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Good afternoon fellow Dakkites,

I wanted to get back into 40k with a heavily unique & converted army, and am pretty excited to do a Native American themed Space Marine army.

My thoughts are 1.) heavy on the close combat theme, 2.) maybe no chest armor, 3.) loin tabards, 4.) use hun (torso) models from fantasy, 5.) several unhelmeted heads from different lines look "native" enough, 6.) a lot of kroot stuff has the native look, 7.) some space wolf furs might work, 8.) some lizardmen bits maybe.....

Thoughts and suggestions are gladly welcomed!

There's a fantasy kit that comes with a bucketload of little feather bits. You can get a lot of loincloth/tabard things in the Sternguard boxes. Black Templar upgrade boxes have some tabards as well but you'll have to file off the BT icons. Space Wolf furs would be fun. There's a Dark Elf kit that has lizardscale cloaks, that might be fun as well Take a lot of bikes if you're going for a plains tribe as your inspiration.

 j31c3n wrote:
There's a fantasy kit that comes with a bucketload of little feather bits. You can get a lot of loincloth/tabard things in the Sternguard boxes. Black Templar upgrade boxes have some tabards as well but you'll have to file off the BT icons. Space Wolf furs would be fun. There's a Dark Elf kit that has lizardscale cloaks, that might be fun as well Take a lot of bikes if you're going for a plains tribe as your inspiration.

Cool, thanks.

Some elf stuff might work too...

Dark Angels were traditionally themed as native americans, high cheekbones and some feathers.

Using scout (rules) might be fitting, lots of stealth, less armor, combat blades etc. And perhaps some scout bikers -braves on horses?

 triplegrim wrote:
Dark Angels were traditionally themed as native americans, high cheekbones and some feathers.

Using scout (rules) might be fitting, lots of stealth, less armor, combat blades etc. And perhaps some scout bikers -braves on horses?

Cool. I wonder if I used bionic horses, if I could count them as bikers.... Thoughts?

What about using rough riders for cavalry/bikes?

 krazynadechukr wrote:

 triplegrim wrote:
Dark Angels were traditionally themed as native americans, high cheekbones and some feathers.

Using scout (rules) might be fitting, lots of stealth, less armor, combat blades etc. And perhaps some scout bikers -braves on horses?

Cool. I wonder if I used bionic horses, if I could count them as bikers.... Thoughts?

They'd have to be posed pretty strangely to match the footprint of the standard Bike-mounted Marine, otherwise you're going to be riding rather high, which is going to be of serious detriment when determining cover and LOS.

Apart from that, though, yeah, easily, I don't think anyone would care.

it really depends on what you're doing with your armor. is it a space marine chapter? or something else entirely you're using SM rules for (I think BTW if it's a SM chapter they'd not go into battle without chest armor.) here's just some random thoughts to help get your creative juices flowing...

The Thunderbirds Chapter:

The thunderbirds chapter are a product of the 7th founding. descended from *choose your chapter tactics here* (I'm going to assume from here on out that this is a codex chapter) the Thunderbirds are based on, and recruit from, the Feral world of Normurcia a rich world populated by a tribal people. these tribal people's cultures and tradtions have shaped those of the thudnerbird's own. Thunderbird warriors decorate their armor with feathers, the colouration of which identifies their company and squad. the number of which signfies rank, and years in service. The Grand Chief of the chapter sports a magnfcigent headdress of feathers.

The Chapter Master of the Thunderbirds is known as the Grand Chief. the Company masters known as Chiefs. individual warriors are known as braves.

It might make sense to proxy thunderwolves rather than bikes.
They're space marines, so I'd imagine something more like huge workhorses for combat besides the obvious cyberification. Maybe even get crazy with like six legs or so.

For the different roles in the army you could go with different aspect of nature or animals. Like every role would have a guardian spirit. It would allow you to take the best from the kits that exist. Ravenguard for jump units, space wolves for more melee centric troops and so on with the appropriate totem animal.

Their connection with nature and all would make them very hard to fall to the corrupting influences of chaos as it would be anathema to their beliefs. They see themselves as guardians of the natural state and order of things. They don't necessarily agree with the imperial creed, but will roll with it to keep chaos at bay.

You could add a lot of low level psykers to represent shamans buffing the warriors under their command. Space marines would always use armour, but not necessarily on their arms. Some world eater models don't cover the arms in full armour. Or not at all in the case of Kharn.

Axes,lots of axes lol. Maybe even use them instead of bolt pistols, where they throw tomahawks instead. Overall more mobility, less stuff like terminators.

The DAs Deathwing is based on native americans of the high plains. Thats WAAAYYYYY old fluff from space hulk in the 1980's.

Id suggest watching Last of the Mohicans with Daniel Day Lewis. Awesome movie, non stop action that focuses on north eastern indian tribes like the Huron & Mohawks.

