I have too many marine armies!
Wait, wait, it's not what you think. What I mean is I have too many armies with different models spread out between them. For example, I have army A and B. Army A contains 2 attack bikes. Army B contains no bikes. In a game I want to use most of Army B, but I would like to add 2 attack bikes. At the same time I want to use the special character for Army C, but I dont have Army C.
See my problem? Now, I could just field Army A's bikes with Army B, stick character C into the list and it wouldnt make a lick of difference in terms of tabletop performance.
But that's not how I want to play. So that leaves me with a few choices, either dont mix the armies, buy one of everything for every army or do something else. The first option doesnt work when you get people who tailor their lists everytime they play me. (Maybe Its Just me, but it's rather frustrating when one player does that and one doesn't). The second option is beyond even my gaming budget thanks to GW's embargo, so that just leaves the last option, do something else.
I have decided to roll most of my Codex Space Marine models up into one list. I will be keeping my Blood/Wolf/Dark/Templar armies as seperate forces, but all my vanilla forces will be getting a thorough going over. The odds are, I will keep my Raven Guard and Crimson Fists as they are because they fit into one case each and are ready to be used at a moment's notice as complete, balanced lists. All of my other models will be amalgamated into one larger force, allowing me to field anything I like within reason. To that end, I have selected the Astral Claws as the force I will be using.
Why the Claws?
First of all, I already have a starting force comprised of my Tyrant's Legion.
The colour scheme is easy to duplicate and doesn't require any fancy pants techniques.
Secondly, I've been interested in the Badab War since I got into 40k.
Thirdly, the fluff for the Claws is very good for what I want to do. At the outbreak of the Badab War, Lugft Huron had been secretly expanding his forces far beyond what the Codex Astartes allowed. It was estimated that the Astral Claws numbered around 3000 warriors at the start of the fighting and even these figures were difficult to verify. This means that there are 30 captains available to play with along with a potential for 3 'chapter master' types and numerous chaplains, librarians and what not. The Claws already have 4 unique Special Characters, Lugft himself, Carnac Commodus (Huron's enforcer over the PDF working for him), Captain Sumatris of the 2nd Company and Master of the Forge Armenneus Valthax.
Figuring I had to start somewhere, I have begun with some models for the 1st Company.
First Company Captain Hyberon.
Hyberon is my version of Captain Mordaci Blaylock from Imperial Armour 9. He is a standard captain equipped with Terminator Armour, a Storm Bolter and a master-crafted Chain Fist. He costs a fraction under 200 points and makes terminators of either flavour a scoring unit (though still elites). He also allows any terminator squad he joins to choose to pass or fail any morale test. On top of this, he has no Chapter Tactics meaning he can run with a more specialised captain or just stick to the standard Combat Tactics. His main role will be as a force multiplier as scoring terminators that wont break will be a real pain for opponents to deal with.
And here are the first new inductees into the Astral Claws.
I have about 20 more terminators that need building/repairing, but these will form the core of the 1st Company forces along with the 5 in the current Tyrant's Legion army.
Yes, the unit directly behind Hyberon (Blaylock) does contain 10 TH/SS terminators.
Yes, it is cheesey I know, but I'm not expecting to run them all at the same time.
It's also sensible to keep the SW, BA and DT separate as, well, they look significantly different to a regular space marine, so thats fair enough.
