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Ok Dakkians, I promise his is my LAST post asking you about this blasted army! I promise, the next one by me will be WIP blog haha. So as some of you know by all my questioning posts, Im working on making a USMC themed IG army. Basically, 6 valkyries, 2 vendettas, 6 squads vets with meltas for a tournament coming up.

I was originally going to paint all the guardsmen with MARPAT but that fell apart as its pretty much impossible to do digital cammies on 28mm... Sooooo Im thinking of shifting it over to our Marines over in OEF-Afghanistan. Put all the guys in the desert cammies (which should be a lot easier to do the digital on, a lot less patterning on them) Everyones going to be carrying M16A2's with underslung shotguns and meltas will be AT-4's. Im going to convert the helmets too to make them look like Kevlars.

For my valks, I was going to make them all catachan green, but with that theme Id either go a battleship grey or desert color like the Abrams are painted.. What do you think I should do for those colors?

Any advice, much appreciated. Oorah

I don't know how you feel about this, but the old school olive green from the Vietnam era would be a little easier to paint.

For a new and exciting take on Valkyries I vaguely recall that WW2 and UK desert colours for aircraft have included pink schemes

Another alternative is to remember that valkyries are Imperial Navy and therefore can be a totally different scheme to your ground troops. Factory new Catachan Green might be a good counterpoint to the desert-brown jarheads.

Marine Planes are generally metallic, if I recall correctly.

Maybe something along the lines of Codex Gray with metallic highlights? Even when we were all in desert cammies the planes were on their own program.

If I'm going to try and go as realistic as possible I guess going the grey route would be best. Besides thinking about it now, why would you camoflage a giant flying beast like the valkyrie haha. I'm def going to add some benches and cargo netting inside.

Eventually when I put enough time aside for this project I want to saw one down and slim it and turn it into a 40k version of a cobra.

You mean like the Vulture?

Kinda, but I was going to give it more of a helicopter feel.. like.. http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/250285.page

I did a similar project a little while ago. Instead of Desert MARPAT it was the previous 3-color desert scheme, but very similar at this scale. The birds were also pretty similar, but being army featured some slightly different colors from the battleship grey the USMC seem to do all of their birds in. I also trimmed the shoulder pads/helmetas to give a more modern feel to the army. Feel free to use anything you like: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/271973.page

Go for a sky colour under the wings, if they are amrines then they dont want to be seen

Great advice and models mastershake. @younglogan, Im pretty sure they dont do that actually in the USMC. Besides, Im treating my valks more as helos than jets.

For anyone interested, here is what I decided to do as shown in my WIP Blog http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/284210.page#1410916

If you are going modern USMC, then your best bet is the grey pattern of Harriers, espeically since they are both VTOL aircraft.

if you want realistic camo on the valkyries, I would paint them like the israeli's paint their jets.


Ground camo on the top and air superiority grey on the bottom.

Sorry Chaos, Im trying to keep this as USMC as possible, dont need my valkyries kosher haha

Please please use M16's instead of lasguns, others wise its just another guard army with a pretty paint sceme

Lextheimpaler wrote:Please please use M16's instead of lasguns, others wise its just another guard army with a pretty paint sceme

You didn't look at his army in the link he posted, did you?

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_GbZwKIoR3Is/SY95TXRAhQI/AAAAAAAAAYk/R0iUchwPd8o/s400/vietnam_marines_board_plane_hd.jpg

My internet research suggested that Grey is more common, but this was the image in my mind when I suggested green.

Ya green would look better for a Vietnam themed army.. I.e using Catachans and making the Valks into helos, but in keeping with my new Desert Storm theme, grey would be best.

For those of you who havent stumbled onto my WiP blog...

All USMC aircraft use the Dark Grey/Light Grey scheme like the Valk Below for both jets and helos:





The problem with putting a more intricate camo scheme on an aircraft is that the pattern causes it to stick out; a more blended pattern like the one used now is more subdued.

Love the colours of the valk above - the brass effect on the engine exits, and the wavy light/mid grey camo pattern look really effective.

If you can replicate that, along with some leading edge weathering on the wings and any other parts, you should be well on your way

Damn thats a good looking valk.. I think ill have to replicate it.

It isn't hard; Base the model in Codex Grey then draw the border with the lighter parts with a pencil. Paint that area Fortress Grey. Highlight both areas by adding some Skull White to their base colors and drybrush as appropriate for that slightly used feel. The exhaust was done by basing Burnished brass then washing with Delvan Mud, then mix in Chaos black and drybrush several times, each time concentrating on a closer spot to the end of the exhaust and adding a little more Chaos Black to the mix. The thought behind the light areas is to make areas that would be in shadow lighter so examine the model with a light source coming down from above when you decide where to put the border.