MegaProject: Punishing Angels Space Marine Chapter - In Progress

Yes, an entire Space Marine CHAPTER. I must be freaking nuts, but I want to do it. I know this will be a multi-year project. I can likely finish the first company within a year. Maybe…

The Punishing Angels

This will be a successor chapter of the Dark Angels, using the current (4th edition) Dark Angels Codex. I have the parts for each model all picked out and have acquired enough models & parts to build an entire company so far, mostly through trading/selling other models here in my Bazaar and on Bartertown.

How do you build a Chapter? One Company at a time.

How do you build a Company? One squad at a time.

How do you build a squad? One model at a time.

I used a handy tool over on Bolter & Chainsword to get an idea for the look and feel of the individual trooper in the force: SM Painter. It’s a lot of fun to play with options, colors and the like. Digital coloring book. Saves a TON of time (not to mention paint & parts) to see how something might look before you actually do it.

Some ground rules I’ve established for the look of my Chapter:

• NO BEAKIES! – I hate the Mk. 6 “beakie” helmets. Not a one will be in the entire Chapter. Period.
• NO MK. 6 ARMOR! – All Mk. 7 legs and torsos No kneecaps? No use! This is a “new” chapter so I want everyone wearing new armor. I dislike the look of the Mk. 6 leg greaves. I have no real choice on the Terminators though.
• Everybody wears a helmet! – It’s silly that GW (and other manufacturers) model their big leaders with bare heads while wearing full armor. Shoot here please! I don’t care if they have power fields or what not to explain it away. It’s just silly. No bare heads if at all possible.
• No aquillas! – What’s an aquilla? It’s the 2-headed eagle on the chest and equipment. This gets trickier as it limits the number of parts unless I start filing them off. With a full chapter (1000 models) that isn’t going to fly. This also rules out Mk. 8 “Errant” armor unless I modify the front. I may do this for a few. We’ll see.

Some rules for what I do want to see:

• Robes on all veterans & veteran sergeants
• Equipment pouches on everyone.
• Holstered pistols – everyone has a sidearm in the Dark Angels codex, might as well have it on the model.
• As many conversions as I can manage.
• All models with have the plastic veteran packs

I’ve contacted a gentleman through Bartertown that does proto-typing and casting. I may custom sculpt a couple of torsos and have them mass produced to speed things up. We’ll see how that goes.

Here are some mockups from the SM Painter programs that I mentioned earlier. Some post processing has been done in Photoshop.

Basic throwback Dark Angels colors. Coal Black with white skulls. I want to sculpt a Punisher skull on the torsos in place of the winged skull to better give the “feel”.

Assault Marine variants. The preferred weapons for the chapter will be plasma & melta, so all of my Sergeants will be toting Plasma Pistols. I won’t be using the standard DA icons but it was nice to have something on the shoulder pad to get an idea.

And the basic trooper elements. Every model will have a loincloth at the very least. Sergeants and higher ranks will have full robes. I’ll be using the older metal veteran bodies for those, most likely with head swaps.

So there you have it, my own personal insanity MegaProject. Did I forget to mention that every model will be based on Dragon Forge resin bases?