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To be clear, I haven't seen the models much. But I have seen concept art for them, and they look a million times better than today's plastic cadians. The cadians I'm talking about, in case you were wondering, are these guys.



Am I the only one who likes this look better? It looks more what an actual soldier would wear, unlike the basic overalls and a cardboard box that the current Cadians wear. Why did GW decide to change it? Everything from the fatigues, to the roman esque armor plates they wear on their shoulders looks far and away better, at least to me.

Were the old metal cadians that had this look any good? I would trade for them or buy them in a heartbeat if they're even halfway as good as that picture. I've never seen them for sale though, so I'd imagine they're pretty rare. If I can find them, are they worth getting if I can get a decent price? I may not be able to replace all my plastic cadians with them, but I'd like to at least have a platoon's worth of them to play with.

I see your point, and if you search for '3rd edition Cadians' a DakkaDakka thread should pop up first and it displays a guy's painted 3rd. ed. cadians. They look very much like the picture you've shown, except for color scheme. The poses look more modern-esque what with the hand up for 'halt' and grenades, the roman shoulderpads and rolled up sleeves complete with watches. Take a look: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/468429.page

TBH I think the current Cadians do their job perfectly well. They're the boring army that everyone is compared to, without them how would you know how much more awesome your DKoK are? It's kind of unfortunate that some people actually buy the models but hey, at least they're not buying Catachans, right?

How expanded was the line? Was it just like the steel legion and other forces, where you had like 1 type of infantry squad to choose from, a few sarges, a couple of heavy weapons, the special weapons, and that was it?

I have seen some really nice Cadians though, also they are fun to convert. Should I feel ashamed because I got half a platoon of Catachans

Eh, to be honest I really don't care for the old models at all. Theyre weirdly proportioned and boringly posed.
The new assault rifle style lasguns are way cooler than the weird old ones.
The shoulderpads look good in the concept art, but the models theyre really oversized.
New models have functional body armour (if blocky, but thats sortof the IG aesthetic) and armoured shins/spats to tie it together better. Old models just have the shoulders, no body armour.
The old helmets do look a bit better than the new ones, I've give them that. New helmets are really big and bulky (but look cool in the art!), so thank god for easy headswaps.





If you like the roman armour idea, maybe take a look at some roman infantry minis for torso conversions? Warlord games has a really good range for pretty cheap.
http://www.warlordgames.com/us-store/hail-caesar.html

That plasma gun pose is pretty cool. Really surprised by the amount of detail they have though, especially for being such old minis. The space marines from that era always looked terrible. These guys have pretty good detail from the looks of it, especially on the face.

Lack of poses bugs me, but I'd definitely buy at least 2 squads worth even with the limited poses. They'd make really cool looking vet squads I bet.

First off, that has got to be one of my favourite guard pictures. It reminds me of a batrep between guard and night lords, its still one of the best I have ever read.

This is how they looked (different paint scheme)

They aren't as awesome as that image, but they were kinda cool models. And they had the coolest freaking sergeant/officer model, this fat dude with a shotgun

Edit: Look, I'm fine being ninja'd, but I'm not OK with being ninja'd WITH THE SAME PICTURE. dammit

lol I remember seeing a friend's old marines from way back when the plastic was weird. I remember seeing my Guardsmen tower over them, ha they were so short.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
That plasma gun pose is pretty cool. Really surprised by the amount of detail they have though, especially for being such old minis. The space marines from that era always looked terrible. These guys have pretty good detail from the looks of it, especially on the face.

Lack of poses bugs me, but I'd definitely buy at least 2 squads worth even with the limited poses. They'd make really cool looking vet squads I bet.

The details on the old Guard were really good. They're almost entirely sculpted by the Perry bros, and their attention to detail really shows on the old Cadians, Catachans, Valhallans, Mordians, Praetorians, and Steel Legion. The reason Marines from that era don't look as good is because they were stuck in a lot of really rigid poses. These one-piece models let them get away with a bit more than the early monopose plastics.

I dig the old Cadians, but I like the modern ones a lot too. Then again, I even like the Catachan infantry squad models (as opposed to their command/HWS models, which are excellent) so maybe I'm just really forgiving with IG figs.

^ I agree, but what do the old Catachans look like? (any differences?)

They're just better sculpted metal minis for the most part. The ones we have now are an experiment in multipart plastic kits with a variety of posing options. They're one of the first of their kind for 40k, but their detail and posing aren't as good as the metal ones.

