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Two things happened to me this festive period just gone. I read 1984 and I got a job! We all know what that leads to don't we?

I'm starting an Imperial Guard army! I've always wanted a guard army since starting 40K and thinking Tau were the ones with all the guns. Then I got to play a mechvet list and see how Leman Russ Executioner's work. And Vendetta's. And Multi-lasers. And everything.

Anyway, seeing as this is my own army, I'm going to keep all progress on them updated right here. I'll save anything else I do for my own blog.

So then, my army. I'm going for a simple black and red scheme because the military of dictatorial thought-policing societies wear black with red accent, being bad guys and all. It's also going to look really striking on the table-top once it's finished, even though I say so myself!

At this very moment I'm finishing off the command squad of metal models I never managed to sell when I got bored of my hobby. I finished one guy, however, and have two Chimeras coming in the post as we speak! So here for the start of this blog I give you Company Commander O'Brien. "It is not enough to obey him. You must love him.."



Please excuse the bendy sword - if I try to straighten it any more it'll snap! Overall I'm happy with this model, but when I look at close-up images I want to go over that sword handle and push the grey blend on his coat up another ten shades. I'll resist touch-ups until I finish his squad and see them together in daylight.

Right then, rather unhappily my Chimera transports didn't arrive today, but I still finished the Command Squad!



Hopefully soon they'll have their ride but for now I'm going to finish off a Disciple of Caliban Termy squad. Cheers!

Two Chimera transports arrived yesterday, so I busily spent something crazy like three hours putting them together so that they'd be ready for today's work. In pictures so far:






Basically I basecoated them. I've chosen to base them in Alclad Aluminium because A) Everything can't be chrome, unfortunately and B) I plan to weather the tanks by literally scraping away the top layers to reveal the metallic hull underneath. I've been planning to do it this way for a long time but it does mean that right now I need to go on a run and let them dry, my room de-mist, my tankless compressor cool down and my lungs regurgitate some paint.

When I return in an hour or two, I'll crack on with the actual job of painting!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'm in a quandry. I might strip these now. Not sure! Think I'm going to re-spray them black and edge highlight them or something - final decision after finding some examples of black vehicles ad maybe some tutorials while I build the guardsmen that arrived today - Dark Sphere = amazing.

I also LOVE the weathering technique, but in some areas the alcohol has eroded the gloss varnish and leaves the plain grey showing. The technique's great, I am not!




You can also see where I suck at masking / mask incredibly lazily. Feeling like I need some red up top, so perhaps I'll paint the turret red.

I got a little disheartened with painting tanks black so I switched my ideas around a tad and decided to attempt dazzle camo. It means doing it by hand but I've got the time at the moment!



It's also going to be a massive pain going back and forth to tidy it up but I think it'll look effective when I'm playing mech vet lists. My plan is to buy every squad with a transport if they have one available and finish them before anything new comes in. But right now I'm just not in the mood for plotting out the dazzle patterns so I decided to do the thing about my hobby I love the most and kitbash a Cadian Marbo.







I'm really happy with how he turned out. The Aquila on his base is to signify his stature as a hero of the Imperium and I just used the feed for a flamer to link his venomous pistol to a tank of venom, which I'll show through the paintjob. His arm is the standard sergeant chainsword arm with the sword cut away and a little gubbin from a Tau drone glued on top for the detonator button. That will become clearer again with the paintjob.

All he needs now is a name! Seeing as the body is from the Valkyrie kit I think he should be 'Captain' something-or-other and I might just write it around his base.

Kitbashing has to be the most fun you can have in this hobby. I've always loved it and can never look at a Leman Russ sprue without thinking "I've got a pen that would make an excellently Orky boomgun..."

Cheers for reading

Here's my Cadian Marbo with a slap of paint on him. He's actually a really decent rescue job considering this morning a can of purity seal vomited all over him. I'll certainly kitbash more Marbo's, however.




