Sons of Ultramar

My alterego has been extremely busy the last month or so working 50-60 hours a week, but I've not been completely idle on the hobby front - I just haven't had time to sit at the keyboard and post. The newest edition of Warhammer 40k, which I think is the best in decades, has prompted the start of a new army...

The new Primaris Marines are fantastic models. These are Intercessors - the equivalent of Tactical Marines. These new 'true scale' marines have much better proportions and some really dynamic poses. So far most of the offerings have been single pose kits, but for the most part I've been happy to build them as they come. Games Workshop will be turning out flipping great piles of Primaris Marines in the future so there will be plenty of scope of customizing units then.

It's taken me weeks to decide which chapter to paint my shiny new models. Although the background story GW has come up with allows you to field Primaris Marines along side their existing brethren, I didn't want to mix them with my Red Scorpions. I don't really like the idea of my rank and file towering over my terminators so I'm going to build a new army composed of all Primaris Marines and possibly some mortal servants of the Emperor (I have a full set of the Execution Force Assassins I've been looking for an excuse to paint) that won't seem out of place being a head shorter than these mighty warriors.

As you can see, I settled on Ultramarines. I did this for several reasons. My first inclination was to paint them as Imperial Fists. I even did a test model. The yellow armor looks great, but it took forever to get a clean finish, even over a white undercoat. Somehow I also only have ONE squad's worth of Imperial Fist transfers... I must have a hundred sheets of Ultramarine transfers, plus all of the new kits come with them.

Secondly, it is still unclear exactly how the new Primaris Marines are incorporated into the chapter company system. Some of the squad decals now sport numbers higher than ten - the new Space Marine Codex is due out in a week so we should have more answers then, but I was going through this process over a month ago. The poster boys for GW's collection has been the second company of the Ultramarines, so I knew I couldn't go wrong with choosing them. I intend to add squad markings to my units when I have more concrete info.

I'm happy with my choice. These have been relatively quick to paint and if I weren't away from home so much right now I could have had the entire box set finished by now. I haven't decided if I want to add some battle damage or weathering yet - I'm kind of enjoying the factory fresh look of these guys so far.

I'll have lots more Ultramarines (so far I have one box of everything they've released and more on preorder) in the future and post some thoughts on the new 8th edition of 40k as well. We've played more 40k since the launch of eighth edition than I think I played in the entire run of the last edition. I've been using Orks (LOVE these guys in eighth), but I'm looking forward to getting enough Ultramarines painted to get them on the table.