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Hello. It's been a solid week since my last post, but what have i been doing?
Well, a long week watching every episode of battlestar galactica, and doing my best to remove my fingerprints from the ends of my fingers has resulted in a brand new 2000 point space marine bike army. Here it is in all it's almost constructed glory.



After a bit of research and discussion, i decided on using codex: space marines. I also decided against the Khan/command squad close combat team. Too expensive on points, and doesnt really fit with the tactics of the rest of the army.
Lets have a look at the army list:

HQ

Captain - bike, artificer armour, relic blade, hellfire rounds

Troops

Bike squad(4 bikes, 1 attack bike), Multimelta, 2x meltagun, combi-melta, melta bombs
Bike Squad(4 bikes, 1 attack bike), Multimelta, 2x meltagun, Combi-melta, melta bombs
Bike Squad(4 bikes, 1 attack bike), heavy bolter, 2x plasma gun
Bike Squad(4 bikes, 1 attack bike), heavy bolter, 2x flamer
Bike Squad(4 bikes, 1 attack bike), heavy bolter, 2x flamer

Fast attack

Landspeeder squadron(3) 3x typhoon launcher
Landspeeder squadron(3) 3x typhoon launcher
Landspeeder squadron(3) 3x typhoon launcher

Heavy support

Whirlwind

Although its chosen from the space marine codex, it's styled as a ravenwing army. Reading through the dark angels codex, it talks about how the ravenwing send out detachments on fallen-hunting missions. That, combined with all the incredible ravenwing accessories in the ravenwing batallion box (which i had 5 of!) convinced me to make it ravenwing.
Also i had a little metal raven in my bits box that i just had to use for my captain.




Some fluff barons might have a problem with this, but to be honest, i hate the fluff police, and they can go screw themselves. GW writes its fiction to give you a pool of material with which to theme your armies and customise your characters. GW background fiction IS NOT an extension of the rules. I digress, but i will get back to this in another post. Anyway, my army is a ravenwing 'fallen hunting detachment, with it's own captain and squad organisation, thus justifying the selection from codex space marines. My army also includes a whirlwind, which will be painted in ravenwing colours - in real terms this is because a green tank would look out of place with the sleek black bikers, but it is also representing a tank that has been assigned to this ravenwing detachment and repainted as such.

I still have to accessorise most of the models, fill gaps, drill holes, add battle damage, do the bases and spray them, all before i can start painting.
I've never really enjoyed painting black. The way i paint with extensive blending and comparatively subtle highlights and shades is something i've always found difficult to translate to black. I'm very much looking forward to getting to grips with it and finding a good formula. It will be a welcome change from painting yellow, which is a sonofabitch to paint and always takes at least 5 coats to get a rich colour.

I got some beautiful ancient ruins bases and basing parts from scibor, so the army will have a jungle ruins theme. Notice i glued the bikes on their bases at an angle so that i would have some room to be creative. Which brings me to a couple of observations.
If you are using the winged fairings from the ravenwing box, for goodness sake GLUE THE BOLTERS ON FIRST! i realised this after putting together 1 squad, and they are really tricky to fit in if the fairings are glued on already.
Also the landspeeders in the ravenwing box are the mk1 plastic ones and they are alot more difficult to build. In fact a couple of them required alot of work to even get them to fit together (they were a bit bent) when i opened up the extra plastic landspeeders i noticed they were a bit different, and wow, they are great kits, not even requiring glue for half of it.
Having said that, the ravenwing boxes are incredible value and are jam packed with accessories. Infantry accessories, vehicle accessories and dark angels dreadnaught bits. If you get the chance to build one, you really should as they are alot of fun.

This army project has given me the chance to try out a few different online retailers. Here's a brief rundown:
Games workshop: Although their prices are the highest, they have free postage for orders over £10 and are reliable
Maelstrom games: slightly cheaper than GW, free postage for orders over £10, but its 2nd class. Not as many items in stock as i would like often meaning you have to wait for them to order it in, but at least they display thier stock levels.
Dark Sphere: killer prices, but they don't stock hobby supplies. Made a few orders with them, and although they did make 1 error, they corrected it swiftly. Delivery time and potage costs were both very good
Wayland games: Excellent selection, prices are similar to maelstrom, but have been very slow getting orders to me on more than 1 occasion.

Overall i'd say large orders: go for dark sphere and use the parcelforce 24 delivery service. smaller orders i would consider maelstrom first and hobby supplies either maelstrom or wayland.

Thats it for today. I'll post more detailed pictures of the units as they get painted.