Let's do a little thought experiment.

Many of us have lots of basing conventions for tactical marines. The "codex" has changed a bit from edition to edition, but some (like me) have a lot of older marines we made in 2nd edition and have ket doing things the same way, thinking it might look funny on the table to base new ones differently.

But let's say you were starting over. Let's say the Eye of Terror sprang into being in your basement and a horde of Orks poured out (don't ask....) and destroyed every painted miniature you've ever made. Oddly enough, they left all old unpainted plastics and gave you the web address for Specialist Games mail-order service.

(There is no truth to the rumor that these "Chaos Orks" are actually GW sales trolls, trying to get you to buy new paint and plastic.)

Now that you've got a clean slate, how would you base your tactical marines? Five guys with bolters per stand? Alternating Heavy and sergeant on every other stand? Heavy on every stand with a sergeant on every other stand? Captains? Bannermen?

Just curious. (And thinking of startig a new chapter.....)

-Allen McCarley

I don't think that I would do much different, to be honest. The Marine Captain without the helmet is possibly one of my least favourite infantry minis of all times (along with a few of the Chaos beasts) and I avoid them always. I paint shoulder pads differently, instead. I would also avoid banner, simply because the time involved never warrants the results, although I would put one banner per formation on the leader stand. I would probably still put a missile launcher in a Tactical stand, and two (or maybe three) in a Devastator stand. It just makes it look more interesting and authentic to have them in there, and you can always assume that they have some kind of short range melta missiles that are only used in a firefight.

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I might just buy everything from blue werewolves.

Assuming I didn't do that, I'd base much as I do now: Devs get two MLs per base, Tacs get 1 ML every other base and normal guys on the other base. Captains get based as stands of their own (with command squad), Chaplains and Librarians are magnetized onto particular bases for modularity.

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The Apocrypha of Skaros 1.1
Rogue Trader Expedition 0.4
The Horus Heresy 0.5
Night Lords 0.1
My Trade Thread

Ooh... neat thought. I've done this with Titan weapons, but never thought of it for infantry stands.

-Allen McCarley

Very tiny rare earth magnets.

I will admit up front that indolence has prevented me from actually doing this. I'll be trying it next month (or possibly in May). But nothing really should stop it.

_________________
The Apocrypha of Skaros 1.1
Rogue Trader Expedition 0.4
The Horus Heresy 0.5
Night Lords 0.1
My Trade Thread

Tactical Marines get 1 ML every other base, with the remaining ones getting a Sergeant model. That way a Tactical Formation of 6 stands does represent 3 squads, and 2 such formations make up Tactical complement of SM Battle Company. One out of every 2 Tactical formations gets a captain.

Likewise I also base Devastators with 2 ML per base. Usually put a Librarian in Devastator formation.

Chaplain goes in Assault Marines formation. Thus 4 formations represent exactly 1 SM Battle Company with 1 Captain, 1 Librarian and 1 Chaplain.

Cheers

James

I am still on the sergeant on base and missile launcher on other, however.. I will be adding missile launchers to each base. I am working on a near enough representative to get done at shapeways, which if my maths is right can sit on shoulders of marines.
Until I get a test print done I have no idea if this would work

I'd base them to match whatever version of the game I was planning to play most. For NetEA, that would be 1 heavy weapon per Tac, 2 per Dev.

For the actual bases, I prefer linear for infantry. I find that 3 mounted units on 20x30mm has just the right density for my tastes, much better than the 20x40mm Warmaster bases.

I wouldn't modularize the characters. I'd just make extra stands to swap out. Give the characters an appropriate retinue and you can stick them with any formation.

I'm not sure I follow correctly, but I'm intrigued by what I think I'm reading.

Are you about to create somthing that lifts on and off marine shoulders? So any stand can suddenly have a missile launcher?

-Allen McCarley

Not so much lifts on/off, but glue on to turn a normal marine into one with a rocket launcher on shoulder. ok hands may not be right but the overall affect is whats wanted..

Solves one of the big problems of there being lots and lots of normal marines second hand but very very very few with missile launchers

That sounds very cool. As for the arms being in the wrong place, it surely won't even be noticeable at
arm's length or greater on the table.

Just a thought, though: could you mount your rocket launchers vertically on the marine's back? Then it
could look like it was slung over his shoulder and he was using his bolter until he needed it.

not sure... I will get some pictures sorted out in another topic at some point

This.