Misson Ard Boyz. Sallie Wing

So it's that time of year again. Time for Ard Boyz. The past 2 years I have played and made it to semis with a "fluffy" Vulkan list. I say it was fluffy because I didn't have a ton of spam in it, it simply was a great army. Yes I admit, I did have lots of hammer and melta everywhere (why wouldn't I?) but I did follow the fluff in that it contained no fast attack choices. 'gasp!' That's right, no multi melta attack bikes or speeders. Just marines and termies... and 2 land raiders, and 2 dreads. Ok, so maybe it was a little spammed but what Ard Boyz army isn't? Anyways, my point is this. I loved that army and really liked the fluff of the army after reading Salamander and Fire Drake. If you haven't read them I highly recommend them.

But this year I wanted to do something different. I still love my sallies but wanted to try another list with them. But how I should do this proved a problem. And low and behold the Dark Angels got a Codex Update. Storm Shields are 3++ now you say? Yes please! There was my answer, I'll run my sallies as a First Company and use the Dark Angels book. I know, I know, the proper response now is, "count as armys are gay!". And normally I would agree. You should not be able to use vanilla tactical marines as blood claws, or use your unpainted jump marines as blood angels. But what I do think is exceptable is this, you should be able to have some wiggle room between codexes as long as your boys are modeled appropriately and you've devoted your time into making it work. If you have a great modeling idea for an army then you should be able to do what you want. I know this is a hot topic now because people are trying to make their models fulfill different codices. "Yay I have a SM army! Space Wolves are coming out? I'll just say mine are a later founding of the Space Wolves chapter so I can use their codex." No, that's not good.

So back to my plan. Yes I will be running a deathwing list this year at Ard Boyz. But frankly I think the Dark Angels are, well, kinda lame. I mean they wear dresses, and they're pretty much one step away from being heretics. But the idea of an all terminator list or a 1st company list is just too cool. And according to the fluff of 40k every chapter has a 1st company comprised very similarly to that of the Dark Angels. The first company are the best of the best, every army has access to them... including Salamanders! If Salamanders had their own official codex then yeah, I may be calling shenanigans on myself but they don't! So why not right?

But I'm not just going to get a bunch of termies, paint them a different shade of green and be done with it. No, I wanted this army to really show the background and feel of a salamander list. So I went all out with them. Here's my list:

Belial w/ TH/SS (Praetor?)
Librarian in Terminator Armor (Pyriel?)

2 Dreads
1 Land Raider Crusader (no Redeemer option gayness )

7 Termie Squads. 4 TH/SS, 1 Chainfist, 1 CCML


Simple enough right? So I purchased all new termies for this project and made a little order to ForgeWorld.

Body:
That's right, all these termies are going to be wearing the official shoulder pads of their chapter.
I'm thinking of giving them some special shields, maybe from some saurus warriors, to help with the feel of the army.


Bases:
I would like to do the bases in a jet black sand. I've found some thanks to ct that looks perfect. It even has a nice shine to it. I want to cover most of base in that save for a few open lines running across the base. In these lines I would like to paint an orange/yellow/red to make it look like lava. See where I'm going with this?

Customization:
I want these guys to fulfill many roles so I'm going to magnetize about half of the model's arms so I can trade out the TH/SS with a Storm Bolter and PF for another game. This is also my big plan for my HQ models.

HQ
I named my HQ after the Salamander books. Pyriel is a librarian in the series and Praetor is a Terminator Seargant. For these two models I'm going to use the Terminator Librarian frow GW since he's "Citadel Finecast" now and for Praetor I'm using Commander Culn from the Red Scorpions. I'll have to shave a small insignia off his chest but I think he'll work nicely. He's got a cool dynamic pose and he's got a mohawk! No contest. These guys will definetly be magnetized to allow for greater flexibility in later games.

Dreads and Land Raiders
The Land Raider is straight forward. It's a Crusader with a Multi Melta for My HQs to ride in. I'm planning on stringing some lizardmen heads along the side of it like trophies and I am going to "attempt" to green stuff some scales on the side.
For my two dreads I'm using a Venerable and an Ironclad. I didn't want to use the plain GW dread so I thought these would give me a better look. Luckily about a week after my FW order they came out with the Salamander dread so that's just wonderful. I'll just have to work with what I have for now. I found some cool dwarf shields that have a hammer and anvil or a hammer with wings on them. I'm going to put those on my dread's arms which should give them a little flavor.


So there's my idea. I'm using a count as army for Ard Boyz but I'm spending a lot of time (and money!) to really make it worth while. Let the hate begin below.