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Hi Dakkanauts, welcome to my Imperial Guard project on the Holy Terra Special Operations Company.

The Holy Terra Special Operations Company is an elite mixed arms formation based on Holy Terra. The company is called upon for various duties across the Imperium, although its primary objective remains unclear. The main command element is normally assigned directly from institutions within the Commissariat, although talented individuals from other areas have been known to hold high level positions within the organisation. The top post is held by Commissar-General, Holy Terra Special Operations Command.

The Commissar-General often reports directly to the High Lords of Terra and receives regular assignments from many departments, but shows no particular connection with any of the High Lords. Curiously, most assignments come from the Fabricator-General of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Despite all this, the Company maintains a level of independence and power rivaling even the Inquisition.

Due to the often sensitive nature of the missions that the Holy Terra Special Operations Company performs, lower level tactical command is also assigned from the Commissariat. Although the company is manned by a wide assortment of talent gathered from several organisations within the Imperium, the main source of line recruits are handpicked from Schola Progenium throughout the galaxy.

First wave (January 2014)


Second wave (March 2014)

Over the past year or so I’ve been massing all the kits, bits, and modelling supplies needed to complete my IG outfit. It is time to raid the bitz box and finish off this big stack of minis. This blog will document the process of designing, assembling, and painting, of the Holy Terra Special Operations Company – One of the main goals of the project is to be able to swap options in the codex easily. This will allow for a minimization of cost and space, while giving me the maximum possible options on the tabletop. For example, if I have a chimera chassis I wanted to be able to make it be any chimera based vehicle, by simply switching up the guns. In short, I want customization options within and between all chimera class vehicles. I always like to start things off with something tangible, so here is the chassis, with attached multilaser chimera turret. Still quite the wip, as you can tell.



The design is based off of that found in endtransmission’s Malthian IVth blog ; A tutorial is available on page 9. Now, there are multiple weapon options for the turret and hull of the chimera, so I want to be able to include these possibilities as well. I gathered up all the options and planned out how best to magnetize everything. It took a bit of thinking, but after laying everything out, things became clearer.



I obviously wanted to be sure that all of the chimera mounted weapons maintained a consistent polarity facing. Just to be sure that beer and fatigue didn’t mess me up, it is good to have a ‘check’ model. Here, lascannon is the check. Whereas the las sits perpendicular to the magnets, just imagine the multilaser running parallel with them. The hole was about 5mm, so I filled both sides with generous portions of superglue, gathered up the magnet chain and used the lascannon to guide them inside. After 5 seconds, I removed the las in a sideways motion, and the magnets were left correctly inside the swivel piece.



Now it was time to magnetize the weapons themselves. First, a small hole was drilled inside the multilaser. This was a particularly difficult exercise. The drilled bit needed to put the smallest magnet in comfortably was quite hard on the weapon. It wouldn’t be as strong as I wanted with the smallest ones, however. So I just added one extra magnet to the end. It would stick out at first but that can be remedied easily. This time I just attached the magnets to the ones already on the swivel. Next I applied more than a dallop of super glue into the hole in the multilaser. Finally, I slid it onto the waiting magnets.







This week I am working on some other turrets, along with a bunch of other stuff, so stay tuned yeah?

Looks good dude.

Can't wait to see it done!

Reallly like the look, you have going on here.

With the chassis completed, and a little confidence from the chimera build, I tacked the construction a hydra turret. Now, this one had a variety of research and influence as well. I thought on this one for a while. If you are interested you can read up here and here, here, here, and here. The design turned out to be quite a bit easier than I thought. The hydra autocannons are straight from the heavy weapons sprue and the conversion was really fast, easy, and fun I like the simplicity of one with two ammo tubes. Still, the triple ammo chain kind of jumps out at me.

I also started up a team of sentinels. At first I was just going to magnetize the weapons, but I figured it would be nice to magnetize everything for easy transporting. I used three of the new sentinel kits and six of the older ones. When magnetized the older kits are actually really dynamic. Anyway, it was a good exercise. I got to practise with the magnets and play with a little greenstuff.

