Celtic Space Marine Scouts WIP Painting

Some of you regular readers may recall my beloved Spears of Mawdryn Space Marine Chapter. The ideas and fluff have been gestating in the old grey matter and in various documents over the years but it's taken till now to finally start making them more of a reality. I wouldn't normally take this long on a project (Scipio might disagree here...) but I've wanted to get the little details and the overall feel/atmosphere just right, and I'm pretty much there now (at last!).

The Mawdryn chaps assemble
The theme combines elements of Arthurian/Welsh mythology, Post-Roman Britain/Picts and Iron Age Celts with a minor smattering of the bronze age - and an over-fondness for stone circles, fog-laden hills and dark, forests of tangled trees. Basically Bernard Cornwell's Warlord Trilogy meets 70s kids TV classic Children of the Stones. That age old combination...


The Chapter Badge, based on the Late Roman "Chi-Rho"
The idea was to generally keep them rooted in the historical and subtly mix in the mythical (sounds pretentious, I know), rather than liberally whacking spirals and woad on them and calling them "Celtic." I've also been very wary of just making them a Space Wolves proxy, although given some of the similar sources of inspiration, there are a few similarities.

The Chapter has been largely unremarkable in the history of the Imperium, but now fights for its very survival after the Coraniaid Cataclysm devastated the Chapter and left them with barely three hundred Marines. Led by the Druid Librarians, it now searches for the Thirteen Lost Relics ("borrowed" from the Thirteen Treasures of Britain) which the Druids claim hold the key to preventing the total annihilation of the Chapter. It doesn't help that the Chapter's geneseed flaw means that they have a defective Larraman's Organ (sounds painful...), which means whilst they heal faster than a normal human it's nowhere near the effectiveness of the standard Marine.

Besides the Druids, the other iconic troops of the Chapter are its Cataphract Bikes, the Chariots, and Barrow-Raised Dreadnoughts. But particularly, its Helwyr and Saethwyr Scouts. The Helwyr are veteran Marines that have elected to remain within the Scouts. They are the true infiltrators, deploying behind enemy lines for extended periods. The Saethwyr are the new recurits of the Chapter, the Neophytes. On the battlefield they take a role closer to that of skirmishers, harrying the flanks, providing disruptive fire. Below are a few of the Saethwyr.

The Sergant, with a Scout Sniper torso. His bolt pistol arm was added rather hastily and looks a little odd from some perspectives. A lack of green stuff meant I couldn't fix it this time round.
Some of you might remember my earlier attempt at Mawdryn Scouts. I just wasn't happy with the green at all, the Spears of Mawdryn are supposed to look weather-beaten and quite frankly, bloody knackered. The bright green just didn't work. Painting up the Scavvies gave me the chance to experiment with the Mawdryn colours. Loren Green is utterly perfect. I almost shouted eureka as the first daub of paint met the first Scout.

 
These are still work in progress, painted hurriedly for a game with Ed last Sunday. The hair and the pipes across the chest still needs painting, but the rest is just base coat and wash. Highlighting and other details are yet to follow. The chap with the bare arms will be getting relevant tattoos, and most of them will get some kind of tribal markings on their faces.There will be plenty of chipped paint on the armour and a tonne of weathering poweder. The Sergeant with the cloak will be getting a Pictish/Celtic plaid on said cloak (or I may save this for the Helwyr only).
Need to find out where the spears were from as they worked perfectly. Next on the to do list is to drill the bolt pistol barrels.
Probably my favourite conversion, this chap has Catachan arms with a simple Laspistol for Bolt Pistol swap. He's going to have tattooed arms eventually (going to practice my free hand first...)
Conversion-wise I think they're all converted slightly (except the Missile Launcher chap), the spears are supposed to have a throwing spear type look, and as with all Mawdryn weapons (except bolters - I tried and it didn't work) are bronze (and will be weathered like the Draco banner, as will the aquilas on their chest).

An elite "Helwyr" Scout
"In the Hood..."
There's no reason why they couldn't double as the elite Helwyr however, but the Helwyr get hooded cloaks based on Pictish hunters.

