Blood Angels Hobby Update

Just a short little update here. Since the return of the BA via this new codex, I picked up modeling my figures again. Way back when, I bought up tons of bits from E-bay on the cheap to make assault troops and a bunch of Rhinos. The Rhinos have been done for a while (built, not painted) but the Marine models sat untouched til now. I went ahead and built 3x 4-man units of assault marines with various configurations. The plan is 3 of the 4 currently built are normal assaulters with a permanent bolt pistol and chainsword. The 4th will be magnetized to accept a bolt pistol/chainsword combo or a special weapon type like a Melta or a chainsword/Infernus pistol.

The 5th man for each squad is the Sgt of course, but I have a special plan for them. I will be using the newest Death Company models for these guys; weird, I know. This pack is pretty much the best of all worlds. It comes with tons of BA iconography, chainsword/pistol combo, Bolter, powerpack, and jump pack for each man, including power weapons and Infernus pistols and even the thunder hammer. Also has 20 should pads and 8 heads, so you'll have plenty left over to sprinkle around to other squaddies. And since these guys will never carry their bolters, I can spread those out to a tactical squad, making the whole army look similar in theme, instead of plain marines over here and super bling marines over there. If I run 10-man squads, then obviously I'll only have one tricked out Sgt, so I don't get confused on who actually has the better stat line, but with this build plan if I run nothing by 5-man sqauds in RZBs, for example, I won't be short on Sgt models. I'll be justifying this all via the chapter's fluff (as I have never wanted these to be true Blood Angels, but my own successor chapter), not that I really need to justify it, but if some smart-butt asks why I have Death Company leading my squads, I already have an answer. And they won't be painted black like the DC, they'll be the same red as everyone else when I'm done. More on that in a fluff post.

To help this along I went ahead and ordered the codex (to make up for getting a PDF version early and I want to be legit), a box of Death Company, and a new Baal Predator. Since the Baal was seriously redesigned I thought it best to just buy the new kit. Plus it includes even more BA icons! The original plan was to buy standard Preds and make do via conversions, since the old metal upgrade kit seemed lackluster. I do have a single vanilla Pred on my desk, but it works out that Baals are FA and normals are still HS, so I can use both models! These will probably arrive at the start of next week and I'll get to building on those and take some pictures of the new models. Everything is getting their extra little icons and purity seals now, so I can't make excuses to slow me down. Once the glue dries I've been priming everything gray so all I have to do is settle on a painting scheme... which is the next hurdle. Looking to this as a helpful guide: From the Warp - How to Paint Blood Angels Red