Pablol - Imperial Guard - Month 6 - Field of bones

 Bones bones bones

Behold my pile of shame. I shouldn't have saved the best for last as June was much too busy. Off to the field of bones.

I spent the two first weeks of June painting walls at a nursery and couldn't really do any painting at night. My friend was commissioned to make an artpiece for this nursery and the time table was pretty tight. The rest of the month went finishing other work projects that were on hold for the two first weeks and preparing for my holiday that starts now. Summer has also finally started and the few free nights were spent out with friends.

This is one of the walls of the public art commission I was working on.

Sadly an army is nothing without a leader. Though I'm glad I saved most of these models for later as I feel like during this challenge I've finetuned my painting a bit and feel much more confident working on these centerpieces now compared to the beginning of the year.

Here are the last three models for the Mortar team. One is a Cawdor and the two are masked up Orlocks. I was really struggling to find any Cawdor gangers all of this year. I bought some last year, but didn't realise I would've needed a few more and passed on a few deals.

I started painting the Techpriest already in May. So far it mostly just has the main colours blocked in. I've never really liked any of the original Techpriest models so I had to find something else. The old 6th edition Grave Guard models have the capes, eerie poses and perfect Blanche hats. I even extended the hat a bit higher to give it more authority.

I armed the Techpriest with a Bolt pistol and a power axe.

The last Lasgun servitor is pretty straightforward and will fit in well with the rest of the squad. I had chopped both it's arms off sometime around 2005.

The Imperial Preacher was also ready in May and got some paint while I was working on the last month tanks. He's based on a 6th edition flagellant with a flail that is replaced with an Imperial eagle. I also gave him a backpack and some equipment.

Probably the only Rogue Trader model is this headless psyker that I converted into an Inquisitor. I really like his pose. He'll lead the Cadian command squad.

My army leader will be this command squad. The power fist Catachan Lieutenant is a really cool model, but his Bolter hand is a bit stiff and at a bad angle for photos. I think this position with the Plasma pistol gives a better dynamic front pose.

The rest of the command squad:

The standard bearer is only missing it's flag.

The Cawdor heavy is missing the end of his weapon.

The Cawdor leader is as is.

The Bretonnia pilgrim will fill the last spot of the command squad.

I even got a bit gready at some point around April and May and started painting these Ratling snipers that I never managed to finish.

Last but not least I have this tank commander to go on the Leman Russ Demolisher.

Most of these models are already based and ready for paint, so I'll be working on them as soon as I get back home from my holiday. Luckily I have one more deadline to motivate me to finish this army. Ropecon is one of the biggest roleplay and miniature events in Finland and it's during the last weekend of July. They have an Armies on Parade themed army gallery called Show of Force. I'll try my best to have the army finished by then so I'd be able to show it there.

A great thank you for the Old World Army Challenge and all the motivating comments and messages throughout this year. I don't know if I've ever managed to build and paint this much in 6 months. Next year I'll hopefully be better prepared and have less to build and more time to paint.

Good luck for everyone else! Can't wait to see and read about your completed armies!

Pablol - Imperial Guard - Month 5 - Wild card

I started painting two Leman Russes, but only managed to finish one in time. I was close to finishing both, but ran out of time. 

The second edition Imperial Guard codex has two Leman Russ variants:

The Leman Russ Battle Tank has standard stock equipment with no options. I was missing a few parts on this model so I made molds from blue stuff and cast replacements from milliput. I magnetized the battlecannon and the heavy bolter sponsons, because future editions have weapon options. I added some small plasticard details to the Heavy bolters, because they looked a bit bare.

The Leman Russ Demolisher has a demolisher cannon and a few side sponson options. In case I want to make another Leman Russ Demolisher I made milliput copies of the weapons. The demolisher cannon is attached to the turret, but the side sponson weapons and the Lascannon are magnetized. I had to cut the Lascannon from another Leman Russ hull, because this tank came with a Heavy flamer.

Both tanks needed quite alot of seam filling and a bit of damage repair. Undercoating the tanks also helped to see what details still needed to be fixed.

