Serious IG fire power

 The armament policy of the old IG seems to have been "You can never have too many las cannons". Every tactical squad comes with one and command sections have two. If you don´t choose one of the alternatives as I did with my 2nd tactical platoon.

Following the afore mentined policy I have completed this support squad: sergeant, four las gun troopers, one missile launcher and FOUR las cannons. That´s quite a lot of fire power if you ask me.

The whole squad together. Mixture of plastic and metal bodies.

Squad sergeant is an imperial army sergeant model that has been

given a chain sword to match the army list equipment.

Beaky marine missile launcher sits quite well on the shoulder of that metal body IG trooper.

This squad will eventually be part of the ´yellow´ or reserve platoon of my IG army.

Speed painted with the same formula as the rest of the army.

As next I´ll finish the command section. And then it´s time to do another tactical squad...

Psykers - one sanctioned and the other...

 Not all psykers are decimated or taken to Terra to be absorbed by the Emperor of Mankind. Some become sanctined sanctioned psykers for Imperial Guard and those individuals are often attached to command sections. Always seen as suspicious by the Commissariat sanctioned psykers of the 114th Salihanian regiment are forced to wear red clothing as a warning sign for normal troopers. The are shunned by NCOs and common grunts but tolerated by officers who understand their value on the battle field.

Some psykers take mattes in their own hands. At least for a while. Joining a Genestealer Cult may seem like a way to avoid being killed or absorbed. But mingling with forces of chaos come with a price. Seen as just a human psykers are ruthlessly exploited by the cult leader and will be sacrificed without a blink if survival of the coven requires it. And the blessings of the dark powers behind the Cult are not always very beneficial.

Got the two models in a job lot I scored a couple of weeks ago. As they are duplicates I wanted to have one as a IG sanctined psyker and the other as a GS Cult rogue psyker.

Sanctined psyker wields a IG standard issue las gun. For the rogue I gave two autopistols. The rogue was painted first and I didn´t like the big shoulder pockets on him so I removed those from IG one´s plastic arms. Much better that way.

As the IG psyker is assigned to desert themed army his skin a bit darker than that of the rogue´s. 

Here´s another rogue psyker I painted earlier and a sanctioned one too.

Getting back on track with IG

 As mentioned I was suffering from something of a painters block. That was quickly remedied when I got lucky and scored a largeish job lot of 80´s IG. I had ran out of IG trooper models earlier and put that project to side. Now I´ll be able to put more squads on the table as in the job lot there´s material for few dozens of guardsmen.

The first ones that hit the painting table. Going to comple a support squad that was left unfinished earlier when I ran out of heavy weapons troopers´ right arm pieces.

My recipe for desert themed IG: Army Painted Desert Yellow base, Mournfang brown gaiters, pouches and straps, Black shoes, gloves and armor, Cadian Fleshstone for face and hands, Leadbelcher for all bits metal.

Wash with Agrax, platoon color to chest badge (yellow for support platoon). Armageddon dunes technical on base. And as last highlight jumpsuit with Kislev Flesh. Quick and easy. The grenadier on the right is the only completed one of these. Rest are in various phases of WIP.

Some really nice stuff in the job jot. Would love to expand my assault platoon with another squad. Just need to get some jump pack and chain sword first.

Commander on Bike

Roughly two months ago I finished a commissar on bike model but ran out of Desert Yellow spray I use to prime my IG. Having gotten resupplies recently here´s the guy that the commissar will be following on the field of battle.

 RT era bike body with modern handle bar, headlight and gear shift.

 The driver himself is rough rider legs combined with the torso of a IG commander and plastic arms.

 The dynamic duo.

Very happy with how these two turned out.

Get your men... er... squad into position sergeant!

So again a month since the previous posting. My rate of painting and blogging has been terribly slow as of lately. Let´s hope that the upcoming Christmas holiday will remedy that.

In any case here´s the Bravo company head commissar model I´ve been working on for some time now. It´s been close to ready for a while but due to post offive workers strike here in Finland some bitz I needed to complete it were stuck some post warehouse for four weeks.

As you can see it´s a bit of a kitbash of oldhammer and more modern parts. The commissar himself has been modified just a little to make it look like he has stopped his bike and is keeping it standing with his left foot. His right hand was bent a bit too.

I got the bike without fairings and gear shift lever. Those were replaced with modern plastics. I even added that single big headlight as someone in Facebook suggested. I´m pretty happy with how the bike look now.

"You heard the commissar! Move it lads!"

I´ll be building and painting another bike soon as that commissar need to be attached to an officer.

Missing a couple of parts but I think you get the idea.

How does one control a RT era IG Land Speeder?