Next update will be in a while because I'm off to London for the week. I'm taking a squad of Guardsmen to paint but there'll be no camera until Saturday.

See you then!

interesting, we will be watching your continued progress.

Nice little bash of Marbo.

The problem with "dazzle" camo is that it frequently makes the object MORE visible, rather than less.

Considering how insane and counter-intuitive INGSOC "is", that might be your intention... but my personal feeling is that the Chimera appears to have been stolen by Orks.

I suggest returning to your original scheme of black with broad accent-stripe of red. Also, the "soft" edge of the original stripe is as acceptable as a taped-off "hard" edge, IMO.

I think that because there are no images of any real INGSOC scheme (as far as I know) anywhere, you are going to have most folks assume they are viewing an Inquisitorial force. >shrug< But then, discussions with your opponent about what they are facing is part of the game.

Scott wrote:
Nice little bash of Marbo.

The problem with "dazzle" camo is that it frequently makes the object MORE visible, rather than less.

Considering how insane and counter-intuitive INGSOC "is", that might be your intention... but my personal feeling is that the Chimera appears to have been stolen by Orks.

I suggest returning to your original scheme of black with broad accent-stripe of red. Also, the "soft" edge of the original stripe is as acceptable as a taped-off "hard" edge, IMO.

I think that because there are no images of any real INGSOC scheme (as far as I know) anywhere, you are going to have most folks assume they are viewing an Inquisitorial force. >shrug< But then, discussions with your opponent about what they are facing is part of the game.

Thanks for the feedback!

Dazzle camo is actually intended to confuse anyone trying to get a fix on your location, size, shape, speed etc. My main problem with it is that to pull it off I think I need to be a better painter I'll finish off the dazzle pattern on the one Chimera and see how I like it I think.

All likelihood is that I will return to my original scheme. I should have finished the entire paintjob before weathering it but luckily airbrushing should mean it won't have to be stripped! I do think the clean stripe would look better in the end on the table and I could always reverse the colours for Command Squads etc. I'm exactly the sort of person who can never just make a decision on stuff like this!

Mini-update: Thinking on this side to pattern the raised part and paint triangles in on the bottom, but it's already feeling like hard work!


God it looks so bad like that, but it's just a preliminary guide for now!

cheers guys.

looks quite good so far, I like what you've done so far with that scheme on the chimera. I'd keep that basic idea throughout the pattern. and from what I've seen you're a better painter than me, nice crisp lines on the camo.

OK, shortish update. I've been going backwards!

I painted a squad of guardsmen up and just couldn't get with the black. It was bugging me, so I went over them again with Heavy Charcoal (Adeptus Battlegrey in old tongue GW speak) and decided to wash them black with Badab Black. I'm happier so far, but won't pass judgement until I hit the reds up. In the meantime, a new Chimera and squad of Guardsmen arrived. The Chimera got a couple of VC bits to set it up as the command vehicle and the other two got Gesso'd a mix of Heavy Charcoal and Black Gesso (1:2). I also magnetised the Dozer Blade because it both looks awesome and is a point sink

And one last thing. In my army list I have a unit of Vets in camo cloaks with Harker. I made a test model.

So all in all, everything has just gone grey. Imperial Guard = effort.

Quick update - finally happy with a Chimera!






Until my command squad boxes arrive I'l probably be repeating this paintjob on the next two tanks. Ciao for now!

Shame, I think a red strip continued up and over the turret would have looked really nice. could have finished at the gun...

It was mainly about practicality - all I have to do now is line my ruler up with the hull and pencil in the stripe - so much easier!

Time for one of my infamously sporadic updates.

Colour scheme changed twice - Tanks will now be yellow. Guardsmen now brown fatigues and yellow armour. Army stands at 3000 points.

Just tried dot method fading - have a look!



This will be dry in two days. Then I will add rust, chips and paint in the metal areas.

See ya!