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Having just painted up my Mechdar list for tomorrow's tourney I embark on the next project. Today I received a huge box Imperial Guard Cadians from a good fella on Bartertown and began couldn't help but start painting.



A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step as they say, and my first step is to ask for some scheme advise. I was having some trouble finding a scheme. I needed something easy to paint (for the 100+ planned grunts) and easy to expand on (for the characters and such). The main composition theme will be light infantry (powerblob with support). The main fluff theme will be Russian. It's my country of birth and I've yet to pay homage to it in wargaming.

Here is a split guardsman I did. I think I'm going to go with the red/grey side which is a copy of an army I found online. It looks ceremonial rather then camo and the army will be more along the lines of proud Praetorians then modern-day forces. Let me know what you think please. I really do need help deciding. Its not a fair comparison as the green side is just standard Cadian variation. I wanted to compare to that. The entire thing took about 50min so hopefully the grunt painting will be easy.



This is a lot of pics I know. I'll delete all but one once I've got feedback and moved on. Don't want to clog up the plog.

Thanks for looking

I like the white armour a lot, actually. have you considered red and white? If you want a ceremonial force, those would really pop on the tabletop.

I've decided to re-gear the theme to a more practical and rugged look. I'm mostly being inspired by battle of Stalingrad so I'm going to base the army of a world of constant sieges and urban warfare. Each Guardsman has been living in a siege their whole lives waiting for the Imperium to heed their call for aid. The enemy changes, hives fall and are retaken, and the siege drags on. The tight supply lines mean that all vehicles are relics and few are available. More then ever, it is the foot trooper that decides the fate of each stack of rubble, building, hive, and ultimately the planet. Welcome to the endless siege of Svaboda (ironically means "freedom" in Russian) and her down-trodden but resilient Imperial Guard detachments. The 77th regiment, the "White Fangs" or Belae Kliki.

I'm going to be writing in fluff as I paint them up, giving me time to work through my ideas and compliment the work.

Alexei awoke slowly to a steady drumming on the inside of his skull. His head felt like a building had fallen on it, and after surveying his surroundings he realized the analogy was rather fitting. He made a note to write it into his poetry later. For now he knew that he was in deep if he couldn't find the rest of his squad. They'd been creeping through the eastern-most block of Hive 10's third quarter when the explosions had come. Why had he been left behind? Perhaps they had assumed him dead from the booby trap and Sergeant Lvov had been forced to order him abandoned. In any case, Alexei knew his duty. He rose to his feet carefully, checked his camo-ed Lasgun and attached his bayonet in case of close encounters. Having ascertained that he would be as ready as he could be in case of trouble he headed off in the direction that the patrol had been heading in."

Private Alexei


Ruins


Thanks for reading.

very nice!

Great start - love the face on that guy, very expressive!

That last pic looks great.

Despite his best efforts to stay sharp, Alexei's mind wandered as he crept through the dilapidated buildings and craters. The last few months had been months of great change for Svaboda’s 77th. The death of Starshoi Lieutenant Contemirov at the hands of a mysterious assassin had left a huge gap in the command structure. Into this gap had stepped one of the most inspiring men Alexei had ever had the pleasure of serving. Starshoi Lieutenant Sharapov was everything that Contermirov was not. Bold, relentless, and brilliant. The infantry of the 77th was truly in good hands as long as Sharapov was leading the charge.

I usually paint to an army list in order to avoid unnecessary work and to tailor the painting to the army (squad markings, ect). I'm planning on using a counts-as Straken commander named Starshoi Lieutenant Sharapov. Sharapov is one of the main characters from a famous Russian movie about good cops in Russia after WWII and is called (loose translation) "The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed". So good. Anyhow, I thought I'd post my planner list here to see what you think. I think it all works with the theme as long as the tanks are all busted up and camo-ed. I might switch one Demolisher to another LR variat as having two of the same tank works against the limited armour theme. I could just say that these are the toughest suckers in the arsenal though.

CCS (Straken, 2 Bodyguards, 3 Plasmas, Vox)

Platoon 1
PPS (3 Granade Launchers, Vox)
Squad 1 (Commissar, 2 Power weapons, melta bombs, vox, flamer)
Squad 2 (Power Weapon, Melta Bombs, flamer)
Squad 3 (Power Weapon, Melta Bombs)
Squad 4 (Power Weapon, Melta Bombs, Vox)

Platoon 2
PPS (3 Granade Launchers, Vox)
Squad 1 (Commissar, 2 Power weapons, melta bombs, vox, Meltagun)
Squad 2 (Power Weapon, Melta Bombs, Meltagun)
Squad 3 (Power Weapon, Melta Bombs)
Squad 4 (Power Weapon, Melta Bombs, Vox)

Storm Troopers (2 Melta Guns)

Hellhound (Dozer Blades)

Demolisher (Dozer blades, flamers all around)

Demolisher (Dozer blades, flamers all around)

Basilisk

Why so many power weapons?

Because its makes guard half way decent at CC. I like the list only thing is the voxs should be changed to more grenade launchers. voxs really are not used that often. I take it you fight in a heavy terrain board for all the denies cover and dozer blades but if not take the dozers off for more points.

i'd drop the "extra" PW. even if the Commissar has 2 PW, he only gets to use 1.
and it's not like he's going to lose it.

Haha, just realized why vox is dumb. Commissars are the same ld as Straken, making the vox useless. Pff, there's 30 points saved right there. Removing the Dozers would give me 30 more.

Demolisher to Executioner or Marbo?

An elite commando would fit the theme far more than the posher tank so I'd go Marbo. I'd also probably get some heavy weapons in somehow. The infantry look great really grizzled and nicely believable. Great job on the faces!