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Hello, all! This being my third army and first ever P&M blog, there's going to be a lot of experimentation going on. Without further ado, here's a summary of what I'll be doing with this army:

Base Codex: Imperial Guard, 5th Ed.
Designation: Mechanized Infantry
Origins:[Begin fluff] Asphodel, a grave-world(which I have decided to toss somewhere in Segmentum Obscurus, east of the Cadian Gate), home to the remains of a great many decommissioned Imperial tanks and starships which have been discarded on the surface. Population lives in one of several hive constructed around the joined remains of Imperial ships that were no longer spaceworthy but still liveable. Industry centered around colossal Manufactoria charged with melting down or re-assembling the equipment left on the planet's surface. What does this mean in terms of modeling? Plenty of armoured vehicles, but they all look kinda shoddy and scavenged. Also lots of metal bitz and special weapons because of all the rare equipment they dig up.
[End fluff]
Style: I'll dub it frilly cyberpunk; clunky armour and bionic implants poorly concealed by puffy sleeves and foppish hats.

Without further ado, my current list.

HQ:
Company Command Squad

Troops:
2 Infantry Squads
1 Veteran Squad

(Blue: On wish list. Red: Not started. Yellow: Assembled. Green: Painted. )

This ends my ranting. Hopefully by tonight I'll have some Veterans to show you.

Nice fluff, I like the sound of a grave world. Are you going to use the Empire range from WHFB for the steampunking?

I'm going for more cyberpunk than steampunk; the frilly clothes are going to be dirtied up to match all their rusty bitz. Think of all that fancy attire as a way to give my disheveled army a little dignity and set off the grimdark aesthetic with a helping of irony. I don't have concrete plans for the sleeves but I've already figured out how to do the hats with some simple Green Stuff work.

Owain wrote:I'm going for more cyberpunk than steampunk; the frilly clothes are going to be dirtied up to match all their rusty bitz. Think of all that fancy attire as a way to give my disheveled army a little dignity and set off the grimdark aesthetic with a helping of irony. I don't have concrete plans for the sleeves but I've already figured out how to do the hats with some simple Green Stuff work.

Well ya got me hooked looking forward to some pics.

I like the idea of this and look forward to seeing the results of your work

Foppish hats mixed with scavenged armour sounds... interesting to say the least . It could look ridiculously cool, or it could just look plain ridiculous: I'll be watching this one with interest .

UPDATE:
I still don't have a decent camera, but I've completed three models for my command squad and I'll do my best to describe them.

Company Commander, Captain Gwydyon Cylfarr:
Armed with a prototype compact boltgun(read: small boltgun with power cables from backpack) and power sword. I've sculpted him with a beret and a nice cape, and he gets a personal standard on his back. This particular standard came with a 4th Edition Terminator Squad and has been carried by a Terminator Sergeant, a Veteran Sergeant, a Chapter Master, and a Terminator Librarian before ending up in Gwydyon's hands... and I think I've finally found the miniature it's going to stay on.

Medic, Borys Vallar:
Converted from the Catachan Command Squad kit. He gets a surgical mask and some scary goggles already, but I decided to add a patched, blood-spattered apron with Green Stuff. Since his hands are occupied with a large syringe I slung his lascarbine on the side of his backpack. Even the medic has to do his share of the fighting!

Vox Operator, Lancer First Class Arden Kayn:
He's got a beret-like hat over his comms headset, a standard voxcaster backpack, and a lasgun in his left hand. As I didn't want them to have the typical barbaric Catachan appearance, I filled in the front of the vest with green stuff and then gave him a short tabard and a frilly shirt. I added some armour to the left shoulder but left the arms bare as I'm doing with most of my command squad; most of my troops will be pretty uniformed but my commander has surrounded himself with some real thugs to keep himself safe on the field.

I'll finish off the squad and get some pictures tomorrow. I'm getting two boxes of Cadian Shock Troops tomorrow that will somehow have to match my command squad; hopefully I'll be able to achieve this by mixing and matching leftover bits from the Catachan box and doing more Green Stuff work.

Well they sound good, but a visual is needed here, lets see some photos and we can offer a comment.

I rigged up a primitive lightbox and took a snapshot of the work I've done so far. Captain's weapon was changed to a scavenged-looking plasma carbine.

[These images were removed. The miniatures in them have been updated and they were so huge that they probably prevented a lot of people from reading the thread properly.]


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Captain is WIP. I'm fully aware of the crude join and the flash at the end of the gun.

Coming soon! Captain Gwydyon's pet daemonhost and the first of several heavy weapons teams.

I'm liking the greenstuff so far. The surgeon looks creepy.

Thanks. He'll look even creepier when he's been painted up with bloodstains.... human and otherwise. That syringe is good for more than dispensing goodies, y'know.

