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My goal here is to create an armour mark for my new space marine army, but I'm not looking to make a step as large as Mk 9, nor do I think I have the authority to do that, GW may do themselves one day...

What I hoped to do was create something like Grey Knight aegis armour which is effectively Mk 8.1in my eyes, it is specialised to provide particular benefits against deamons.

The armour must provide greater protection where possible, even at the expense of maneuverability to some degree. The armour (and weapons) must fit the roles of ship boarding and/or building siege. The changes should be explainable to a reasonable degree to be believable as well as have equipment/ammo on them. (The Philiverse on bolter and ammunition storage has been useful for this http://www.philipsibbering.com/wh40k/11-00-bolter.shtml).

With all that our of the way I present my first attempt:




These are the best photos I can get for the moment, I will try and get better ones tomorrow.

As much as I wish I was a green stuff master, I can only kitbash (just look at my custom bjorn dread, it's 99% kitbash!). I will add more soon when not using my phone for this, comments are welcome (why would I even post if they weren't? )

That actually looks very cool. I have no skills with greenstuff so Im in the same pool as you, kitbashing all the way!

 Marine_With_Heart wrote:
That actually looks very cool. I have no skills with greenstuff so Im in the same pool as you, kitbashing all the way!

Thanks Marine_With_Heart, I was originally worried that it was a bit over the top but I think there is still room for improvement.

Replying on my phone again as it seems I get very little time these days so apologies for typos. I managed to snap some clearer pictures:










From top to bottom:
Head is a modified Warriors of chaos helmet.
Tall rear neck guard is 2 terminator small crotch plates.
Front mk8 like neck guard is the top arch snipped off the Venerable dreadnought front.
Backpack is standard, vent protectors are forge world terminator knee pads (there were 9 pairs on a bits site oddly enough, expected them to be rarer).
Chest plate (the hardest part to find) is from a blood angels death company box with the blood symbols trimmed off.
Standard blank shoulder pad right and terminator left shoulder pad with plate for squad name.
The arms are standard though I am thinking of adding a mini shield to one in the form of a terminator long crotch plate.
Back waist is my attempt at the original mk8 heavy armour belt. Made from standard marine small ammo pouches with the flap filed/cut off).
Legs are made from Warriors of chaos using a simpler doghouse technique.



The weapon is a bolter with the front casing cut off leaving the grip only and adding plasticard barrels. The weapon being shotgun like it quite important to me, the way a bolter works according to the Philiverse, the muzzle velocity of a bolter is only 100 fps (compared to a modern day handgun being 800) and peaking to 4000 (naval auto cannons) fps in flight due to the rocket propellant increasing the speed over the flight time, this would be less useful in a close combat scenario as a lot of the force is lost.
Shotguns solve this by working very similarly to projectile weapons today, the muzzle velocity is highest overall when leaving the barrel. It also works quite well with the rules for rapid fire, think 24 inch shots are made with slug rounds (1 wound) and below 12 inch with buck/spread shot (2 wounds).

The result is a marine that's pretty hard to make but worth it, it's ended up a lot more pre heresy than intended but I like that style, even if this is intended to be more up to date armour. I think I'll call it Mk 8.1 Gravis armour (Gravis = heavy, I think).

(P.S if anyone knows where I can get more of those chest pieces and terminator knee pads, I'd be very grateful!)

very nice work, I like that helmet, the whole thing works really well.

Looks fantastic. The non-standard bolter with the mix of armor is brilliant. The extra plating around the head/neck region makes sense aesthetically and pragmatically. The only thing that I kinda have to nit-pick about.... and I even don't like myself for bringing this up... is the 'fluff' side of things. I'd class it as Mk 2.5 or similar.
Fantastic work though, look forward to seeing it painted.
Any clues as to what chapter it will be painted in? Are you planning on doing an entire squad? i'm quite inspired to do similar unit with power fists to use as a 'counts as' terminators unit.

Kind of feels like the helmet still needs something around that vertical slit it has in the middle of it. Kind of makes it look a bit like a step back, though I'm a fan of all the other changes.

Maybe copy the added neck armour onto the helmet sort of?

 hk1x1 wrote:
very nice work, I like that helmet, the whole thing works really well.

Thanks, it's surprising how much more 'Space Marine' a helmet can look when you just add the iconic top and side sections.

Grim Bad'Un wrote:
Looks fantastic. The non-standard bolter with the mix of armor is brilliant. The extra plating around the head/neck region makes sense aesthetically and pragmatically. The only thing that I kinda have to nit-pick about.... and I even don't like myself for bringing this up... is the 'fluff' side of things. I'd class it as Mk 2.5 or similar.
Fantastic work though, look forward to seeing it painted.
Any clues as to what chapter it will be painted in? Are you planning on doing an entire squad? I'm quite inspired to do similar unit with power fists to use as a 'counts as' terminators unit.

Thanks for the feedback, Glad you like it! I know what you mean about calling it 8.1, the original plan was to faithfully recreate the Mk 8 armour drawn here: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0CZ3Gzw2OKw/TlNzbY7qBDI/AAAAAAAAAvE/KBBvtv8j8Fw/s1600/MkVIII_Errant.jpg even the power fist like gauntlets, but it would have required greenstuff and plasticard skills I don't have, I have tried to incorporate some of it's changes in my own way though like the collar and vent armour. A way it might be acceptable is to say in fluff that it was designed with previous marks in mind since some parts are as good as mk 7 if not better?

The chapter will be my own (doesn't have a name yet), I'm in love with the colour combo black and orange with white head/details so that will most likely be the scheme (same as my 'crons, hopefully I don't get bored of it!). Orange legs up to the knee, orange backpack black everywhere else with a white/part white helmet. I hope to make a small army yeah, I have idea's for similar defensive upgrades for terminators (wearing a piece or 2 of dreadnought armour).

 n0t_u wrote:
Kind of feels like the helmet still needs something around that vertical slit it has in the middle of it. Kind of makes it look a bit like a step back, though I'm a fan of all the other changes.

Maybe copy the added neck armour onto the helmet sort of?

I'm not sure how, the helmet does feel like it might lack something, I expected the slit to act as the vox caster, being narrower reducing the chance a shot to go through it.