Imperial Guard - The Orelian 2nd

The Hammer of the Emperor

Many, many years ago I started collecting Imperial Guard models.

A few years before that, I started collecting Imperial Army models!

This is the current state of my collection - a fairly massive force which - like any labour of love - is not yet complete.

You will find here some real W40K history. There are units here with models that have been Out Of Print for a very long time. If you look closely, you'll find:

• Female Guardsmen,
• A non-human Guardsman,
• A first edition Commissar Yarrick model,
• A Commissar with a weapon that doesn't exist in the rules any more (a hand flamer),
• Ogryns converted from Wahammer Fantasy plastic models

I made a few decisions when working on this army (and another one since - some day I *must* repaint the bases. Too garish), one of which was that I was tired of seeing every model ever painted and shown in White Dwarf as being a white guy. As such you'll find as you look through this lot that a fair proportion of the models are black.

HQ

The company command squad. Contains a home-made vox-caster. The commander's cape is modelled with milliput and he's armed with a power-fist taken from the first ever issue of plastic Ork models.

The original Yarrick model.

A sanctioned psyker

Commissar with Hand Flamer

Commissar with power-sword and power-fist

Commissar with combi-weapon

Commissar with power-sword and bolt pistol. Actually a tank-commander model from the Baneblade kit

Commissar with laspistol and chainsword

Commissar with laspistol

Elites

Ogryns converted from Warhammer Fantasy plastic models. The Ripper guns are made from old plastic Imperial Guard lascannon with ammo drums added and the helmets, flak jackets and berets are made from Milliput.

Ratlings! I love these guys!

Kasrkin Stormtroopers - along with the Penal Squad these are probably the most up-to-date models in this army.

Troops

Platoon 1

Platoon 1 command squad

Squad 1

Squad 2. The guardsman at the far left may have been one of the models that inspired the current "Marbo" character (who is clearly supposed to be "Rambo"). Also see Platoon Command 3 for another possibility on this one.

Heavy weapons teams - 2 x Mortars (one of the Mortar models came from a Tamiya Battlefield Accessories kit). I decided when building my heavy weapons teams to keep the "loader" models on separate bases. That way I could easily represent the loss of a "Wound" by just removing the loader

Heavy weapons teams - 2 x Lascannon and 1 x Missile Launcher

Chimera

Platoon 2

Platoon 2 Command

Squad 3. I think the front-most model may have been an early indicator of what was to come in the shape of Catachan guardsmen

Squad 4. This squad features a female guardsman (2nd from left, no helmet)

Heavy weapons teams - 2 x Lascannon and a Missile Launcher

Heavy weapons teams - 2 x Heavy bolters and an Autocannon. Note the female guardsman (centre)

Platoon 3

Platoon 3 command. The guardsman 2nd from right may have been one of the models that inspired the current "Marbo" character (who is clearly supposed to be "Rambo"). Also see Squad 2 for another possibility on this one.

Squad 5



Squad 6

Chimera

A Special Weapons team (3 x Snipers). Note the guardsman on the far right is actually female

Penal Squad

Penal Squad. I used Catachan Jungle Fighters for this squad (it's the only real representation of any of the current Guard Foot models aside from the Storm Troopers).

Fast Attack

Hellhound

Hellhound Flame Tank

Rough Riders

Rough Riders - these models are sooooo old! Equipped with 2 x grenade launchers and explosive lances

Heavy Support

Leman Russes

Leman Russ 1 - an ebay rescue job. The Heavy Bolter sponsons were actually taken from a Space Marine Predator and are metal.

Leman Russ 2

And that's it, for now.

There's always more to add to the Guard. I have a half-finished Baneblade, a box of bits to make 8 x Sentinels out of and a Valkyrie to build courtesy of my friend, Mike (check out his blog at "The Old Giant" in my links section).

Cities of Death Stratagems

Things have been somewhat quiet on the scenery front for a while with the majority of my effort going into preparing for games at Warhammer World where all the scenery you'll ever need is provided for you.

Almost.

Mike and I, however, have played a couple of Cities of Death (formerly: Cityfight) games there recently. Whilst assembling the City was easily enough done using the splendid buildings available at Warhammer World, the CoD rules call for several markers known as "Stratagems" to highlight key strategic points in the game. These (for the most part) take the form of small scenic objects which I've depicted here.

Ammo Dumps
The Ammo Dumps are made from plasticard bases with a texturing layer of mesh or plastic applied on top, then battlefield accessories of either Citadel (large ammo crates) or Tamiya (all the rest - from a WWII set) provenance are added.

An Ammo dump

Another Ammo dump

Barricades/Sandbags
The sandbags are from a Tamiya set. The barricades are from a couple of small Citadel building models (which I think were taken from an Imperial Guard army box-set) and various bits & bobs added from my spares box.

Tamiya sandbags - a great model, but they take some building as each sandbag is an individual piece.

Barricades - Citadel buildings and bits from the spares box

The corrugated iron is just paper - comes on a large roll from your local craft shoft. Very cheap, but very effective once painted.

