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Okay, time for a big project update.  I've got six new squads to show off, and we're about ready to start painting this beast.  Just a couple more squads and characters to go. 

I'll put a copy of the FAQ and some brief fluff following the thumbnails, but, please understand, I'm posting the fluff so that the pictures can be viewed in context, this is not an invitation for people to vent their geek-rage about the existance of female space marines.

You guys know the drill.  Just click on the thumbnails for bigger pictures and let me know what you think.  A lot of what I'm posting here today is the direct result of comments and suggestions made by helpful posters, so I appreciate good ideas.

 

Okay, first up are two squads that I'm really happy with.  I had a lot of suggestions to make some Valkyries holding their weapon in both hands, rather than a brace of pistols, and these squads were the result.
Getting them to hold the guns wa a real beast of a project, but I really like the way they turned out.  The Exorcits helmets fit the bodies perfectly, and I'd love to use them more often if I could only get a hold of more of them.  Unfortunately, there are only two on each exorcist sprue, so they're very difficult to aquire.
 

Next up we've got some squads armed with HTH weapons.  I spent a lot of time searching for HTH combat weapons that fit the look and the feel for the Valkyries, and my search ended when I was able to get a hold of some very old Eldar Close Combat Weapon Sprues, which they don't make anymore.  While unmistakably chainswords, they are lighter and sleeker, and I am very fond of the way they turned out.

 

For this squad I used some of the hooded heads from the Wood Elf line.  In addition to giving my units a little variety in appearance, it also gives them a more stealthy and experienced look.  These may end up being veterans, but I find it's best not to worry too much about what will be what at this point, and just have fun coming up with new stuff.  This also gave me an opportunity to re-use some of my favorite gun conversions so far.  In spite of evidence to the contrary, I do not have an inexhaustable supply of good weapons conversions ideas, so it was nice to be able to build a squad without having to spend so much time figuring out how to convert their weapons.
 

Okay, now onto some really cool stuff.  Inspired by a Final Fantasy weapon I saw once, where a saber and pistol were merged into a single weapon, I decided to create a couple of HTH squads with that look to them.  Both of the bitz used to create the pistol/swords are bayonets from rogue trader era space marines.  I must say I have been very fortunate over the past year in finding a lot of very old but extremely useful bitz to trade for that I would not have otherwise been able to use, and I think the quality of the entire project has really benefitted from them.  This squad also recieved the extra armor plates along the thighs, which I am very happy with, but, unfortunately, was only able to get a hold of about 40 or so, enough for two squads, of which this is the second.  No doubt, some players will consider it sacrilige that I chopped up so many irreplaceable Epic Knights to get them, but such is the price we must pay to get the conversions to look the way we want them to.

 

Okay, I've saved the best for last.  This squad uses the same kind of dueling pistol as the previous squad, but with chainsaw blades both on the sword and on the pistol.  Very cool.  I can just imagine the sound of their two chain-blades creating a stereo effect as they eviscerate their opponants.  Any old pistol can pistol-whip, but when these pistols hit they carry a real bite.  This was also a chance to include some more traditional-looking space marine type weapons, which is something I'm sure a lot of people will be happy to see.

 

Be sure to let me know what you think. 

 

P.S. Here's the FAQ for anyone who hasn't been following the project so far.

FAQ

Q: What are the bits you have used?
A: Here's the bitz breakdown:
Heads: Wood Elf Archers, Amazons from Mordheim, and SOB Exorcist heads
Torso and legs: Dark Elf Warrior
Arms: Space Marine Scout
Backpack: Forgeworld Elysian Grav Chute
Pistols: Plasma Pistols with bitz from Robotech Missiles, kroot rifles, bolter scopes, etc.
Heavy Weapon: Generally the Bit from 1/144th scale Robotech Toy with grip added from boltgun and space marine sight, although a copuple have heavy weapons made from Epic Knights.
Special Weapon: Plasma Pistols with Bits from Pintle Mounted Stubbers, Necron Guass rifles, flamers, etc.
The Mini-Dread Terminators are made from Stealth Suit Legs, terminator arms, and the torsos from Epic Knights.

Q: When are you going to paint them and what colors are you going to use?
A: I always assemble everything before I paint. This is because I have, in the past, had to tear apart painted models when I decided to convert something differently half-way through the project. As far as colors, I haven't really decided yet. Right now, I'm leaning towards jade tunics with lavender armor.

