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I currently just play with a Space Marine army (Imperial Fist, gotta love bolter spam) and have recently toyed with the idea of starting a new army. As such, the IG came to mind, but I wanted to do something unique, so the Elysian Drop troops instantly seemed really cool to me, instead of being a chimara line or just a tank wall, I could have a IG army that has deep striking infantry and sentinels. with that in mind I thought that doing a themed army with the theme being WW2 era paratroopers would end up being much cooler than just using the forge world models. My idea is to use the bolt action U.S Airborne models and then just giving them 40k weapons and putting Imperial insignia on them. Something about an Airborne trooper with a Grav chute and las gun just seems so bad ass.

Check out wargames factory US models, you get heaps of them and they are cheap and plastic.

But sounds epic, I love unique guard armies.

Thanks for the advice I will have to check that out, I have already started trying build some of the vehicle's for this army, because whatever I end up doing for my troops I know without a doubt that I am going to want some Imperial Navy Thunderbolts in the list.

Very sensible decision. There are some cool ways to convert rifles into special weapons, and remember guardsmen also use solid round guns so dont feel like you have to buy heaps of lasgun arms

And be sure to post pictures.

Check Warlord Games Bolt Action, but be careful - some models may be thunner with smaller heads than GW guards

So after looking at the Cadian shock troop I figured out what it was I dislike about them. I hate the helmets that they come with, I think that they make them look dumb. That being said I have decided that I will simply do a head swap and do a multicam like paint job, to go for a modern look, I have found the heads to use, with ballistic helmets from Pig iron productions for my infantry platoon, and PIP's Berets for my veteran squads, which I plan on having in Valkyries, so they will get maroon berets as a nod to the fact that they are parachuting in.

Hey _sleepus!

Thought I'd share with you my own WIP IG droptroops, I'm using the Pig Iron ballistic helmet heads, they're really cool and when they were released something just screamed to me 'airborne infantry'!





The legs are from Pig Iron too, the arms and torso are from MaxMini and the shotgun is from Anvil Industries. I've got enough bits to make 2 squads of these guys and so far one Valkyrie built, just need to buy me another one

Oh, and some spare time to devote to them!

Good luck with your paratroops!

Dude, that is awesome, and that is pretty much the look I am going for, A slightly modern, but still 40k army, Its amazing how much better the Cadian model can look with a simple head swap. I also ordered all the paints required to paint my guys up in MultiCam, following this great tutorial http://wfarcadia.blogspot.com/2012/03/painting-multicam-tutorial.html I am very excited for my army to show up so I can start building, But I am close to finishing the initial build for my scratch built thunderbolt, It ain't the prettiest bird in the sky but at least you can tell what it is supposed to be I will have to post some pics so you guys can see.

As you see it is still very much a WIP, but it's coming along nicely, I'm building it with card stock, and when I can reinforcing with cardboard. As you can see from the engine intake I have been getting creative with materials to use for this, lol

Cant wait to see the thunderbolt built. Looking good so far

Keep this army posted Im interested in a similar idea

Thanks Alphabet, Yeah, the thunderbolt is the first scratch build I have done, so its been a learning experience, If you are interested in one yourself the template is made by Patoroch.

A very happy moment for me to finally mount one of the wings, this thing is getting close to needing an epoxy resin treatment then a paint job

Sorry for the erratic posting trying to upload pics from an ipad


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Well here is the completed build now, I am going to apply an epoxy resin to harden the cardstock and cardboard into a plastic like toughness, then paint from there

Your Thunderbolt looks awesome mate!

May have to check that template out myself, how long did it take you to get to that stage?

There is definitely something rather cool about guardsmen with berets, especially maroon ones, makes me think of A Bridge Too Far!

Looking forward to seeing your army take shape, please do post some pics of your guys!

Here is the thunderbolt painted and table ready, still some more aesthetics I want to add, but hey for the price of free! this thunderbolt looks good enough, all in all, from start to finish it was probably 5 to 6 hours of work. Now I have plans on adding more vehicles but this first build is done and I already have ideas on how to do it better if I was to build another thunderbolt in a similar way.

Happy to say that the first veteran squad is getting painted, still waiting on some special weapons and their heads, also need to paint the boots with faded kaki but they are looking good

Got the boots painted, and some accessories added, I plan on painting the weapons to match the boots and painting canteens olive drab, and then when the berets arrive I will paint them tan, since this will be a 40k Ranger squad. Still haven't decided if I should give them 3xMeltas or 3xPlasmas

 adeptus_sleepus wrote:
Got the boots painted, and some accessories added, I plan on painting the weapons to match the boots and painting canteens olive drab, and then when the berets arrive I will paint them tan, since this will be a 40k Ranger squad. Still haven't decided if I should give them 3xMeltas or 3xPlasmas

Because they are light infantry I'd go melta, light and less likely to blow up when you hit the ground. More reliable for long periods of time without resupply and so forth. I think melta fluff wise suits paratroopers. But for looks go plasma (id make a compact light version of a plasma just for the cool glowing)

Awesome thunderbolt.

How many many hours did that take you?

What heads are you gonna use for berets? I love seeing IG armys based on real Divisons/Regiments.

Looks like a good start!
Also curious as to which beret heads you went with. Maxmini were the best I could find, no weird facial expressions.
Mad Robot's look to be good as well though, and they have some nice spec op type options.

The thunderbolt took somewhere around 6 hours, and for the heads I ordered the berets from mad robot mini's unfortunately though, I placed the order 5 days ago and looking at the site it looks like they haven't even shipped yet.

Got all my riflemen painted, just waiting for the heads then I will paint the hands as well, now just waiting for special weapons and heads. But hope you guys like it so far

Yay, the heads have arrived which means I'm as happy as a pig iin gak. Now I just need to finish the painting and build the command squad and these guys can be used as allies until the rest of the army is made.

Okay the veterans are finally done and I have the captain painted as well, now I just have the four CCS vets to paint, and that will be it for awhile, it will likely be a month or two till I get more models to add to this force but when I do I'll be sure to update this thread