Celtic Space Marine Scouts WIP Painting

Werdi Mart 10, 2022

Some of you regular readers may recall my beloved Spears of Mawdryn Space Marine Chapter. The ideas and fluff have been gestating in the old grey matter and in various documents over the years but it's taken till now to finally start making them more of a reality. I wouldn't normally take this long on a project (Scipio might disagree here...) but I've wanted to get the little details and the overall feel/atmosphere just right, and I'm pretty much there now (at last!).

The Mawdryn chaps assemble

The theme combines elements of Arthurian/Welsh mythology, Post-Roman Britain/Picts and Iron Age Celts with a minor smattering of the bronze age - and an over-fondness for stone circles, fog-laden hills and dark, forests of tangled trees. Basically Bernard Cornwell's Warlord Trilogy meets 70s kids TV classic Children of the Stones. That age old combination...

The Chapter Badge, based on the Late Roman "Chi-Rho"

The idea was to generally keep them rooted in the historical and subtly mix in the mythical (sounds pretentious, I know), rather than liberally whacking spirals and woad on them and calling them "Celtic." I've also been very wary of just making them a Space Wolves proxy, although given some of the similar sources of inspiration, there are a few similarities.

The Chapter has been largely unremarkable in the history of the Imperium, but now fights for its very survival after the Coraniaid Cataclysm devastated the Chapter and left them with barely three hundred Marines. Led by the Druid Librarians, it now searches for the Thirteen Lost Relics ("borrowed" from the Thirteen Treasures of Britain) which the Druids claim hold the key to preventing the total annihilation of the Chapter. It doesn't help that the Chapter's geneseed flaw means that they have a defective Larraman's Organ (sounds painful...), which means whilst they heal faster than a normal human it's nowhere near the effectiveness of the standard Marine.

Besides the Druids, the other iconic troops of the Chapter are its Cataphract Bikes, the Chariots, and Barrow-Raised Dreadnoughts. But particularly, its Helwyr and Saethwyr Scouts. The Helwyr are veteran Marines that have elected to remain within the Scouts. They are the true infiltrators, deploying behind enemy lines for extended periods. The Saethwyr are the new recurits of the Chapter, the Neophytes. On the battlefield they take a role closer to that of skirmishers, harrying the flanks, providing disruptive fire. Below are a few of the Saethwyr.

The Sergant, with a Scout Sniper torso. His bolt pistol arm was added rather hastily and looks a little odd from some perspectives. A lack of green stuff meant I couldn't fix it this time round.

Some of you might remember my earlier attempt at Mawdryn Scouts. I just wasn't happy with the green at all, the Spears of Mawdryn are supposed to look weather-beaten and quite frankly, bloody knackered. The bright green just didn't work. Painting up the Scavvies gave me the chance to experiment with the Mawdryn colours. Loren Green is utterly perfect. I almost shouted eureka as the first daub of paint met the first Scout.

These are still work in progress, painted hurriedly for a game with Ed last Sunday. The hair and the pipes across the chest still needs painting, but the rest is just base coat and wash. Highlighting and other details are yet to follow. The chap with the bare arms will be getting relevant tattoos, and most of them will get some kind of tribal markings on their faces.There will be plenty of chipped paint on the armour and a tonne of weathering poweder. The Sergeant with the cloak will be getting a Pictish/Celtic plaid on said cloak (or I may save this for the Helwyr only).

Need to find out where the spears were from as they worked perfectly. Next on the to do list is to drill the bolt pistol barrels.

Probably my favourite conversion, this chap has Catachan arms with a simple Laspistol for Bolt Pistol swap. He's going to have tattooed arms eventually (going to practice my free hand first...)

Conversion-wise I think they're all converted slightly (except the Missile Launcher chap), the spears are supposed to have a throwing spear type look, and as with all Mawdryn weapons (except bolters - I tried and it didn't work) are bronze (and will be weathered like the Draco banner, as will the aquilas on their chest).


An elite "Helwyr" Scout

"In the Hood..."

There's no reason why they couldn't double as the elite Helwyr however, but the Helwyr get hooded cloaks based on Pictish hunters.

Patrol Clash
The search for their lost relics recently took a Mawdryn patrol to Edethor. Myself and Ed got the chance to play a quick Patrol Clash game with the Mawdryn chaps led by the Druid Librarian taking on a patrol of the Palladian Guard. A jolly good game all round, but the Mawdryn force got wiped out to a man, although they did manage to take a fair chunk of the Palladian force with them. The game saw some clear favouritism by the dice gods, with some tremendously lucky and unlucky rolls all round. I managed to roll four 1s at one point when I really needed a better result. Certainly no excuse for my bad generalship (it was a bit iffy) but Ed will concur that my dice rolling was spectacularly bad. It was good to play 40k again after a year away from the game, and particularly good to use the Druid Librarian in anger for the first time.

Dan's Blades of Fire Blog
I would like to give a quick shout out to the new blog of another comrade in arms, Dan, with his superb Blades of Fire blog. Named after his Space Marine Chapter (with some lovely looking but treacherous Chaos renegades which I've fallen in love with a bit :P), he's already got some fantastic posts about the Chapter background, his conversions and an epic clash with Ed's Palladian Guard in a self-penned scenario. Check it out now, that's an order ;)