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Was just gifted a lot of imperial guard from my brother. a baneblade, stormlord, 3 basilisks, 12 leman russ', and a manticore with assorted infantry as well. So for the past couple days ive been trying to come up with a theme/scheme for this unit. It wont be any sort of a competetive list as i just want to have something that i can have fun with. So i came up with the 85th Punisher reg, and im going to incorporate some of the phenomenal INFINITY models into the unit as stormtroopers/kasrkin and other things. Even wrote a little bit of fluff as to why they would be so different looking from reg IG. *disclaimer, i do not under any circumstances claim to be a good author of any sorts. My grammar is probably poor and i know that i cant stay on topic when i "write" but bear with me, just fleshing this whole thing out*

The air was hot and dusty, always dusty. The hive world of Delrathor was always dusty. It was one of the "features" of the planet, the dust seemed to get everywhere and coupled with the body sweat of the men, quickly became like mud. Colonel-Commisar Dalin Kain stood at the balcony of his designated command post, overlooking the encampment of imperial guard troopers below him. He gazed over the camp without actually paying attention to what he was seeing, in a state of daydreaming. He thought of how things got this way, of how the regiment became what it was today. The 85th Punishers. Thats what the name of the parent host had been when the regiment was founded. Although truth be told, little remained of the parent host, seeing as the planet itself was destroyed just days after muster and shuttling to the massive troop carriers in orbit after pass and review.

It wasn't that moment he was thinking of though, he was thinking of all the different ethnicities in the regiment and how they came to be part of it. A smile crossed the Col. Commisars face as he thought of the jokes other regiment commanders whispered behind his back. "Punishers, HA! More like Punishment!" But the Col. Commisar wouldn't take another command now unless he had absolutely no choice, and then he would fight it with all his being to remain a member of the 85th. There were many groups in the reg, there were the original Valdemens, from the home planet of the reg. There were the Tashi, from the hive world Tashen, which they fought to liberate to no avail. Just as victory seemed to be in their grasp, the arch enemy detonated structure breaker mines along the main supports of the hive. Thankfully they didnt do their job as well as could have or surely the massive, miles high hive would have fallen and crushed them all as if a titan of the old myths would have. The Tashi battle gear was most different from the rest of the reg due to millenia old ties with thier ancestors. All the Tashi still practiced some form or another of ancient martial arts, albeit Judo, Karate, Kung-Fu, it didn't matter. This practice let them know who they were, it kept them in touch with the emperor of man in their own way. As a result of this tradition the Tashi carried varying forms of ancient design swords, Katanas, Wakizashis; some of these even refitted with power fields to let them cut through even ceramite with ease. They wore masks remenissent of stealth troops, ninja as they were called in ancient times. Their firearms were of the best design the Munitorum could issue as well. Hot shot lasguns, long-las snipers, there was a mix of all sorts of tech kit in the Tashi ranks. The Tashi themselves were steadfast and very elite members of the Imperial Guard, Skinnier than most but much more agile at the same time. Many a time Dalin Kain's life had been saved by one of these courageous individuals.

As to why the other reg commanders would joke about his unit he was uncertain. Sure the long trips between "HOPS" were frought with inrank arguing and fueding but, when it came time to deploy onto another battlefield, stronger commeradery there was none. Of import to this exact issue the Norn would come to mind. The Norn were a sort of "civilized barbarians", also in the habit of dress and gearing as their ancestors did. This unit however was very much different from the Tashi, where they were small and fast, the Norn were very large and well muscled. They went into battle wearing "kilts" atop their fatigues. This brought up lots of jokes as to their "skirts" blowing up and showing everyone their dairy airs, much to the amusement of the Tashi. The weaponry of the Norn were very similair to regular guard kit with the exception of thier close combat weapons of choice, instead of the lug bayonette, they packed large broadswords slung across their backs. None of these weapons were energized by the tell tale hum of a powerfield, nor did the Norn care about that. They used their immense strength to do the same job of a powered sword, albeit blades getting stuck in wierd places at the wrong time was not uncommon, but nonetheless the Norn were adamant about keeping their blades.

As per the rest of the reg, there were typical guardish type members. A group from Catachan, seperated from their now dead host regiment. And a host of other run of the mill soldiers. Although by run of the mill that just pertained to habits and wargear, none of the Col. Commisars reg were run of the mill. Of this he was glad, as he wouldn't willingly trade any one member of his reg for even the likes of a super powered space marine. The 85th also had its own armored company; counting among its ranks was the "StarKiller", a super-heavy hellhammer baneblade variant, the "Reign of Blood" a baneblade variant deemed the stormlord. These 2 tanks were the heart and soul of the reg, but aside from them they boasted several basilisk artillery pieces, and numerous load outs of the backbone of the imperial guard; the Leman Russ.

Kain was taken aback to the present as a large crack resounded off the masonry around him. Thinking himself the fool he snapped back to the present as he took in the scene of a mortar landing just 20meters to his left. One of the Norn yelled up to the Commisar, "AYE! I think they be aimin for you!. This brought a laugh out of the circle of other Norn he was sitting with, none of which seemed to even be bothered by the mortar's landing. "NAY! The enemy is just a poor shot as to have missed one with the size of a mouth as yours!" replied the commisar. This brought out a humongous ruckus from the Norn and even a stiffled chuckle from the other circles around them. The trooper went back to his eating with shouts of "BAH! Lookit the arse on this one though!" as he pointed to one of his companions. Kain let out a sigh, they had been on this world for a full year now, the arch enemy was dug in deep. They couldnt even advance to the mainland hive directly due to the trenchworks and combat camps the enemy had established. Whats worse, is they had also engaged numerous eldar raiding parties along with the chaos scum on this world; but what the eldar could want with an imperial hive world he had no clue.

