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Ok, so I'm going for a pre-heresy theme; essentially renaissance europe circa 40'000AD.

Lots of fun ideas, lots of converted units, lots of lovely Vostroyans as Vets. This one will come on slowly, but should flourish into a cool-looking army.
On with the pics!!


Here's the CCS Vets - over time this will become a Plasma-heavy CCS with Astropath - Maybe also a MoO.


Vet Squad One - this will flourish into a MeltaVet Squad in a 'detta.


I just finished GSing this guy. Vet with HF.


Here's a Commisar. Lord knows if I'll actually play him. Odds are I won't. Love his paint though.


Speaking of not getting played; here's my old Ratlings! These guys were awesome last edition. I much prefer these models to the new ones.


Hydra Autocannons? What do you think? I'm going for a fulltrack Gepard look, or more specifically, the British T-55 Marksman. I'm planning on elongating the barrels with plastic pipe, then somehow attaching them to the mount. I'll need to cast those mounts too.


Here's the first Chimera. Due to me gluing in the HB last edition, this will now be used for my PBS, who are still to come.


Penal Legion. These will be a wildcard to confuse my opponent. An outflanking mini-tarpit for 80 points is a winner IMO. Well, if you get the roll... These guys are Cadian Infantry and WHFB Empire Pistolliers. They have more GS since this pic, the Custodians horn looks better than it does here. These guys could be used for a regular Infantry Platoon when I make more...


With any luck these are the guys that brought you here. These models are hellish to paint! I'm not a great painter, and there is sooo much detail on these models, they put GW to shame! As you can see, they share colour with the vehicles, I thought that would be a nice idea.

"Wait, what happened to rest of the stuff from those Pistolliers?"


Here's a sneak peek of my next big project...

Thanks Loken! Yeah I toyed with the idea, and I'm slowly forming some fluff.
The way I see it, regular infantry need to earn the bearskin that marks them out as a Veteran or an officer. So even the infantry sergeants, although decorated with that awesome feather, remain without the bearskin.

The Ogryns and Rough Riders will all have them, marking them as comissioned officers into those specialised divisions.

Thanks infilTRAITOR, good feedback makes me smile.

Yeah the bright tunics are kind of a hallmark of what I wanted to do with this army. Almost Napoleonic in intention.

Updates tonight probably...

OOOOKaaayyy! Finally got an update for you, after 8 months!! :-O

Right, I said it would be slow but there's quite a bit to get through actually. I was recently pledged a big old box of bits that a veteran player wanted rid of. Inside was a bunch of stuff from CSMs to Lizardmen. Interestingly, there's a full squad of Tallarn in there (they'll certainly be enlisted), some assorted Catachan (old metals FTW) and a 32-strong force of 1989 IG plastics!
I love the OOP guard plastics, and they're pretty hard to come by. I'll get them asembled and put up some pics. Not sure whether to run them as infantry or penals though...

Also (no pics yet) I'm working on finishing up the aforementioned veteran's prize conversion; a chimera modified with a MKII Predator turret (the old metal one). It looks sweet man.

Onto the pics then:

First up, the MoO - this guy is the old metal tank commander, with new plastic legs and some empire bits.


Finished Penal Legion:

Not sure if they'll even be used now I have the OOP plastics - any ideas what these could count as?

Modelled the Rough Riders - Lovely green stuff work on these :-S

Does anyone have any bike bases to trade?

Ogryns finished now:



I freaking love these guys. They look wicked as part of the force. I didn't really do the sculpts justice, but they're done now, so I don't care ;-)

Here's a an exciting new addition to the force, my scratchbuilt Inquisitor! Cookie for the first poster to indentify all the bitz.

This guy will be fun to paint, although I'm torn for a paintjob. Do I got for a red and black type colour scheme, or an all-gold type look (a la Daemonhunters cover)

Finished Sergeant Harker:

A nice character to lead a squad of Vostroyan veterans.

Psyker battle Squad WIP:

These are the usual Flagellant/Guard/Pig Iron combos. I started these ages ago, so I can still claim to be original :-)
I wanted to get a Psycho Mantis-type look on these, hence the gasmarks.

And now this guy - it's a shame not to take advantage of the inquisitor's prescence, so this week I've been going mad for Assassins:

He was wicked fun to make, apart from I stabbed my index finger about 5 times in his creation.

So, any comments would be much appreciated, like I said before this is a slow-burning blog but it IS going somewhere!
'Til next time!

@Lenny; thanks dude! I wouldn't go so far as to say I have skills, some of the bashes are pretty sketch, but they get the job done, they were hella fun and I'm looking forward to doing more.

@Ghosty:
Flagellant book, pole and danglies
Ravenwing head (I'll give you that!)
Commander torso
Chaos Knight arms & haft
Chaos Warrior legs
Deathwatch shoulderpad (can't remember which kit it's in)
Commander Shoulderpad (I think)

The bit at the top of the hammer - I actually have no idea what that is! I was hoping someone would tell me!

As promised:

Wow, thanks for the great feedback guys! Inspired by the positive attitude engendered by Dakka, I went home and snapped my WIP chimera conversion. This is the second Chimera for the army, and will probably hold the O.G.R.Y.Ns, (need to think of a good acronym there). The kit I was gifted was really nicely converted to take a MKII Predator turret, which looks boss on here.
Out of respect for the guy who made it, I promised I'd leave it as an autocannon Chimera (even though there are no rules for that any more, outside of Apoc) and mod it up. So I glued all the hull together, added tracks, stowage, armour skirts, fuel cans and the camo netting (it was basically just the hull he provided). I sawed off the HB in the hull, as I intend to install a Catachan-style HF in there instead. He didn't have the hatches for the back so I cut up some truckplate plasticard and added a rack for fuel cans and ammo boxes - I think it came out well.





