March of the Imperials

So, after determining what scheme I was going to do, I had to then figure out how it was going to be laid out.  I had three examples on my Badab War poster from Forge World, though two were Devestators and one was a Tactical Marine.  With a Blood Angels army and a love of assault marines, I knew I’d defiantly have more of the assault marines and possibly no tactical if I could avoid it.  Having watched tactical get splattered all over my local gaming groups boards and my own single Templar troop choice achieve various levels of success and failure, I knew they really wouldn’t be for me unless I just had some points to spare and needed something to babysit a back objective.

It was after that a buddy let me borrow Imperial Armor X and I did a few searches on Google for images that I found the Assault Marine art for the Star Phantoms.  I’ve included the image here, but the black pauldrons were pretty neat and help make them stand out a little from the Storm trooper-esque look the chapter has going on.  The rest of the art was inspirational enough and gave me direction.  The final detail that I had to decide though was the eyes.  In the book they are described as red.  Red’s all fine and dandy, but I had decided I wanted to have glowing eyes on all my guys and I’d already done the test subject up in ice blue, glowing eyes similar to my Grey Knights.  It deviates a little, but I’m already going to play my Star Phantoms with Blood Angel rules, so I deviating just a little won’t hurt that much.

Now with a paint scheme decided, the next bit of business was determining a rough list that I’d like to pursue as I painted.  I started off with a core of assault marines (thirty total, twenty with jump packs, ten without) and at least one Devastator squad.  Now most Blood Angel players probably don’t bother with a Devestator unit, but since Devestators are kind of the Phantoms thing, I felt I needed to include them.  They are cheaper in the Blood Angel’s codex compared to the normal marines.  From there, I added a Stormraven and two Baal’s with flamestorm cannon.  I’ve seen both vehicles do amazing things at my local game store and decided I wanted to use them.  As I write up a bio of the Phantoms Fifth Company, I’m working on tackling the how and why a Codex chapter fights with “Blood Angels” gear.  Add in a Librarian and an Apothecary (aka Sanguinary Priest) and its right around 1500 points.

Finally, I wanted to stay away from the truly iconic Blood Angel’s stuff.  So at the moment, there’s won’t be any named special characters except for maybe a count’s as Tycho for the Company Captain, no Sanguinary Guard, no Death Company, no hand flamers, or Infernus pistols.  I figured there’s a few ways to get a hold of the vehicles and even a dreadnought so I didn’t feel the vehicles were as off limits as the iconic troops.  That said, I had though of doing a small squad of Death Company and Lemartes to count as the head Chaplin of the Star Phantoms visiting the Fifth Company, with the Death Company being “honor guard,” but that would be a future project for later on.   So for the moment, aside from the Baal’s, Stormraven, and a Furioso that makes an appearance later, I want to stick mainly to Codex gear and equipment.  This is as much a part of fluff as it is not liking all the bling on the models!