Roknar wrote:
It might make sense to proxy thunderwolves rather than bikes.
They're space marines, so I'd imagine something more like huge workhorses for combat besides the obvious cyberification. Maybe even get crazy with like six legs or so.

For the different roles in the army you could go with different aspect of nature or animals. Like every role would have a guardian spirit. It would allow you to take the best from the kits that exist. Ravenguard for jump units, space wolves for more melee centric troops and so on with the appropriate totem animal.

Their connection with nature and all would make them very hard to fall to the corrupting influences of chaos as it would be anathema to their beliefs. They see themselves as guardians of the natural state and order of things. They don't necessarily agree with the imperial creed, but will roll with it to keep chaos at bay.

You could add a lot of low level psykers to represent shamans buffing the warriors under their command. Space marines would always use armour, but not necessarily on their arms. Some world eater models don't cover the arms in full armour. Or not at all in the case of Kharn.

Axes,lots of axes lol. Maybe even use them instead of bolt pistols, where they throw tomahawks instead. Overall more mobility, less stuff like terminators.

Thunderwolves! That is a good idea!

I like the totem idea. Using many chapters models with wolves, bears, eagles, etc... already on the armor....

I feel like there should be turqoroise.

Homebrew a special spear power weapon that you take in scout units

Your USR should be scouts with camo cloaks gain TL when firing bolt weapons or shotguns from terrain and only suffer a 1 inch assault range penalty when charging into difficult terrain.

Make one based around the army that defeated Custer. feth that guy.

If your going for a tribal theme, are you thinking of using Librarians? That might match the magic tribal shaman theme

I used Warhammer Chaos Marauder heads when I converted up some Terminators to represent Cloud Runner's squad from the Deathwing expansion.

wow! thanks everyone!

Don't need to go far for inspiration, here are some Native American themed jump marines I found by searching the paint showcase.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/579936.page#6543998

 zgort wrote:
Don't need to go far for inspiration, here are some Native American themed jump marines I found by searching the paint showcase.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/579936.page#6543998

Very nice.

I want to go even more Native American. Feathers, leather with fringe tabards, scalps, etc....

Specifically, Blackfeet/Blackfoot Tribe. Have a cicra 1876 vibe to them. (I discovered I have Blackfoot blood & heritage)....

Very nice. I'm Anishinaabe myself. One of my uncles (sadly passed this week) was the superintendant of the Blackfoot reservation in northern Montana.

I went to many Blackfoot pow-wows as a child and one thing that always struck me was the intricacy of their bead and fringework on ceremonial dress.

I think Black Templars tabards with a big of GS for the fringes would suit that aesthetic wonderfully. Don't forget to make the feet of their power armor darker than the rest of the armor - the Blackfoot wore dark moccasins, hence the name.

I'd recommend either White Scars tactics (motorcycles are iron horses) or the Space Wolf codex - before the Blackfoot came across horses (probably from the Shoshone), they used large dogs as beasts of burden. If you want to create fluff for them I would emphasize counting coup over the enemy - that is, directly touching but not slaying a great enemy, looting enemy gear and decorative items, stealing enemy vehicles, etc. Counting coup was a way to increase your social status among the warriors of the tribe. Could illustrate this by giving the marines lots of small trophies and such. Braids, especially long ones, were marks of honor (it was almost like saying to the enemy, "I dare you to scalp this!"), as were large war bonnets. Add feathers to their hair or helmets as they increase in rank, with the most impressive on your chapter master.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Mantis_Warriors
http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Mantis_Warriors

Mantis Warriors.
Bush tactics/ Guerilla Warfare. They also quite like CQC.
They actually use camo on their armour and ghillie suits etc.

They suit your fluff (on the most part) and have a pretty awesome backstory.

Thanks j31c3n & Otto! Appreciate all the input!

I'm going to buy bits from ebay, and do several test models this week!

I will post picks too!

zgort I think that army is more inca type Indians... but freaking amazing! I saw those pics once and couldn't remember where I saw them. Kudos for posting that link!

So, this is what I'm thinking.

Making a deathwing army, bodies will be space wolves with dark angel shoulder pads with feathers, runes removed, the left hands will have the stone tomahawks from savage orcs, plus a leather shield on left forearm from goblin half moon shields, kroot leather & feather bits, lizardmen feathered bits, mohawk heads with feathers added behind heads, painted white with black feet where the black and white fade/transition together, native american markings on armor, landraiders will have murals of indian battles, autocannons will be converted to top fed to look like gatling guns, spacewolf dread with those claws on both hands.....Oh, and the hqs will be rune priests/libys AKA Shamans!


Thoughts?

Kroots don't have actual feather bits, sadly, and only some shamanistic looking bags separate from the body, but they could be nice for HQs.

 Shadox wrote:
Kroots don't have actual feather bits, sadly, and only some shamanistic looking bags separate from the body, but they could be nice for HQs.

Ok, I meant the slings with scalps on them....

Brootal. I dig it.