Patrol Clash
The search for their lost relics recently took a Mawdryn patrol to Edethor. Myself and Ed got the chance to play a quick Patrol Clash game with the Mawdryn chaps led by the Druid Librarian taking on a patrol of the Palladian Guard. A jolly good game all round, but the Mawdryn force got wiped out to a man, although they did manage to take a fair chunk of the Palladian force with them. The game saw some clear favouritism by the dice gods, with some tremendously lucky and unlucky rolls all round. I managed to roll four 1s at one point when I really needed a better result. Certainly no excuse for my bad generalship (it was a bit iffy) but Ed will concur that my dice rolling was spectacularly bad. It was good to play 40k again after a year away from the game, and particularly good to use the Druid Librarian in anger for the first time.

Dan's Blades of Fire Blog
I would like to give a quick shout out to the new blog of another comrade in arms, Dan, with his superb Blades of Fire blog. Named after his Space Marine Chapter (with some lovely looking but treacherous Chaos renegades which I've fallen in love with a bit :P), he's already got some fantastic posts about the Chapter background, his conversions and an epic clash with Ed's Palladian Guard in a self-penned scenario. Check it out now, that's an order ;)

An epic battle between Dan's Blades of Fire and Ed's Palladian Guard
 My next post will be the second part of my Necromunda Terrain ramblings.

Keep the flag flying folks..
Kieran 

Comments

  1. Love it! The models look great and as always I love the fluff - cracking stuff, man!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Too kind sir! Still plenty of work to do yet, but for a basecoat and wash I'm pleased with how they look so far.

      Going to try and get more fluff on here, lost the revised document yesterday and felt like weeping in the corner, but it shouldn't take long to redo. Thanks again, always appreciate your thoughts and feedback.

      Delete
  2. I love the concept and work so far, great fluff and for years I've been trying to think of a name for a chapter.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cheers Fran, really appreciate that as always. I think this one went through a few iterations, but couldn't imagine them being called anything else now...

      Delete
  3. Good to see you back on this lot mate. Loving the better scheme on those scouts as well as their cool background.

    You and Ed put us all to shame with the amount of love and hard work that goes into both your projects respectively.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks very much Dai - trying to follow your comments of "more painted miniatures". Yeah definitely prefer this scheme, the first lot were an experiment, I never intended them to be that bright but getting into this painting lark more now (and starting to get the hang of it I hope...). I think there's a fine line between love and obsession in the case of our projects - not sure I could eved rival the Codex Palladia though...

      Delete
  4. That cursed Librarian, I have a feeling I'll come to despise him more soon... it was an excellent game, and great to see those great conversions in the flesh as well.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Was a jolly good game, good way to start a day of gaming, many thanks sir! Ah think I'll definitely be putting him in a squad next time to increase his survivability.. And I'm glad that I wrote into the fluff a provision of terminator armour for all HQ troops (although no more than 15 actual "Terminators" - almost no tanks... why do I write in so many restrictions :P)

      Delete
  5. Nice one Kieran. I'm diggin the green and the spears. I think some tats would suit those bare arms. Also, the hooded Scout is looking good even at this early stage - the hooded look is awesome with those Sniper Scout bodies - is the hood from the Dark Angels Veteran frame?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ta muchly! Greatl appreciated as ever. That's been the plan with the arms for a while, just need to practice the old free hand painting now... Yeah I'm quite please with how the hooded scout turned out, I'm pretty sure that's where it's from yup. Hopefully should have them fully finished soon...

      Delete
  6. Eya Kieran

    I have to try and contact you this way, as I can`t seem to find a contact me button around here (probably looking in all the wrong places again), but you`ve won the Societa`s 100 followers raffle. Could you get in touch to sort out the details and to get your pricey thingey mailed to you?

    Kind regards

    Tomsche

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh wow that's brilliant, thank you very much! No there's no other contact me here at the moment as it wasn't working (fixing that soon though...). Have sent you a message. Thanks again

      Delete
    2. Well received, it goes out on the post monday

      Delete
  7. I've some pict heads you should have a look at. I'll try to remember.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ooh, are they the West Wind ones?

      Delete
    2. They are indeed sir, you win ten TTF shaped geek points for your insight.

      Delete
    3. Haha they have some rather nice Arthurian sculpts and I'd been looking at some of those. If I could purchase them off of you that would be much apopreciated, sir!

      Delete

Post a Comment