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If you have been following the poll I posted a couple of days ago in the "Discussions" forum you will by now know that I am jumping on the Imperial Guard bandwagon. Like many long time gamers, I have been siting on loads of unpainted and partially painted miniatures for years. Among these was a lot of about 125 or so of the Rogue Trader Imperial Guard figures in both lead and plastic and a goodly number of figures from "Imperial Army" range that predates the actual "IG" line. Combined with a handful of newer figures, vehicle models, and figures from other lines I intend on creating am IG army that will stand out in today's 40k enviorment.

Anyway, the theme of this amy will be "Company 'F' of the 9th Necromunda Regiment". Old timers will recall this as being the unit featured on the original IG plastic box set as well as in the "how to" paint section fetaured in the 1989 40k White Dwarf Compendium. (the so-called "Red Book") I intend on replicating the overall "feel" of this iconic look, with but a few of my own updates.

Last night I dug through the garage and sorted out the raw materials for this project. The result is that I no have sitting on my painting station over 125 unpianted, partially painted, and figures sporting ugly old paint jobs. This is the end result of about 20 years of slowly picking up IG figures from various sources and several "false starts" over the years and units painted for other, now defunct, armies.
Here is a shot of the untouched mob on my insanely cluttered painting station:

The grey painted figures in the foreground are the result of one of these "false starts" and are partialy painted test figures of what I want the army to look like. (note that sharp eyed readers are going to spot quite alot of other OOP figures on this table despite the poor photography!)

Here is a group shot of the starting condition of some of these figures. I have alot of work in the form of stripping ahead of me!


Here is a better (well sort of..I'm no photographer) set of shots of one of these partially done test figures:


As you can see, the overall look I'm going for here is almost 100% in keeping with the original canon paintjobs. That is to say codex grey uniform with khaki colored spats and pockets, brown leather web gear, and insignia apropriate to the period. The only real change I'm making is the helmet. The orginal figures has a silver helmet with a colored stripe. I've never cared for this and have instead substituted a dark green base coat for the model's headgear. It does make a figure with an over-all dark look seem even darker though. Anyonehave any better sugestions?

Now here is something you don't se every day....original 40k Imperial beastmen!

I've got a good number of these and plan on working them into the army as a penal legion. This will fit into the original fluff quite nicely.

Finally I'll close with a blast from my past. Here are some photos of the very first 40k miniature I ever painted back in the closing months of 1989! This commisar figure is untouched from his original condition although he has alot of handling wear on his as i had not discovered vanish yet.


I may or may not strip this guy down and include him in my current army.
Yes, yes that is indeed a Nazi armband on the commisar. What can I say? It looked right at the time and I was little more than a kid with questionable judgement . But to be totally fair people were less likely to express faux outrage at out of place iconography back in those pre-PC days than they are now. I don't recall ever getting any negative feedback about this. When and if I repaint this guy and include him in my army I may very well include a red armband on him for nostalgia's sake, but will not include an actual swastika. I'll probably replace it with an imperial eagle or lightning bolt. Once again, your feedback is apreciated.

Well, there you have it. Day one of Trenchie's ongoing retro Imperial Guard project!
Check back to see how this is coming along.

TR

Mmm, classic. Those plasmaguns give me a happy tingly feeling inside.

Those miniatures are almost as old as I am. Yet still infinitely cooler...

I had a copy of that commissar miniature, no idea where he went though. ;(

Mellon wrote:Mmm, classic. Those plasmaguns give me a happy tingly feeling inside.

The Space ork ones that make up the majority, or the Eldar ones I used to fill out the gaps?

Ok, on to a quick update....

I just sprayed the first two tactical squads of ten guys down with a coat of satin polyeurethene. They should be dry enough to flock either late tonight or in the morning. I was able to quickly complete those first two units because I decided that the test paint scheme was a good base for the army and just did the final touch ups on those. After that, all I had to do was paint up four more to flesh out the second unit.

I'll post photos and a write up on the first units tommorrow or the next day.

Finally, let me say a few things about my painting style. My style is not designed to create high qaulity display pieces. It is instead meant to produce large numbers of decent looking figures that are designed to be viewed as a unit. I'm never going to win any Golden Daemon awards, although I routinely win "best painted" awards at historical tournies and generally get high marks for painting in GW themed events.
My basic style is typical of that used by wargamers in the '80s and is often refered to a "toy soldier" painting style. It was tought to me circa 1991 by a mentor in my hisotircal community. It's fallen out of favor these days, but it still works for me. I most often paint over a black undercoat (as you can see in my photos) and start with basic block painting. After this is done I do an over-all light drybrush of off white over the entire figure. This is much quicker than individually highlighting each color. Finally, I end the process by shading using a drafting pen. I simply draw in the lines between colors, in the folds, ect. (you used to see this method advocated in WD articles during the early RT days) It produces a figure that is very stark and exagerated when viewed up close, but at normal gaming distances, it looks pretty good. Most importantly, it's fast....very fast. Not counting priming and assembling, I can usually finish a batch of six 28mm figures up to the varnishing stage within an hour to an hour and a half.

TR

All of them ;-)

You still haven't painted that Marauder Giant?

That's it, I'm coming down there and "liberating" it.

Wait, you're a gun nut...

Nevermind!

You still haven't painted that Marauder Giant?

*looks at the coal black Marauder giant on his table*
Nope.

But you REAAALLLY want to go there?

TR

I never got the marauder war giant I got the goblin war giant we called him tiny man I miss that fig.

Hullo again everyone!
As promised (if two days late) , here is an update with a finished unit. These two photos depict the first finished IG infantry squad.

and....


As you can see, this unit consists of four of the original IG plastics, four of the metal miniatures from the IG line (some with plastic arms), and two figures from the original "Imperial Army" range. It's got one SGt, a heavy bolter, a grenade laucher, and seven ordinary troopies. I've kept pretty close to the original canon paint scheme with a couple of exceptions. First off is the change of the helmet from silver to dark green as outlined above. The other big change is although I kept the original stripe down the middle of the helmet, I've dropped the squad type markings that these early IG figures sported. I tried a test figure out and came to the conclusion that it really did not add much to the over-all look of the figure. I'm also going to refrain from painting any gang colors on the body armour or the tatoos/war paint that the source material includes. I simply do not like the look of that, and want a force with a little more of a professional look than that.

This is the first completed unit, but I have one other that has been completeed to this stage. I have another infantry squad that has been completely painted, but has not been varnished or flocked and yet another that I have just started on. This will complete the first platoon of the company....at least for troops. I'm going to hold off on painting the command section until I decide how I want to configure it. I'll post more photos of some of the completed figures later in the week.

I'm considering painting up the second platoon in the striped camo pattern uniforms that many of the early IG figures that I'm trying to emulate sported. What do you lot think of that?

Anyway, thanks for looking. I'm pretty pleased as to how this is turning out. Watch this space for updates very soon.

TR