An Ultramarines task force rides out to strike terror into the hearts of the Emperors's foes.
At enfilade this year, I picked up a copy of the old Space Marine epic scale 40k game. Opening the box brought back a flood of memories from college days, when I had this game and played it a few times. I eventually traded it away to someone for I can't remember what, but I remember it fondly.
The game came with some Orks, some Eldar and a ton of Space Marines, twice as many as either the Orks or Eldar, the idea being, I think, that you could have two armies of Marines fighting each other as they did during the Horus heresy. But of course just the basics are never enough, so I had to buy the old Armies of the Impeium boxed supplement, which contained rules and armies cards for a wide range of Space Marine and Imperial guard forces.
As is often the case with mini games, selecting your army is a big part of the fun. For me, anyway. My army choices were shaped by a desire to be economical and use everything that came in my box, and expand that with what I could find for a reasonable price on ebay. I was helped by the fact that the boxed set really did have a hell of a lot of Space Marine stuff in it, and that building a classic epic army, while not an inexpensive exercise, is fantastically less expensive than trying to assemble a 40k army in 28/32mm. The method for building your army in Space Marine was kind of neat. You had to pick at least one of the big 'Company Cards' which represented a company sized formation. For each company card, you were authorized to select up to five of the smaller support cards, which ususally represented a platoon-sized detachment which could be attached to that company as support forces, and one 'special' card, which represented a Commander or other powerful character or special unit. I like this system because it keeps most armies focused on bigger formations, as you would probably see in reality. My Space Marine boxed set came with 2 companies of Tactical Marines complete with Rhino APCs and one company of Land Raider tanks along with some extra Tactical Marines, so I had a pretty big force right out of the gate. After waffling around for a long time over what else I wanted to buy, I bought a devastator section and an assault section on Ebay and added them to my extra marines to create a full battle Company.
Ultramarines 3rd (Battle) Company.
I then added a bike squadron and a Land Raider Squadron for recon and maneuver, a whirlwind multiple rocket launcher detachment for fire support, and some Robots and Terminators to add strength to the Marine Infantry companies. No Titans yet. I plan on assembling them seperately, once I'm done painting my Orks.
The army Commander allows Space Marine units nearby to always pass morale checks...
...while the Chaplain makes a good attachment to a company as he greatly improves the close combat ability of nearby infantry.
One of the Army's 2 Tactical Companies, the 7th. There are only 2 Tactical Companies in the Ultramarines according to
Armies of the Imperium, the 6th and the 7th. I have both.
The fearsome Terminators close in on a key objective...
2 units of the Robot detaachment. The Robots are fun because you have to write a simple program for them before the game which dictates how they will react to changing circumstances on the battlefield. Most of their actions will be pre determined, so you basically lose control of them once the game begins and have to hope that you had the foresight to write a good program for them.
Landspeeders race toward an enemy flank...I've played 2 games of Space Marine with this army over the past few weeks and I've found that these Land Speeders are very well armed and nimble but fragile. Only their ability to 'pop up' over terrain to snipe at enemy units, then duck back down again make them survivable.
The Whirlwind multiple rocket launchers. They are very effective at laying down a blanket of fire support for the Marine infantry.
I really enjoyed painting this army, partly because the small size of the minis means that I can paint up platoons and companies very quickly, which keeps me from going all ADHD and getting distracted by squirrels and never finish, which is how it usually goes with my armies. I'm working on the Orks now, and hope to have them finished by the New Year.
