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When I first started painting armies some years back, I was contacted to paint up a few old-school Praetorian Imperial Guard.

I played Imperial guard back when the Praetorians were first released (originally meant in the limited edition box set). I'm also a big fan of the film Zulu! that inspired them (Michael Caine is always good).

So I was excited. I figured I wouldn't get a lot of chances to paint Praetorians again, since they were no longer being made, and they weren't ever produced as a regular line of imperial guardsmen.

Somehow, I was very wrong. He has expanded his force many times, with more classic out-of-print minis than I thought I'd ever end up seeing.



Now, I like me some close ups, and I did put a warning about this thread being pic heavy, so:

Fantastic army, great color scheme and conversions. Thanks for sharing!

I love it!!! They look so British Expeditionary Army.

They look fantastic!

awesome

Love me some Praetorians. Absolutely gorgeous army, I'm sure it'll look great on the tabletop.

Just fantastic. Wonderful to see such a large army painted to such a high standard (the freehand artwork on the tanks is especially good)

Extra awesomeness that it's such an unusual and rare collection as well.

Any chance of some more photos?

odinsgrandson, do you have any shots of the female artillery loaders?

This is fantastic!

Love your freehand work!

Looks great, I'm always a fan of the classic guard models.

Any way we could get a few more pics of that warhound? It looks just like the epic one, but a lot bigger.

Armorcast I believe. Awesome stuff.

Really amazing looking army, nice work.

Beautiful stuff! It'd be great to own an army like this,

 Turalon wrote:


Any way we could get a few more pics of that warhound? It looks just like the epic one, but a lot bigger.

Llamahead is correct, it is an Armorcast Warhound titan.

More pictures of the titan can be found on my army blog: http://praetorian77th.blogspot.com/2012/06/well-another-post-in-just-over-month-i.html

That is a beautiful army, and very impressive. I love the tanks. The colors, weathering and free hand work is truly stunning!

Really beautiful army.

Thanks for sharing.

D

Fantastic

Gordy2000 wrote:Just fantastic. Wonderful to see such a large army painted to such a high standard (the freehand artwork on the tanks is especially good)

Extra awesomeness that it's such an unusual and rare collection as well.

Any chance of some more photos?

Well, yes.

When we first started them up, I insisted that we photograph all of them (I'm a fan of Praetorians, and back then, I was sure I wasn't going to see a thousand of them, you know?)

It turns out I've got something over eighty images from this force. Here's a few more. Sometime soon, I'll have a gallery with all of them together.

DarkTraveler777 wrote:odinsgrandson, do you have any shots of the female artillery loaders?

I looked around, but I couldn't find any pics of them. I wonder what happened there.

Turalon wrote:Looks great, I'm always a fan of the classic guard models.

Any way we could get a few more pics of that warhound? It looks just like the epic one, but a lot bigger.

I love this army! Fantastic models.

I know that rifle arms are Victorian bits, but who did you buy heads, torsos and legs?


http://www.gardenninja.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/imperial-guard/praetorians-1.jpg?i=613926

Awesome Army!!!! Great classic IG force, and that armor cast titan is awesome!

 Lone Cat wrote:
I know that rifle arms are Victorian bits, but who did you buy heads, torsos and legs?


http://www.gardenninja.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/imperial-guard/praetorians-1.jpg?i=613926

My client sent them to me, but I thought they were all Victoria minis.

I love me some praetorians!

makes me kind of wish someone made sci fi/pulp sci fi conversion kits for the multiple zulu war (and soon afghan war) plastic sets. The current conversion options is more for 40k scale.

I always forget how friggjn awesome the old warhound is. Somebody needs to get on recasting that guy!

 LeCacty wrote:
I always forget how friggjn awesome the old warhound is. Somebody needs to get on recasting that guy!

Now, to be fair:

1- I'm pretty sure some people are re-casting this guy- but, you know, not legally or anything. I just don't think that all of the warhounds on ebay are legit, you know? But there's pretty much no way to tell with any particular seller.

2- The old Warhound has a strange style to him and it is a trick to make him match your army.

Armorcast basically just sized up the epic scale minis, so this warhound has absolutely massive rivets on him, and it a little sparse for the small details we expect to see. Painting him, it is pretty easy to end up with a sort of "action figure" look (or at least, he looks like a different scale from the army).

I knew that problem going in, and I off-set the large details on the mini by adding smaller details with my painting- mostly the chipping of the paint is very fine and gives you a different sense of scale from the giant rivets. Also, covering those huge planes all over him with murals and freehand that matches the scale of the freehand on the tanks does help.

 odinsgrandson wrote:


1- I'm pretty sure some people are re-casting this guy- but, you know, not legally or anything. I just don't think that all of the warhounds on ebay are legit, you know? But there's pretty much no way to tell with any particular seller.

2- The old Warhound has a strange style to him and it is a trick to make him match your army.

Armorcast basically just sized up the epic scale minis, so this warhound has absolutely massive rivets on him, and it a little sparse for the small details we expect to see. Painting him, it is pretty easy to end up with a sort of "action figure" look (or at least, he looks like a different scale from the army).

due to the combination of demand and low detail, it's safe to assume that more of the "used" warhounds floating around are dupes than legit.

I've heard fairly reliable rumors that even having a box isn't a guarantee. The story goes that the old Armorcast guys bought a ton of extra boxes and labels prior to losing the license, and have a stash they dribble out into the market pretty regularly.

Yeah, I think that's the case. I'd suspect that if any ebay seller has sold more than one, he's probably making casts.

But there's really no way to tell with any given mini (and remember- the old Armorcast minis are legit to be played at official GW events).

As for this Warhound- if he was fake, he was a good cast with the same color/type of resin I saw back in the day. I've seen a number of other Armorcast stuff cross my table, and at least once I thought "man, this is such a bad cast that needs a decent amount of work- it is probably a fake."

Awesome job mate, love the scotts guard conversion and the rough riders.

Thanks- I was super happy to see those kilts as well. I think they add a nice touch.