Army planning - Sons of Medusa

Ok, so getting down to planning out the army. I like having a pretty solid idea of how the army will look, and i like to build up to around 2000 points or so. That allows you to play some big games and mix and match at 1500-1750 points.

Chances are it will go slightly over 2000 points, but that's not really a big issue.

Also of note is that i have a big box of marine models from an old crapily painted 4000 point marine army that i am stripping and reusing. This will limit my selection somewhat as i want to reuse as many of these models as possible. (many models are wrecked or being reserved for a different themed army in the future. A hint is that my Sons of Medusa won't require 20+ jump packs but these guys will). I even started painting a small amount of them in the army colours years and years ago but never got anywhere with it.

HQ selections

Well I have a terminator captain, hes even painted quite well (not by me) in the army colours. There is only one problem. Hes an old model and the new terminators make him look like a midget. In fact all the old terminators look tiny these days so that's two squads from the old army going into the box of the damned.

So a new HQ is required, and it's pretty obvious who its going to be. A master of the forge is a no brainer for an army of technophiles. So I look up the master of the forge and i see he can have the servo harness or a conversion beamer. Seeing as started playing Warhammer 40,000 back in the rogue trader days I had to have the conversion beamer.  I then made a startling discovery

The master can carry the conversion beamer on a bike.

WTF? A bike mounted conversion beamer, that's just insane. A few Google image searches later and I found people had done just that. Amazing!

Also, bikes can look hot in the Sons of Medusa colour scheme as shown here.

Someone probably paid that hooters girl to sit on his bike so he could get this photo, a bit sad really. But the bike looks cool!

Any way I dug  into my pile of spare parts and found an attack bike to use as a basis for this model, HUZZAH!

Troops selections

Marines are not blessed with a great variety of selections, it's scouts or tactical marines. Digging through my box of models I find i have 15 scouts, at least 20 tactical marines, and a plethora of heavy weapons. That's very good.

I also found that games workshop sells an Iron Hands tactical squad complete with bionic bits

One credit card transaction later and these bad boys are on their way to me.

I also have a few techmarine models and decide to make these guys my squad sergeants (I may order some more for the other squads as well)

I'm looking at 2-3 Tactical squads and possibly a scout squad with sniper rifles. Close combat scouts don't really fit the theme of this army to well, but i really would like some variety in my troop choices and cloaked snipers look like a good option. A rhino or two would help out here as well. (the box of the damned contains at least 3 old rhinos)

Fast Attack selections

This army isn't one I imagine will use a lot of land speeders, scout bikes, or assault troops. It's not really the flavour I'm going for. (Also, the assault marines are set aside for another project and my land speeders are broken)

Digging through my box of marines (The good box, not the damned box) I find a Bike squad. Now normally I wouldn't think a bike squad would be 100% thematic with this army, until i remember my master of the forge is on a bike. He really needs a escort squad and the idea of bionic bikers has a certain amount of appeal. Also, I have the models.

No idea what to do with conversions at this stage, but i'll think of something to make them look like cyber bikers from a post apocalyptic future

Dreadnoughts totally rock

First things first, the Master of the forge allows me to take dreadnoughts as Elites and Heavy support. Looking in my box i find 4 metal dreadnoughts and think "BRILLIANT I'LL FIELD THEM ALL!"

Then i realize a few things.

One, that those dreadnoughts include a Furioso (can't field it) a Chaos dreadnought (too disloyal) and Bjorn the fell handed (too specific)

and two, I really really really want an Ironclad Dreadnought in this army

Look at this bad boy. If anything screams "I MUST BE IN AN IRON HANDS ARMY' it's this guy right here.

Steam powered seismic hammer that looks like an industrial mining tool? YES SIR!

So I settle on using my current Lascannon metal dready, buying an Ironclad and possibly another dready or two.

Other Elites

Fitting with the technophile theme I decide to go with a Sternguard squad as an elites choice. The idea of custom ammunition, high-tech bolter variants and combi-weapons really fits well.

I'll make sure they have lots of bionics to show their veteran nature and mount them in a razorback.

Heavy Support

Well, the obvious selection in the heavy support section is obvious.

A techmarine armed with a giant seismic death cannon..... it's almost as though this unit was designed with this army in mind. Gentlemen, I present the Thunder Fire Cannon

Now apparently these aren't out in finecast yet, and the metal ones are a pain to put together..... but hes so dam cool. I will certainly add one in. But that might be later on in the project.

The other selections are more contentious

I have a lot of heavy weapons guys, enough for 2 Devastator squads. I'm torn between having a dedicated Devastator squad or painting them so they can swap in and out of the tactical squads as optional weapons.

Devastators are very expensive points wise to field as a dedicated squad and at that cost it limits what else I can field. A compromise could be fielding a small heavy bolter equipped squad and putting the lascannons and plasma cannons in the tactical squads.

I'm also considering a vindicator, I have one currently, painted in the army colours but its an old model and the pain job is just terrible. But it served me well in the past and the new model is totally boss.

And of course, I can field Dreadnoughts in this slot as well. So many choices, if only dreadys were troops :)