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A little while ago I posted about considering a Feudal Guard army as one of my conversion projects. Unfortunately i got distracted by work and other projects and found myself having sidelined the idea in the concept stages in favour of easier and less testing jobs. I have however lately found myself to be staring at the Forgeworld Empire troops and loving the detailng on the models and eventually caved into doing myself a test squad with some spares from my guardsmen. The fluff is still WIP but the army is centered around a backwards tech imperial world in the path of an oncoming hive fleet, too far from the imperial fleets to receive imminent support but situated close enough to a pivotal forgeworld to leave undefended the locals were drafted in a tithe to defend the system as best they could using weapons produced by the forgeworld.

It gives me a great opportunity to use alot of empire/brettonian models in a 40K setting and some great conversions from serfs to nobles, knights to war machines along with typical 40kish guard units.

The test unit has been clean up, modeled and prepped for undercoating now and I'm just waiting on some paints to arrive to make some more progress.

Hoping for some C&C for the unit so far and army theme to develop:

Awesome concept and execution, can't wait to see these painted. What other conversions do you have in mind? Knights as Rough Riders? Trebuchets as Basilisks? Steam Tanks as Leman Russ? All of those would be really cool.

Also, mixing in muskets and pistols with the lasguns would look good and add to the 'emergceny recruitment' theme, with not enough stock weapons to go around.

Currently I'm working along the lines of:

Outriders/Knights = Rough Riders (Peasant/Noble)
Peasant Rabble = Conscripts, combined squads of infantry
Steam Tank = Hellhound Variants
IG Tanks with Empire bits = Russes (they do have a suply line after all)

Will be picking up one of the rifle empire units soon to mix a combinations of DkoK lasguns (look longer/older) and rifles in the squad as a second veteran squad.

I'm also intending on using the empire engineer models with sniper rifles for a ye olde sniper kind of model.

To round it off I'll be adding in some admech bits from forgeworld as the Forge Worlds own military guard backing the feudal guardsmen, I think the high tech admech will offset the low tech guardsmen quite well.

Looking good so far. It'd also be good to see more and larger pictures.

I've seen some nice stuff done in the past on a similar line - Brettonian plastic men at arms as Inquisitorial henchmen.

Two larger pics:

Currently I'm working along the lines of:

Outriders/Knights = Rough Riders (Peasant/Noble)
Peasant Rabble = Conscripts, combined squads of infantry
Steam Tank = Hellhound Variants
IG Tanks with Empire bits = Russes (they do have a suply line after all)

Will be picking up one of the rifle empire units soon to mix a combinations of DkoK lasguns (look longer/older) and rifles in the squad as a second veteran squad.

I'm also intending on using the empire engineer models with sniper rifles for a ye olde sniper kind of model.

To round it off I'll be adding in some admech bits from forgeworld as the Forge Worlds own military guard backing the feudal guardsmen, I think the high tech admech will offset the low tech guardsmen quite well.

This sounds like it will be awesome, I love the idea of the High-tech Admech with the low-tech guard, and all those ideas sound great. It would be expensive, but Great Cannons/Mortars could work as HWTs. And some kind of Trebuchet that lobs explosives would be an awesome basilisk.

Looking forward to seeing this project develop.

Does some WIPy test scheme on one of my riflemen, I'm trying to keep it suitably old fashioned but "Grimdarky".

These fellas look SWEET!!

Great job!!

I was kind of iffy with the models, but seeing that one painted...that looks really great. Reminds me of those very baroque designs in the old space opera type films.

I've seen the WHFB models mixed with guard for inquisitor figures, should be interesting to see a full army done up that way. Can't wait for more!

I love the conversions, great use of alternative models!

Such a cool concept! Have you thought about replacing the turret cannon on a LRBT with an empire cannon barrel? Something along the lines of 'had to replace the turret barrel and that's what we had'. Also, wood scaffolding/framing/detailing added in some key areas would give it some nice flare too.

Thanks guys, I'll be finishing the test model today with some weathering/battle damage and cracking my way through two more of the guardsmen.

Anyone familiar with fantasy models know if there are empire decals at all that might suit the theme?

fenshysa wrote:I was kind of iffy with the models, but seeing that one painted...that looks really great. Reminds me of those very baroque designs in the old space opera type films.

I've seen the WHFB models mixed with guard for inquisitor figures, should be interesting to see a full army done up that way. Can't wait for more!

Yeah I saw alot of the inquisitor conversions when I was thinking on this, I really like what people have done with the Bretonnian men at arms kits for their henchmen and they will likely feature as a "lower" guard than the more noble looking empiresmen.

JWMarines wrote:Such a cool concept! Have you thought about replacing the turret cannon on a LRBT with an empire cannon barrel? Something along the lines of 'had to replace the turret barrel and that's what we had'. Also, wood scaffolding/framing/detailing added in some key areas would give it some nice flare too.

I think kitbashing between the empire steam tank and 40k tank kits will be my launching point, I really want to kitbash a basilisk and a WFB giant to make a longshanks artillery unit to count as a basilisk but it seems like a big modelling challenge.

Those are lovely. Moar please.

What miniatures are the bodies?

Two more guys in progress, need a few cleanups here and there but the scheme seems to transfer across the models OK.

Meltagunners:

 sing your life wrote:
What miniatures are the bodies?

The base models are forgeworlds EMPIRE MANANN'S BLADES

Looking good. Like the grittyness of the paintjob.

I would have reserved the use of plumage for officers, specialists and the officer's bodyguard, on the assumption that the noble bloods would reserve all the cool stuff for themselves. I also feel like one or two ought have las-lock rifles, or something of the more.... DKOK variety. I might recommend finding some additional primitivization of the grenade launcher, and the flamer. Can't speak to the melta-gun though...

 poda_t wrote:
I would have reserved the use of plumage for officers, specialists and the officer's bodyguard, on the assumption that the noble bloods would reserve all the cool stuff for themselves. I also feel like one or two ought have las-lock rifles, or something of the more.... DKOK variety. I might recommend finding some additional primitivization of the grenade launcher, and the flamer. Can't speak to the melta-gun though...

The plumage is being reserved for veterans and upwards to give them a little distinction, I'm playing with the idea of golden armour to make senior officers stand out from the crowd and make them more unique. The DKOK weapons is something I've been looking at for my standard riflemen and outriders, and their special weapons seem alot more rugged and basic for the themes. I'll also have a supply of lowtech pistols from the pistolier kit as secondary weapons for the guys to give them a little low with their tech.

Veterans at this stage are from the educated families, a proper military. Standard troopers are militia and lower class, and then officers and up are royalty and nobility.

If you want stormtroopers I'd suggest you try combining the ironsides models with DKOK grenadier bits.

storm troopers and higher ups could just as likely be done as some kind of fancy Hussar.

these are brilliant! Have you thought about using vostrians for veterans/stormtroopers?

I like these, smooth convincing conversions, and I like the look and style of the figure, nice.