Night Hawks Space Marine Chapter

[T-ORK-amada]

Wow! Amazing stuff, I love the conversions. Great fluff as well.

[Iyonjin]

Great stuff man, I look forward to seeing more!

[TheAmbit]

Edward Hopper would be proud.

Really not sure what this means but thanks to everyone

[greenstuff777]

The silencers are kroot gun muzzles and the heads are from pig iron. Hope that helps

great work so fluid i didn't even recognize them

[TheAmbit]

Truvel XI
Part 3
Breaking Silence

Thurion sat awake in the passenger's seat of the Argonaut despite his earlier promise to himself. Voren, the battle brother operating the speeder, would not drive in silence. Voren, like Thurion, was not a member of the 3rd company. He was attached from the 8th reserve company comprised entirely of Argonaut pilots and their gunners. He was a recent promotion from the 9th scout company and despite having been involved in many engagements over the last 12 years was not as battle hardened as Thurion would like. He still maintained an innocence and wonder about him.

When a human is gifted with the Emperor's might their enhanced senses leave little to be desired. A marine is overwhelmed initially with all of the new impulses they are presented with as they learn to harness their new power. Voren had yet to have his wonder dimmed by combat and still found much fascinating.

"What do you think is the cause of this?" Voren asked. Although their vox links were inoperable in the cloud being shoulder to shoulder in a speeder posed little restriction and Thurion could hear the question clearly over the roar of the wind and the hum of the tuned engine.
"Orks? Eldar?" Voren pressed. All of his exercises with the 9th had been served purging a system of a deep rooted heretical cult which thrived on practising guerrilla warfare. He longed to face off against xenos filth to prove himself among his brothers.

Although he was indistinguishable from his battle brothers by a casual observer, a strict hierarchy developed among a chapter. Those of the 1st company were held in high esteem over the battle companies which in turn stood above those of the reserves. Having only recently become part of the 8th Voren was new to the brotherhood and his honours were few. He hoped to change this today; his secondary heart finally slowing after his body had responded aggressively to the word 'ork'.

"The sergeant will advise us as required" Thurion said calmly despite his annoyance. "I feel you will not go wanting on this mission. I am not familiar with such artificial environmental disturbance on this scale save for terraforming operations prior to the Age of Darkness."
"Eldar then." Voren quickly followed; apparently content to make assumptions.

Thurion sat, half awake and made as best as he could to rest. While he could have forced sleep on himself he felt an obligation to indulge the young marine. His inquisitive nature would have proved an asset to the armorarium.
Perhaps I will put his name forward for further training as a techmarine on our return, Thurion thought to himself. At the least it will keep me away from his bother for 30 years, he quickly added.
"The Argonaut sounds much more calm than yesterday" Voren ventured, perhaps in an attempt to warm the techmarine to his presence.

Although the techmarines served in battle alongside their kin they were still viewed with some suspicion. To devote oneself to both the Cult Mechanicus and the Emperor invited such distrust. This was of course less pronounced in the Nigh Hawks chapter due to their close ties to the Mechanicum and each battle brother learning the basic rites to maintain their bike; yet apprehension of that which is different was genebred into every marine and unavoidable. Most marines made their peace with this in time yet Thurion began to wonder if Voren's questioning was more of a nervous tick than anything else.

A marine trained and honed his mind to be devoid of fear yet primal instinct could still put him on edge. This instinct was embraced and channelled before it could lead to fear. Voren appeared to be channelling it into his mouth thought Thurion, again finding himself bothered.

"Wake me should I be needed" Thurion said grimly, no longer worried about what Voren thought of him. A bit of apprehension from Voren was probably a good thing he decided before closing his eyes.

[TheAmbit]

I've finished a heavily converted landraider project to count as an achilles. Here's a sneak peak!



More images are avaialble here at my blog:

[url=http://theambit.blogspot.com/2012/03/land-raider-achilles-conversion.html]The Hobby Ambit[/url]


Achilles background (summary of Truvel XI story:

Responding to a distress call on M37.142, two squads from the 3rd company and a supporting Argonought of the Night Hawks Chapter set down on Truvel XI. The Adeptus Mechanicus maintain a forgeworld in the Truvel system which contains many planets classified as dead worlds. After four expeditionary fleets from the Mechanicum had vanished on Truvel XI, the Night Hawks were summoned for aid.

The Night Hawks quickly scoured the desert planet searching for the lost explorer vessels and came upon what could only be described as the prow of a ship extruding from the planet's surface. As they approached, the ground began to shake as defense systems activated and metalic men rose from beneath. Comms failed and the air was filled with the roar of gunfire. Surrounded by a legion of cybernetic constructs with no where to run, the fate of the battle brothers seemed all but assured.

Rallying under sergeant Arkavius, the men positioned their bikes to use as cover and quickly formed a defensive position amid the barren wastes. Aided by punishing blows from their Argonaught's typhoon launder and replenished by supplies contained therein, the Marines held on.

The sound of empty clips begain to ring out as the last "Iron-man" slumped to the ground. The vox crackled and hails were finally received. Mechanicum ships quickly arrived to collect the damaged cybernetics for study. The ship was later identified as millenia old human technology, priceless in the eyes of the Adepts of Mars. What use it was to them is unknown, but in gratitude for the heavy losses suffered on Truvel XI and the archaotech recovered, the Truvel forgeworld dispatched a Land Raider Achilles to Korak Prime; a true testament to the bond between Mars and the Night Hawks.

The venerable Achilles was not a thoughtless prize but a well considered gift. The Night Hawk's combat doctrine was well known to the Mechanicum as was their lack of tactical dreadnought armour and by extension, need for standard land raiders. As such, the Achilles, which is ill-suited to carry assault teams to battle hosts a thunderfire cannon, a symbolic weapon of the tech marines of the Adeptus Astartes. The weapon's tremor round's ability to disrupt enemy movement synergizes perfectly with the Night Hawks' practice of out manouvering their enemy. Permitting this oft-stationary weapon to be taken into battle by the fast moving Night Hawks on a nigh indestructible shrine chassis solidified the bond between Mars and Chapter, of whom both would call on one another innumerable times in the future.

[Deus_Morte]

Dood! I LOVE those 'jeep'/'dune-buggy' conversions

[Tzelanit]

Those speeders are crazy awesome!

[Slurpeemourne]

Really not sure what this means but thanks to everyone

I lol'd. I grew up less than an hour away from Nighthawks' permanent home. Big 40k bastion, Chicagoland.

Can't wait to see pics of the Fidora pattern Assault Ram.

Anyway, love the fluff and competent conversions. You did a good job, I think, of capturing the Halo and USMC influences without losing the grimdark weathering.

[TheAmbit]

I finished my first space marine bike squad after like 3 weeks of working on it. It was really really slow going and I just wasn't motivated. Not that I don't like how they turned out, there is juts a whole lot of model here to paint. If you think about sheer surface area there must be 2-3 times that of doing just a regular marine so it was pretty daunting. Originally I had 11 bikes on my desk but I dropped down to just doing 6 so that it seemed more manageable.


Sergeant Arkavius is featured here leading his squad into the fray (the guy from my fluff).

More pictures and such [url=http://theambit.blogspot.ca/2012/04/night-hawks-bike-squad.html]here[/url]