Here we have the newly-raised second 2 Section of 3rd Squad. Having previously been a seven-man squad, it necessitated the addition of three more models to being the unit up to legal 8th Edition. The first of these is the Corporal. I know that officially Corporals aren’t a thing in 40k, but then, Lieutenants were missing for 20-odd years before magically reappearing a month or so ago! The Corporals in my marine forces are the guys who run the other combat squads – usually the fire support bit. I’m giving the Dark Angels Corporals a metal should pad with a simple, embossed chapter badge, and black pauldrons.

This corporal is one of the three new builds for this squad – MkIV legs and helm, MkVIII torso, MkVII arms, a DA Backpack and a Tigrus pattern bolt gun. I wanted to give him a look of being a bit special with the archaic armour and weapon, yet tie him to his Sergeant via the MkVIII torso with its distinctive gorget.

The Heavy Bolter trooper is one of my originals from this unit and one of the older models available in this form factor, the metal-plastic hybrids. So his arms and backpack are (heavy) metal on 3rd edition plastic legs and torso. Having washers underneath the bases of models like this is very necessary for their stability. He has the shouty “sergeant” head from the 3rd edition sprue as I felt it looked cinematically appropriate for a nutter advancing while firing a hip-carried heavy machinegun

These three marines include the other pair of models added to the squad. The central model is one of the originals. The two flanking him here are 2nd edition Tactical marines. Since the rest of the squad is old-school and minimally-blinged, what better models to use in it than 2e Tactical marines. I have given them more modern arms and bolters – because frankly outside of a specific use, the chunky arms and bolters from those days just don’t work for me these days and those older base models look just fine with them.

Here we have 2 Section of 3rd Squad. Prepared to hunker down and give their brethren supporting fire so they can advance, or join them in the forward advance as needed.

Finally, the entire squad with both sections combined. Rebased, reinforced and ready for battle in Warhammer 40k 8th Edition. To find action on the table very soon if all goes to plan…

Once again, Warhammer 40k 8th Edition takes the responsibility for inspiring me to dig these models out and resurrect them into a coherent force. Replacing about thirty kilograms of books, contradictory rules and scattered digital files with a Tabula Rasa has given me the opportunity to step back into an IP I’ve been engaged with since I was a young teen – when Rogue Trader was released and I stumbled onto a demo game being played at Games ’87 (Later Conquest) on a gigantic crashed spaceship put together by a bloke named Andrew B (and co.)

Stripping all of that convoluted mess back to a core rules of 12 pages, with the extra details to be added in via unit entries has annoyed many people who had been playing for years, as their very expensive book collections have been rendered null (excepting for the paint sections, photography and background) and while I understand their annoyance, 40k had grown to a bloated incomprehensible mess that was anything but friendly to new or departed players. The clean slate of rules gives us a very nice (re)entry point to the game, and hopefully GW can keep the meta and power spiral (known as Codex Creep) under control over time.

This force was originally inspired during 3rd edition, by Ed B of Powerfist fame (infamy?) when I was at his place one day and he showed me his Dark Angels. I thought they looked bloody nice – and not too difficult to paint. This was during the time when things weren’t yet especially blinged out. I did repurpose a Legion of the Damned backpack for him, inspired by Chapter Master Azrael’s own pack. You’ll note the models in this box are basically just regular space marines, with the exception of the Sergeant. The bright yellow fuel canister on the Melta is a bit of a 2nd edition throwback as well…

I also had a whole bunch of metal marine shoulderpads. I thought the Deathwing pad looked rather spiffy, though where to use them? The solution was to consider Veteran Sergeants (which were an upgrade option at the time) to be “Deathwing Initiates”. The background speaks of circles within circles amongst the Dark Angels, so I felt that the promotion to Veteran Sergeant justified that extra little bit of fluff – and bling. Hence the bone-coloured pauldrons and red Deathwing Chapter badge. Bone-coloured power sword? Why not!

This trip of Tactical marines were built with the notion of being part of the Sergeant’s Combat Squad. I used 3rd ed Assault Squad legs to give them some movement, given that the Sergeant is armed for Close assault and his offsider carries a close-ranged Melta-Gun.

Thus we have the first Combat Squad: 1 Section. Kitted for a close support role and capable of doing some damage. Originally, these guys were built as a seven-man squad under 3rd edition rules with the role of riding around in a Razorback (which I never got finished). I shall folllow up with 2 Section shortly.