It had been quite long since I last visited my realscale Space Sharks project. I think it's time to get back to my grey large marines!
I recently bought one of these Horus Heresy Mk.VI Tactical Squad boxes. It was kind of love at first sight, I can't emphasise how much do I love the Mk.VI (I guess that as much as any of you. I hope so). It encompasses everything that has to be said about nostalgia. It brings me back to the RTB01 times, when I got on board of this Warhammer madness. When it was called Rogue Trader. I believe I could write a whole essay on the subject, but don't fear, I won't. If you share the feeling, there's no need of it. If you don't, there are no words that can make you understand how it feels.
No more digression. The Mk.VI Corvus armour. The beakies. The models are a little bit larger than the previous Space Marines, so I thought I could just assemble the models and make them fit in with my previous Carcharodons. However, they are not as large as the Primaris models (if you remember, that's what I used for my latest unit). So I had to re-scale these too! Below you can see a regular marine from this box and a converted one:
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| Little difference, but enough to be perceived |
Funny thing, once you start to enlarge your marines, you cannot just leave it at the legs or waist. The lack of neck seems alarmingly obvious:
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| He didn't appreciate being called Brother Shorty |
So I had to work on knees, hip and neck. There's no need to do anything with arms, shoulderpads or anything else. Well, unless you want some kind of conversion, like the Sarge here:
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| The gauntlet comes from a metal Chaplain. I prefered the classic sword instead of the new provided with the current kit |
As I wanted to keep a relative old school vibe, I used this Missile Launcher from Space Crusade:
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| Looks like a heavy thing to carry |
Once again I took the same path I used with the heavy weapons operator in my previous squad. In case you don't remember (you don't have why), I built a harness to help the marine to handle the weapon while not holding the whole weight solely on his arms, kind of the Aliens thing:
I did this to my previous marine:
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| Archive pic |
And I did it again now:
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| The guys from Prevention of Occupational Hazards approved it |
There's not much else to it. From this point on it's all a matter of smoothening the green stuff work and painting the whole thing in the very same way I've always done.
If I can bring something new is that I changed my mind from my previous works and decided to put a back banner on the Sergeant. Of course, if I was doing it with this Squad, I also had to do with the other one. So I came up with these:
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| A little bit smaller than I anticipated, but it works |
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| The banner on the other Sarge |
The Horus Heresy box comes with a back banner for the Sergeant, but instead I used it on my Captain, as I think it looks best there:
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| He didn't have any banner until now |
Here you have the whole squad, in all their Mk.VI glory:
The only thing I regret is the breathing vents on the helmets preventing me from painting shark mouths. Trust me, I tried. But there's not enough room for that. Sigh.
They are missing the Chapter symbol on the shoulderpads. I have ordered some custom decals, but until they arrive, they look good to me :)
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| I really do have to work on a backdrop |
What can I say. I totally love these models. They finally are what I was waiting for. I think these are the true evolution of the old miniatures. They keep the aesthetics, they are not over the top, haven't fallen on the gruesome baroque nonsense we sometimes see nowadays. It's simply an update of the old models and I love it.
The box brings enough sprues to build two squads, so you can bet I'll do some more stuff in the future (probably not more Carcharodons, but I'll see what to do).
BONUS! As I was painting grey and black, I thought I could work on something else too. I could have made a post of its own, but I think it really belongs here. I had a Rhino re-scaled and 3D printed, so it matches my realscale Space Marines:
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| OK, right, this is BIG |
I'll be honest, I wanted it even larger, the size of a Land Raider. I made some rough numbers and it looked like the size it needed to be to make ten realscale Marines fit into. But I was finally persuaded and now on a retrospective I'm glad. Let me show you how I turned this from this tone of grey to a totally different tone of grey.
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| Ta-daa. Easy. I collected some useful bits too |
Now to the fun parts. I planned to use decals too, but the hatches don't really allow it. So I had to make it the hard way.
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| If it goes wrong, I'll have to name my Chapter the Space Herrings |
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| Space Eels will work too |
A thing I was missing was some lights. I cannibalised an old Rhino and did this:
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| Fortunately the size difference wasn't an issue |
I faced some issues when painting the decorations on the side hatches. The separation between the two doors didn't allow me to paint the Shark, as the awful hollow space in between really ruined it all. At first I toyed with the idea of three stripes with Maori style symbols:
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| However it looked weird at tabletop distance |
Then I moved forward and painted the rest of the empty spaces:
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| Too much. Looks like the blackboard at my school when I was a kid |
It wasn't working. Sometimes less is more. I realised I had to take what I call the Epic approach. When you see a Rhino at a distance (i.e., little Rhinos in Epic), you have to understand what you are seeing. If it's all a blur, you are doing it wrong. And this was exactly what was happening here. Whatever symbol was to be depicted on that door, it had to be readable. I could only breathe and take the wise decision. Paint black again over it and start again.
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| It was a hard decision, but it brings peace and joy to my hart |
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| As a compensation, I painted some of my Maori mandalas on the upper hatch |
The final touch was to add a couple of banners on the back. If there's something more Old School than that, I don't wanna know. It's still missing some symbols here and there, but I plan to use decals for that. When they arrive I'll take more pics, but for now this is it:
Just in case, another size comparison pic, with a regular Rhino (the donor of the lights and some bits):
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| Daddy? |
So a realscale Rhino to meet my realscale Marines:
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| At this pace I'll soon need a realscale board |
I promise an update when I get the decals. Until then, let's keep on moving forward!