Q: I thought the fluff said Female Space Marines were impossible?
A: It doesn't say it is 'impossible.' The current fluff says that the geneseed used by the Imperium only works in males. I am, in no way contradicting that.
Why?
Because it does not say that, anciently, there was not any other kinds of geneseed. It only says that the known geneseed only works in males.
I am simply filling that void by saying that, anciently, there were other kinds of geneseed, and I am giving what I believe to be a reasonable historical reason for why it dissapeared and no one but a few knew of its existence, and why it has now reappeared.
I am not attempting to alter the fluff. I am attempting to fill in voids that GW has intentionally built into the fluff for the express purpose of players creating their own fluff.
Actually I quite like the idea of female primarchs that were later betrayed and purged by Guilleman's new Imperium. It makes sense, to me, why their records no longer exist, especially when the records of traitor legions still exist. I mean, what can you do that's worse then going over to chaos that would cause the records to be expunged? Well, the Imperium covering up for one of it's greatest acts of treachery against two of their own loyal legions is a reasonable reason for that for me.
It also explains why individuals like Bjorn the fell handed will not speak of the subject when questioned. He would rather that the young ones not know that the Imperium was birthed in the betrayal of those who fought for it.
Above all else, I want people to understand that I am creating this army and it's fluff out of a love for 40K fluff, not in disregard of it. 

Q: Are they really supposed to be Space Marines or are they just something that uses the space marine rules?
A: The Valkyries of the Omnissiah are Space Marines. They are not a joke army. Their fluff fits cleanly into the 40K background just like any other DIY chapter. They are modified from regular human females using geneseed just like other chapters, except that their geneseed only works on females.

Q: How come they don't look like those freaky female body builders?
A: Female Space Marines have a muscle tissue vastly different then that of a normal astartes. During the development of geneseed prior to the great crusade, it was found that the simultaneous muscle twitch fiber that had been developed would deteriorate when exposed to the hormone balance in a male astartes, so that part of the project was abandoned, and male astartes were modified to have larger muscles instead. The simultaneous twitch fibers, however, could be sustained in a female astartes hormone balance, and their geneseed still contains this powerful modification. Subsequently, female astartes have comparable strength to their male counterparts, but do not require a large musclebound physique.

Q: How come their armor doesn't look thicker?
A: Their Mark XI power armor utilizes newer materials developed from STC fragments unearthed in the catecombs beneath Diab. Consequently the armor is thinner and lighter then bulky ceremite plates, but provides nearly identicle ballistic and energy weapon protection.
Also, the legs and arms are armored beneath the dress and sleeves. The kerasteel chainmail skirt provides extra protection, but is not the only armor on their legs.

Q: How come they don't use boltguns?
A: Valkyries are designed to hunt male astartes. One of the major drawbacks of marine equipment is their reliance on ammunition resupply. Even their energy weapons have componants that must be replaced every few dozen shots. Valkyrie weapons are universally energy-based, with fission cores designed to sustain fire for years without replacement. This allows Valkyries to continually attack marine formations, forcing them to engage in lengthy and ammunition-guzzling firefights that they normally try to avoid. Resupply and redeployment are further denied by Thundervina fighters, designed for a single purpose, to hunt thunderhawks. When marine formations are depleted of ammunition, the Valkyries move in for the killing blow. Special radiation charges are placed on marine corpses, forever destroying any opportunity to recover their geneseed.
Additionally, since their weapons do not require ammunition for years at a time, there is no need for standardized weapons in order to simplify logistics, therefore each squad is equipped with (often experimental) weapons built by an individual artificer, rather than a template design.

