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.

So, let me say this right up front: I never planned to do Imperial Guard.

My nephew was really, really into Guard for a hot minute, and asked if I would make him some. I agreed, and I bought him a few tanks and some troopers. I don't have any good pictures of these models. However, I do have some bad pictures, mostly of the of the armor - he stored them uncovered in a dusty spot so... they are dusty.



So that is where idea was kinda hatched. It was a running joke - these were guardsmen that were traitors, but had not yet been exposed as such. So, they would team with Space Marines, with the space marines being suspicious of their screeching about bloood for the b... Emperor! and suchlike.

I didn't paint any of the above troopers, that is all him.

So few years later, on and off, I started painting a few troopers of my own. I still had no intention of ever actually starting a guard army - I just wanted some dudes for scenery, basically - mooks. They would be posed for dramatic effect with my Blood Ravens or Necrons or whatever. And, for a long time, that is what they did. Mine I did with yellow hoods and normal camo, to represent corrupted Cadians. I got mine from Forgeworld, to differentiate from my nephew's loyalists. The yellow was to tie them into Iron Warriors, a Chaos army I was dabbling in.

I saw these War Chimera APC kits which looked absolutely awesome. Turns out, the kits were a nightmare no one should buy - but after having them kicking around a few years, I decided to build them.



If I could do things over again, I would have taken the time to add some more detailing to them - handles on the hatches, stuff like that - but I was so over those crappy ass kits, I just wanted to be done with them.

Later on, I did a bunch of what I thought of as "Yellow Monsters" - Barghest Predators from Puppetswar. I thought they would be the size of dogs, but they turned out to be the size of tigers. Still pretty cool, and they worked well as some sort of warp-spawned demons. Perhaps even flesh hounds.



Later, they added a 2 headed one, and I picked up a Chaos Spawn, so I did them in matching yellow colors.



When I did my Avenger, I set it up so it could have mixed livery.



One of the available icons was for Chaos:



With that color scheme, I think Traitors were my real intent.

The next random thing I got were some combat robots from Puppets War.



I realized they were really ideal as Heavy Weapons teams - same weapons, same base size. So, that is what I did them as.

I did an amusing tableaux to show them off as integrated with some helpful imperial bois assisting with a public health crisis in a very topical Covid related photo as a gag:



I did a post on them, where I linked where to buy them and pointed out I had 3D printed a minor mod of one of the weapons to add some iconography.

One of the comments was asking me to post some pics of my Imperial Guard army, and that is when I realized that Polonius was right; and there really are only 2 kinds of 40k players: those with IG armies, and those who will eventually start IG armies (to paraphrase).

Well, at that point I leaned into it and did some armor.

First, a pair of sentinels. Sentinel A:



Sentinel B:



The pair with their weapons:



Then some tanks. I wound up with a pair of Leman Russ tanks with swappable options. I wanted to do one that was kind of a standard, recently stolen Russ that tied in well with my Traitors:



For the second one, I wanted to do one that had been out in the warp for a while and had picked up some gifts. I did greenstuff and beads to make patches of eyes, and 3D printed a tentacle and some chains - the tentacle to represent whatever now lived in the tank, and the chains to lock up all the hatches. I did the bone spikes coming out of the turret with leftover sprue for the bone, and greenstuff from the peeling metal.



And the pair:



After Don't Dead, Open Inside was finished, I think so is my army, for now.

Here are some of the infantry:



Some of these are cooler than others. The oldest ones are kinda bleh - i wasn't yet good at airbrushing (and still really aren't, but am better) so the green glow on eye eyes is more of a green mess on some. The more recently painted guys look a lot better. Double Uzi guy can get it for sure. Some of these models were painted 5 or 6 years apart at a minimum. Basically, all the ones were the eyes look good are recent.

Some enforcers to keep them in line. These have a totally different camo scheme because I want to represent they came from different units, so they won't fraternize with the troops they are executing leading.



I added some Penal Guard from Victoria Miniatures.



A bit of a misstep here. I did these are work in trade: A friend of my mind asked me to build and partially paint a Vulture for him, and I did. In turn, he painted the heads of these guys for me. I am not unhappy with how they turned out, but prior to this one-off I could say that I painted 100% of every mini I have, and now I can't say that, since he painted the heads of these. I regret not just painting the heads myself.

So, another army pic:



I don't really have plans to build more, but I really never planned to build any of this to begin with so... who knows.

Looks great. A big upside with going renegade is that you can shove pretty much any random mini into the army, and it will fit.

And as you know deep down, the imperial guard (and their renegade kind) is endless, still congrats on finishing your current guard backlog.

I also really like them. Great work and so much detail. Thanks for sharing

Amazing work as usual mate! Thanks for sharing!

It's a lovely looking army, and definitely a one off. Always enjoy seeing those yellow hounds.

really cool army and story.

I have those PoW models my self ready to paint up as fleshhounds.

The yellow monster thing i really love, you could even maybe branch these off into a unique daemons army with some other kits

Very well done, reminds me of the chaos rebels in the siege of vraks.

Thanks for all the feedback!

The airbrush effect on the eyes impressed me. It was the first thing I noticed.

The sentinels and tanks stand out for chaos bling for me, along with the arbites. Unfortunately, I'm nit very familiar with the traitor guard or flyer models, so can't appreciate properly your conversions.

Fantastic army! The little details are what really make it pop- the clusters of eyes on the tanks, the almost unassuming chaos stars that are more intricate than usual ones, the glow of the eyes, the use of fantasy chaos stuff. Great use of yellow as a spot color too. I like how you don't overdo it with the spiky bits, like on the Sentinels- one trophy rack is more effective than the whole thing covered in spikes and skulls

Glorious work, I especially like the yellow monsters and combat robots

great job on the army. loving the yellow doggies & the little eyes on the russes congrats!!

Wow - really nice job!

A real collection of different miniatures and colours but it fits together really well.