Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hi everyone,

I was wondering if anyone had a good way to show Cadian Veterans on the battlefield. I've tossed a few ideas around, but nothing sounds really good in my head. Would you have advice? Pics showing an example would be awesome. So far I am thinking coloring part of their armor, like shoulder, a special color.

Thanks!

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Imperial_Guard/Cadian_Shock_Troops/CADIAN-UPGRADE-PACK-HARDENED-VETERANS-WITH-SHOTGUNS.html

Shoulder pad colors sounds good.

Coolyo's FW advice is cool, too.

Very nice. I like the idea, but I guess I meant more with a color/paint scheme. I could give them extra equipment I guess...but I was hoping for something else in addition.

Paint their shoulder pads a different color.

I just use Catachan's but painted in the same uniform colours and altered with whatever special weapons etc I could lay my hands on!

You could also just paint thier helments a different colour or shoulderpads, that makes the most sense to me!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, they have those little tabs on the back of thier boots, hit those up with a different colour too!

Yeah, I'm leaning towards the shoulder pad color. Thanks for the ideas everyone!

I am still working on my IG army, but I will be using a different color shoulder pads, extra gear, bits from Catachan, and also be having every stand guardsman in my army with a backpack, I figured they would carry more than vets as they do not know what gear issued to them is needed to survive in battle as vets would.

Use a lot of bits from the Cadian and Catachan command squad sprues. Really cool heads with scars, berets, and so on combined with lots of extra gear and gasmasks from the Cadian command sprue will make for some cool vets.

I see a couple of ways to do it and I don't think different color shoulder pads is enough.

Some questions for you, how deep is your bitz box? How many 40k-playing friends do you have? What colors are your basic troops? How much do you want to spend? What's the theme of your army?

The best way to do it is probably head swaps, if you can get enough catachan heads that's a cheap and easy way to do it. If you're looking to spend money there are some companies out there like West Wind that do tons of alternate heads like berets and side caps.

Painting is probably the cheapest. You could take a secondary color and make it the main one on them. With my greatcoat guard the basic troops have grey coats and blue armor, with the vets I'm doing blue coats and black armor. Or you could go with a strong color for the vets like black, white or even a bold one like purple or dark red. You could also give them a cameo pattern, during the Vietnam war basic units had solid uniforms but elites had cameo.

Bitz are another good way, you can just make sure the vets have tons of pouches, backpacks, grenades, knives and other gear while the basic troops just get the occational canteen.

Finally if your army has a historical or cultural theme you can do some research into what distinguished elites in the real world and copy that. Maybe the vets have cleaner uniforms due to their pride, or dirtier ones since they've been in combat a lot longer. Maybe they have beards like Delta Force operators in the mid East while normal troops ahve to be clean shaven. You could replace their arms with Catachan arms to show they're stronger, fitter and their uniforms are less pristine.

Finally you could swap them for different models entires, old metal Cadians, Necromunda gangers, Mordians etc.

Anyway I hope this helps.

With my catachan I loaded them up with extra bits, but then I sold them for a greater purpose. CHAOS!

Helmet flashes, 'warpaint' on the armor, more pouches(pouches in the Guard=veterans!), etc all work well.

I Don't play IG but i have a few for show.

To create the Veteren look i use a modeling knife to cut scars and gases in their armour then paint a small symbol on one of the Shoulderpads. Works a treat

Just overdo the adding of extra pouches, knives, grenades....really cram them onto the models. I often cut the ammo pouches from the Canteen, knive sprues and also use the large ouches from the SM kit.

Also im fond of using Catachan heads on Cadian bodies....the bandana/Head band look adds an element of veterancy in my eyes....

trying to find a good camera to show some examples

Use bitz like grenades and stuff. If you gave them a doctrine, you can use that. Grenadiers get caparace armor (you can use kaskrins or just glue some bitz to them), demolition squads get bombs and one of them gets a demo charge and the other guys whose name I can't remember get camo cloaks (you can use cloth and stuff.

Painting them differently is also a good option.

Hm, some great ideas. For sure, I want to use a different colored shoulder pad with some sort of decal on it as well. As for bitz, I dont have a lot. Im using normal Cadian colors. One other player has Guard, but he has Cadian as well. So I dunno, I'll have to look and see what I have. Thanks again guys, great ideas!

Scars and bionics ( perhaps even the bald spessmuhreen head with the augmentic eye ) would be one way to show that your cadians have gone trough quite a few fights.
Some extra weapons ( shotguns, knives, pistols...) and grenades ( don't overdo it though, they are still disciplined soldiers and not scavengers ) amd killmarks ( perhaps on the shoulderpads or the torsoarmour? )
would be other ways to veterancy.

For my marines I use metallic colors to set the sergeants apart from the rest of the squad. Gold looks good on models.

I play an Arcadian regiment, and aside from more weathered armor and gear they have service pips on their helmet. Each one denotes ten years of service, so all my vets have at least one pip while my regular line does not.

If you only have Cadians and don't plan to buy/trade for more bitz there's still quite a bit you can do. This would be more on the 'clean' side of how to do vets (better gear and uniforms).

If you're not using comlinks (and really why would you) save all the ones you get along with the comlink helmet and helmet with the visor down. Cut off the radio antennas and make your vets using those parts. You'll have a squad that looks better equipped and more high tech and won't have to spend anything extra. Give them a special color or paint job and you're fine.

For not much money you could also get scopes for the las guns to further show off their BS4 and better gear.

On the dirty side you can just try painting their uniforms darker and adding more brown and mud to show they've been in the field longer.