Art Scale Ultramarines

By Trysanna | September 30, 2021 |

Ultramarines are my favourite Space Marine Chapter. I know they have a bit of a bad rep in the community for being boring, or to common place, but I’ve loved them since I first started painting 40k minis nearly 20 years ago. A Roman influence on aesthetics, a beautiful cobalt blue, white, and gold colour scheme, and a no-nonsense approach to warfare that doesn’t require silly gimmicks like being a werewolf space viking or tragic space vampires.

The community has come up with some fun events, such as Ork-tober and Nom-vember, and a recent one I was thrilled to participate in was March For Macragge, which focuses on the Ultramarines and their various successor Chapters. I was all too happy to use it as a chance to build and paint a few Ultramarines, as I’ve always wanted an army of them but always found my motivation lacking or the prospect of painting up a whole army to be quite daunting. A Lieutenant and Combat Squad, however, were a perfect place to start.

The star of the force is Captain Leonta of Calth, Lion of Hera. The basis for the model is the recently released Uriel Ventris, with a few small changes. I swapped out the Power Sword for something more similar to a Roman Gladius, which felt perfectly apt for the Ultramarines. I also swapped out the Bolter, backpack, head, and even the small white rose of Pavonis for a small tilting shield. I am beyond pleased with how she came out, and she might be my favourite Space Marine I’ve made to date.

Of course the bases match those of my Sisters of Battle, and while I may expand them into an army in their own right some day, at the moment I like them as a bit of support to my Sisters, and I love having my two favourite Imperial factions working together.

Veteran Sergeant Hypatia leads the Combat Squad, who armoured in Mark 4 armour, which I’ve always liked. It wasn’t too hard to represent this on the model, mostly requiring me to give the knee pads the very square shape of the armour and using the readily available head and backpack from the Mark 4 plastic kit, of which I have plenty.