Q: What is their background and where did their geneseed come from?
A: The Background for them is that the two missing legions and their primarchs were female during the great crusade. During the Heresy, they remained loyal to the Emperor, but were nearly destroyed during the conflict.
Rouberte Guilleman was many things. A brilliant tactical commander, a keen administrator, and an immovable chauvinist. With his unique position of power following the heresy, he had an opportunity to reshape the Imperium as he saw fit. There would be no place for female astartes in his new empire, and the survivors from the two female legions were killed, their names expunged from all records, and their remaining geneseed stocks ordered destroyed.
It was only after this display of ruthlessness that the remaining primarchs consented to have their legions broken up into chapters. They could see that Guilleman would go to any length to see his plans implemented.
The story might have ended there, but the Adpetus Mechanicus of Mars have always followed their own agenda. Guilleman ordered all geneseed stocks on mars moved to terra, in order to limit the power of the mechanicus, and commanded any remaining female geneseed destroyed. Under the threat of war, the Fabricator General handed over the remaining stocks of male geneseed, but sealed sealed away the stocks of female geneseed instead of destroying them, into endless vaults of the red planet.
Ten millenia later, The Adeptus Mechanicus of Mars has determined that the Imperium is too weak to survive, and has begun a military build up that will culminate in the destruction of the Adeptus of Terra.
As the determined date approaches, the vaults of mars have been unsealed, and the geneseed of the lost legions is being used, in secret, to create genetically modified warriors that can match the Adeptus Astartes in the coming war.
The Valkyries of the Omnissiah are a shadow force that answer only to the Fabricator General of Mars. Only those highest in the Machine Cult hierarchy even know of it's existence. It's deployment is always preceded by a communications blockout that masks their involvement and limits the possibility of exposure. Nevertheless, rumors have circulated from time to time, and the fear of their discovery prematurely triggering the inevitable war between mars and terra means that they are deployed only under the most dire of circumstances.

Q: What is the personality of the Valkyries? Do they have their own agenda?
A:Valkyrie initiates are recruited from a small cluster of planets controlled by the mechanicus known as Eden's belt. A cluster of formerly lush forested worlds that were all reduced to barren wastelands during the Badab Uprising, in which both loyalist and seperatist Space Marine factions used atomic and viral weapons repeatedly with little regard for the native populations.
Consequently, the descendants of the survivors of the Eden's belt have an unrelenting hatred for the Adeptus Astartes that is drilled into them at a very young age as they are shown holo-vids of the beautiful worlds they once lived on.
Those young girls who are selected to become Valkyries see themselves as holy warriors, personally chosen by the machine god to right the wrongs done to their people.
Consequently, the Valkyries are known to look for any excuse they can to pursue and destroy Space Marine forces whenever they are deployed, which has nearly lead, on several occasions, to their exposure.
They deeply admire the Cult of the Machine, and consider it to be the perfect reflecion of human acheivement and the ultimate alter to worship. The Imperial Cult, in contrast, they believe has infected the pure science of humanity with the worship of witchcraft and the adoration of psykers, both of which they ascribe as xenos influences and not of human origin.
The clans of the Eden's belt have a simple oath which is sworn to the mechanicus. In trade for their firstborn daughters, the worlds of the Eden's belt are slowly being terraformed by ancient and costly devices, a process that will take centuries.
It is believed among the Valkyries that every marine they kill will speed this process along, the death of the final marine completing the process.
So, they are loyal to the Mechanicus, partly out of worship, but mostly because it gives them what they want the most, which is a chance to strike back at the demons who arruined their homelands, and return their worlds to the beauty they once had.
They consider their own transformation into genetically-enhanced warriors to be a necessary evil, but the guilt of becoming so near to that which they hate so much often causes them deep psycological scarring. There have been unconfirmed reports of Valkyries cutting themselves open to remove the extra organs in thier bodies. Spiritually, they are uncertain what their ultimate fate will be, if their sacrifice on behalf of their clans is enough to cleanse their bodies, or if nothing can redeem them from what they have become.

Whew, that was a long post.  Hope everybody enjoyed.  My thanks goes out to everyone who has contributed their time and creativity to making this project better.  I can honestly say that it would not be turning out half as good were it not for the people on these boards who have made suggestions to improve them.  To those people, my thanks. 

I know after such a long post its probably not what you want to hear. But i cant see any of the pics......

Man, this program Dakka uses is so screwed up.  Would it be so hard to just use a simple EZ board forum program?

 

P.S. After an hour of tinkering, I got it to work.

Do not attach weapons to firearms that are the same size looks not cool.

Freaking awesome... keep doing what you're doing man, never stop.

Nice to see that you're keeping up with this project. The first squad looks particularly nice?you've gotten creative enough that they can pass for cool new minis and not just good conversions. The fluff you've written up is excellent as well.

My only nasty comment is that I agree with Symbio?some of those massive chainaxe parts (or whatever they are) that you stuck onto the pistols look pretty silly, especially when the model has a chainsword in the other hand.

fantastic project and great use of bits. I really like the chain bayonettes on the pistols.

