A Tale of Five Gamers - Dan's Complete 500pt Space Marine Force Round-Up

Hi Folks,
well here it is, the end of the 500 point challenge finally and we have our first complete force. The order was drawn randomly and unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) Dan drew the short straw and gets the first post in the series of round ups prior to the voting.

All the round ups will be posted over the next week or so prior to the final vote and will all follow the same format with the fluff, army list, pic and some words to show you what has been produced, so with our further ado time to hand over the blog to Dan:

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Recon Force Phi

Recon Force Phi History

Recon force Phi has been dispatched by Captain Sicarius to investigate the loss of contact with an Ultramarines remote monitoring site near the borders of the expanding Tau empire.

Under the command of Veteran Sergeant Karras, recently returned from a tour with the Deathwatch, the force has become embroiled in the dual encroachment of the Tyranids and the Tau upon Imperial space, and the worlds under the stewardship of the Ultramarines. Due to the increased threat level of multiple xenos incursions, Veteran Sergeant Karras has notified Macragge and has requested reinforcements.

Despite continuing to gather intelligence for the imminent arrival of a full sized strike force, the Ultramarines have been unable to make contact with the planetside Imperial forces, causing their loyalty to be thrown in to doubt...

Army List

The 500 point force was based off the following Army List (any Caveats or errors are explained at the end of this article) created to represent a similar force:

500 Point Challenge Images

Below are Images showing Recon Force Phi at the outset of their expedition in to the Quintairn Sub-sector. 

Complete Force

Troops

Tactical Squad 1

Tactical Squad 2

Fast Attack (Proxy HQ)

Assault Squad

Some words from Dan

Yoddle!
So this is it, challenge one down, done and dusted. Really happy with what I've managed to do.

So what we have is two tactical squads each led by a sergeant who stands out a bit. On top of that we have the assault squad led by a deathwatch sergeant. My favourite minis are the heavy weapons boys and the deathwatch mini, to be honest the entire assault squad looks really nice.

To explain why there is no HQ choice it was decided that at this points level for a Marine force the cost of an effective HQ was too high so the decision was to let me not take one but i had to make at least one of the Sergeants a Veteran to show some kind of leadership within the force. It was also felt for fluff reasons it wouldn't be unheard of for a decorated Veteran Sergeant (especially a Deathwatch Veteran) to lead a small recon force rather then an Officer

As we progress through the challenges and as my skills improve I will return to these models and apply some more detailing

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There you have it folks, the first of our round ups, i know its taken a while and we're all thankful for you sticking with it this far. Once holidays are over we will of course be expanding the forces and posting some battle reports. So thoughts, comments and feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks and enjoy!