Speccy Ops

Infiltration!


It's a while since I did anything for the Venal Swords, General Leofa's power armoured mercenary rebels. Mostly because I finished the last batch. But now they're back! From Outer Space!

They just walked in to find me here with that sad look upon my face!
And then they shot me several times
And rammed a chainsword through my spine
But I had a 5-up save
So maybe vengeance would be mine

I rolled a five!
I rolled a five!
It was just flak jacket armour
But my god! I'm still alive!
I've got all my dice to roll
This charge phase should be a stroll
They won't survive
They won't survive
Oh no!

Quite nice models, this lot, Dynamic, chunky weapons, nice stealth gear (I really like their night vision goggles). Slightly samey heads, maybe, if I had a criticism? But it's marines, so fair enough, they're genetically engineered cloney types. With military haircuts.

The Venal Swords don't have a fixed paint scheme, being a ragtag collection of misfits, but they are tied together by their Mechanicus Grey undercoats. Urban camo for this team, who are breaking the mould by having coherent unit colours, and it was a doddle to apply. Shadow Blue for the arms and legs, then blotches of Codex Grey and Pallid Wych Flesh over the top. Nuln Oil wash, Longbeard Grey drybrush, done.

They may also see use as a Shadow War Armageddon Kill Team, which is where the models came from. That's the other reason they've got unit colours, so they clearly go together.

Leofa is going to add tiny magnets to the special weapon guy. Rather him than me, those things are tiny, but it is nice to be able to swap stuff about when you want to. Three burny options for the gunner here, melta, flamer and plasma, and quite useful for giving the model spot colour.

A couple of heroes to go with. First, another Venal Sword. 

Ragnus the Green here is in no way related to 30K's Magnus the Red. 

And then another vintage rarity from the depths of my bits box - an old school Scout Marine, back from the release of Advanced Space Crusade back in the mid-nineties. 

Not a bad model, exactly, even if his fashion sense is a little dated now. He's mildly converted, as his right arm was missing, so he got a new plasma pistol and genestealer skull from the modern scout sprue. 

I liked the massive shoulder-mounted heavy bolters that came with this squad. They were fighting Tyranids onboard their hive ships in the game (which wasn't one of GW's best, it was sort of like Space Hulk but massively weighted towards the Marine in terms of balance), and they'd just invented Hellfire shells to help themselves out. I don't have one, sadly, or at least I don't think I do. You never know with bits boxes.

Here he is. The recoil may have been something of a problem, but the bragging rights alone compensated.

Not the last scouts for the Venal Swords, but I'm rotating round to some other marines next.