Also, just wanted to share a little bit I am using as an inspiration for artillery! Be sure to check out the Marine Corps artillery segment, really great performance!

The Holy Terra Special Operations Company is an elite mixed arms formation. The main command element is normally assigned directly from institutions within the Commissariat. The post is known as Colonel Commissar of Special Operations. The company is called upon for various duties across the Imperium, although its primary objective remains unclear. The Colonel Commissar reports directly to the High Lords of Terra. It is rumoured that the company receives regular assignments from many departments. The Master of the Administratum, the Inquisitorial Representative, the Ecclesiarch of the Adeptus Ministorum, the Master of the Astronomican, the Master of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, the Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes , the Grand Master of the Officio Assassinorum, the Lord Commander Militant of the Imperial Guard, the Lord High Admiral of the Imperial Navy all regularly call upon the Holy Terra Special Operations Company to complete a variety of assignments throughout the Imperium . Curiously, most assignments come from the Fabricator-General of the Adeptus Mechanicus, although a particular connection with any of the High Lords remains shrouded in mystery.

Due to the potentially sensitive nature of the missions that the Holy Terra Special Operations Company performs, lower level tactical command is also assigned from the Commissariat. Although the company is manned by a wide assortment of talent gathered from several organisations within the Imperium, the main source of line recruits are handpicked from various Schola Progenium.

I really, really like the commissar models so I wanted to try to include as many as I could. These will be useful for running as officers, veteran sergeants, or even actual commissars. In any case, expect some more from the commissar corps. Also here are the first two veterans with shotguns, still very WIP. I am really trying with greenstuff but it is a little difficult. There are only a few small details to fix up anyway. Plus,I have got a bag of purity seals, grenades, and the like to patch any rough areas that need some more detail. Two squads of these guys coming up, so stay tuned.

looking good so far!!
cant wait to see them painted!
I really like the simpleness of your conversions compared to how good they are

I love the dual plasma wielding commissars.

Can't wait to see them painted.

D

First squad is just about ready for priming. Some of the minis still have quite a bit of detail to fix up but things are well on their way. The squaddie tossing the grenade still needs quite a bit of love. I am thinking of throwing a few grenades, and maybe something else fancy in the belt area, in order to add some detail that has been cut away. I have been testing out some paint schemes and have decided where I want to go with them. That is coming up over the next week.

So I have decided on the paint sheme that I will be using for the Holy Terra Special Operations Company. Here are some WIP shots. Most of the base colours are already laid out but there is still quite a bit of details to start on.

I managed to start a little project that I've been wanting to do for some time: Marbo. I wanted to really separate him from normal guardsmen, so I gave him a bunch of purity seals and extra gear. Ripper pistol is just a cut down grenade launcher from the guardsmen sprue.

I like your Marbo conversion a lot

cool looking army you got going on there man. keep upt he good work and ill follow your progress

 daletron wrote:
I like your Marbo conversion a lot

So much so ha you brought up a thread over a year old???

Thanks guys.

Unfortunately, I have been on assignment for well over a year and unable to work on the project. I'll be back in that area in a couple of weeks to pick things up. Luckily I think I'll be able to take the 40k with me at my next posting.

So finally have a little vacation time. The past year has been crazy hectic with work. The purpose of this update is not show much to showcase painted models, or any new conversions, it is pretty much just for me take it all in and see where I am at with this project. Apologies in advance for the terrible pics. In this transition period I am little pressed for space and an appropriate dedicated hobby area. Its been a while since I have touched anything to do with 40k. Nevertheless I have been thinking about the Holy Terra Special Operations Company quite a bit, and I have had even more time to make more purchases and expand the outfit, despite the huge pile of unfinished minis. I arrived at my mail drop to find this.





The haul was absolutely huge. Over 14 months I managed to snag almost every oop metal mini that I was looking to have for this project except for a few empire mini. So, if on the odd chance you are reading my plog AND have any empire warrior priests or citizens of the empire in metal, send a pm my way! I will pay well, or we could trade for some ig stuff. Just ask and I have probably got something you are interested in. Anyway, I managed to snag hundreds of infantry, blisters, as well as two chimera chassis and five chimera tops.