I did'nt have time to put up my studio so this month will have to do with smartphone photos.

I'm quite happy how the tank came out, but I noticed that the Vallejo colour in the new clear bottle is a bit different toned from the old colour I've used with the two previous tanks.

Leman Russ Battle Tank 205pts

Hope everyone managed through this month! Good luck for the last month!

On my last month to do list I have:

- A bunch of characters and my command HQ

- One lasgun servitor to complete the 5 model unit

- Three guardsmen to complete the heavy weapon squad

- The second Leman Russ to finish

- A second Chimera

Pablol - Imperial Guard - Month 4 - Rank & File

This month was a struggle. I had a flu and during that week I worked with too many units and tanks without any proper focus on my April goals. The rest of the month there were too many parties and busy weekends until I realized I was badly running out of time. The ambitiously started April turned into a damage control month and here's what I managed to finish:

A squad of five servitors. One of them, the only 2nd edition model is a substitute until I finish a third lasgun armed model. I think servo armed models were only available in Space Marine forces back in 2nd edition. The colour scheme didn't quite end up having the 2nd edition feel I was looking for, but they're ok. The jumpsuits could've been a brighter colour or I should've just properly committed and painted them red. Atleast I'm happy how the servitors weapons turned out. They give a bit more of a 2nd edition feel with the clunky lasgun muzzles.

Next up we have a heavy weapon mortar team thats still missing the other three models. I'm quite happy with the mortars as they're all milliput recasts. They lack a bit of detail compared to the original, but three metal mortars would've been past my budget. 

Last but not least we have two tank crew members. A converted Van Saar juve and an Other World Miniatures barbarian. I started working on the juve before OWAC, so he's got a 3rd edition auspex in his hand. The pilot helmet is from my favorite 40k models, the three third edition tank crew members. The techno viking got a spanner and bionic arm.

All three are unfinished units, so I won't add any points this month. I'm very happy with the tank  crew members and the cultist regiment is also slowly expanding. Hopefully the Tech Priest I'm working on will make the servitors look better with the rest of the army. Atleast he will be red.

Large photo

Still no tanks! This was my last Rank & File month, so I've only got the wild card and leader month left.

Good luck for everyone!

Pablol - Imperial Guard - Month 3 - Rank & File

This month was simple and straightforward. Scrolling through old White Dwarfs I realised that no 2nd edition Imperial guard army is a proper one without infantries from atleast two different regiments. So for March I managed to finish a Command squad and an Infantry squad, but sadly I'm one tank behind on my vehicle schedule.

The Cadian infantry squad sergeant with a Mordian head and all his eagles filed out came with a big lot of Cadian shock troopers. I liked the head so all I needed to do was sculpt new eagles for his chest and shoulderpad. This was my only sculpting for this month. I'm happy that the Catachan lieutenant's outfit blends really nicely with the Cadians because I don't have any other Cadian leaders.

I wanted the colour scheme for these models to be more serious even though they're carrying red lasguns. After going through some options I decided to go with a grey scheme like the Imperial officers in Star Wars. I think the Cadians shock troops have certain similarities to the 90's Starship troopers Mobile infantry and they're also influenced by German WW2 military outfits.

The Imperial guard squad is armed light and their only additional weapon is a Plasma gun.

The Command Squad has two flamers. 

I'm quite happy how this part of the army came out. They look mean with their outfits designed for urban conflicts.

Command Squad 60pts

Lieutenant: Power sword, Bolt gun 9pts

Special weapons: 2 Flamers 14pts

Imperial Guard Squad 100pts

Sergeant: Power sword, Bolt pistol 8pts

Special weapon: Plasma gun 6pts

Total: 197pts

I'm at (270+165+197) 632 points so if I can keep up the same pace I'll be way past the 1000 point mark at the end of OWAC. April will be tank month with some characters and hopefully a bit more infantry to keep my army list legal.

Eagerly waiting to see everyone elses progress now that we're all halfway through!

