Attilan Rough Rider

Traditional rough rider units ride the Terran horse. That is fine and everything but what about sticking them on some traditional space lizards instead. To that end we have our Attilan who has swapped the horse out for something a little more scaly.

The riding lizard is from a Lizardman Saurus cavalry unit. I converted the neck so that I could drop the head down to get it in line with the tail level to give is a closer to the ground feel while I was adding pouches to disguise the original harness on the neck. I added some chains from the GW Flagellents unit as suitably strong reigns for this beast.

The colours are a variation on the standard colour scheme for my Cityfight Imperial Guard force – greys and browns, red, blue and yellow. I added some grenades and skulls and various bits to the base to decorate.

In order to really get the opportunity to get this guy onto the games table I will need to paint up his 4 other buddies to create the full squad of 5. They will be a useful addition to the Imperial Guard force providing me with some fast hard hitters for army sized games such as Xenos Rampant or 40k.

Hardened Veterans – The Concrete Jungle Fighters

The Concrete Jungle Fighters

Some reinforcements for the Imperial Forces, The Concrete Jungle Fighters are hardened veterans of the Imperial Guard. Each one is a survivor of countless skirmishes having honed their craft to a razors edge. They are a concentration of roided-up gung-ho superheroes who are equipped with serious firepower in the form of bolters, personal side arms, a grenade launcher and a heavy bolter. If they can’t rip it apart with their bare hands, they also carry grenades and close combat weapons for close encounters.

They have been created by combining the old RT Imperial Guard plastic head with slightly less old plastic Catachan and Cadian Guardsmen.

Catachan Jungle Fighters – plastic models

The Catachan plastics are action figure like unless you do a bit of work on the shoulder joins with green stuff before painting.

I only used one of the original heads for the Sargent, opting for classic plastic heads and a Space Wolf Blood Claw for one guy.

Some official Catchan uniform patterns from Games Workshop

Nearly every Catachan mini you will see painted, is painted some shade of green. Rather than do that, I quite liked the blue version so based these off the blue scheme tailored for urban combat, but rather than going with the red bandanas, I choose yellow.

They have been painted with a fairly quick approach and then enhanced with some decals. I have used contrast paint to glaze the skin tones onto the base, on the black, on the camo pants, on the leather bits. I could spend some more time on the details and effects it’s time to stop as I am happy with the look for the effort that went into painting them, they are ready for some gaming now and I have a lot more Imperial Guard that I want to get painted up to a similar standard.

Going forward I have some of the nice old metal Catachan models that will be perfect as support to accompany these glorious heroes on the future battlefields. Certainly specialists, snipers, heavy weapons support, more regulars etc. would not go amiss.

Rogue Trader Blood Axe Imperial Guard Standard Bearer

Now this is definitely one of those bucket list models from the Rogue Trader background which I don’t recall ever seeing anyone create – prime real estate for me to plant my banner in then!

Not even Blood Axes would “knowingly” ally themselves with the Imperials. Blood Axes are happy to hire human mercenary groups however, so in order to infiltrate Ork space and stir up trouble amongst the Orks, Imperial units often pose as mercenaries.

The standard bearer is an important person in the squad as they essentially carry the advertisement for the mercenary bands services. In this case it has been topped with the heads of particularly ornery orks – the orks wouldn’t take them for serious mercenaries if they just had human heads on there, although Space Marine helmets are of course acceptable, being human nobz in the ork way of thinking. Space Marine helmets are not appropriate for our undercover Imperials, and chaos marine helmets would probably mean that the whole Imperial company would be executed for heresy (since it’s not generally seen as worth mind scrubbing and re-educating guardsmen).

Blood Axe Imperial Guard Squad – From Rogue Trader: ‘Ere We Go P.196

The colour scheme is essentially mundane light brown and grey, but I have opted for some bright yellow and purple to emphasise the sci-fi nature of this model. The stripe on the trousers gives them more of a dress uniform feel – I want it to feel like they have cobbled this mercenary uniform out of spares from the company quartermaster.