This is going to be a lot of work to get these guys ready for paint. First things first, it was bath time. I went to the hardware store to grab some superclean, and set it out to do its thing. I left them in for a good six hours, filtered the superclean, and poured it back into its container. There was a lot of stuff to do before, and there is even more to do now. To be totally honest, it is a little overwhelming to see everything all together. At first I was excited, but this is really a ton of stuff. As with any big projects, the easiest thing to do is to break it down into manageable chunks. Today the plan is to wash, unclip, cleanup, and build the rest of the chimeras. Finally, I need to wash, dry, and take stock of all the new infantry to see what can be used for what.

Just wanted to throw a small update up today. Here is the 1st vet squad with shotties with the base colours laid out. I still want to do one more white highlight and add some details on the guns, grenades, and cloth uniform. Plus, I need to spend some more time on the dual plasma pistols sergeant who will get some extra time spent on him.

Finally finished magnetizing the hydra turrets and added a few details. Just need to take out a few mould lines and they are ready for priming. This brings me up to 12 chimera chassis vehicles with 12 chimera turrets, 3 hydra turrets, 3 bassie guns, and 2 hellhound turrets as possible configurations.

I managed to finish the details on the squaddies from the first two squads along with a bunch of extra meltaguns. One of the vet squads is armed with shotties and the other with lasguns. Nearly all of these guys were purchased second hand, and unfortunately some of the imperial aquilas on the helmet and chest armour were worn down quite a bit. Nevertheless I think they came out fine for the tabletop. Next I'm working on a light infantry squad as well as the sergeants for the vets, two command squads, and a bunch advisors.

I wanted to be able to field some flak armour infantry alongside my carapace vets, so a while back I managed to snag a lot of oop guants ghosts and catachan minis. Many of them are running around with short sleeves or no shirts at all, which doesn't really fit my snowy ashwastes theme I have going on with the bases. So, yesterday and today I got my hands dirty with some greenstuff. I haven't really had much experience working with the stuff, but I think SOME of conversions turned out quite well, especially the former gaunts ghosts and last chancers. Laying down their coats and sleeves was a breeze, with the greenstuff almost moving itself into position as soon as I put it down.

Apart from Harker, the Catachans were really difficult. Their arms are just huge, so putting down another layer of greenstuff on top just look odd. I did the best I could with them, but I am thinking about throwing the in the freezer over night, filing down those huge arms of theirs and redoing them. On the other hand, I might just paint them you and see how they look. Anyway, here they are.

I can't wait to see those guys painted up. Looks great man, keep it up.

Thanks Smitty! I appreciate the comment.

So it's been a while since I had the chance to update this plog. Everything was crazy busy over the holidays, going back home for Christmas, and moving into my new house. In all the madness, I seem to have misplaced the charger for my fujifilm camera. Unfortunately I had to take these pics on my Nexus 5, and the preview pics don't look that great in the dakka gallery. Hopefully they look better full size here in the thread. If not, apologies in advance.

These guys have been a wip for a bloody long time. It's really nice to finally see them coming together. There are just very few small details left to top up, as well fixing up the base, and giving them a double coat of gloss and matte varnish. I have to say, these guys were really fun to convert and paint. At some point I'm going to need to write up some fluff for these guys, until then the Commissar General of the company is the dude with both arms outstretched cutting down traitors, heretics, and xenos with his dual plasma pistols. His arms are fully magnetized, so when I have the ambition and the time I'll do up some additional weapons for him to have. The line commissars acting as sarges in the infantry squads also have a magnetized arm, so I can field them with one plasma pistol or two depending on the game. There are several more wip with different loadouts so I can field just about whatever I want to. The advisors are just the stock guys, which I absolutely love. I did up an additional MoO just in case I want to have two. There are also two astropaths. I already had one astropath pretty much done up a while back to test out the colour scheme, but I had an old mystic model lying around, so I decided to paint him up too as a back up.

