Heresy Era Imperial Army - Geno Five-Two Autocannon teams painted

Cracking along with the Geno Five-Two, feeling like I have the paint scheme dialed in pretty well at this point, and was able to bang out the Autocannon heavy weapon teams over the last couple nights. Really been nice getting back into the swing of painting once again!

Still waiting for it to warm up enough to do the initial sealant pass and get the static grass on. Up to 45F tomorrow they say, but that's still well into what I consider the danger zone for spray sealant. Better to wait for warmer days than risk 'em frosting over, I think... In other news, the long-awaited heads finally arrived after being lost in the warp for weeks. Time to crack out the greenstuff and get the rest of the infantry re-capitated! Once that's done, all the infantry will be built, which means at this point the only thing I'm still missing are the three Leman Russ tanks I have planned for the army. 

In Legion, while they mention the Geno had tank support, other than the Centaur there isn't a specific name/variant mentioned, so just to be a little different I'm thinking about going with the MaxMini Gothic KV-2, as I quite dig the quasi-Ragnarok look which I think suits the Heresy vibe of the army. I'll likely leave off the side sponsons and swap out the hull weapon for a proper lascannon. Gotta wait to rebuild the hobby fund a bit first - too much coming in and not enough going out of late!

Heresy Era Imperial Army - Geno Five-Two fire support squad built

So it turns out I was overestimating exactly how much space the gunners would take up on the bases for the autocannon teams, once I'd gotten the crew all built I started experimenting with positioning and for the most part was able to fit two per base in such a way that they make interesting vignettes and should still be easy to paint.

Rather pleased with how they've turned out so far and quite looking forward to getting some paint on both these and the first infantry squad. Unfortunately it's been rather chilly of late and I've not had much luck finding a time to get them primered. Argh!

Shuffling the army list around a bit to account for the upcoming heresy plastics (the Alpha Legion allies may be taking up a bit more of their share of the 2500 point list I'm currently building towards), so the lascannon team bits have gone into the Closet of Doom for use with the Prospero Spireguard army that lies in wait for the Thousand Sons to rise again...

...And with the upcoming plastics, they may very well do so sooner rather than later!

Heresy Era Imperial Army - Geno Five-Two Fire Support Squad begins

Sadly Real Life(tm) continues to eat up the majority of my time recently, but I did get a big box o' joy from Victoria Lamb Miniatures on Friday which was a nice way to end an otherwise rather irritating week! The box included the remaining legs and torsos for the Geno Five-Two infantry squads, a bunch of arms and weapons (that will be going into the spares bucket now that I have the integrated arms/weapon sprues on the way), as well as all the bits to make up the heavy weapons for the Fire Support Squads. I was really impressed with the kits, super crisp castings and the ones I've built thus far have gone together like a dream!

I did manage to squeeze in enough hobby time over the weekend to get the bits washed and dried, and put together the first five of the heavy weapon carriages. When all is said and done there will be five autocannons and five lascannons, which should give the army a little extra punch. I'm considering how I want to do the crew - considering putting one member on the 60mm base with the gun, and putting the second man on a separate base to facilitate wound tracking, or possibly just having both members be separate - I'm finding the carriage takes up a surprising amount of room on the base and I'm afraid packing both crewmen on will make them too busy (not to mention rather hard to paint).

Imperial Guard - Heavy Weapon Teams and Sentinels painted

Still banging on with the Dark Future weekly painting challenge, which has been keeping me motivated to put brush to miniature! This past week I've been chipping away at the Guard once again, with two trios of heavy weapon teams (my entry for this weeks' contest) and a pair of Sentinels.

The first trio are armed with vehicle-busting Lascannons, and are usually tucked away inside some building overlooking the battlefield. Coupled with the various orders available to them such as "Bring it down!" and "Fire on my target!" they can be rather nasty!

The second trio are the Missile Launcher teams that will more often than not be attached to the three infantry squads of 1st platoon. I'm a big fan of their ability to fire Frag or Krak missiles depending on the situation, and I'm looking forward to finding out how the Flakk missiles will work into the army lists.

 

While I was rooting around in the box of Cadian bits looking for arms for use on the Hypaspists for the upcoming Ad-Mech army, I ran across a pair of Sentinel sprues and knocked them together. The original Mordian 7th army included a pair of Sentinels armed with Assault Cannons, and I'm rather bummed that's no longer an option. Instead I went with Plasma Cannons, as for the most part the Guard don't get many opportunities to take them. Of course, I'm sure they'll melt down into steaming pools of metal on turn one every game!

In keeping with the black with red trim theme, the sentinels really ended up looking rather ominous. I couldn't come up with a knife design that I was happy with for their army badge, so I went with a jagged tooth pattern instead - reminiscent of an upper and lower jaw to tie the two models together thematically. I'm quite happy with the sense of motion the new kits allow, the legs are very posable!

Next up on deck for the guard is the Leman Russ Vanquisher and the command squad's Chimera, and I'm in the middle of painting the Knight Errant as well. Pics to follow soon!