Wow, it's a good start. (I find myself 'green stuff slowed')

Ditto on the surgeon.

This is my first attempt at green stuff. Fortunately all the horribly disfigured models aren't in the picture.

Pending some advice at the P&M forum they're all getting feathers in their hats to make them look yet MORE foppish. As for the surgeon, I'll have to figure something out to make him match the others a little.

Having improved my sculpting skills a little, I gave my surgeon and vox operator improved armour kits and challenged myself by giving Lancer Eiran(the colour sergeant) a nifty scarf. I also finished up the Daemonhost, who has a massive sucking chest wound. The idea is that in his haste to create the host a rushed Inquisitor inscribed the runes of binding on the knife and jammed it into the tormented thing's heart. One almost feels sorry for the creature.... almost. Last but not least is Grenadier Tarv, who gets a meltagun because no one else in the unit is all that well-equipped to take out tanks. Neither the captain's powersword not the Daemonhost's strength strike me as sufficient to survive a close encounter with an armoured vehicle and and only two of the Guardsmen in the squad can hit anything at above 12" with their flashli- err, lasguns anyway.




I've also redone my ranks as follows; I've decided on a cavalry theme as most of my squads will be "mounted" in transport vehicles.
Trooper = Basic Infantry.
Trooper(II) = Private, First Class
Grenadier = Infantry trained to use special weapons or man heavy emplacements. Grenadiers in Lancer detachments enjoy the same seniority but maintain their title for identification purposes; it always pays to know who has a krak missile handy when enemy tanks come to call.
Lancer = A somewhat unique rank, those who have served for an extended period of time and proven themselves competent and reliable under fire. Lancers are attached to infantry squads as leaders or formed into Lancer Troops(equivalent of a Veteran Squad) which are usually lead by junior officers who have a respectable amount of battlefield experience. They also tend to form bodyguards and command squads.

From here, ranks are Guard standard; Lieutenant, Captain, Major, et cetera. I plan to give "promotions" to my officers as I fight battles. Hopefully Gwydyon won't be a captain for long!

Can we get a better pic of that greenstuff please?

You got it. Commencing image bombardment.

No offence, but the bloke with the two claws looks a little bit silly IMO. They just look way too oversized. The rest of them look cool though.

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get to the chopper! wrote:No offence, but the bloke with the two claws looks a little bit silly IMO. They just look way too oversized. The rest of them look cool though.

Admittedly looks silly without paint since he looks like a Catachan with two massive power claws. I think he'll come out quite nicely once painted.

Actually I quite like the over size cyborg cybernetics. Some really good finicky greenstuff details as well. Cyberpunk is a nifty idea for an army theme very Necromunda/RT Era!

RT, you say? I'm flattered.

Very nice.
Hope to see more.

Thanks. I'll have the first infantry squad done by tonight; Chimera proxies haven't been chosen or ordered but will hopefully be in my hands before next weekend.


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Speaking of which, does anyone know where I can get my hands on some tank and APC models of the proper scale for 40k?

looking good so far, as for an APC model give pig iron productions a go , keep you p the good work

Ramshackle Games has lots of stuff the right scale but not necessarily the right style. Old Crow Models also has some nice stuff. Another good source is 1;48 and 1;32 vehicle models if I remember rightly 1;32 looks right for infantry and 1;48 for vehicles.

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll check them all out. I'm putting together Infantry Squad alpha right now; it's a medium-ranged shooty squad that gets an autocannon team for support. In keeping with my armored cav strategy, they'll mount up in a Chimera which I'll use to shield their approach and to tank shock enemy assault troops before they overrun my heavy weapons.


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This Wednesday I'm going to buy some Empire State Troops at my FLGS and arm them with shotguns and some really hard-hitting assault weapons. They'll be one of those Lancer Troops(counts-as-Veterans) I mentioned earlier. Being the best of my army, it's only fitting that they get puffy shirts and feathery hats; the breastplates will also be great WYSIWYG insurance for carapace armour once I add some nice, heavy-looking shoulders.


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Picture time! I've painted up this Grenadier as a test for my colour scheme. Let me know what you think!

Also, here's a WIP lascannon team. Note that they're sheltering behind some track bits and road wheels in keeping with my junkyard theme, and I replaced the ammo feed with something I thought looked cooler.

Cool.

http://shop.ramshacklegames.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=6&products_id=1

I'm going to use the extra weapons from my Heavy Weapons Sprue with these; they'll act as Sentinels. I'm also debating using motorbikes as Rough Riders. I'm not sure how much tactical use they'd have but it would be a fun conversion and I'll have spears left over from my Empire State Troops set.

That new ammo feed looks awesome, great job!