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Ok soooo I'm looking at the codex. And I'm looking under troops where it says veteran squads.... Now, I'm also looking on the GW website. Where are the veteran squads? Or the penal legion squads, etc? Am I supposed to buy basic infantry sets and gather together all the pieces I can to make the specific models needed for them? I may be missing something.... I'm either lost or stupid. Thanks for any help

No models are out for those as of yet. Just do some minor conversions and make the basic Guardsmen look either more badass (not hard, the bar is set pretty low), or look rather depraved. If you have regular Guardsmen in your army too and you need to differentiate then I suggest using the Stormtrooper models.

There aren't any special models nor am I aware of any plans to produce any. Veterans are just ordinary guardsmen with more experience. Conscripts are likewise less experienced. Penal legion take a bit more effort. It's pretty common just to use a different mix of bits or guardsmen from different regiments to differentiate them. My vets are set apart by their bayonets and extra grenades. Catachans in a Cadian army are also pretty common for various purposes. White stripes on the helmet are the classic way to denote conscripts.

Ok sooooo, veterans have all better weapons for the most part though right? So, how would I obtain all the weapons to equip my veterans? Would I really need to buy a bunch of infantry boxes and use those? Then I wouldn't have special weapons for the regular infantry..... Or can I legally go without the physical weapons and just say that someone has a flamer or whatever?

tremulant wrote:Ok sooooo, veterans have all better weapons for the most part though right? So, how would I obtain all the weapons to equip my veterans? Would I really need to buy a bunch of infantry boxes and use those? Then I wouldn't have special weapons for the regular infantry..... Or can I legally go without the physical weapons and just say that someone has a flamer or whatever?

all a veteran is, is a guardsman who can shoot much better than his conscript and regular comrades. GW still sells the metal guardsmen with plasmaguns and meltaguns. and if you buy a box of infantry you should get a bunch of flamers and g-launchers. WYSIWYG rules are best to go by, because its annoying to face someone who says, "oh yeah that guy has a plasmagun, not a lasgun."

All you need to do to make normal IG troopers into veterans is to paint them a different color, or add some accessories, or some other small change. You don't need to do a major conversion.

Like if you have a cadian army why not buy a box of catachans and convert to vets or penal?. My cheap idear that i did


oh and there are alot of gasmask avatars here LOL

Mine are denoted by a different colour stripe on their armour.

HQ's are orange, vets are green, HW are blue.

I also try to group the models with the coolest poses into the vets squads. When I get round to redoing my IG, I will probably convert them to have better gear as well, but that is some time off.

My personal fav. technique for differentiating them is a simple head swap... pig iron heads are pretty cheap if you can find them: about 7 to 9 bucks for a pack of 20. They have cool gasmasks, or even some crazy badland/wasteland looking gasmasks if you are looking for that sort of thing. Everybody in my gaming group thinks they look bomb. That way, you can convert a squad or two to be veterans, and the rest of your normal models are regulars.

For veteran troops I give them a 'non-standard' look, combining extra gear and heads from Catachans for my Cadians and parts from everything not on the Cadian Shock troop sprue- tank driver bits (my voxcaster carries a tanker carbine, my flamer man has a Space Marine pistol) and the Command HQ sprue is basically a big accessory sprue for a troop of IG veterans. Look at old war photos and note how some of the guys look.

How do you guys get all your extra weapons though? Because I'm just starting out with IG and don't have any extra special weapons or anything, and as far as I can see, veteran squads can be full of flamers, melta guns, sniper rifles, plasma guns, etc.

tremulant wrote:How do you guys get all your extra weapons though? Because I'm just starting out with IG and don't have any extra special weapons or anything, and as far as I can see, veteran squads can be full of flamers, melta guns, sniper rifles, plasma guns, etc.

Typically Command Squad boxes have several of each of the weapons in them. Otherwise, there are blister packs of pewter minis that have a melta and a plasma, or a flamer and a plasma. Also check ebay. I ended up getting an old Catachan army off someone with more snipers than anyone should ever want to field. (Which is actually just any amount greater than 0).

Hey, using snipers as ratlings is a fine way to use snipers, IMO. A full-strength squad of them costs only 100 points, and can put out a lot of sniper/rending shots down. I have figured out that sniper rifles with the rending rule can be quasi-effective against vehicles up to AV 3 + 6 + D3 = (12). This puts transports in danger. Putting a squad of these on a dominating terrain feature can stop a lot of mechanized armies cold, or at least make them cautious.

Snipers are easy to make. Just take your regular lasgun, cut the muzzle so that it is vertical instead of slanted, and find an appropriate-diameter cylinder to glue onto the end of it as a suppressor. Adding a targeter from other bits is also a nice touch, but I don't find it absolutely neccessary. Then using some gauze bandage and white glue makes a fine ghillie cloak. Presto! Sniper.

Yes, tremulant, you will quickly find there is a vast shortage of meltas. That is because they are arguably the best option to take, and yet you never get enough out of boxed sets.

There are no Vet squad boxes yet as was stated. Gives you a chance to Kitbash and GS the otherwise uniform and repetative Guard minis. Extra weapons can be taken from any Imperial Sprue really - Cadian & Catachan sprues are great for it. SM Scout Sprues can be bought with Bolters, Shotguns, or Sniper Rifles. And you can always bitz order weapon sprues through GW or (Better yet) many of the less-expensive Bitz order sites like Maelstrom

Awesome thanks for the help guys Time to start my IG army

It's always time to start an IG army.

(I don't know why, I just had the urge to put that out)