Army Showcase Sunday - Ren Jie's White Scars!

This week on A.S.S. we return to the 41st millennium! We're joined by a newcomer to the hobby and competitive play, Ren Jie and his eye-catching White Scars army. Read on to hear more about it!

Hey Ren Jie! Thanks for joining us today! To start things off, maybe tell us what inspired you to start a White Scars army?

I always liked the lore of the White Scars the best since they are based on an Asian culture which I found more relatable than the Western/Roman inspirations for a lot of the other First Founding chapters. The Scars also seemed the most "human" of the First Founding chapters to me since it's canon that they have hobbies like writing poetry and riding bikes. Plus, red and white is a really killer colour scheme!

That Chinese calligraphy is seriously cool. Are those all freehand? Any tips on how to approach something like that?

Yep, the calligraphy is all freehand! I wish I could take all the credit, but I actually have a lot of help from my girlfriend who was formally trained in calligraphy. She does the big vehicles though I do most of the characters and infantry myself.

For me my main tips would be: a) always paint while looking at a reference, even for easier characters, b) take the time to get the proportions right (e.g. how long/short each stroke is in proportion to each other) and c) don't be afraid to make mistakes because it's actually surprisingly easy to fix by covering up flawed strokes!

Which would you say is your favourite unit/model in your army currently? Tell us more about it!

My favourite model is currently my converted Chaplain on Bike, which I kitbashed from the Indomitus chaplain model, a reaver helmet and a custodes jetbike.

I did the conversion because I wanted to accurately represent the Wrath of the Heavens - a White Scars Chapter Relic that allows a biker character to gain pseudo-fly during the movement phase, but it turned out to be a ton of fun building and painting. (Big relief doing black after an army of white which is really frustrating to paint sometimes) I'm planning to do a similar conversion for a Khan on bike in the future!

Actually the main reason I don't run bikers is that I don't like the models! The firstborn bikers really look too stumpy and sad for my taste, though I plan to add some ATVs soon. (I do have a squad of Outriders but I didn't have space to bring them down to GRex today :P)

Generally my army does play very aggressively and pretty much every unit is advancing right from turn one - personally I also find that infantry benefit a lot more from the White Scars chapter tactics because bikers are already naturally mobile even without advance and charge.

Any advice for budding White Scars players or hobbyists in general?

I'm still quite new to playing competitively myself so I don't think I'm in a good position to give advice there. For hobbyists, I think my main advice would be to be proactive in asking people for painting tips both in person and online - people are always willing to share cool tips and ideas. For example I got the idea of using green-blue highlights (Temple Guard Blue) on my black models from a Drukhari player I often play with, and it really makes them pop! I also recently learned how to do realistic hair stubble from my friend Jon who showed me how to do it with a pink-grey glaze.

Thanks once again, Ren Jie, for joining us on Army Showcase Sunday!