The sun was coming up, breakfast chow was about done with. The light from the worlds second sun was a blood red; not a good sign. Kain looked down at his fatigues and sighed again. "Damnable dust", he cursed quietly, the dust had already collected enough on his fresh slacks to obscure the camo pattern on them. He had been outside a whole 10 minutes. To his left he heard footsteps bounding up the stairway. One of the Tashi snipers was reporting in from his watch. Out of breath the trooper began saying what made the commisars blood run cold. "The enemy has formed up a heavy armor column to the west, 10clicks or so, estimated 40 tanks, 3-5 thousand infantry and heavy weapons all around. The arch enemy seems to want the upper hand in todays engagement sir." Kain stared at the railin on the balcony for a few moments, then with a start, stood stark straight and rang the conflict bell. The entire camp burst into action, water canteens, food wraps, and even a boot or 2 were being slung to make battle ready. On this day, the arch enemy would truly find out why they were called the "Punishers".

pics to follow of the first inf guys painted so far.


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First up is Colonel Commisar Dalin Kain. *heavy gaunts ghosts influence overall*




My "counts as" Guardsman Marbo




And finally the sniper from the command squad box



Keep in mind for some reason my camera completely washed the colors out, and im still getting use to OSL as seen on the commisar. It looks much better in person but the cam just destroyed it lol.

Anyway, thoughts, critiques? please feel free to post 'em, but please be gentle lol.

They look cool. I think I like the camo scheme, it's not totally clear from these pics though.

I like Marbo, apart from the arms and some unfortunate mold lines.

Because of the nature of the scale, large areas of camo tend to work better than little flecks, especially on faces and arms.

The Colonel is great. I think you need to lighten up the "light source" (which I'm assuming is the fingers on the powerfist) to really sell the effect. If it's casting light, it's not going to get dark along the seams/joins like that.

If you're going to use the natural texture of the base you really need to have a nice clean base trim IMO.

thank you, the red on the arms are actually going to be a sort of "tattoo", think braveheart but red. again my camera really washed the colors out, i will get some pics tmw afternoon with natural light and not my horribad desk lamp and room light. and the bases are just done that way for the moment till i figure out how to match the texture look of my table ive just made. we used excess paint on rhino lining to do the table texture, came out very well since its going to be a city themed board. Got some more work to do on it though so maybe after a bit more is done i will take some pics of it as well.


Ive got a little bit more to do on the baneblade mentioned aforehand and then i will take pictures of it as well. but again ty for the feedback, and as to the OSL what way do you think i should lighten the fingers on the powerfist up. i.e. color/placement that kind of thing. honestly this has been the best result with OSL iv'e had to date. thanks again.


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Anyone else have an opinion? feel free to speak up ^^

Looks pretty good so far, but a) clean up the mould lines before painting them and b) drill out the gun barrels.

Especially if you are partial to drybrushing (which I certainly am). Mould lines stick out like a sore thumb under those circumstances. The drilled barrels thing does make them look much better and pin vices are cheap and easy to source away from GW.

I think the OSL problem is that you have shadowed crevices between the fingers. If the fingers are supposed to be glowing then there wouldn't necessarily be any shadow. Having said that I think the effect looks pretty good.

ok, cool, will definately work on the osl more than just calling it done then. im actually going to be changing the camo scheme to just an urban black/white/grey. its been done to death but i think i can pull it off and make it look somewhat good. heres to hoping and thanks for the reply

Man, I love the texture on the guns, and power fist is it just dry brushing or is there some pigments in there?

Just drybrushing, but i used a 4 color process starting at regal blue, enchanting blue, a pool blue color, and then white, but i need some work on it as previously stated in the thread. lol

I'd suggest that nothing on the light source be darker than a bright electric sort of blue. You want saturated colour for the actual light source. Saturated in this case would mean a very blue blue, if that makes sense.

I'd suggest not going any darker than something between Enchanted Blue and Ice Blue (to give you a GW paint reference).
If you wanted to really push the effect you could reverse how you'd normally treat lit areas and have the lightest areas being the finger joints on the fist, as though the power was emanating from within.

The brighter finger joints sound really cool actually, kinda different from the usual powerfist effect ive seen. Will have to definately look into that ty vm!

Not sure if you've got the Infinity models you want to use already but I bought a few of them with the vague idea that I might incorporate them into my IG army but they don't look right as the limbs are far more slender (and realistic) than the GW stuff and they are more like proper 28mm than the GW heroic size.

If you've already got them or are going to go ahead anyway good luck, they are lovely figures.

Ive heard that they are more realistic, but thats ok for me with the scale, im going to use some of the yu-jing "ninja" snipers as ratlings so the smaller size isnt that important there. Going to use some of the Ariadna and Yu-Jing as storm troopers as well but thats really about it. Maybe a marbo redo using the SAS with boarding shotgun... man that model is pure win. Does anyone know of a site that might have a comparison of a sentinel sized model to one of the Tsyklon Sputniks? I think those would be a super stylized use for "counts as" sentinels. Anyway thanks in advance!