Honor Guard

Painting has been slow as of late. I was going to paint BT's striking scorpions, but I felt the urge to paint my honor guard instead (don't worry BT, I think space elves are next). To be honest, the Honor Guard in Dawn of War 2 are what really inspired me to pick a Marine army in the first place. When I decided I wanted to get back into 40k, I knew I wanted an army that could be flexible and was well supported. Naturally marines were top choice, but I was afraid that they would be too boring. However, after playing through Chaos Rising and seeing how the game changed the look of each unit I realized there was some variety to be found.

In the game the honor guard have white helmets, white shoulder pads and lots of gold trim. All my HQ units have white incorporated in the color scheme. I've used gold for my veterans/terminators. So, if these honor guard are supposed to be the best of the veterans and they follow my force commander it only made sense to keep this scheme.

I wasn't really happy with the GW honor guard box, so I never pulled the trigger on the honor guard. When Forge World released the Badab War stuff, they came out with this kit. The look was just what I wanted, a mix of older power armor and some useless fancy bits to set these guys apart. The Librarian who came with the kit I am using as a Sanguinary Priest (I haven't painted him yet). The kit is great and it came with enough bits to make an extra guy as a standard bearer. Seeing that I would most likely be putting these guys with Dante or a Captain of some kind it only made sense to put jump packs on them.

Painting wise these guys were a lot of fun to paint, great detail on the models. However, once again white proved to be my nemesis. I just can't get it right, along with yellow it always looks a little chunky. I also tried out the wet palette for the first time with these guys. I was pretty happy with it. Two things I learned, 1 it doesn't work for crap with metallic paints and 2, use a sponge not paper towels (even if said paper towels are made up of lumberjack beards).

For the banner, I thought of painting something free hand, but then I quickly remembered that I'm a talentless hack that can barely stay within the lines. I just slapped some transfers on a white banner. If I get another unit of Sanguinary Guard I may take their banner and replace this one. Its not bad, just a little dull.

I've kitted these guys out to be pricey. Everyone has power weapons, there is a plasma pistol, power fist, and a melta gun in there as well. I threw 2 storm shields in the unit for some hot wound allocation. It ends up being 300+ for the unit of 5. In the one game I used them for, I was absolutely crushed, so it's hard to see how they will perform. I'm thinking deep striking with Dante or riding dirty in a Storm Chicken.