Sooner or later many players get the urge to create their own Space Marine Chapter, me being no different. I made that decision leading up to the 2002 UK Grand Tournament and thought it would be good idea to set about fielding a force of my own making. Little did I know then what a huge task I would set myself over the coming months leading up to the event, and more interestingly in years to come.

The idea for the Chapter, like so many, came about entirely by accident. It was a couple of years earlier when a friend was trying to gather ideas for his own Space Marine force, but was stumped on a background he liked. After sketching out and discarding a dizzying array of suggestions, I came up with the idea of a desert based Chapter, one very nomadic in nature. I jotted down various designs and ideas for him and he mulled over them for months to come before eventually abandoning the project altogether. I had completely forgotten about it until I discovered my original notes while researching my own Chapter design for the tournament. Taking the original idea and penning a few more sketches I fleshed out the initial design for what was to eventually become the 'Sand Jackals'

I have included the initial concept background in a link at the bottom of this page, but in short I followed a few basic themes. The first was that the entire Chapter would be based on a reconnaissance theme, highly mobile and featuring a great deal of lightly armoured scouts. One of the strong images I drew upon was that of the Egyptian Gods, specifically Anubis, which is where the black headed Jackal theme originated. This also to a degree set my palette of colours which would be sand beige and black, both which contrasted well together.

I also dispensed with any ideas of skimmers or jump packs in the army, instead opting for lightly armed and fast buggies instead (hence the Panther design). The bikes would be replaced by riding lizards. With the basics of the army worked out the rest kind of fell into place as I went along and began work on the four full Scout squads and two tactical squads, as well as sculpting up the Chapter iconography for the vehicle doors.

The Jackals had a very mixed result at the tournament gaming wise and although they were selected as a Best Army finalist in both the heats and final, their lack of heavy weapons found them wanting against more heavily armoured forces such as the ubiquitous three Leman Russ Guard armies and multiple War Walker Eldar forces. Against more balanced armies they fared a lot better making up for their lack of heavy weapons with weight in numbers of basic troops and a decent mobility. they are very much an army in development and one which has a lot of potential for future additions including some more sizeable transport and some Dreadnoughts to give them some flexibility against armoured targets and assault oriented elites.

out of all of the armies I have assembled to date, the Sand Jackals is the only one I have set no limit on, happy to simply keep adding more units and models to every once in a while until I run out of ideas. Currently there is no sign of that happening any time soon.

Enjoy.

2002 UK Grand Tournament Sand Jackals

| Scout Squads | Scout Snipers and Mounted Riders | Tactical Squad and Devastators | Chaplain Ophios and Panther Recon |

Additional Units - Sand Jackal Reinforcements

| Vindicator and Transports | Chapter Master and Retinue | Land Raider | Dreadnought |

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