My ICs Hobby Challenge: Dark Angels

If you don't know by now, I'm a big fan of the Independent Characters' podcast. I've known the hosts and their circle for quite a while and been a guest twice. So when I heard about their upcoming Hobby Progress Challenge preparatory to Adepticon 2012 (head over to their forums to check it out), I was thrilled! It came right at a time when I'd decided to hang up Eldar for a while.

OH but what to build?


Since I'd already started building a Deathwing army, that seemed like the natural place to start. I'd accumulated a lot of terminators and bits and pieces of the Ravenwing and even some basic Dark Angels.

The problem came when I took stock of what I owned. With 15 painted terminators, 10 primed termies, a fully-assembled and primed Ravenwing squadron, and mostly assembled rhinos and land raiders, I knew I couldn't use those models as part of the challenge, so I decided to look at the rest of the stuff I owned to see what I could cadge together into 2250 points of Unforgiven. Here's what I came up with:

• 1 to 2 more Deathwing terminator squads: One of these will be the Deathwing Command Squad, the rest will probably be extra close combat terminators with or without Cyclone Missile Launchers (assuming I can buy, kitbash or steal some). This will bring me to a grand total of between 30 and 35 terminators overall!
• 1 tactical squad: The meat and potatoes of any Space Marine army! Equipment is still TBD. 
• 2 devastator squads: these 5 mans squads are going to run heavy on the plasma, per Dark Angel fluff. 
• 1 full Ravenwing Attack squadron: 5 Ravenwing Bikes plus a Sergeant, an Attack Bike and a Land Speeder

The remainder of my task list is made up of HQ choices:

• Belial - I'll use an old metal terminator captain model and paint him up traditionally.
• Sammael on Jetbike - Ye Olde Metal Kinde!
• Sammael in a Landspeeder - honestly I think I'll get more use out of this version than the bike. 
• Supreme Grand Master Azrael - who else gets an extra model just to carry his hat?
• Librarian in Terminator Armor - even though the current Termie Lib sucks in C:DA, I have high hopes for the future. 
• I may work in a Terminator Chaplain, if time and resources permit, but this would only be an extra option (Although attaching him to a Deathwing Command Squad along with Belial or Azrael sure would bring a whole lot of pain...)
• My Deathwing command squad. I'll sit on 5 of the 'fancier' terminators until the end so that I can attach my new shoulder pads, heheh. 

For painting, I'll be going with the traditional color Dark Angels palette; no foundling chapters here, I'm going First Legion all the way!

P.S. Forgeworld also has a massive selection of decals for various armies; I picked up a copy of their Dark Angels sheet. Winning!