There´s a strange little difference between the marine and IG Land Speeders of RT era.The marine driver seems to have both hands on controls while the rider is just riding along. And perhaps operating the weapon systems. But the IG crew is different. The driver has his right hand on a stick and the rider is using some sort of controls that looks like throttle with his left hand.

If we assume that a land speeder works like a light air craft then pitch and roll controlled with a stick. And speed/power with a throttle lever. In the marine speeder the logical set up could be that the pilot has the stick in his right hand and on the left side is the throttle. A pretty believable system.

But that IG speeder is a strange one. It would require one very skilled crew in my opinion to hand a system where one crew member controlls the stick and the other one the throttle.

And who uses those speeder weapons systems in that IG set up?

 Even the fluff pictures show that IG uses two pilots while for marines the driver has all the controlls. And that top weapon is clearly steerable.

Here´s my desert scheme IG land speeder. The crew has a Judge Dredd wibe with those big visors of theirs.

Not much painting this september. Let´s hope orctober will be better...

2nd Tactical Platoon

As I have understood the IG was not a very popular army back in the days. And having finally completed the troop minima, four tactical squads, I can somehow understand why. I mean it´s a bit monotonic job painting those plastic guardsmen.

In any case, here´s the 2nd tactical platoon. Their platoon color is green and in stead of las cannons and grenade launchers this platoon sports heavy bolters and multi meltas. Most of the common guardsmen are plastic but there are some metal bodied ones in there too. And the command section is all metal with some very minor kit bash jobs.

The whole 2nd tactical platoon:

Command section:

 1st Squad:

2nd Squad:

 Ollay guarsman with heavy bolter:

Bravo company is now 91 models strong. It might a be a good time to present the whole force here soon.

Tall and Small

I definately wanted to have an imperial robot in my Oldhammer IG force. And finally got one for reasonable price at ebay. Then opportunity presented itself and I was a chance to do a little swap that resulted in getting a squat adeptus mechanicus. Thank you The Composer! What a nice pair these two make.

Conqueror class anti armor robot. Heavy bolter, assault cannon and power fist. Adeptus mechanicus squat with power axe and las pistol. His helmet is red as he is after all an abhuman. His presence in the company  is tolerated by the Commissars for he is the only one who can keep the robot in condition.

Painted some battle damage to the left leg of the robot. There´s another hole like
that on the right leg. Not sure what they are but used this one to make it look like
he´d been hit by something.

Squat tech priest from behind to show that detail on his power armor.

A better shot of the big assault cannon and ´facial´ details of the Conqueror.

Three Imperial Officers

B Company is slowly yet steadily growing and needed some officers to it´s ranks. Both 2nd tactical platoon and assault platoon were missing a platoon leader and the company itself a commander. This week those positions got filled.

In the middle is the company commander major Rosenzveig. To his left stands 2nd lieutenant Matula, leader of the 2nd tactical platoon. And on Rosenzveig´s other side is 1st lieutenant Geeing from assault platoon.

 Majot Rosenzveig carries a big plasma pistol and a sword. He is a pretty commanding figure with that torn sleeve and metal arm band.

1st lieutenant Geering has chosen not to wear that metal brest plate the officers usually have in favor of better mobility. His model is actually that of an imperial commander but I did a bit of kit bashing giving him a chain sword and a jump pack. As mentioned he will be the leader of the assault platoon.

And this is 2nd lieutenant Matula, leader of the 2nd tactical platoon. A minor kit bash again. I gave him a stick grenade. It´s a bit large perhaps but I don´t mind.

Slowly working on the troopers of the 2nd tactical platoon. Will need to assemble some plastic guardsmen next.

Assault squad done

As I had a day off work and not many things to take care of I took some time to finish 1st assault squad. The first model was painted months ago but as I did not have back packs and chain swords to move forward with this project I had to wait until I got some from ebay. To be able to use this squad I need to have a command section with jump packs too so that they will form a single squad assault platoon eventually. I don´t think I have the interest or resurces to expand the platoon to two squad or bigger. For instance the plasma gun troopers are hard to get and pretty expensive models.

 The assault platoon´s color will be red. You can see their command section´s standard bearer in the back ground. Sergeant, two plasma gun troopers and seven troopers with las pistol and chain sword.

The normal armament for troopers is two las pistols but those can be replaced with chain swords, hand flamers or bolt pistols. As my supply of las pistols in not endless it was quite easy to go with the chain sword alternative. Those are modern Cadian chain swords that I used btw.

 Sergeant and the two plasma gunners. As mentioned before those plasma guns are huge. Jumping with them should be something of an occupational hazard. Not to mention plasma´s tendency to overheat on sustained fire.

 Plastic trooper models speed painted. Las pistols, chain swords and jump packs. Quick and simple.

 In my opinion the plastic marine back packs work quite nicely as IG jump backs. I have no idea from which edition the packs are and to be honest don´t care.