The Great Storm Warden Project: Sternguard Veterans

As many of you are no doubt aware, myself and a bunch of other bloggers have recently embarked on a fairly ambitious project. We're building a collaborative army of Space Marines, from the Storm Warden Chapter to be precise.

My role/task in this project is to provide a custom squad of Sternguard Veterans. You can see the whole squad in it's current stage above. I have included a Sergeant with power fist, two Veterans with combi-meltas, one Veteran with a combi-plasma, and one Veteran with a heavy flamer. I've chosen these weapons because of a Sternguard squad in my Ultramarine army that I used with reasonable success in the 2008 Baltimore GT that had a similar loadout. They regularly enter play in a Drop Pod, but more on that later.

Each squad member is getting some sort of conversion work, some a bit more than others. The first thing to mention is that the Storm Wardens have an interest in meeting new xenos species (and wiping them out). To that end they have a disproportionate number of Veterans who have served in the Deathwatch. This squad will be made entirely of Deathwatch Vets, so everyone will end up with a DW shoulder pad on their left shoulders (and Storm Warden chapter pads on their right).

These three models above all ended up with the legs that I built at the recent Pre-Heresy Space Marine clinic I ran at the GW in White Marsh, MD. MkV on the left, MkIV in the middle, and an artificer style on the right. While the Storm Wardens weren't around during the Heresy, I have reasoned that these veterans were presented with these prized relics by their Ultramarine primogenetors or by their Deathwatch commanders for acts of extreme courage.

These three are a Veteran kneeling, the Vet with the Heavy Flamer, and the Vet with the combi-plasmagun. The two on the outside have small scrolls sculpted in brownstuff on their greaves (in the same style as the metal Sternguard), while the HF Veteran has the Storm Warden shield icon sculpted on his right shoulder pad. The Vet on the left has a head from the metal DW sprue and a plasticard bolter strap. His ammo-hopper (like all the bolter and combi-weapon toting Marines in this squad) is made from half of a Terminator Storm Bolter clip. The Heavy Flamer is made from a plasma cannon with the front end replaced by a Terminator HF. Brownstuff was again used to fill in and cover the plasma coil.

Here's a close up of the front of the HF and also of the Veteran icon dangling from his prized DW shoulder pad.

Here's a close-up of the Sergeant and his bolter. You can get a bet look at the Special Issue Ammunition Magazine (or SIAM for short).

I wanted to make sure that even the regular Veterans in the squad had some flair too, so these guys (and a couple of others) got legs from the Space Wolves sprue (on the left) and various Chaos Space Marine Sprues (Khorne Berserkers on the right) with all the chapter/legion specific icons filed off. I should be able to add in some rich golds to help give the squad that great veteran look.

Anyway, I mentioned before about the Drop Pod. Well, the guys at Games & Stuff (great hobby store in Glen Burnie, MD) are donating THREE Drop Pods to the cause! I'll be speed painting these up on Saturday in two weeks, once Matt has had a chance to pre-assemble them for me. Great stuff!

NEWS FLASH!!!

Speaking of great stuff, Mik (one of the Storm Warden team) and the blog/podcast he is involved with (Minions of the Monster Master) have provided a t-shirt with the project artwork on it that will be given away tomorrow to one lucky contributor! We'll be running more freebie giveaways like this throughout the build-up of the project, so you have to be "in it to win it", as they say. Please note that freebies won throughout the project will not affect anyone's chance at the final army.

For more info on the cool t-shirt freebie, head to the Santa Cruz Warhammer blog NOW! : )

Cheers

Dave