To follow up on this guy, I plan to paint the rest of the squad so I have a good Freebooter option to support my Blood Axe Boyz.

Skirmish at the Old Heinrick Place

Last weekend I got the chance to host a skirmish game for two of my old gaming buddies MT and DG.  It was a while since MT had played and an eon since DG had, so I threw together a skirmish scenario which would not take too long to get through in an afternoon.

The rules we used are a kind of meshing together of all of the Warhammer 40K and Necromunda rules from over the years (with the exception of anything from 6th Ed which I haven’t been bothered to read yet).  It’s primarily based on 5th Ed, but the models were moving around and getting pinned (not the orks) and stunned and injured in a sort of Necromunda meets Blood Bowl fashion.   Cover is handled in a cityfight sort of way…hell its too complex to explain here but it makes sense to us so it’s perfect for this stuff.

Enough waffle, on with the show!

Skirmish at the Old Heinrick Place

 

Overview:

An important imperial officer carrying vital information for operations against the ork incursions on Salvan IV has had to eject from his transport aircraft after it was shot down by ork fighta bombaz. Having sucessfully ejected from the aircraft by grav-chute and has mis-landed near an old farm at the edge of the ruins of the town. He managed to get off a distress signal alerting his unit to his approximate location before presumably the signal was disabled in the mis-landing, currently he is presumed dead or unconscious. The Imperials are seeking to recover their officer and/or the information he is carrying. The Ork aircraft have relayed the approximate location of the downed pilot to the warboss who has ordered the closest ork formation to get over there and bring this downed pilot back for interrogation.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Imperial Guard:
As the closest Imperial Guard Patrol Squad in the area you have been ordered to commence search and rescue operations at sector 043A342D. Luckily enough the squad medic is in the field which is fortunate as the downed VIP likely requires medical attention. The medic is equiped with a bio-scanner and will assist in location of the VIP. In the event that the individual is deceased any data cubes carried are to be retrieved and returned to base.

Imperial Guard Tactical Rescue Section

++++++++++WS  BS   S    T    W   I     A   Ld  Sv
Guard              3     3     3    3    1    3    1    7    5+
Sargent           3     3     3    3    1    3    2    8    5+
Officer             4     4     3    3    2    4    3    5    4+/5+
Medic              3     3     3    3    1    3    1    7    4+

Equipment Notes:

• 9 Guardsmen – lasgun, frag grenades, close combat weapon
• 1 Sargent – laspistol, frag grenades, close combat weapon, bio scanner
• Medic – laspistol, frag grenades, close combat weapon, medikit
• 1 Officer – plasma pistol, frag grenades, close combat weapon

Special Rules:

• The Officer is deployed by secret deployment by the GM before the game and is not available to the Imperial player until discovered by bio scanner or by a model moving within double the models initiave distance.  As soon as the VIP Officer is discovered roll for his injury status: 1 – 5 Down, 6 Stunned and place on table, turn then continues as normal
• Bio Scanner – use in lieu of shooting. Put down a CD sized template to try to detect any life signs under the area
• Medikit – use in lieu of shooting, change a “down” model to “stunned” status
• Regimental Speciality. Pick one skill and apply to the force:
  • Move through cover – roll 3D6 when moving through cover
  • Fleet of foot – roll 2D6 when running
  • Marksmen – re-roll any miss that occurs on a 1
  • Camoflage – +1 to cover saves
  • Furious charge: +1 Strength and +1 Initiave on the charge

Deployment:

• Deploy on the corner of map opposite the Orks

IMPERIAL VP’s

• Ork Down or Killed: 1 VP (6)
• Ork Boss Down or Killed: 3 VP (3)
• Imperial Officer rescued: 5 VP (3)
• Imperial Data retrieved: 3 VP (5)

Total: (17)

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Orks:

