My Son's DA Successors the "Dark Swords" and AM Allies

[Nicodemus Doloroso]

Greetings, brothers.

Many of you may not recognize me as I tend to spend my time exclusively in the Astra Militarum, Inquisition, and Blood Angels subform, but my son (who doesn't have a B&C account and doesn't really use the internet much yet) is finally starting work on his long-planned Dark Angels Successors and at the same time I'm painting up some AM to work alongside. We were inspired to finally get this project in gear by rumours of a pairs/team version of the Astronomi-con narrative event which I have greatly enjoyed on my own.

It's still early days, but I'm sure that you fine brethren of the Unforgiven can assist in the development of this successor chapter and the AM who I envision as either troops who are fighting in the same crusade, or have somehow been permanently attached to the chapter. Maybe even chapter serfs or something? Or just a regiment from the same homeward that the Dark Swords draw their new recruits from? What do you think would be most fitting?

So far, here's the colour scheme he came up with:

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/sm.php?b62c=@haLvy_hcLAt.iakk7@@@@@@@hJ9Lc@.__iaj2Fiaj2F___________@@@@@@_@_@@___@@___@@@__@@@@@_.&

He's also tinkered with the idea of black and Caliban Green reversed ... maybe fitting for the Ravenwing? I think he'll just use the same winged sword as the chapter icon, since the nice DA models have that embossed on them.

The AM, accordingly, will sport colours like this:

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/igbeta2.php?b62c=@haLvy_hcLAt.i9aHM@@@.iaj2F@@@@@iaj2F___..hwMdUiakk7_huU1b@i8WOo&

Last night we started work, and my son (12 years old) started painting his Master in Terminator Armour and a Deathwing Terminator (both of which had been assembled and sitting around for a couple years):

The pic looks darker than real life, so I'm thinking he should do a second Seraphim Sepia shade ... it seems that our bottle of Seraphim Sepia is a lot less "potent" than that used in the YouTube tutorial my son watched.

I also did a test figure of the AM last night:

I trust that it's kosher to post both the Dark Swords/DA stuff and the AM stuff here, since the AM are meant to match and go with the DA.

[Captain Semper]

Wow!

First of all congrats to your kid for his taste. Unforgiven all the way!

Also having the RW in reversed scheme? Great idea! keep to the same pallet and make them look special at the same time.

Great work on the AM and they’d look fantastic as a stand-alone force. But wouldn’t seem somewhat repetitive next to the Marines? It’s a great opportunity to change pallet and go, in the immortal words of John Cleese, for something completely different!

[Gederas]

The only thing I say would need to be changed:

Space Marine homeworld is ONLY that. They don't produce Imperial Guard because they're making Space Marines. I'd go with the "permanently attached to the chapter" thing because of that. Perhaps they were a Guard Regiment whose homeworld was destroyed, but the last survivors were fighting alongside the Dark Swords and attached themselves out of necessity and a debt due to the Dark Swords saving them?

[Nicodemus Doloroso]

Thanks for the compliments Captain Semper, I'll pass them along :)

 

 

Great work on the AM and they’d look fantastic as a stand-alone force. But wouldn’t seem somewhat repetitive next to the Marines? It’s a great opportunity to change pallet and go, in the immortal words of John Cleese, for so, many thing completely different!

 

Well, I'm hoping it won't be repetitive ... but I do want them to look very similar or at least using the same pallette. I'm going to experiment with a bunch of different variations in the veteran squad since they're a rag-tag band of survivors from various units, then I'll decide on a final scheme.

 

I'm inclined to keep them very similar, because a few tournaments ago, I got low army points from several of my opponents because they thought my force did not look cohesive (it combined Death Korps of Krieg in Field Grey and Inquisition Troops in traditional black and dark red). So I don't want that happening again plus it is a pairs tournament so I want them to be quite similar anyway so there's no question who goes with who. But I may not end up having identical ... I'll put up different vets as I go and see what people think!

 

The only thing I say would need to be changed:

Space Marine homeworld is ONLY that. They don't produce Imperial Guard because they're making Space Marines. I'd go with the "permanently attached to the chapter" thing because of that. Perhaps they were a Guard Regiment whose homeworld was destroyed, but the last survivors were fighting alongside the Dark Swords and attached themselves out of necessity and a debt due to the Dark Swords saving them?

