My White Scars army

It all started with a Stormtalon.

The White Scars arrayed for battle.

The club purchased one for its marine army and I got the opportunity to paint it (Warsoc in St Andrews maintains a space marine army to teach new players how to play 40k, it is mostly made up of models from the various starter sets over the years). The club army has not been painted (we keep meaning to get round to it, honest!), but was supposed to be Dark Angels based on the contents of the Dark Vengeance boxed set. However, Dark Angel armies cannot take a stormtalon. This meant I had to paint it up in another chapter’s colours. I remembered an old issue of White Dwarf where they showed you how to paint up a stormtalon in the White Scars colour scheme. I thought the flyer looked really good when painted up in this scheme and decided to give it a go.

After painting it up, I decided to look up some information on the White Scars as an army. Apparently, the White Scars are quite a good army and one or two other people had noticed this and written about it. They have even showed up at a tournament or two……

In a strange confluence of events, I had also purchased a large pile of marines off ebay (for a steal) that were in need of painting. My plan was to sell off the bulk of the marines to a fellow player and keep a few pieces, including some terrain, a couple of transports and a drop pod (the first one I have owned). My original intention was to paint these up for my Dark Angels army, but before I knew it, I was undercoating everything in white and hunting for biker parts in my bits boxes. Another quick visit to ebay and I had my very own stormtalon, many more bikers and more marines to fill out my burgeoning army.

Colour scheme inspiration.

I have always been a fan of biker armies, I have approx. 2000 pts of Ravenwing as part of my Dark Angels. I am a big fan of the Ravenwing, from the look of the army to some of the unique units they have, but the White Scars are better bikers in almost every way. They even have access to the wonderful Grav guns, a piece of wargear I had heard wonderful things about on the internet but could not use with my Dark Angels (in addition to the Stormtalon, Sternguard veterans, etc). I got a good portion of White Scars units painted up quickly and added even more units that are still to be painted. I liked the stormtalon so much, I even bought its bigger brother, the Stormraven. This has been assembled and undercoated and is currently waiting till I have the time to paint it.

No White Scars army would be complete without plenty of bikes. I have three units of five bikers, two armed with Grav guns and one with meltaguns. These form the core of my army, providing manoeuvrability and decent firepower with all those twin-linked boltguns. One of these units will be led by Khan once I get him painted up.

White Scars bikers grav gun squad.

White Scars bikers meltagun squad.

Second White Scars bikers grav gun squad.

To back up the bikers, I have three units of tactical marines. These have several special weapons to deal with different situations that can arise during the game. I have two Rhinos to transport two of the units and to take advantage of Khan’s special scout rule.

Plasma tactical squad and Rhino.

Tactical squad and Rhino.

A more recent addition is the Sternguard Veterans. Their special ammunition comes in handy for dealing with threats that the bikers and tactical marines can struggle with such as monstrous creatures or units hidden in strong cover.

Sternguard Veterans.

A drop pod is essential for getting the Sternguard where they need to be on the battlefield. It comes equipped with a Deathwind missile launcher to help clear out any enemy units nearby when it lands.

Drop pod transport for the Sternguard.

The Stormtalon that started it all. I like the firepower that this unit can provide, as well as providing some anti-air support that the ground troops cannot provide.

The one that started it all.

Side view.

I also have a unit of assault terminators armed with the powerful thunder hammer and storm shield combination.

Terminator power.

The Stormtalon’s big brother, the Stormraven. I can’t wait to get this painted up and try it out in a game.

One big flyer.

With the Stormraven’s great transport capacity, it would be a shame not to have a Dreadnought to carry around. This is in the painting pile to be completed. It’s armed with a multimelta and heavy flamer to cause maximum damage as it is deployed in the enemy lines. There are some more tactical marines and devastators to be painted and supply some more tank busting capability for the army.

Anti-tank units to be painted.

I also have a Landraider Crusader in the painting list. This can be used to transport the assault terminators in to the fight in addition to supplying more firepower to the army.

Mighty armoured transport.

There are a few more units that are in the middle of being painted up for blog wars that will appear in a future post. I like how the army is coming along, giving me a decent sized force with some different choices for a standard 1500 pts game.

 

I'm always interested in what armies people choose to play and how they got started with them. Was it one model that set you off, the army rules, the model range in general or something completely different?

EDIT: Apologies for the look of the post. For some reason Blogger decided that the text should be the same colour as the background and I could not get it fixed. This was the best I could manage to get the text visible.