Da big boss sez dat da Snaggitz Flyboyz crumped a ‘ooman flyboy but dat he went down sumwhere near dat old farm on de edge of dem ruinz so we az to bring back da body so dat da boss can ave a looksie fer any loot on im. Try not ter break im before da bad dok gets a go at talkin to im or da boss will give yer a taste of boot!
Victory Points:

ORKS
++++++++++WS  BS   S    T    W   I     A   Ld  Sv
Ork                  4      2    3     4    1   2    2    7    6+
Nob                 4      2    4     4    1   3    3    8    6+

Furious charge (+1 Strenght, +1 Initiave)

Equipment Notes:

•  5 Ork boyz with Shootas
• 1 Ork Boy with Big Shoota
• 1 Ork Nob with Power Klaw and Slugga

Deployment:

Deploy on the corner of map opposite the Imperial Guard

ORK VP’s

• Imperial Guardsman Down or Kiled: 1 VP (10)
• Medic Down or Killed 1 VP (1)
• Imperial Officer Down or Killed: 3 VP (3)
• Imperial Officer’s body retrieved: 3 VP (3)

Total:  (17)

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

MT’s orks move forward through the cover of the woods

DG’s Imperial troops advance through the ruins – they took the fleet of foot option but were not so fleet as DG would have hoped moving through ruins

MT’s orks run forward into the cover of the old Heinrick place.  MT is eager to find the VIP and generally get stuck into powerklaw range – he is an adept in the ways of the ork having shredded his fair share of them with both shuriken and bolts over the years

DG has tiny T-Rex hands, he uses them to creep his Guard forward in two sections, keeping to the cover of the buildings

MT is gunning for DG’s left flank trying to concentrate his forces against half of the Guard

DG consolidates his firing position in the ruins

MT rushes forward and as luck would have it discovers the secret location of the VIP. The VIP is currently down from his fall

DG responds to this change in events with an aggressive move forward into cover to establish a firing line

The rest of the guardsmen move in to reinforce the other section

DG gets reminded about his medic who had dropped back to have a quick smoke with Mr. B apparently!

The action hots up as the flamer roasts two orks, volleys of las fire stuns another and the Sargent takes out the big shoota with his laspistol, pew pew! All orks are down and can crawl away at 2″ in their next movement phase and roll for recovery at the end of their turn, just like Necromunda in fact

MT moves his down orks into cover and advances the other orks ready to charge into hand to hand

Next MT wastes no time in getting his nob to stuff the officer into a big lewt sack, focused on the objective like the big Blood Axe that he is

MT charges and DG moves any guardsmen within 2″ of a charged model to move in to help out their buddies

The guardsmen die quickly when up against the orks

More guardsmen join the fray but will it be enough to stem the green trickle?

Vengence as the guardsmen take out an ork and advance to the cover to engage the remaining orks

But MT’s nob is getting away with the prize

Man alone – the last survivor of the close assault is surprisingly, a human!  Ironically is is the model with the most kill markings on his lasgun showing that the gaudy personalized battlegear is not just for show

But that Zogger MT is getting away from DG now

DG dutifully gives chase

But MT’s nob drops his prize and charges DG quick as a flash, this won’t end well no matter how many kill markings that guardsman has!

Yep

All mine! MT is Da Winna!

The 1989th, a sorry bunch of loosers (which is what I was going for to be honest).

Final Score:

DG  6 VP’s
MT  17 VP’s

So well done to MT, DG will get his chance to get even this weekend when he gets the opportunity to rescue his officer.

Rogue Trader Imperial Guard Project – More Pictures of 1989th

This is just a quick round up of the project.

Painted squads first:

 

Catachan Pattern Comm Link and Sargent

“Corporal” in center (for splitting the squad), also Flamer Guy toting a Cadian pattern flamer

 

Command Squad: 13th Company 3rd Platoon

Ogryn with Ogryn Badass

 

Works in progress.  These are pretty much test models for squads I am planning on adding to the force:

WIP Rough Rider – Front Left

 

WIP Rough Rider Sargent Front Right

WIP Rough Rider – Rear

 

WIP Necromunadan Grenadier – Front

WIP Necromunadan Grenadier – Rear

 

WIP Jump Pack Assault Sargent with Plasma Pistols – Front

WIP Jump Pack Assault Sargent with Plasma Pistols – Rear

 

Rogue Trader Era Imperial Guard Project – Badass Ogryn

tYou got a ticket to the gun show?

