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So I want to make a squad of 10 Blood Angel Vanguard and I noticed assault marines aren’t really thaaat much different looking. But all first company units have that skull logo thing on one shoulder pad. Is that a necessity? I can’t really afford the proper Vanguard boxes at the moment and I’m never using assault marines so would it be a good enough substitute and still look good? I have spare Death Company parts I could chuck on some of them as well and even a spare tactical box for the cool 3D shoulder pads

Loadout is key, shoulder pad moulding is irellevant. Use em as Vanguard all you like.

All the skull represents is that they are veterans. If you already have a lot of models then you should have some transfer sheets with skulls.

I think my vanguards look decent and I never bought the actual vanguard box. I also play raptor chapter, so all the bling on the actual vanguard models would go against the fluff. You can pick up jump pack for cheap from noble knights. They also sell a lot of used and never painted models as another alternative. You can often get a good deal there. Buy used, save the difference.

A lot of stores in my area have bits boxes, where I can pick up extra bits for 25 cents each, or just trade in my extra bits instead of paying. Maybe you can find something like that where you live.

I magnetized my jump packs, that way I can also take them as company veterans instead of vanguard veterans.

Once in a while you will run into a player that tells you "those aren't the actual models, you can't field them" in those cases I just find a different player. The big thing is that your minis look the part, pose them differently, give them a slightly different paint job to set them apart.

 Tiberius501 wrote:
So I want to make a squad of 10 Blood Angel Vanguard and I noticed assault marines aren’t really thaaat much different looking. But all first company units have that skull logo thing on one shoulder pad. Is that a necessity? I can’t really afford the proper Vanguard boxes at the moment and I’m never using assault marines so would it be a good enough substitute and still look good? I have spare Death Company parts I could chuck on some of them as well and even a spare tactical box for the cool 3D shoulder pads

Unit markings are a guide at best, in no way are they obligatory. No one's going to say 'Nope, these can't be Vanguard, you haven't given them all the same shoulder pad'.

If doing regular BA then veteran helmets are gold, which is going to distinguish them even if they have a bolt pistol and chainsword load out.

I'd say make a bit of an effort to model them with more bling than your regular marines would have, they're veterans after all.

Awesome thanks guys. Using the tactical box and some extra Death Company bits, I reckon I can bling them out enough, and give them the obvious gold helmets and gold trims and such and also chuck the transfers on too. This saves me a lot of money!

The skull emblem denotes terminator honours (i.e. only veterans are permitted to wear holy tactical dreadnought armour).

If I recall don't Blood Angel veteran units have gold helms? Use that as a first point of distinction. Then you can kitbash them from what you have to make them stand out more; give that unit the most ornate pieces to mark them out.

Just paint a skull on the pad instead of the blood drop and do the helmet gold instead of yellow.

Thats what makes an assault marine a first company veteran for Bloo Dangles.

You could also give them some little crux terminatus to represent they have been trained to use terminator armor (but are oldschool rocking power armour for this particular mission).

You're spare death company / sergeant / character pieces are great for this purpose too.