Heresy Era Imperial Army - Geno Five-Two Command and Recon squad painting (almost) complete!

Had a relatively quiet Friday evening and Saturday morning, and managed to crank out a fair chunk of 'the fun stuff' from the Geno Five-Two! Naturally, the penultimate step in virtually all of my painting projects involves taking a picture of 'em and then realizing all the little things here and there that I've missed when reviewing the pics for publication. Doh! Nevertheless, here's some pics of the recent batch of not-quite-finished minis to (very nearly) roll off the painting line:

Leading things off is Hetman Peto Soneka (generously donated to the cause by the always-awesome Dai of The Lost and the Damned and the Stunted) and his command squad with a Voxcaster and (what will eventually be) the Company standard. The other three members of the squad are armed with Heavy Stubbers, which I've always liked as a support weapon.

 

Next up is the recon squad, all armed with sniper rifles. Tried to come up with a camo pattern that matched the bases for the cameoline cloaks, and decided to go with yellow interior lining to tie them in with the rest of the force. They performed admirably on the table recently, as well - very nearly taking down a Bloodthirster all by themselves!

Lastly are the Gene-whips, Franco Boone and his prods Roke and Pharon - with the leadership of the auxilia lists being on the low side, the addition of the proto-commissars is a welcome addition!

I missed the weather window on these and woke up to snowfall this morning, so there's still plenty of time to go in and fix up all the little misses and errors. After that's done, it may be time for a brief Inq28 break, as a fun little package arrived on my doorstep earlier in the week...

Ciaphas Cain - Hero of the Imperium!

Taking a little break from the Leviathan to do some painting - gotta let the modelling batteries recharge for a bit! My buddy Dave let me know about a miniatures company called Cadwallon that I hadn't seen before, and lurking in their "Legendarion" section was a rather striking model of the greatest (least), most heroic (stinking coward) Commissar ever to wear the cap and greatcoat - Ciaphas Cain!

Dave had ordered up their model for the Salamanders Primarch Vulkan and was kind enough to add Cain to the order for me as well. The models arrived quickly, though the ordering process was a little convoluted with some odd PayPal redirects that didn't make either of us feel too confident, but all was well in the end.

  

I was rather pleased with the quality of the cast and the pose was very reminiscent of the cover art from the second Omnibus. I took some cues from the art for the paint scheme but also wanted to match it somewhat to the rest of the dozen-plus Commissars I've painted so far (no, I don't have a good reason for having that many).

I really liked the base that came with the model as well, as Cain has numerous run-ins with the Tyranid menace throughout the series. Definitely enjoyed painting it up, the blue, purple and green added a splash of color to the otherwise somewhat dour color scheme of Cain himself. Now I think I need to come up with a model to represent his personal dogsbody Jurgen, and perhaps a squad of Valhallans for him to lead!

In other news, I'm going to head down to Feast of Blades on Saturday night to have a game with Tim Toolen, owner of the Miniature Tim blog and an extremely talented modeler and painter. I'm fully expecting to be wiped off the table in short order, so just listen for the screams of dying guardsmen and you'll find me! :)

Don't turn around...

A nice lazy Saturday afternoon - chores and laundry, and a little paint spattered about. Finished up the last two commissars:


From what I understand, in the new codex the previous ability of the vox network to extend the leadership of the HQ squads to the rest of the army is no longer available. I figure ten commissars should keep the guardsmen in line...


Just a few crewmen left to go...

Fear me, but follow!

A title like that can only mean one thing - Commissars.

Rooting around in my shelves I realized that in addition to the five commissars I had in regular play with the army, a further 5 were just waiting to see a paintbrush. Three of them were virtually complete, and just required a color or two and a shot of sealant:


Lurking further back in the shelves I found two more. They're everywhere! As I was losing the light, I just snapped a quick picture in process:


Just to keep the balance, I also dug out all my old psyker figs to give the commissars something to shoot at. I rarely took more than a single psyker in the 4th ed. rules (if that) though I always liked the figures - With the advent of the new Psyker battle squad, I figured it was time to give old Morrin Dannel a little backup. Just a quich shot of the group in progress:


I'm missing the 3rd edition Primaris Psyker model (though it's on a shelf around here somewhere), but other than that there's a representative model from every wave of psyker figs since 1st edition. I'm going to paint all of them in a matching color scheme to the one on the far left - Green cloaks (the color of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica), white trousers and shirts and yellow accents. That should tie all the disparate model styles into one cohesive-looking unit.

After these models are complete I'll turn my attentions to the 5-man Medusa siege gun crew and the 4 meltagunners. In the home stretch now!