Lucky

Sorry for the long silence, I moved again for work. Quite close to the new town I live in I found a comics shop which sold me two absolute goodies such these:

OOP imperial guard Stormtroopers, 1997 circa

The famous female catachan jungle fighter with grenade launcher!

I had them still sealed for 10+5€. Stormtroopers are very rare, the catachan girls is quite rare in europe this is why I feel very happy about the purchase! I hope to paint them soon!

Last Imperial Guard Tank Crew member!

This running guy is painted in the same way the previous were. The thing i like best is his green pants. Anyway there's not that much to say about him! do you like it?

Advancing Valhallan Ice Warrior

This is the last Valhallan of this batch. Painted as usual, please just note the particular attention for the details. Nothing more to say, he's just a basic veteran trooper.

Another Valhallan veteran

I love this Valhallan Ice Warrior, the pose is pretty much like "ok: what's going on there?". I find him quite funny and suitable for a static command squad that looks the battle from a second line trench, giving orders or transmitting coordintates to the artillery batteries.

The colour scheme is the usual 34th Valhallan urban camo. Above, the regimental insigna painted on the coat right sleeve.

On the left sleeve it has been painted the squad number. Please note the camo roll this model bears, useful in case of heavy snow.

OOP Commissar into veterans 2nd squad sergeant

More veterans! This guy is an old commissar miniature, 1996 circa i guess, which i used to represent sort of "improved" infantry sergeant so, because of his veteran status, i thought it could be a good idea to replace the usual Valhallan Ice Warriors sergeant with something more sofisticated. I find it very suitable to Valhallans because of his greatcoat and his peaked cap makes him look pretty well like a hardened commander.

His pistol is a now almost disappeared hand flamer which i think is only available to Battle Sisters and Blood Angels but i'm not sure. Anyway even if this isn't available anymore to Imperial Guard, i chose not to replace it because of the beauty of its aquila marking on the side and the rarity of this OOP miniature.

Another Imperial Guard Tank Crew guy!

Welcome back!
This guy is basically the same than the previous one, except he is standing instead of kneeling and he's armed with a lasgun instead of a laspistol. It is quite clear to see what i was telling you before about the black "armoured corps" vest, which makes him quite "panzerdivision" looking. Beside of that, his leather helmet and his black leather boots give him a Soviet taste.

I painted of course a squad patch on his left sleeve.

Valhallan veteran!

One more painted veteran! This time a Valhallan Ice Warrior, the one with the rebreather. I already painted this kind of Valhallan trooper so i tried to make him look a bit more different adopting a slightly different camouflage scheme, darker in comparison to the other miniatures i painted last year. also i introduced a fourth level of highlighting and i must say that i really like how it came out, do you?

Look at how the coat colours and the base colours are blended together but somehow the model manages to stand out and look bright!

OOP Imperial Guard Tank Crew, limited edition

I'm particularly proud of these miniatures: this is one of the three members of the Imperial Guard tank crew that i own. These models came out in 1999 when, with the first 3rd edition codex, you could give tanks a piece of equipment called Crew Escape Mechanism meant to save a D3 members of tank crew in order to avoid losing completely the Victory points of the tank. Very fancy wargear, i wish i could buy this right now for my Russes (i deploy three). These miniatures were available only from GW Mail Order so this made them pretty rare stuff.

I decided to use these three models because i wanted to give my army kinda "survivor" feel, like if it has been deployed for a really long time, so starting from the day this guy lost his tank, i got attached to a veteran infantry squad to allow him to go on fighting.
The colour scheme is a bit different from the other veterans: the trousers are the same but the jacket is, instead of grey-black urban camo, plain black to represent his status of elite tank crew, pretty much like the way WW2 Germans did. In fact in my army i painted tank crews from Leman Russes or artillery with a black vest while the Chimeras' crews just plain olive green (quite Soviet looking).
Anyway, i really love the way i painted the potentiometer on the laspistol! looks like it is glowing in the dark!

Cadian veteran!

I began to paint seriously all of my guardmen: this is the first of the first batch. the camo scheme is the usual urban camo made of medium grey as main colour and black stripes.

