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I've been working on these guys on and off for a few years now, and a near-future tournament is spurring me to finish up a 1500pt list.

The sparse fluff I've come up with is that they come from a gold-mining planet (Midas) and are so exorbitantly wealthy that they plate everything in the stuff. Every trooper inducted into the guard is a billionaire nobleman (the lower classes do all the mining).
When I first started I tried out some more conventional military paint themes, but eventually found that they were sort of missing the point of WTFEPICGOTHICHUGENESS that was 40k. Making the shittiest, slowest, cannon fodder troops as extravagant showoffs seems hilariously ironic to me.

Let me know what you guys think! I'm finding larger vehicles to be particularly difficult in regards to washes and colour uniformity. I've since switched to a tan basecoat, but any tips would be appreciated.


Oldest shot. They now have blue eyes, and the special weapon operators have tan bases instead of gold (green= trooper, tan = specialist, blue=officer)


Unfortunately I wont be fielding Straken and his posse in this upcoming tourney. I'll be painting up a fire-base command squad instead.


Most recent mini with a tan basecoat instead of white.

I still have another sentinel, two hydras, a demolisher, and a dozen or so more troopers to paint before the end of April. Stay tuned for updates!

Damn...I was thinking as I read the fluff you've got that I really wasn't going to like this idea, but they look truly exceptional mate, very well done. And the customisation you've managed on them is fantastic! I especially like the soldier with two plasma pistols and the way he's holding one gangsta style! Oh, and the bodyguards! Nice shield, I'll have to rip that off!

Normally I'm just not a big fan of gold, the color, the material, anything, hah hah. But my God man, you are an exceptional painter. The golds are done smoothly, and in just a perfect quantity that I really feel they are great. Though they are a focal point for your army, it is not overstated. Congratulations, they look amazing.

Loving the vehicles, they look especially good in the gold plate.

Nice paint job, I like the 2 x PP guy the best

Great guard! Like the mixture of colours very much.

Wow amazing

Le Straken guy is awesome. I assume you used a chaos PF. It looks really good.

Nive job overall.

Extremely impressive. Really awesome work. Bonus points for shortening a chainsword! And the double PP guy looks great. Straken too.

QUESTIONS:
-What are you using the guy with chopped-up lascannon in the first image as? Is there a whole squad of stormtroopers coming?
-Did you chop up regular legs for the guys with shields to get them standing straight? What'd you do with the backs of their torsos?
-Is the "colour" sergeant the only "coloured" guy in your regiment? xD
-Is the bottom middle guy in your first pic carrying a cheese wheel in his grenade launcher pouch?
-Is that a pair of gloves hanging from the medic's belt?

Very cool, never seen IG painted up like this.

I love this army and this fluff. Over-the-top and ridiculous in the best kind of 40k way.

Nice work and I like that banner, it's simple (I mean this in a good way ) and nice to look at.

These just might be my favorite gaurdsmen of all time.

Thanks for the comments guys!

I'm currently working on my first Hydra, which is using a looted rhino for a chassis. There's significantly less panelling to paint gold, so I hope it still fits in with the rest. Should be quicker to paint at least.


QUESTIONS:
-What are you using the guy with chopped-up lascannon in the first image as? Is there a whole squad of stormtroopers coming?
It's simply a scout boltpistol with the front end of a lasgun glued on. Works as a laspistol, plaspistol, boltpistol, whatever. I thought it looked cool. He's just a regular sergeant or officer. I do have some stormtroopers modelled and primed, but theyre using scout bodies and are toting plasmaguns and chopped down sniper riles for hellguns.

-Did you chop up regular legs for the guys with shields to get them standing straight? What'd you do with the backs of their torsos?
The bodyguards are the door gunners from the Valkyrie kit.

-Is the "colour" sergeant the only "coloured" guy in your regiment? xD
For all I know, all the guys with gasmasks are purple. :p
I wanted to model a standin for Sergeant Kell, because I love his rules and statline. He's like the only guard character with I4, and he has a powersword AND powerfist AND a giant flag. Unfortunately, he'll probably only be fielded as a standard bearer , because... 85 points.

-Is the bottom middle guy in your first pic carrying a cheese wheel in his grenade launcher pouch?
Gotta carry rations somewhere!

-Is that a pair of gloves hanging from the medic's belt?
On one of the veterans, yes (medic is the middle one with the chain-knife). Its from the Empire man-at-arms kit I think. He's already wearing gloves on his hands, so I guess they're a spare pair?

I am really liking the look of your vehicles. They are clean but showy at the same time. I like the scheme of the troops and the conversion (particularly the shields and straken). I feel that the fluff is the weakest thing going for it. I mean, it's basically just justifying the paint scheme. It doesn't have to be real gold, but if it is just painted to represent the planet Midas I think that'd be cool and make more sense.

-VardenV2

I'm not going to lie to you. When I read the thread name, I wasn't expecting this to look good.

But by god you deffinately have a great army. This looks much better than I would have guessed, you do an excellent job with the gold.

And the sentienl looks awesome.

Ignatius wrote:I'm not going to lie to you. When I read the thread name, I wasn't expecting this to look good.

But by god you deffinately have a great army. This looks much better than I would have guessed, you do an excellent job with the gold.

And the sentienl looks awesome.

all the points I was gonna make. bravo, they look great

amazing

these are some great looking guard! the gold works a lot better than I would have imagined. do you happen to have some higher-res photos of your sentinel? I'd love to get a closer look at how you painted up the lights/lenses on it.

Where did you get those gasmask heads, they're fantastic!

They look surprisingly "realistic". I too wasn't expecting to like them so much. Great job!

Heheh, I'm glad I've broken everyone's expectations. I've only ever seen golden space marines, and those are usually expertly painted Custodes.

@VardenV2
I literally made the fluff up as I was typing the first post. I'll just call them the Lords of Midas and leave it at that. :p

@varl
Unfortunatly, my digital camera is on the cheapo side, and doesnt take the best photos. But all the lense are the standard jewl technique, then gloss varnished.

@CalgarsPimpHand
They're from the venerable Pig Iron productions, makers of fine sci-fi conversion bits.
http://pig-iron-productions.com/

I like the look, finally somebody bringing the fun look back in a serious 40K army. Great job.

They look great! Such a good job on the gold.

McGibs wrote:The bodyguards are the door gunners from the Valkyrie kit.

Of course. I should have caught that...

Men at arms looks to be a pretty good box for IG bits.

Beautiful choice of colours you have! everything works perfectly in harmony and the blue as a spot colour is a great choice, they are so different to what you see usually and it's one of the nicest schemes i've seen for them.

well done!

They look great! I think the fluff is a little bit out there, but hell, I couldn't do any better. The paint scheme is unlike any I have seen on IG, and it turned out great. I'm sure they look fantastic on the battlefield

The gold on the cream color makes it kinda harder to see, But mutes the gold so its not so bright. I think its a great job. The painting is awesome and the scheme is even better. The real question is, How are these guys suppose to blend into anything? I can see it now,

"Where are all of our men?"

"See that bright light on the hill top?"

"Yeah"

"They got lost. The sun is in there eyes and they just happen to be cooking one another"

Your opponents must have a blast playing you! I love seeing an army I can get jealous of!

One of the best guard armies I have ever seen.