What's coming up next?

Just got to do the characters and their command squads, and then we start painting. 

awesome idea, i am glad to see others using the missing legions to base their armies, most people prefer to use pre-made armies, such as the Blood Angels, Space Wolves and Black Templars, i myself based my army off of the 11th Legion, don't mean to sound like a hack, but the idea came to me about the same time i started playing, last year, and it took long times of looking through hammerwiki and the such, your spin is awesome, but from what i have looked up, i know that at least the 11th's Primarch was male, for when Horus went back in time, it described the primarch within the cracked tube as male, as for female legions, i could see it truthfully, it would make sense i doubt the emperor would try to make only male Space Marines, but as for completely removed from the records i don't see that happening unless they where traitors beyond compare such as the traitor legions, even then they would have been keep arround and twisted to look like servants of chaos and an example of what happens to traitors, as for Mars creating them, it wouldn't be a shocker to see that these female gene-seed had come from Mars alone, but over all i have to say awesome, just pointing out what little i have learned, this is not an attack of any kind, and i support players that use female marines

a little confused by the fixation on always-female everything, but the models are interesting. the dark and wood elf components, combined with the higher tech weapons make them look very slaaneshi, possibly like noise-marine proxies

was the "feMaReeNz are the uBer" backstory really necessary, though?

I knew I saw some Robotech parts in there. Nice job btw.

I like that they are so very different. As for you always doing female armies? Cool. As they don't exist it is a great spring board for a unique army. I say run with it. Love the conversions. It reminds me how horrible I am at conversions.

the weapon conversions are very very good

but... the arms look too beefy compared to the
size of their head :x

Doctor Thunder wrote:

Man, this program Dakka uses is so screwed up.  Would it be so hard to just use a simple EZ board forum program?

Interesting. The forum does use the img ezcode tag. Regular html should also work.

What did you use that didn't work?

malfred wrote:

Doctor Thunder wrote:

Man, this program Dakka uses is so screwed up.  Would it be so hard to just use a simple EZ board forum program?

Interesting. The forum does use the img ezcode tag. Regular html should also work.

What did you use that didn't work?

mal, look at how old that post you responded to is. I would hope Dakka's new pic hosting thingie would not have similar issues to whatever DT had over two years ago.

Wow over 2 year threadromancy... is that a new record?

temprus wrote:mal, look at how old that post you responded to is.

Oh the irony...
Mr. Pot? Meet Mr. Kettle.



Ghidorah

This is the kind of thing that I play this game for. I would gladly face these models on the table. Even GW has recently taken the position that even the contradictory fluff is canon, as the stories are told from an individuals view point and the stories have changed in the telling, so I don't see any issue with your fluff.

YEAH BABY!!!!!!

Wow, I realize this is some hardcore necromancy at work here, but Doc, if you still have those figs, I'm sure I'm not the only one that would really like to see how they came out.

yeah 2 year old thread, surprised no one's been by to close it. that being said, I'd love to see these gals finished.

Here you go guys:

Some threads are worthy of resurrection!

As always, fantastic ework man. I just wished I had seen these before I made my Sisters of Battle so I could have stolen your idea!

Army profile article, Doc?

Absolutely gorgeous army. I particularly like how you made the banners look like they could be used as a bad@ss weapon.

malfred wrote:Army profile article, Doc?

Okay, could you link me to some instructions on how to format and submit something like that?

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Articles

Left hand column:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Image_Tutorial
http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Editing_Tutorial
http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Article_Tutorial

I tend to upload the images first, then start the article and load all the
images to make sure I have the order that I like. Then I go in and write
the piece. There's a generic Army Profile Template that some people
use, but feel free to change the categories. Wikis automatically
follow equal signs around topics to determine topics and subtopics.

==Topic==
===Subtopic 1===
===Subtopic 2===

==Topic 2==

etc.

Great conversions, and I think it is a good use of the missing legions/fluff to explain them.

Nice work on these and the invasion of the female marines has begun

Fantastic stuff, love the lilac color scheme and really love the pistols. I see kroot, necron and RT plastic marine bitz AND a ball point pen AND IG binoculars.

Fantastic stuff, you should definitely do a profile.

Nice conversions also amazing painting gratz!