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After being away from 40k for over 2 years, I finally have the time to return to the hobby. Recently I received several hundred (unexpected) dollars, and decided to get back into the hobby. My problem is, is that I love doing the rare, converted, forgeworld accented style armies...There are several "things" which I will do to the army I choose to do, and that is to have special terrain bases, make poses more dynamic, add small touches like bullet shells on the ground and the like, convert, and add things like barrel flashes and so on...but here is where I have a choice to make, and that is which army to choose. I have narrowed it down to Space Marines, or Chaos Space Marines, or Imperial Guard. The Space Marine themes are plenty.

A Spartan (Greek) army, that have gold armor and red capes, and I found 28mm seperate heads of Greek helmets/heads that work perfect...they'd be close combat specialists (so 30 assualt & a ton of close combat termies), and I like the idea of drop pods too...They'd have round small shields from the whf line, and they'd carry spears with the bolters on them (think custodian weapon)...

Another idea would be a pre-heresy army. For this I'd actually "extend" the minis to be bigger, since marines were 8' tall. The waist area and upper thigh area is where I'd add the height (I have a how to guide from another modeller that did this perfectly). I like to prime them black and dry brush white. Very sharp contrast, so a white armoured pre-heresy army...I'd do the primarch as well, and all weapons would be converted to look like the "old" style...A pre-heresy dread conversion (I had already planned out) and the preheresy land raider would be in there too....The termies shoulder pads & heads would also be converted.....This army would be huge in conversions....

I also like the idea of the Red Scorpions, since a ton of it would be forgeworld...

The Imperial Guard is nice, but I have never liked it except for the Elysians & Valkyries. Now that plastic Valkyries are coming out, I could do a guard army that was heavy of Valks. 1 hq, 2 troops, 2 elite, and 9 Valkyries....I could use either Steel Legion models and paint them like ww2 german paratroopers (since that is what they are based off of) or use (new) cadian models with bear heads, capped heads, and space marine scout heads (hate those Imp helmets), painted black, to be like a black ops style force...Some weapons conversions would be done too, but essentially it would be an air cav style army on industrial bases and primarliy black....The other idea is to swap all lasguns with the Hasslefree MP41A pulse rifles (aliens colonial marines), paint olive drab, and make an Aliens Colonial Marines themed army...this too was once planned out too.....

So those are my ideas I am struggleing with. 6 good ideas, but only enough cash to do one 2k army....Which do you like the most? Which do you think would play the best? Any thoughts?

If you like close combat, pre-heresy, and white armor why not do pre-heresy world eaters? I would love to see more Karn and Angron conversions.

you could do luna wolves but because they are so well rounded you end up fielding a crappy, bland, CSM list or a vanilla marines list

Those Forgeworld Red Scorpions have got it for me, they've done a good job getting their fluff together already and have lots of custom shoulder plates and vehicle parts already.

Although give it a few more weeks, i'm feeling lots of folks will be turned, once hey get their claws into the new IG codex, especially the blak ops idea

new Sicarius model with plum as hq, 30ish troops in 4 squads w/ 2-4 drop pods, 5-10 termies with converted shoulder pads, 1 heavily converted dread w/ drop pod, 5-10 assualt with old beer keg jet packs, 3-6 jetbikes (conversions from current bikes)...all new models (no old rogue trader models) with heavy conversions....here are pics of ideas

Spartans!! Hands down

Here's some pictures from mike's spartan marines from a thread over in the dakka swap shop. He is also looking to do comission painting, so I'll link to his thread in the swap shop since I'm borrowing his pics here

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/237043.page

I would use black templars codex if you are going to go with the pre-heresy or spartans, they are so nasty in CC it's worth it! I like the pre-heresy Idea, the spartan is cool, but a tad on the cheesy side, it would be sick no doubt, but pre-heresy is so fluffy and the conversions are so cool it would be more fun IMO.

For more of my spartan pics go to http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v211/mikeeeeey/sons%20fo%20sparta/

After brainstorming all this, I realized, why not make a 28mm "true scale", pre-heresy looking, spartanized space marine army! I'll combine all the ideas into one major conversion project! Why settle for either or, when I can do all of it!

Here are (photoshopped) true scale concepts...and other bits I'll use for this!

i voted spartans especially after seeing the picture's of Ritedes nids