As for the painting, you can see the grey undercoat through the netting only in the photos! It doesn't show at all IRL, so I don't think I'll be going back and fixing it. As I took these last night with my mobile quickly, the lighting is all off. Once I pilfer my GFs SLR I'll take some good shots in natural light.





I have now located an unused Chimera cupola ring which is in place - I'll be painting it up tonight and calling this done. I'm at a stag do this weekend so little chance to get any more work done, but maybe I'll get some shots of the assembled OOP guard plastics, purely as they're sweet!



As usual, there are more images in my gallery than in the posts, so head on over if you fancy it.

Thanks for the comments guys!

@Loofacop: They're APEs from the game Incursion.

http://www.incursiongame.com/products/grunt-ape-1
http://www.westwindproductions.co.uk/catalog/index.php?cPath=188_189

Don't sweat it; I get asked a lot about them.
BTW, how big is your sig man?

So, acronyns for the OGRYNS - How about Overt GRound INtrusion units? That's the best I can do right now. It's OGRIN but that's ok I guess. Can anyone do any better?

Thanks for the comments guys - I'm still thinking about the acronyms!
So after a rather disappointing stag do this weekend, and a few sleepless nights I've got a couple of updates pendsing, but no pics as I'm at work. I've stolen an idea to make my chimeras look a bit more APC-ish, a bit like an M113 or something.

In regards to the question about how am I going to make them look pre-heresy; I'm not really going for a full-on PH look, I'm just using it as a waymarker to go out and get a rennaissance look to my guard. Hence the amount of vossies and empire parts.

I haven't read the BoLS article, I'll go over there and have a look. Cheers.

Howdy y'all, how about an update? I have completely forgotten to photograph my Chimeras, but here's some progress on my "command pattern" Hydra. I've already done one Hydra, and it's ok-looking. Needs work on the paint and it's completely stowage-free atm.

As I'll be running three, I have decided one will act as a command vehicle for the other two in the squadron. I think that will look nice on the field and this theme will run through my other vehicles (which will include Griffons, Hellhounds and Sentinels to name a few) as time goes by.





As you can see, it's an Old Crow turret and 50mm barrels, mounted in Predator Lascannon breeches. Chimera chassis and a scratchbuilt plasticard extension.



I've got a SM cupola mount to make this particular tank stand out as the command vehicle, as well as equipping dual smoke launchers and the decorative skull chains. It's not Chaos, it's pre-heresy!



I'm really proud of the fine plastic rod work, I was actually beaming whilst showing this to the Mrs on Sunday. Needless to say, she didn't share my enthusiasm.
I'm thinking of mounting one of those little Rhino radar dishes somewhere on here, any ideas where, if at all. Or should I not bother?

I'm painting her now, whilst watching Steamboy (The Long-haired General is out with her mates tonight so the living room in mine!), perhaps I'll update before the end of the night.

Boo-yah Stoat!! Very few people recognise or even remember the Manta Force! You're in fact the second person to recognise it, the other was a guy here IRL, as it were.

I've got quite a little collection actually. It seems over time I'm becoming quite the toy collector, with my Manta Force, Ring Raiders, Monster in my Pocket, Transformers and Zoids collections!

Oh dear I think I might be tragically sad... :(

Flinty wrote:Holy crap that looks familiar

The old crow turrets are deliciously appropriate, though. Regarding the placement of radar, I was checking out some Gepard images recently and they all seem to have a big tracking radar at the rear of the turret, as well as the targetting radar at the front. The Old Crow turret seems to match the Gepard pretty closely as well.

As Imperial Army will you also be re-introducing jet bikes and full jump pack Assault squads?

Cheers Flinty! Yeah, as always, 95% of my ideas are lovingly borrowed from other Dakka members
You're bang on with the Gepard radar dishes. I bought a 1/35 Gepard last year believe it or not, but didn't use anything from it. I've kept the whole kit, including the massive radar dish. I have condidered mounting it on the back of the turret, but a) it won't allow convenient clearance from the weapon mounts and b) it looks reeaally unwieldy.

Speaking of stolen ideas, I think I came up with a nice new idea the other day. I'm considering getting hold of some Victrix and Perry Bros 28mm napoleonics, and bashing them with the new Wargames Factory greatcoat guard, to create a cheaper alternative to metal Vostroyans.

At the very least, I can use the napoleonics (with a little converting) to represent gunline Infantry Platoons. You can get something like 60 figures for £20. That's a winner in my book. As well as the affordable Greatcoats from WF, which will easily convert to Vossies IMO.
Napoleon's Old Guard wore longcoats and bearskins, which is perfectly suited to my army. It's a shame they're proper 28mm truescale. This means they'll look a bit small, but I love the models sooooo much.
I also want to redo my Rough Riders now I've seen this napoleonics, their mounted infantry and cavalry models are super awesome, and really affordable.

I think from this day I will give up buying GW models.

Thanks for reminding me of the Imperial blog dudes! As KK said above (thanks dude), you can't lock down my P&M - she's just on hold for now whilst I work extra hard on my Eldar.

As it happens, there's plenty been done since my last update. Watch this space.