 

Ok thanks, good points and interesting ideas. I may not necessarily go with homeworld destroyed since that's been done to death with Gaunt's Ghosts, but maybe trapped in the warp for a while, or really really really far away from their homeworld, or their homeworld went traitor or something.

[Captain Semper]

OK, I wasn't aware that this was a thing in the tournament scene... It seems strange to me, but it is what it is I guess. Mind you, they do look great! :tu:

[Nicodemus Doloroso]

I guess it's a local thing, or specific to this event. It's a narrative event, so winning games is only a small part, mostly it's scores on theme and painting. I was kind of surprised that people "dinged" me on theme score for running Inquisition and DKoK, but there was a specific score for whether the army looked cohesive, I think a lot of guys take it as a way to punish armies that are unfluffy or "power" combos and I recall that my score was specifically low on the cohesive appearance score from opponents.

[Captain Semper]

Gotcha! 

 

However, if I recall from the Siege of Vraks (the major piece of fluff we have on DKoK) it involves Inquisition big time! So no-one can accuse you of unfluffyness. Now if there is an expectation of cohesive appearancel...  I should have thought they'd promote visual diversity while retaining fluffiness. Oh well... 

 

Your and your sons stuff look great. Cant wait for more!

[ValourousHeart]

For your DW you might want to try agrax earthshade instead.  It will give the bone armor a slight green hint, instead of a red/orange hint which will draw them in just a little bit more with the green of the rest of your army, while still making the difference striking.

 

If you are looking for a way to make the army cohesive, yet also have distinct elements, you could keep 1 or 2 secondary components of the scheme the same while changing the main color.  I did that with my Sisters of Battle army so the priests, Inquisitor and assassins would stand out but still feel like they belonged with the sisters.

 

The weapons for all elements were painted the same.  The sisters were the center line for the color scheme and had bone armor with red robes.  The Priests had red robes and leather armor, no bone.  The Inquisition had leather armor and blue robes/cloth, bone was an accent color on the armor plates, and no red.  The assassins were in a bone color synthskin, with leather and blue accents, and no red.  Each element had a distinct look but with enough overlap on the pallet that everything feels cohesive.

[Brother Captain Arkley]

I look forward to seeing more :)

[UtariOnzo]

The only thing I say would need to be changed:

 

Space Marine homeworld is ONLY that. They don't produce Imperial Guard because they're making Space Marines. I'd go with the "permanently attached to the chapter" thing because of that. Perhaps they were a Guard Regiment whose homeworld was destroyed, but the last survivors were fighting alongside the Dark Swords and attached themselves out of necessity and a debt due to the Dark Swords saving them?

Ultramar has long been said to produce Guard Regiments as well as PDF regiments, despite being the personal domains of the Ultramarines. It was a sign of their largesse and administrative capabilities that they could do so while supporting a Chapter. It’s not impossible that another Space Marine homeworld could also decide to raise guardsmen, just because they aren’t tithed doesn’t mean they can’t volunteer up soldiers.

 

Anyways, back to the OP. Liking the colour scheme, has Disciples of Caliban vibes (in a good way) and I’m looking forward to seeing more

[Nicodemus Doloroso]

Thanks for the comments and help so far. I hope to have more minis to show soon!

 

Quick question: one of the things that really drew my son to DA was the Darkshroud, so since this army is meant to be used in narrative/friendly play, we're not too concerned with whether it's "good" but I would like to know what would be appropriate things to accompany it since I've never used landspeeders myself. It looks like it basically gives "smoke" to everything within 6" and it's fairly quick ... so I'm assuming other quick-ish stuff like landspeeders, bikes, assault marines, marines in rhinos?

 

I guess 6" doesn't give a ton of space, but I was thinking of having a squad of tacs in a rhino, plus either bikes or ASM. Would that work?

[JJD]

The dark shroud can be quite useful.

 

it’s commonly used along side Blackknights and dark talons accompanied by Sammael and a Talonmaster. Weapons from the dark age and speed of the Raven stratagems are your friend here.

 

It can also work well as part of a Azrael castle. Azrael gives all dark angels infantry and bikes with in 6 a 4++ save and allows them to reroll misses. Often used along side Hellblasters with the weapons from the dark age stratagem.

