Drew's Kroot post is a tough act to follow, so rather than trying to beat her, I'm radiating strong sh*tpost energy. That's right, I'm here to tell you I have painted yet more Space Marines. This post has nothing to offer you other than some pictures of some newly painted dudes, me squeeing about how close I am to completing a full Battle Company, and perhaps least uninterestingly, an answer to the most vexing Cobalt Scions heraldry question: why do some of these idiots get a circle on the Chapter badge, and some don't?
Vital content.
As you will have intuited from the image above, the miniatures in question are five of the artists formerly known as Assault Marines, and now known as Assault Intercessors with Jump Packs, in a change described as 'pithy.' I have nothing useful to say about them, because Tom already wrote an excellent post about the kit and his conversion of it, in Baby Got Pack.
Given how detailed regular Intercessors are, I didn't find the addition of jump packs too onerous, but it definitely extended the painting time. I settled on orange booster jet flames as that'd contrast well with the blue armour. Like any lighting effect I gave it a white basecoat and then glazed a succession of yellows and oranges over the top.
I didn't even do much conversion on the unit. Once I had the minis in hand, their Riverdance rock skipping act didn't bother me as much as they did in the photos, and only one pose leant itself easily to snipping the rock off and turning it into a guy running on the ground:
On to the heraldry question. When I started painting this army, I chose the fist icon since there was a Chapter upgrade pack for it (Imperial/Crimson Fists) and I didn't want to get into the business of painting a freehand Chapter badge on every marine, not least of which because they'd be inconsistent. I backwards-justified the heraldry choice for Ultramarines successors (they're honouring the Gauntlets of Ultramar) and cracked on.
But at this point, I've had so much practice painting this bloody icon that actually, I can freehand it about as quickly as I can highlight a moulded shoulder pad, and ironically, I actually prefer how the paint looks over the 3D version. In retrospect I should've designed an original icon, but you live and you learn. Anyway, one thing I didn't bother freehanding was the circular border you get on the Fists icon, because circles are a pain to paint.
This of course has been bugging me ever since. Why do some marines have circles, and some don't? Whatever, I said, I ain't painting no circles. Except that, of course, the longer this has gone on, the more it's bothered me. I have a few marines where I carved off the circle, so at least that eroded the conspicuous dividing line between moulded/not moulded, but none of the freehanded pauldrons had circles. With the brain worms singing the Dune soundtrack on repeat, I had to obey them.
Two of the marines in this squad got freehanded circles.
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| Squad Leader Aethemus and his circular chufty badge |
This made me return to the question of what the circle actually means and why some brothers don't have one. It couldn't be a campaign badge, since that'd give me timeline problems. I wasn't wild about it being a sign of veterancy or a particular combat honour either, as then I'd have to start thinking really hard about what that might be and whether it made sense for all my pre-existing characters.
In the end, I arrived at a weird inverse-honorific: a circle is added to a brother's Chapter badge when his life has been directly saved by another Cobalt Scion. It serves as an immediate talking point when meeting another battle brother for the first time, and forever ties that marine to his saviour. Currently only one of my character models bears such a circle: Captain Lucullus, because he's got a moulded shoulder pad. But, this works perfectly, because he was severely injured by a Lictor in the campaign for Melia's Reach, and only survived thanks to the presence of Apothecary Herodion.
Going forwards, if one of my other characters is saved in similarly dire circumstances, I might just make a circular update to their paint job.
Now, before I go, allow me a little happy dance, for I am so close to finishing a whole-ass Battle Company. These Assault Marines bring the Cobalt Scions' Third Company to 95 squad members, meaning I have just one more squad and a second Lieutenant to go. To celebrate, I shall leave you with a quick and dirty shelfie (that's Connery for 'selfie') of the whole army so far:
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| RIP Sergeant Cato, hanging out at the top right until his model can be reassigned to a squad from one of the Reserve Companies. |
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