I agree; the metal ones are fantastic but monoposed. I ordered a grand total of two Valhallans today for a Red Alert 3 Soviet army. (comms officer and sergeant)

MrMoustaffa wrote:To be clear, I haven't seen the models much. But I have seen concept art for them

That's your problem. Compare the picture you just put up with the cover art from the 4th ed guard book, and they don't look so bad:



Secondly, those old cadians look nice because you're looking at tiny pictures of them. I've seen them up close, and, regardless of design, the sculpt quality isn't great on them (as you wouldn't expect, as they had over a decade less experience). But you also should look beyond just the guys with lasguns. A lot of the other models are better too.

I mean, here is what a cadian officer used to look like:



And here's what he looks like now:



As for the troopers, I agree that the bubble helmets are a little bit silly, but at least the current cadians actually look like they're wearing armor. Armor goes from 2+ to 7+ (nothing). A guy in a flak vets should look like he's in the middle of the armor range, not like he's hoping on his suspenders to block incoming fire...

eh, still not a fan of their helmets or their shoulderpads (the new ones) however, their chest armor looks great there. my problem is that it literally looks just like a set of football shoulderpads with a beefed up chest piece. however, I will admit that that was one of my favorite pictures of IG when i was starting out, and really made me want to play them.

I kinda wish I could take the cadian chest armor and mix it with the "roman" styled shoulder armor and the original helmets. I think those would make for some awesome looking guardsmen. Who knows, it may be easier than I think. Would I be able to use greenstuff to get the basic shape? Aside from the eagle, they dont look like it'd be that hard, even for a guy who's never sculpted before like me.

Also, if anyone has some of the old metal cadians they're wanting to get rid of, pm me and maybe we can work out a trade/sale. I still really want a squad or two, if only for the cool factor. If I find out more about these guys i'll probably set up a post on the swap shop.

MrMoustaffa, if you go on the US Ebay and type "oop imperial guard cadian" you could buy some guardsmen relatively cheaply, well when I say cheap it's usually $2.00 per figure but depending on the seller there may be combined shipping.

(sorry if I'm not allowed to do this)

Sir Bushwookie

I will have to get my pics of the old metal catachans up here. I do prefere the old metal over the plastic catachan kit. That may be why I have only a couple plastics in my three vets squads.

The current Cadian helmets make me think of the troopers in Spaceballs. My only real complaint with the current plastic kits is that they don't have the shoulder pads separate (like the vehicle sprues figs). I would've liked the option to have made guys without them to better differentiate vets and normal's or carapace and flak.

Cadians in general are very boring. They have none of the 40K personality that oozes from models like DKoK or the Vostroyans.

 Kaldor wrote:
Cadians in general are very boring. They have none of the 40K personality that oozes from models like DKoK or the Vostroyans.

They exist as a counterpoint to that stuff. When everything's gothic and baroque, nothing is. When you've got guys who are pretty much average dudes in flak armor, they make everything else look that much more interesting.

Also, since nobody's posted pictures of them yet:

The old Catachan and Cadian sculpts, though limited, were MUCH better in terms of detail and realism.

The most important thing, though, is that they were the right size! When stood next to a Marine, they looked like normal human height - when they switched to plastic, they made them as tall as Space Marines...!!

I just want to say I completely agree with ArbitorIan.
My own collection is comprised entirely of those old metal Cadians. Ive got about 200 of them. I also still prefer the look although perhaps the proportions are a bit less realistic ("Hero scale?").
As has been mentioned by some people, I think the helmets are a much better shape. And I even like the flak jackets over the armour plates (personal preference). There may be slightly less detail but I think these models have aged very well. Its only a shame that the metal makes them hard to convert, so some special weapons are missing, and as has been metioned too, there arent all that many poses.

I remember back then, when I was still a lad, that there was a lot of excitement around the time when they were talking about "finally" producing plastic figures for the Cadians. At around that time, the Catachans had already been out for a few years already, and I think that part of the reason that they stalled the Cadians so long was so that they could release them for the big Eye of Terror campaign of 2003.
In any case, as a Cadian player I was excited to say the least. However, sadly when they finally did come out I remember my feeling of downright dissapointment at the complete change that had been made in their aesthetic. They were so completely different to the old ones, that they were simply not compatible. They looked a completely different regiment. One from a low gravity world as they were also about 20% taller. In fact they are so much taller, they are the same height as Marines ("size creep?").. It was a shame because, the Catachans were much closer to the original metal ones, so it was unexpected.

Love me old Cadians.. even the fat lieutenant!

Maybe i'm just easy to please, but I like the Cadian models. For me, an IG army (no matter which division of IG) is all about its uniformity. A fully painted Cadian army (like mine) still looks impressive when it's fielded on the table. It might be vanilla, but as a whole it still looks good IMHO.

Yeah my store has one of the fat lieutenants in a display case, and I really wish I could get him. He kind of embodies that era's style pretty well I thought. Yeah, they looked a little silly and may have had some wierd poses, but they've got a lot more personality to them, which may be why I'm drawn to them.