So after some words with Sho3box last week I went for making the Badass Ogryn.  The idea is to use the BattleMasters ogre as the base.  The BattleMasters ogre is basically the same model in a larger scale, perfect for my needs in this project as I get to follow the same style closely in making this bigger than normal brute.  Here the models are side by side for comparison.

Ogres from HeroQuest expansion on the left and BattleMasters game (from MB) on the right

Build involves chopping off the arms and shaving off any not needed details, fantasy equipment etc.

BattleMasters Ogre sliced and diced

Armor is made from plasticard strips worried by a long nose pliers into shape.

Armour made from plastic card strips

Armor is stuck to the model using superglue (more sane people would probably use plastic cement, I am just impatient and demand immediate hold due to a low attention span).  Unit badge is made by hole punching plasticard.

Badass Ogryn armor after supergluing onto the base model, not supergluing your fingers is like trying to eat a sugary doughnut without lickng your lips 

Rough assembly with Blu-Tac:

That’s about right for a pose I think

After lots of green stuffing around the arms (with the aid of the clay shaper) its ready to paint up:

Badge indicates member of Ogryn squad designation “Happy Violence” attached to 13th Company 3rd Platoon

 

Lots of green stuff was needed around the neck and arms to achieve the more animated pose versus the stock model

❤

o/

 

Size comparison again:

Yup, he looks badass enough to me

 

Context with other models:

I iz pleased, they certainly seem to have the same atmosphere now as the 80’s plastics

Of note is the 80’s style mohawk/crest thingie which is just a plastic HeroQuest ogre mowhawk transplant.  The weapon choice is an interesting one.  I didn’t really have a clue what to arm a Badass Ogryn with.  The Ripper gun conversion I was building for the other Ogryns is simply too small for this brute.  I didn’t really consider him the type of chap to be changing the mags in a heavy bolter or any of the other weapons I had lying about for that matter.  I needed something simple and lethal.  On a deep bits box rummage I came accross the old Space Orks plastic heavy weapon which happened to look like a plasma pistol in this guys hand.  I was instantly sold on the look without really considering in game use – which has to be a good thing anyway.   He should be fun to break out for scenario games, there are few things as fun in 40k than managing to get your ogryns to beat your opponents favorite troops to a bloody pulp if yer asks me!

 

Rogue Trader Era Imperial Guard Project – Ogryn

Following on from feedback on the proto-ogryn (https://theottovonbismark.wordpress.com/2012/11/05/398/) we have the improved version of the HeroQuest ogryn.

Already nicknamed “The Bad Lieutenant” by the GF

I spent a bit of time over the last week sculpting a classic imperial guard circa 1989 helmet onto the plastic HeroQuest ogryn head using green stuff.

Using the basic HeroQuest head as an armature for the green stuff

I nearly contemplated suicide getting the smoothness of the head

The bits on the side are plastic shield bosses from the Skeleton Army boxed set

 

I took it at this stage and made a mold of it in silicon as I plan to make a few of these guys.  I used lead to make a casting of it for this model.

Plasticard strips attacked with my needle nose pliers are used to make the armor plates

The armor is much improved vs. the earlier version.  The thicker plasticard used gives the model more visual weight than before and allows me to get nice battle damage effects on the plates.  Use of a needle nose pliers on the plasticard allows me to shape and texture the plates in a pleasing manner.  The head has been moved up the body a little to bring the posture back a little bit towards humanoid.

HeroQuest Ogryn Makeover

The bare feet were given some attention to give them similar footwear to the other guardsmen.  Note his oldschool timepiece.  I was going to give him a normal watch but Mrs. VonBismark suggested that I needed to go more low tech given the operator.  It looks like he could kill with this watch.