Comms Station
Built from a vehicle dozer blade (for the main antenna), some items from the "Battle for Macragge" boxed set, plasticard and a few bits of wire.



Very fiddly to make - lots of wire bending with pliers!

Worth the effort though as I think all the wires make this model work far better than if they weren't there.

Fuel Dumps
The Fuel Dumps are made from plasticard bases with a texturing layer of mesh or plastic applied on top, then battlefield accessories of either Citadel (large barrels, Fuel cells) or Tamiya (all the rest - from a WWII set) provenance are added.

Tank Traps

The top two sets of tank traps are built from some WWII Tamiya kits, the bottom is from a Citadel battlefield accessories set.

Tamiya WWII Tank traps

More Tamiya Tank traps

Tank traps: Never go to a Cities of Death game without them (unless playing against Tyranids, who don't have tanks, Eldar or Tau - those sneaky alien skimmer-tanks just float right over them).

Warriors of Chaos

In mid 2010 I started work on a long-overdue project: A Chaos army for which I had had the majority of models in my collection of "Things to get around to" for quite some time (approximately 20 years, in fact).

Most of the models shown here are from Warhammer 3rd edition or earlier, the notable exceptions being the Hellcannon (which is a complete scratchbuild), the Chaos Marauders (which are a mix of old Chaos Thugs and newer Marauders) and the Warhounds. The mounted Generals is also a notable model as the Daemonic steed version is a heavily converted plastic foot warrior on what was originally a one-headed, un-barded horse.

Other units have been partially upgraded - anyone with a shield has a new Citadel shield, for example and any Knights on plastic horses are on relatively modern steeds.

One major departure for me was the way this army was painted as it saw my first use of airbrushes which were used to base-coat the models and then apply several layers of washes to give that "dried blood" look to the armour. The rest of the detail and horse-flesh were then brushed on as normal.

See individual unit entries for more details. 

The photos were taken on different visits to Warhammer World hence the differences in the lighting.



This model is in actuality a Greater Daemon of Khorne from Circa 1990. Back then saw the first issue of dedicated books of army lists "Realm of Chaos - Slaves to Darkness" and "Realm of Chaos - The Lost and the Damned" that were to spawn the "Warhammer Armies" books that we now enjoy. Prior to that, Warhammer Armies was a single Tome which contained all the lists for every army.

The modern Greater Daemon models are far larger than these older models, but since my army is very Khorne-looking I have decided to use this model as the Daemon Prince as it's about the right size (wingspan excepted).



Another collection of older models with a few modern plastics added in for bulk. Front and Centre is a model from waaay back: a female Chaos Warrior (IIRC GW used to give a lot of their models names and she was called ''Ludmilla Loinripper''). She also features my original brush-painted colour scheme which I abandoned as too labour intensive. The red is a little more vivid than the airbrushed version.

The model on the rear rank, fourth from the left is actually a very old "Empire" knight to which I added a lance and horns. Other models circa 1990 but with newer horses and shields.

Well, I had three very old Chaos Dwarf models which were doing nothing and your Chaos chappies have no ranged weapons at all. The Hellcannon looked fun from the army list, but I didn't really like the model and didn't want to pay £40.00 for a model I didn't like. So I made my own from plastic piping, foamboard, scrap bits of plasticard and some chains & milliput.

I had to get Cthulhu into the army somehow!

Another view of the HellCannon

Models from Circa 1990, updated with modern shields and (apart from the centre and left-most model) horses.

Shown also here is the Mortal General model - a heavily converted "Rough Rider" style horse, broadened, given two heads and a load of Milliput armour and topped with a plastic Chaos Warrior. This will be photographed elsewhere in greater detail at some point.

The model "front and centre" is an old Citadel Figurehead - it was a very popular model from the late 1980s which was one of the first models with which I can claim to have been happy with the paint-job I did. It had a very minor amount of repainting before it joined the Chaos army - it's trousers were repainted to match the "dried blood" look of the rest of the force.

The two models at the left and centre of the rear rank are the only other Citadel models in the unit, the other being from a Citadel offshoot called "Marauder Miniatures" (now demised). The marauder models have a much more "foppish" look to them - all floppy hats and puffy sleeves.

Still - they make for a striking unit (no pun intended).

This model is in actuality a Greater Daemon of Nurgle from before 1990. 1990 saw the first issue of dedicated books of army lists "Realm of Chaos - Slaves to Darkness" and "Realm of Chaos - The Lost and the Damned" which is where the bloated Nurgle Daemons were first seen. This model is an earlier and ver different take on the rotting horrors we know today. A very rare model and the only one of it's kind I've ever seen.

The "Nurgle" model shown alongside one of the more modern plastic Spawn models

Another unit of Warhounds.

This unit is a mixture of old Chaos Thug models and newer plastic Marauders. One of my favourites, it contains two female models (front-left and the other is obscured by the banner).

This unit is largely built from new plastic models (the model front-and-centre is an exception). I was very pleased with the way the paintjob turned out - I was dubious about the models until I'd finished painting them but they have become a firm favourite.