New Edition, New Army!

Hey everybody,
In a move that will surprise nobody, I am currently pondering making a new army for 40k. I’ve been reading some of the stuff about the upcoming 10th edition, and have been thinking that it might be a good time to get myself some of the Emperor’s Finest. I’m also still slightly reeling from the fact they get all of the best rules, and I think it might be time to game the system and take advantage of that! The thing that has tipped me over the edge, though, is this.

Specifically, the Flesh Tearer.

I love Terminators, and years ago I had a bit of a phase where I wanted to create a whole first company of space marines, but it never really came to pass. I think partly because I wasn’t as good a painter back then, but I remember using the Macragge Blue spray to paint them, and it hadn’t really settled well on the models, so I had all manner of issues to contend with!

However, I’m now plotting to start buying some marines and paint them as Flesh Tearers, which is quite exciting!

For those of you who don’t know what I’m on about, Flesh Tearers are a successor chapter to the Blood Angels, formed from the fifth company of the original Legion, led by Captain Nassir Amit. Amit and his marines were known for being particularly bloodthirsty even before the death of Sanguinius and the Black Rage induced all Blood Angels and their successors to a ferocity hitherto unheard of. Through the years, the Flesh Tearers had gained a reputation that meant many chapters would hesitate before fighting alongside them. Their ranks had dwindled, however, until they numbered just four companies at the Devastation of Baal, before being bolstered by primaris marines. Interestingly, it’s during the events on Baal that Gabriel Seth, the current chapter master of the Flesh Tearers, tells Dante that the primaris are designed to replace first-born marines. At the time, of course, primaris were new and Black Library authors were playing into this idea of a schism in the ranks with Cawl’s new marines.

Now, I’m not going to say that I’ve always wanted to have a Flesh Tearers army, because I haven’t really given them much of a second thought before. I have made a couple of attempts to build a Blood Angels army, and they’re a force that I do have some measure of sentimentality around, because (a) Shield of Baal was the first big boxset that came out when I started to really throw myself into 40k, and (b) I was planning to make a Blood Angels army when my eldest daughter was born, so I have pinned an association with her and the sons of Sanguinius.

The main thing, for me, is the colour scheme. I love that maroon and black mix, and I think it would look beautiful in a small, elite force. They are, of course, all about in your face aggression, and their current, 9th edition chapter tactics are all about melee attacks (+1 to wound when you charge or were charged, and unmodified 6s to wound improve the AP by 1). It’ll be interesting to see what changes, if indeed anything does, in the move to 10th edition!

In terms of what I want to build for the army, I think I’m going to try my very best to keep this on a small scale, and indeed, I want to try as much as possible to keep things as cheap as I can. Assault Intercessors are probably going to be the name of the game, and these were released as part of the Imperium magazine back in the day, so I will see if I can get any of them as back issues. It’s a shame that the boarding patrol box seems to have sold out in all the third party stores, because that looks like some very good value savings on the models there!

I’m quite excited about this project though. I’m going to have to try to keep myself contained to getting a unit and then building and painting it, before moving on. I don’t want to be drowning in plastic, after all…