The rest of my submissions to the painting challenge

 Here are the rest of the submissions I made to the painting challenge which ended March 21st at midnight. I painted a few more units for the Tyrant’s Legion, but there are a few other random bits for 40k guard and some vehicle for Xenos Rampant.

Astral Claws Retaliators

Tyrant’s Legion Hellhound

Brotherhood of Steel Vertibird

3d print - Transport truck for New California Republic 

3d print - Tank for NCR

40k Officer of the Fleet

Command Squad Standard Bearer

40k Guard Ordnance Officer

This is one of the better outings I’ve had for the annual painting challenge. I made a real dent in the Tyrant’s Legion and only have a few more human units to finish before I dig into the Astral Claws. However, I will probably finish the rest of the vehicles I collected for the Executioners first.

Thanks for visiting!

Victoria Miniatures Human Bomb and 40K Ork Heavy Weapons

Here's a model that's been hanging around primed for some time, that I finally buckled down and painted today. It's Victoria Miniatures' "Penal Guard Human Bomb" sculpted by the talented and prolific Bobby Jackson.

I think I got it as a free add-on to an order made years ago. It's a resin casting of course, and very reminiscent of the old GW Human Bombs that were part of the Imperial Guard. Decals are from the excellent Death Korps of Krieg decal sheet that was in my folder for some reason!

Of course back in the dim distant past of 40K there was a part of the Imperial Guard Astra Militarum called the "Penal Legion". These were composed of chaps whose crimes (desertion, murder, overdue library data-slates etc.) were so heinous that they merited assignment to the Penal Legions... essentially food for powder. Penal Legion troopers were equipped with explosive collars that could be triggered by a commissar to thwart a desertion attempt or "pour encourager les autres" in the event of a lapse of squad morale. But the worst of these offenders were equipped with explosive harnesses and became human bombs. 

Believe it or not, there were actually rules for deployment and use of human bombs, although mercifully these have been absent from 40K for some time now... as I was writing this post I've been looking for those rules (I could have SWORN that there was an example of template/blast weapons in a rulebook that used an exploding human bomb) but have come up empty... nothing in the Compendium, Compilation, Codex Imperialis, Codex Army List... Penal Legions yes, but human bombs nada. If any readers remember where those rules were (other than in the Citadel Journal list linked above) I'd be grateful if you'd post in the comments.

 

Anyway that's it for this guy. Pretty fun to paint if you don't think too hard about what his fate is likely to be. I seem to remember that part of the fluff was that there was a chance that the explosive harness wouldn't detonate, and if it didn't, the penitent was forgiven!

EDIT: Here are the original rules and background for human bombs, from WD 109. Thank you to reader Scott A. for the reference, much appreciated!

The other thing I've been doing the last few days is painting some old metal Orks for the Red Star Boyz army. My plan is to pit the boyz against my Sisters of Battle in the New Year's Day 2026 game.

Here we have a heavily armoured Nob and a plasma gunner. 

Heavy plasma and heavy bolter. The heavy weapons in this lot are separate castings, except for the heavy bolter boyz that are one-piece models. 

I've painted the pants in the universal camo pattern that all the Red Star Boyz wear.

Heavy (I don't know) flamer? Another heavy bolter, and "rokkit launcha".

These old metal Orks were pretty cool weren't they?

I still have a bunch of metal Orks left should I ever get the urge to paint more, but I think now we'll be good for the game. Sadly the 5th Ed Ork codex doesn't really have a "heavy weapons squad" entry so I'll have to figure out how to fit these new models in - maybe as a Tankbusta squad??

Steel Legion Stormblade

 Over the painting challenge I finished that last units for my Steel Legion Imperial Guard. The crown jewel of the challenge was supposed to be the Stormblade. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to complete it in time, but better late than never. This model isn't actually the Forgewrold one. I found a file on Thingverse for a plasma blastgun and mount to go with the GW stormshadow kit. It took some work to make it fit, but it came out better than I expected it would. The model also includes a few engine pieces and generators from Blood & Skulls Industry. The plasma blastgun probably draws a lot of power so I upgraded the engine to look like some sort of sketchy nuclear engine with associated dynamos. Blood &Skulls bitz fit pretty, but do need some clean up and green stuff work.

I went with yellow lights as it suggests the reactor is heating up, but we're not sure by how much. It'll probably be fin.

Below are the other Steel Legion models I did manage to complete for the painting challenge.

Heavy weapon team from Victoria Miniatures

GW Steel Legion lascannons and heavy bolter

Steel Legion Commissar

Death Korps kill team veteran squad

Thanks for visiting!

Steel Legion vehicles and more Doomed

 I finished two more vehicles for the Steel Legion. They're from Mortian Models and represent another Chimera and Hellhound. My game with Dallas showed that the stormtroopers need a more dependable ride, so they'll get the chimera. I painted the unit markings blue to represent the vehicle detached from a different company. The Hellhound turret weapons are magnetized and also come with different weapons to represent the different options for the vehicle. These are the last Mortian vehicle I have. I'd like to pick up one more Russ from them, but they're being re-designed and aren't available yet.

Comparison to GW Chimera

I also completed a third unit for The Doomed - The Inheritor Courts. They represent the last remnants of law and government in the world and are supposed to be some kind of techno-knight. I didn't paint them up as grungy as they should be a bit more put together than the other factions. I used a mix of Bretonnian Men-at-arms, Frostgrave soldiers, a space marine and a Chaos Warrior. I do hope to actually put on a game soon.

An assortment of warriors and minions for the knights

A Judge and a Sheriff to lead the rabble.

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Steel Legion Leman Russ

I’m forgot to post these when I completed them last month. They first appeared in Dallas’s post about our recent game against his Sisters. The models are from Mortian Tanks in Germany. They’re really nice models that only required the basic model work expected for most resin vehicles. I included a pic to provide some scale compared to a GW Leman Russ. The tanks did well in their first outing despite losing to the Sisters or Battle. Once the battle cannons started hitting home, they started exploding sisters everywhere. Unfortunately multiple squads were left with at least 1-3 survivors in each denying me precious victory points. Dallas also didn’t have much that could deal with them. This hardly matters since he was more than capable of burning away most of the infantry. Overwhelming victory as reported by the tank crews!

Thanks for visiting.