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

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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!

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Steel Legion Vehicles

 I’ve been painting lots of guardsmen since the summer and it’s a sizeable force now. The only problem is they lack any vehicles, which is a problem for Imperial Guard. Ive had numerous tanks assembled, but I’ve struggled with what paint scheme to give them. I experimented with several camo schemes, but I just don’t have any interest in painting camouflage anymore. I thought about going desert sand colour to match the helmets, but I couldn’t get fired up about that either. In the end I settled on early war panzer grey to complement the german uniform greatcoats the infantry wear. This isn’t the most exciting, but it is quick and the tanks look good clumped together on the table. I completed 2 chimera’s for the Infantry platoons, 1 Armageddon Basilisk and manticore with upgrade bits from Models and Minis in the US.

I love this add-on. The missiles are contained in the rear launcher.

Very well designed!

A real pain to put together and required lots of boiling water.

Now off to paint some battle tanks!

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Steel Legion Roughriders

I finally finished a 10-man unit of roughriders for the Steel Legion. I copied Dave Taylor and converted gas masks onto Bretonnian warhorses for the mounts. I think they came out pretty well. The riders are from Mad Robot Miniatures and they’re all armed with explosive hunting lances. Not sure how these will do against Dallas’ sisters, but they’re not a lot of points and should be pretty entertaining.

I also completed a second unit for The Doomed! The Reborn Covens are a group that have turned to genetic manipulation in order to survive. This faction is probably the most wide open to conversion. I kept it mine simple and used 40k orks and heads swapped with pig heads from Max Mini. They went on ok, but require some shaving of the neck joint to fit properly. Painted in flesh tone they look like humans that have spliced their DNA with animals to make a stronger, more robust warrior.

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Steel Legion Ogryns

 When I saw that Anvil Industry had created ogryn models with greatcoats and gas masks, I knew I had to add them to my steel legion army. The models are pretty big and are the same high quality as other Anvil products. My favourite part on the model is the Lewis gun inspired ogryn ripper gun equipped with an axe blade in the stock! Painting was the usual GunSchwarme colour scheme.

Guard model for scale purposes.

Stormtroopers and hopefully some vehicles are up next.

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Back to the Steel Legion

 With the Bretonnians complete, I decided to continue on with my Steel Legion “GunSchwarm” 40k army. With Dallas chugging along on his SoB it seemed fitting to join him in some retro 40k. We made a plan to each have a sizeable army ready for a game in October. Some guard on sister action! 😳 With the new 40k 10th edition, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to play…5th edition! Sorry GW, I never played a single game of 9th and I’m not interested in following you down this 40k death spiral you're on!

To kick off the new project, here are some guardsmen.

Ogryns are next!

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Steel Legion Platoon Command Squad

Providing command and control to an Imperial Guard army can be tough. One of the most popular ways its accomplished is with a Commissar prepared to execute the entire command staff if found wanting. A far less psychotic method is platoon commanders! Since I'll be adding several more infantry squads to the steel legion (GunSchwarm), I painted up a second squad. Instead of a standard bearer, I painted a bagpiper from Victoria Miniatures. He comes fully equipped with a gas mask capable of receiving the blowpipe. I have no idea how he takes in enough air to get that thing going, but I admire his dedication. If I was choking on chlorine gas, I'd want the bagpipes to be the last thing I heard! The kilt was a bit tricky. This was my first attempt and I decided to just go with it, as I decided it wouldn't improve much before I had added too many layers and lost detail to the model. I think with practice, I could improve it, but I don't exactly have many kilted models to practice on.

From now until March, I'll be painting for the Painting Challenge. I try to keep up with the blog here, but sadly it tends to take a back seat to the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.

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Return of the GunSchwarm!

 A while back Greg moved and had to find new homes for some of his vast collection of painted models. One of these included his GunSchwarm which were based on the GW Steel Legion models. They saw fairly heavy use during the Space Krieg days. I always wanted to do a Steel Legion army, but the cost always stopped me. When Games Workshop finally retired the Steel Legion Imperial Guard I ordered a couple of boxes. This was followed by a third box from the secondary market at slight mark-up. On Ebay I managed to source 3 Steel Legion Plasma gunners and metal Kasrkin at an eye watering price (so much for cost being a factor). 3rd party manufacturers supplied Ogryns, Rough Riders and some heavy weapon teams. Vehicles are a mix of GW and Mortian. I love the paint job Greg used for the GunSchwarm and I decided to emulate it as close as I could. Greg and I have slightly different scales, so I knew it wouldn't be a seamless match. I've managed to complete one squad and I'm fairly happy with them. We'll see how many more I complete for the painting challenge.

Here's a mix of Greg's models with mine. Main difference is the brown for the gloves and mask. I used my standard go to leather formula which is quite a bit redder.

Greg's on the left

The next difference is less obvious in the pictures, but the great coat color is slightly different from Greg's. I sued Vallejo German Uniform which is the same Greg uses. I picked up two new bottles of it within the last year and even a comparison of the new bottle to an old one I had bought 10 years ago were noticeably different.

New on the left, old on the right

Not sure when they reformulated the color, but there was nothing I could do about it, so I just forged ahead. Luckily, the two groups blend in ok. I suppose it represents fresh recruits in their shiny new uniforms being brought in to join the depleted and battle-worn vets.

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