Pablol - Imperial Guard - Month 2 - Rank & File

February was dedicated to refurbishing an old Hellhound. I was planning on also painting some infantry, but I was quite occupied with a big work project most of this month. The tank had some original metal bits, some 3d printed reproduction bits and some bits just missing. The hull had also taken a fair deal of damage. Removing some accessories from the tank also left some marks.

I decided to recast all the small turret bits from milliput so that it would look uniform.

I filled most of the surface damages with milliput and sanded the surfaces with files, sand paper and scalpels.

Some rivets were missing so I made new ones from plasticard.

The turret got new old hatches instead of the original targeting cupola, because I didn't have one and I wanted to add some accessories to the turret. The targeting cupola looks like its a solid lid which would prevent any of the crew members actually getting to the accessories I fitted on the turret.

I had a second round of sanding after the white undercoat.

I tried to paint the Hellhound more or less the same as the Chimera from January.

Hellhound 165pts

Sadly I didn't get any infantry painted this month, but I did work on something else. I wanted to have a photo backdrop so I searched for some inspiration from 2nd edition 40k books and decided to make a neo gothic industrial wall. The main structures are mostly Kapa board and a few different thicknesses of card. I was tempted to add much more detail to these, but I tried to stay true to the 2nd edition esthetic.

I sculpted a bunker style window from which I made plaster casts.

The door is a plaster cast of some 40k terrain I made about a year ago.

Everything just about fit in the group shot. The base is 16" x 16" and it will also double up as a Necropolis28 board.

A lot of photos, but not so much text. Next month I will have to get some infantry painted and my March tank will most likely be a Leman Russ. I hope everyone else had a productive February!

ZeroTwentythree's February Eldar - Rank & File (699pts)

February Eldar:  Bombots, Dreads, War Walker (Rank & File - The Heavies)

The OWAC IV phase of the pirate crew focused heavily on regular troops. This time around I'm still painting rank & file, but focusing on support troops & heavies.

So here we have two Rogue Trader dreadnoughts, a Banshee & a War Cry. I definitely wanted to paint a Banshee as that was the model I had in my original Space Elf force back in the day.

War walker. I decided to go with the same purple as on the support weapon platforms & crew. Speaking of crew, I like the idea of having some dismounted crew figures, so I looked through the infantry bits and got as close as I could to the model on the walker. In hindsight, I should have tried sculpting the hair to match. I added a bit of green on both models to break up all the purple.

As I was prepping for this year's challenge, I saw something in the list that had previously escaped my notice:

Bombots! OK, so there were never any actual figures. I gave it some thought and decided to kitbash some hover-bombots. I got some little plastic craft eggs, carefully cut them up, added some sheet styrene fins, little Eldar gems (Eldar love gems...) with greenstuff, and a bit of wire. I don't think they turned out too bad. I had hoped to convert a bombot "handler" but wasn't able to settle on a conversion, but maybe they will appear in a future month's entry.

I also had one old Epic dread that came in a package with some other Eldar stuff for the OWAC4 project. I thought I would paint it up as yet another (small) spirit warrior; build out to be determined.

Lastly, some bonus material.

Continuing my plan for the Grav-Attack Ranch, I made a quick & sloppy, second model. I need to get some cheap putty to finish the base before priming the new one.

Inspired by the power field walls I did in January, I had a couple of other related ideas for personal or portable power field barriers. One is like a personal power field. A "power mantlet"? The other is like a portable field fortification, inspired by the ability of sappers to build field fortifications in WFB 3rd ed. I'm not sure what the plastic end bits are, or even what kit they come from. Something much newer.

Shown here with (previously painted) Kev, for scale.

So my first two months were the sneaky and the heavy support troops. The next few months will involve some more vanilla troops & weapon platforms, weird aliens, and heroes. I think I'll save the heroes for the end. So that narrows it down a little.

Rank & File

War-Cry Dreadnought        140 pts

Banshee Dreadnought        160 pts

War Walker                         349 pts !!!

5 Bombots                            50 pts

Bonus

T.B.D. Spirit Warrior           0 pts

War Walker Pilot                 0 pts

Terrain                                 0 pts

February Total                  699 pts

OWAC VIII Total          1,311 pts