Assault Marines WIP2+Small Rant

This is part two of my work in progress assault marines. I have been working on these for a while now taking it slow and steady since I don't have many other projects to do after they are done. This is my first squad for my custom Space Marine Chapter of Blood Fists. Since I don't want to just throw a handful of pictures on here I am going to chat a bit on proxying models and, in my humble opinion, the proper way to go about it. If you don't feel like reading anything and just want to look at pictures then of course feel free to skip all the text you see. :)

Sometimes you can't but help proxy a model and we have all done it at least once in a game. Common reasons to proxy are; trying out a new unit, testing different wargear options, changing up a list, or even forgetting same models at home. All of these are acceptable reasons and some proxies are more acceptable in the long term than others, one of the proxies I use constantly is the hand flamers on my assault marines are now just used as standard flamers. It really depends on your gaming group on how many proxies you can get away with in a game. I like to give a lot of leniency to an opponent because this game is rather expensive and it takes a lot of time to assemble and paint a fully fieldable unit. There are things that I want my opponent to adhere to for his proxies; bases must be the same size and when possible make the proxied unit as close to the type of unit that is on the table to avoid some confusion.

There comes a point when proxying all the time becomes too much for some people to take especially when a person does it to power game. Taking all your orks and calling them nobs, while that may be okay for one game, should not be pushed beyond that unless a player actually dedicates the resources to create that army. I proxied a normal assault squad for a Death Company squad for a couple games and loved the unit so much that once I was able to buy a few Death Co boxes that is exactly what I did. It is a lot harder for an opponent to complain about a unit slaughtering his army when it is exactly What You See is What You Get. 

Wargear is a harder proxy to complain about since you only get so many weapons in a box and we all know how hard it is to find specific weapons such as lightning claws and combi weapons without paying through the nose to get them. Many times I have gone to a game store with a specific list I want to play with but there is nobody there that wants to play the same points so I have to adjust my list usually by taking off special weapons from my guys. Unless you walk around with a bag full of magnetized bits, if you do that's awesome and good for you, you just can't rip off an arm and glue on another. Tournaments really are the only place that can dictate wargear on a model since most people will be prepping their armies for at least a month and have no excuses for having a power sword when they want a power axe.

I have ran out of steam on proxies so I will talk a bit about the models you are looking at. The blue and yellow are obviously the chapter colors for my marines. I am using red and black to break up those brighter colors and I think it is working really well. I am also using it as the squads marking with the split red/black insignia that you can see on most of the knee pads and shoulder guards. The reason why I don't have the left arm shoulder pads is because I am waiting for a good time to order the Imperial Fists shoulder pads, currently I am saving my pennies for the Space Marine codex rumored to be coming out next month. You can see the green trim on the shoulder pads which is the company color so you can imagine the fist logo having the clenched fist painted red, the little circle around it painted green, and the shoulder pad itself being blue and yellow. 

The guy with two chainswords is probably my favorite model and I put a few little extra touches on it like naming the left handed chainsword SLAKE. Until I get another assault squad box he will be the squad sergeant because he looks like a badass. I need to touch up the edge of the bases again, for whatever reason the paint keeps rubbing off so I should probably stop touching them for a while after I finish painting them. 

I always want to try and give a model grenades on it to remind me that I can throw one as a shooting attack in this edition. 40k really is a game of remembering things so if a model can help me remember one of those situational rules then it is one less thing I have to dedicate to remembering, until the model dies of course. 

That is it for this post, I hope you enjoyed what I had to chat about and at the very least liked the pictures of my guys. I have one more to do before the squad is finished and I will get to him this week. Tomorrow I am hoping to have the chance to go to a game store and get a few games in which will mean a battle report before the end of the month if I do get a game in. My friend and I are still doing the Imperial Guard posts so there is a lot of things to look forward to in the coming week. Thanks for reading and have an Emperor blessed day!