and a double-headed aquila. When one side of the civil war picks a new icon (the skull-headed eagle icon called the Caputmori) those loyal to the High Lords and orthodoxy would likely emphasise their own beliefs. +
+ The Ogham markings are nice and clear here, and I think the blue-purple tinge to the black, and ivory tinge to the white, make it obvious that this figure is not a Black Templar. +
+ Honour the battlegear of the dead +
+ Choomph! The melta gun from Space Marine is an awesome short-range killer. It struck me as ideal for the four-man Kill Team here. +
+ It was fun to paint the face here, too; again emphasising that –despite being a Raven Guard successor – the Death Eagles are their own entity; Space Marines of their own culture first and foremost. +
+ I tried out a few washes to suggest heat burn on the melta gun here. Lots of washes. Fun to try; and I think I'll try again in future. Such experiments are perfect for closed projects like this. If they go wrong, who cares? +
+ Mark VI helms were prevalent here; both as a visual hint away from Black Templars, and also to hint at the period. With the new Horus Heresy boxed set coming out, and Rogue Trader's anniversary coming up, I thought it'd be fun to bring the idea of Mark VI becoming increasingly common in the War of the False Primarch through the sectorial Forgeworlds. +
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