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Imperial Guard Mechanised Platoon

For many years now I've been feeling that 40K needed a major overhaul. The last few editions didn't go far enough for me, but as yet almost everything I've read about the new edition is encouraging, and thus my ancient love of 40K is stirring. Stirring like a kraken from the depths of my loins.

Now I'm faced with a conundrum. Clearly this excitement demands that some stuff gets painted and, come release day, some 40K must be played. But there are two armies I could go for: my fledgling mechanised guard, or more speed freeks. I love both armies dearly and I'm too slow for both. Ultimately it'll probably be orks but I do love me some guard, so before diving into painting more kustom trukks, I made a point of at least finishing the platoon I started waaaay back in 2014.

It's not that I'm a slow painter, it's that the river of 40K love really did run that dry.


Let's face it, these guardsmen (and women, all two of them... good luck spotting them) have been given a mediocre paint job. Better to have twenty-five mediocre troopers than three masterpieces and twenty-two regrets. In the vanishingly unlikely event that you want to know how I painted these dudes (they are hella quick to paint) I wrote about it here. If you're curious about the true-calibre Leman Russ, you can check it out here.


As with all my projects, I had to know who these dudes were. I'm no longer capable of just painting some random spods. This is Lieutenant Adi "Bolt" Kahurangi's platoon. Bolt is known as a rash and enthusiastic officer, often picked by his captain when she needs someone to take an objective, but she wouldn't generally trust him to stay inside a defensive position, hence his nickname. He was given his now signature weapon - his boltgun - in recognition of his various acts of successful recklessness (his detractors point out that this was essentially rewarding an idiot for being lucky). A casting director would probably pick the likes of Dwayne Johnson to play him. In fairness you'd have to be gurt hench to haul a boltgun about.


Lt Kahurangi was a relatively simple conversion achieved with nowt but some careful scalpel action; no green stuff needed. The arms and hands needed a fair bit of angling and repositioning, since funnily enough, there are no models of a guardsmen running forwards blazing away with a bolter.



Ankran unit designations are contained within their squad markings. They're the 2nd platoon of the 3rd company of the 5th battalion of the 107th Ankran Mechanised Infantry, and with the exception of the regimental number, here's how that works on the model:

- The battalion is indicated by a coloured shape on the right shoulder pad, orange being 5th.
- Company numbers are indicated by the number of sides to the battalion shape, so a triangle is 3rd company.
- Platoon numbers are displayed in roman numerals within the battalion shape.
- Squad numbers are displayed on their left shoulder pad. The command squad and chimera use an icon chosen by the lieutenant, a hangover from the heraldry used by Ankrah's old noble houses.

Why yes, I am a nerd.

2017 continues to be a productive year; I've now painted almost all of the models needed for the next BFG campaign, and then next month it's on to a genestealer cult army I need to produce by the end of July for another Deathwatch scenario. I can't share the BFG fleets until the players discover them in-game, but I'll be blogging about my endeavours with the genestealers as I go, so you can all laugh as I try to find a fast-yet-fruity method of painting them.

Here's to a new edition of 40K! Hopefully you're all as excited as I am.

~Charlie

Comments

  1. Well done Charlie. Looks like your force is as cohesive and life like as SciFi models can get. My to do list is about as long as yours (last post). I'm finding if I paint 20-60 mins in the morning each day and also motivating myself by painting whatever is in front of me so I'm surrounded by an ever growing number of painted models, my motivation stays on the up side and I see my success each day as I paint. Being surrounded by unpainted models just makes me feel flat and demotivates. As I play will my models or find unpainted ones, I replace some, not all, of the painted ones on the shelf and that way they stick out and little projects keep popping up. I've hit one roadblock: models that have lost and arm or weapons that get painted... eg my Commissar with a right arm. My bits box is huge so finding it may be difficult...

    But I digress... Well done again and keep up your hobby mania. I too am a geek and revel in it everyday :)

    Thanks from Russ @ Warhammer Gateway dot com

    PS female troopers spotted (one way easy, the other not so)

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    Replies
    1. That's a cunning strategy; I'll try to revel in the successes more :D

      Also, well done spotting the second female trooper; I wasn't sure if people would even be able to tell!

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