[Nicodemus Doloroso]

OK, thanks. Will be hard to fit all of that into 1000 points especially when his heart is set on the Deathwing he's started assembling and the HQ tax to run a battalion. But I guess we can go suboptimal and run regular Ravenwing bikers and no special characters.

[JJD]

At 1000 points I’m not sure a dark shroud is worth it. It’s there to support other units and at 1000 points I don’t think there would be enough other units for it to buff.

 

If you are going Deathwing there are probably better options.

[ValourousHeart]

If your son wants to run Deathwing, direct him to the Vanguard detachment, page 244 of the BRB.

 

To much emphases is placed on the Battalion, because all of the editions before required troops in every list.

The Vanguard, Outrider and Spearhead detachments allow you to play armies focused on specialized formations like Deathwing, Ravenwing, or an IG Tank Company.

 

At 1000 points it is difficult to run a list that anyone would look at and say "cool, a DW list", with the minimum buy-in for a Battalion.

The best they would say is "that is a cool unit of DW you got with your Dark Angels."

 

When you decide to move on to 2000 points, if you want to add in some green wing, go for it.

But for the lower point games take the Vanguard detachment for your DW list.

[JJD]

I usually play 1500 points. So I had a little play around and there really really ant much wriggle room at 1000.

 

Beliel

Librarian in TDA

3 x 5 man scout squads

3 x 5 man terminator squads is

 

920points. That gets you 8 command points to play with. Throw in a heavy weapon in each terminator squad and you are up to about 970 to 980.

 

I guess you could drop the three scout squads for another terminator squad but you would lose 4cp and have 10 less bodies for objective camping with Bolter drill.

 

Scouts aren’t super exciting but in 8th 3 scout squads is going to be the starting point for most lists so it’s probably worth getting some and getting them painted. It’s what I’m doing.

[JJD]

Sorry I’m forgetting your Guard. I guess the loyal 32 could easily swap in for the scouts for an extra 15 points and get you an extra CP. that would pretty much get you to 1000.

[Nicodemus Doloroso]

Thanks, Valorousheat and JJD ... sorry if I was not clear, he's not planning to do an actual "Deathwing army", he just likes termies and wants to have a squad of DW. For now, I'm encouraging him to build what he likes and once we've got a few units built up we can sort out the details. For now he's going to build the one DW squad (1x TH/SS, 1xLCs, 1x AC/PF, 1x SB/CF, 1x Sgt w/ SB/PS, Watcher in the Dark), his Chapter Master (terminator armour, relic blade, SB), and then a 5-man scout squad. Probably some regular marines after that because it wouldn't be a proper marine army without tactical marines.

 

We'll build a Darkshroud since that's the thing that drew him to DA.

[JJD]

That’s a good answer. I started painting my army with the Dark Vengeance box then just painted the stuff I thought seemed cool. It’s only recently that I’ve started worrying about units that will make the army better on the table.

[Dark Rage]

A nice start and a cool concept, I look forward to seeing how this progresses.

[Captain Semper]

Yeap! Let's see some more! :yes:

[Nicodemus Doloroso]

Yeah we're both fired up to get painting ... just haven't been able to find the time this week to get it done!

[Nicodemus Doloroso]

Quick question from my son:

 

What "culture" are DA -- if any? For example, Space Wolves are obviously space vikings, Ultras are space Romans, Imp. Fists and Black Templar have a teutonic/Germanic thing going on. So is there a culture the DA draw inspiration from?

[Gederas]

Quick question from my son:

 

What "culture" are DA -- if any? For example, Space Wolves are obviously space vikings, Ultras are space Romans, Imp. Fists and Black Templar have a teutonic/Germanic thing going on. So is there a culture the DA draw inspiration from?

They're a combination of Monastic Knights and Arthurian Knights. Similar to the Teutonic Knights, but more secretive. There's also some Native American with the Deathwing.

 

But they're mostly the former two.

[Captain Semper]

^ that

 

Buuuuut, the Native American theme is dying out... There are some feathers here and there on Termies but the big feathered crests visible on some DW Sergeants and Masters as well as the backs of the bikes are really not that Native American - more like references to angels or, in the case of bikes, the Polish Winged Hussars? Maybe? 

 

Look, if go for secretive monastic knights - you're there 100%