I started IG because the idea that each and every one of those guys was an average joe was really inspiring. Every one of those soldiers was different, unique. Even though they were getting thrown into the meat grinder, they were still people. These old figs have that feeling to them, where each guy has his own distinct look and "personality". The newer Cadians may as well have closed helmets, because they just come across as faceless masses to me. They look great with headswaps, especially when you do stuff like what Ailaros does. But with the stock cadian heads they all look the same. They become a faceless mass of mooks, just like the bloody space marines I swore I'd never play. /rant

So maybe that's what i need to do. Convert an entire IG army, and do them in the style of the old cadians. It means I'll be stripping and tearing apart roughly 150 guardsmen, but it'll be worth it... I hope. In the meantime, I can hunt down a couple metal squads to use as references and figure out how I'll do this. Anybody know a good site with tutorials on greenstuff? I'm definitely going to use it to make the shoulder armor. May even try to make a few custom heads, capes, and other gear down the road as well.

I personally prefer the new Cadians over the older metal ones by a long shot.

To me the Cadian helmets don't look like bucket helmets... they remind of me of a mix of WW2 helmets and modern kevlar helmets.

I seem to be one of the few who prefers the new style here though haha.

I really like the old cadians, but I dont dislike the new ones. Just different.

To bad they dont put pout the old ones in plastic.

Old Cadians vs. Orks (2nd Edition) was the first battlereport I ever read.

And I still love the battlereport where they were used as PDF of Ultramar against Tyranids.

Well, awesome, a guy at my store has a few that I'll be buying this weekend, and I can use them to get an idea of what I'll need to do with my "regular" cadians to match them. Really looking forward to this. Always wanted to convert my guard army, and never really found a theme I liked until I saw these guys.

I guess from here it can just be a "nostalgia about awesome old metal guardsmen and why plastic cadians suck" thread

MrMoustaffa wrote:Every one of those soldiers was different, unique. Even though they were getting thrown into the meat grinder, they were still people.

Well, you could always shave down the helmets and GS on hair like I do

MrMoustaffa wrote:I kinda wish I could take the cadian chest armor and mix it with the "roman" styled shoulder armor and the original helmets. I think those would make for some awesome looking guardsmen. Who knows, it may be easier than I think. Would I be able to use greenstuff to get the basic shape?

I might actually look to plasticard tubing. If you get some really wide diameter tubing (say, 1", or something) of a really thin thickness, you'd be able to cut off a thin circle and then chop it into a dozen pieces. The end result would be a bunch of strips of gently curving plasticard that you could glue down onto the shoulder and then just use GS to fill in the cracks.

Honesly, this is probably how GW did it in the first place.

 Ailaros wrote:

MrMoustaffa wrote:Every one of those soldiers was different, unique. Even though they were getting thrown into the meat grinder, they were still people.

Well, you could always shave down the helmets and GS on hair like I do

My god, that must be the most taxing way to test one's patience ever.

Then again, we play footguard. That's a test of patience like no other

Nice idea with the tubing. I'll have to look into that. I'm considering using victoria mini's "lasgun" arms as they capture that older lasgun vibe (http://victoriaminiatures.highwire.com/products/arms-1?pagesize=12 ), but am still stuck on whether I'll use Cadian torso's (for the 50% minimum GW) or if I'll just saw screw it and go all out 3rd party. If so, I'm thinking of using these torsos, as they seem to resemble the original cadians somewhat, but it's a bit of a stretch. ( http://victoriaminiatures.highwire.com/product/3-victorian-torsos )

No idea what I'll do for the helmets though. They're very distinctive, and I've never seen any like them. That will probably be the hardest part to track down of them all. I guess I can do a bunch of bare headed and patrol cap ones in the meantime at least.

 Brother SRM wrote:

 Kaldor wrote:
Cadians in general are very boring. They have none of the 40K personality that oozes from models like DKoK or the Vostroyans.

They exist as a counterpoint to that stuff. When everything's gothic and baroque, nothing is. When you've got guys who are pretty much average dudes in flak armor, they make everything else look that much more interesting.

Also, since nobody's posted pictures of them yet:

Spoiler:

If I ever did a Guard army, I'd do Catachan using the old metals. Those are some seriously good Arnie wannabes. The plastic platoon and heavy weapon squad kits are abysmal. Granted, it's because of their age, but still. The plastic command squad, and the recent metals, are up with the old metals as well, so they'd get used. but those old metal Catachan aged really well.

The great thing about the old Catachans as well is there are enough Lasgun guys that you can do a full squad, with heavy weapon and special weapon and sergeant, with only 1 repeat lasgun guy.