Imperial Guard - A whole mess of infantry painted!

With Adepticon bearing down on us, I really needed to get in gear and paint up the multiple squads of infantry that have been neglected for so long. Thirty of 'em were going to be needed for my planned 1850 list so there was no getting around the fact that I was in for some assembly line painting. Not my favorite way to paint, but it's efficient for those times when you just have a horde of troops to do.

On the up side, I'd already painted up the heavy weapons teams so there ended up being 24 of 'em on deck. I didn't document this stage too much, just snapped a quick picture about halfway through. The scheme is fairly quick and painless, so it only took about 5-6 hours to get them up to tabletop standard.

...Almost to the finish line! I still need to paint on the unit insignia and "winged 7" on the shoulder pads, but I wanted to get a first pass of sealant on them before I did so. I find that helps when it comes time to draw on tiny numbers and symbols - the sealant smooths out the surface somewhat so the paint flows really nicely onto the shoulder pads.

  

Couple closeups of the various squads - I don't tend to go overboard on detail for the troops - especially true in the case of the guard, as these guys get pulled off the table in double handfuls due to casualties anyway! The grenade launcher/missile launcher combo gives the squads the ability to deal with both hordes and light vehicles/elite infantry, alternately there's 3 lascannons that I can swap in for those times I know I'll be facing heavier mechanized opponents.

While I was about it, I brought the old unit of ratlings up to speed, touching up their fatigues, re-painting the weapon housings, and re-basing them. Luckily my old urban rubble theme is essentially the same physical form as my current method - just a re-paint from grey to brown, and the addition of some static grass is all that is required.

 

I'm in the queue to have the extraordinarily talented Ron over at FTW build me a new commander model for the army, but needed something for a stand in in the short term. Recently I've been using the rules for Ursakar Creed for my army commander Evin Eldro, which meant that the old model I was using wasn't armed appropriately and the real Creed model, while cool, just doesn't fit my vision. Twin hot-shot laspistols and a power sword? Turns out I have a model armed that way... Kal Jerico! A quick repaint of the coat and base and job's a good 'un. I'm hoping to have Ron do a similar model that includes a carapace breastplate and an officer's head - while the base Kal Jerico model is really dynamic, it needs some work to really make it blend in with a guard army. For now though, this'll do!

It felt really good to be able to swap the last of the big Troop units over to green on the painting chart. I also took a little time in Excel and got it to reference the point values of the army list and was surprised to find out exactly how many points of guard there actually are lurking in the Closet of Doom. I really can't think of much that I want to add to the army at this point - possibly another couple Leman Russ variants, maybe a Stormblade for grins, but unless GW comes out with a storm trooper kit that I can't live without, I can't think of any further infantry that I really need. Could it be that the project is finally reaching conclusion?

...Nah, probably not. Hah!

TOEMP #10 - Scoundrels and Wyrds... Part 2

More than halfway done with the tenth challenge for the Tale of Even More Painters at this point. I had a quiet evening yesterday to finish off Dunno's Deadeyes, a 5-man group of Ratling Snipers seconded to the Mordian 7th Regiment:

Fairly straightforward paint scheme, though they were rather fun to paint as they each have a lot of personality. I went with grey fatigues as they are an Elites choice (the veterans all wear grey fatigues and red armor), but since the Ratlings don't really wear armor, they ended up being a bit monochromatic. That works for me however, as the bright red armor would sort of stands at odds with the Ratlings sneaky nature.

Some folks asked for a scale shot of the Termites that I picked up from Ramshackle games, so I pulled out the Drop Pod and snapped a quick picture. It was nice enough outside over the weekend to get a mess of stuff primered, and I'm actually quite looking forward to painting the Termites, they should come together pretty quickly.

Four more models remain for this stage of the TOEMP challenge, three Psykers and the Commissar which I hope to finish off over the weekend. Once that's done, all the HQ and Elites for the Mordian 7th will be complete!

TOEMP #10 - Scoundrels and Wyrds... Part 1

So I've spent enough time messing about with the Ad-Mech and I figure it's past time for me to work on the Guard again. The next TOEMP challenge gives me an opportunity to fill in some holes in the HQ and Elites squads - as I won't have much time to paint before the deadline this time, I settled on keeping it small and simple:

First up will be Dunno's Dead-eyes, the Ratling sniper squad attached to the Mordian 7th. Their efficacy in battle is suspect, but I like the models - when in doubt I rely on the Rule of Cool every time! I'm going to take a whack at camo fatigues on these little gits based on some of the fantastic camo examples out there.

 

Following that will be the last three models for the Psyker detachment of the army. The far right model will represent Morrin Dannel, the Sanctioned Psyker that appears on the original list. The far left model and the Overseer in the middle will finish off the PBS and will include an example or two from each era of the GW Psyker ranges. Working in concert with Dunno's Dead-eyes, one would imagine that the natural combo would be the LD-reducing Weaken Resolve power followed by shots from the snipers. Of course, it never quite works out that way on the tabletop...

Finally, to keep all these shady characters in check - the repaired and partially re-painted Commissar Lord to represent Fidel Arden. Still a bit more to do on this model, but it should go fairly quickly - the nice thing is all of the sculpts are very characterful, and they should be a lot of fun to paint!