Not much taller than a guardsman really

The armor is heavier than the standard guardsman which is grand for this fellow given he is a sort of assault shock trooper.  The unit badge gave me trouble.  I could not find a suitable imperial transfer for it.  I see him as being attached to the 3rd platoon so I gave him the platoon badge colours and it is always desirable to keep the same badge colours on such a small group of models.  The transfer I went for was from the ork sheet which I painted over to get a nice inverted colour smiley face.

🙂

I like how this model came out in a number of ways but his very short legs still bother me a little.  I learned a good bit from him and can quickly get the strongest points of this model created quickly again on the next one.  That next version of the HeroQuest ogre will surely have some heavy modification lined up on the lower torso for this model, somewhat inspired by my reading up on converting space marines to truescale here:

http://masteroftheforge.com/

Great site for green stuff conversion tips.

Rogue Trader Era Imperial Guard Project – Medic

This guy is the medic for the command squad sculpted by Mark Copplestone.  It’s of 1989 vintage and is a quaint sculpt with regard to how the medikit on his back connects flush to the breastplate on his right hand side whilst on the opposite side the there is a space where the uniform and belt are visible making the whole assembly an asymmetrical design.

An imperial medic prepares to administer the last rites with his autopistol

I decided not to paint anything larger than a button red on this model and I chose to use a metallic green for the helmet badge and a more green tinted uniform colour than the other models in the squad.  Colour wise it is going to be hospital greeens rather than red-cross reds for this force.

He has really cool boots which are quite different from the other models in the set which are generally only riding boots style things or boots & goulashes.

An imperial medikit.

I went for a very dark skin tone for this chap as I knew I wanted to have white equipment.  I like how the dark skin tone contrasts with the gold framing the breast plate and white helmet.

Rogue Trader Era Imperial Guard Project – Command Squad Troopers

Two more members of the command squad to round it out to five models.  A chap with a grenade launcher and a regular lasgun armed trooper.  Both figures are from 1989 and are Mark Copplestone Sculpts to the best of my knowledge.

The dark patch on the right cheek is actually intended…

Rear detail – he will probably get some more personal iconography later on

 

Really, who the hell designs a gun like this?

Love that rear badge on this sculpt! ❤

Both figures are painted up to almost complete stage.  I need to sit down with the whole squad and try to normalise them a bit to each other.  They need some personal icons and to have little tufts glued to their bases to complete the effect.  I have opted to matte varnish the models generally with the exception of the gun, amour plates, shoes, helmet and goggles which received the gloss varnish.  I am pretty happy with the work on this squad so far.  I still need to get a medic done up for them so they will be Rogue Trader legal.

😉

 

Here is the group shot so far:

Cheeeeeezzze!

Rogue Trader Era Imperial Guard Project – Veteran Orderly with Platoon Banner

The Orderly for the Lieutenant’s command squad with the Platoon banner for the 3rd Platoon of the 13th Company of the Necromundan 1989th Regiment.

Imperial Guard Orderly with platoon banner

 

The model stays close to the source material with a few minor changes to suit my tastes.

 

The Source Material for the Banner

 

The banner is made from rolling out green stuff when it is half dry.  One of the features of this banner is that it actually rotates around the flag pole.  I do this so that is is easy to paint the rest of the model when you can move the flag out of the way, it makes packing and transport easier, makes it more able to take a drop (tested already) and means you can change the position on the final model if you are unhappy with it’s facing with ease.

13th Company 3rd Platoon, Ollanius Pius with the slogan “Mortis Imperius” which google translate says means “the power of death”

Necromundan 1989th Regimental Banner

 

Rear Detail

 

A dramatic pose is a prerequesite for carrying the platoon banner in this guardsmans army

 

Next up is the grenade lancher guy and a guardsman to round out 5 models for the command squad and soon after will do a medic as an optional 6th model.