Finally, I also had a huge bag of servitors to get through, so keeping with the all metal theme of the outfit, I've thrown a bunch of these guys in as well. I did four of them up as heavy weapons servitors sans the heavy weapons for now, which I am still magnetizing and painting up. I also had a metal Chaplain Grimaldus and retinue, so I painted two of the cenobyte servitors up as company standards. The banner is still wip but I'm keeping it fairly simple.







Next, I had been working on a light infantry vet squad to go with the squads of carapace vets. They took a little more thinking about how I was going to do the colour on them. The carapace vets have the white armour, black cloth underneath, simple. The light infantry guys barely have any visible armour. In fact, most of them are totally covered in cloth, so I opted to keep it mostly all white, with back of the cloaks the same bright green as in the command squads. Individually I think they look a little plain, but once totally finished and en masse I think the simple scheme will work nice. I scored a big batch of Tanith ( 5 squads!) so these guys will hopefully fit the theme well.

I also started up the first batch of elites for the company. Three squads of stormies! Keeping with the plasma pistol theme, I converted up the sarges to gunslingers as well. I'll probably do up the stormies and then move onto a few of the vehicles before I hit up any more of the light infantry guys. Pretty much all these guys were obtained second hand, so some were in pretty rough shape. I even had to reattach a bunch of tips for their hell guns, as for some reason the previous owner cut them off. Luckly, I had a bunch leftover when I converted up some shotgun vets!

Finished the first squad of stormies. Good feeling looking at the pic of all the plain metal and seeing what they turn into.

I have to say I love every single dual wielding plasma pistol chaps, they just scream out "I'm a bad ass come at me !"

Can't wait to see more

Looking good so far.

Wolf wrote:I have to say I love every single dual wielding plasma pistol chaps, they just scream out "I'm a bad ass come at me !"

Can't wait to see more

Thanks Wolf! I love plasma pistols from both a game and modelling perspective. I just hope they stay at 10 points each in the new codex!

Warboss_Waaazag wrote:Looking good so far.

Thanks Warboss_Waaazag! I appreciate the support.


Today I got the second squad of stormies finished. Also, I don't think I put up a pic of my inquisitor/officer yet, so there he is!

Cool stuff man, I like the idea !

 ghostmaker wrote:
Cool stuff man, I like the idea !

Thanks ghostmaker!

Finished out the third squad of stormies....err tempustus scions...nah stormies. Also threw up a shot of them all together! Looks like they've really nerfed plasma pistols though, going up to 15 points, and can only take one. Oh well, I still like the look.

Dang can't believe it's April already. I've got a ton of infantry left to finish, including two more squads of carapace vets, six squads of light infantyry, and a ton more stormies. But, I've already got a solid base of infantry done up, so I thought it was about time that I gave the vehicles some love. The first step was to finish up all turrets and weapons that I have lying around in bitz, and get them built and magnetized!

First things first, I laid out everything that I was working with to verify that I had enough magnets and in the correct sizes. I glued down everything that didn't need to move freely or to be magnetized.


Next, I started with the Chimera turrets. The steps for the hellhound turret are similar. First I put a small hole in the swivel bit, and put it into place.


Once in there, I glued down the covering base, and got ready a triangle shapped file to bore the hole out sufficiently to fit the size of magnet that I want in there.


Once bored out, the turret is ready for it's magnets! When they were all read to be glued inside, I filled the gap in the back with greenstuff and set aside to dry.


Next I moved on to the multilaser weapon. I made a small indent in the middle with a hobby knife.


I then took a hobby drill and made the pilot hole.


Finally, I widened it with the triangle shaped file to the sufficient width to fit the size of magnet that I want inside. You may notice in the pic that I left on the little square bit that sticks out the end of the multilaser. This was just to ensure stability while I was drilling through the weapon bit. Once at the stage in the picture, I sliced it off cleanly with a hobby knife. Any extra space at the bottom that is not needed is filled with greenstuff before placing the magnet inside.


Aaand BAM. Everything is ready for the magnets.


All magnetized. Just need to make sure that the guns rest even with their turrets or heavy weapon servitor before the glue and greenstuff dries.


All finished!