Right now i'm using Vallejo game and model colours and for the grey i combined:

• German grey
• Basalt grey 
• Cold grey

Black stripes are painted with:

• Black
• German grey
• Black wash or Lifecolor's Panzer Uniform instead of German grey

 Green fatigues are painted with:

• Yellow olive
• Cayman green
• Camouflage green

I'm particularly happy with the red patch of the squad's number on the left shoulder. This make my guardsmen really tidy, very clear to understand who is who on the battlefield!

Command squad part IV

Fourth and last meltagunner: this one is Animal from Schaeffer Last Chancers. quite rare miniature, out of production of course even if still available from GW mailorder i guess. its rarity is why i've decided to include it in my Valhallan command squad even if it doesn't make much sense to make an almost naked man to walk into a snowy environment. i imagine this guy like a prisoner of war used by the other members of the squad like human shield and/or expendable soldier when the firefight gets tough.

 

this was the last command squad member so that's all for now! see you in a couple of days!

Command squad part III

Third meltagunner of the company command squad, classic Cadian trooper! i love these models, i think they are much better them the actual Cadians which are kind of toy soldiers with those huge helmets and that vest quite looking like a skirt. i know, plastic models are much better to convert and i'm agree (in fact you can get great troopers with converted cadians, just swap their heads with something better!) but this classic metal stuff has a lot more of charme.

Command squad part II

 

This is the second veteran from my company command squad, this time a Valhallan. The meltagun has the usual wooden finish and the coat is painted with the standard Valhallan 34th regiment urban camo scheme.

He is very similar to the rest of the army which is composed of veterans (i deploy no platoons) so there was no reason to paint him differently. i am not sure but maybe i'll paint a patch on the left sleeve to show his command designation.

Command squad part I

There are many ways to play an Imperial Guard Company Command squad. Personally, i like to exploit the most the ability of the officier to issue orders like "Bring It Down!" so i chose to equip the veterans that escort my officier with meltaguns.
Since i play Valhallan Ice Warriors, which are made of metal, i would have 4 identical melta gunners so i decided to build up a squad with troopers from many different regiments and paint all of them in the same way to give them some chromatic coherency, even if they are not look alike at all. The first of these is this Catachan melta gunner that has been modified with Space Marines Scouts shoulder pads and some milliput to sculpt a flak armour (previously shown here). i also added a backpack to make him look like a sapper.

I painted him in the usual way, so Command designation on the right pad and chevrons on the melta bombs and grenades. i didn't add any snow, yet.

Kill Team camo scheme part II

 

more Killteam camo scheme! i chose to paint the flak armour grey in combination to the camo scheme of the fatigues just to give this soldier a ww2 feel... just think to Wehrmacht/SS soldiers on the western front in 1944, you couldn't find two men dressed in the same way, so this is what i'm trying to achieve.

the camouflage is done this way:

1. black primer
2. catachan green basecoat
3. bestial brown spots
4. bubonic brown spots
5. black wash
6. 50/50 camo green + catachan green highlight
7. snakebite leather highlight

Kill Team camo scheme

have you ever played the Killteam mission from Battle Missions expansion?
i never did but as soon as i read the rules i totally got into that so i'm planning a new camo scheme for my imperial guard. this time i want something for a temperate enviroment, just for difference sake, it's boring to paint all the time the same camo scheme.
the idea was to recreate something with a Wehrmacht flavour so i chose these colours. i'm not sure about this scheme so i'm making a lot of sketches. let me know what do you think about guys!

Imperial guard progress

we are slowly progressing... eheh. what do you think i should do next? i'm planning to remove rough riders because on the latest faq it came out that furious charge doesn't stack with hunting lance bonus so...

Chimera 4A1

so, the famous stretched Chimera is finally done!
it took me a lot of time to model ad decide how it should look (also because of my laziness) but now it's over.

the camo scheme is the usual one: classic stripes with urban colours. the checker pattern is the designation of command tank (sometimes the company command squad rides this tank, depending on the mission), painted just to make it easier to distinguish (for the opponent) where the squad with different equipment is. the red dragon badge, on the left, indicates the squadron (platoon A). the roman numeral VI indicates the company.

the same on this side. check out the wooden boxes! il like them a lot! on the top i modeled a camo net with some bandage kept hard with PVA glue.

artistic shot I: tank commander

artistic shot II: 1st passenger

artistic shot III: 2nd passenger

which chimera do you like more?

Catachan tank commander

more catachans!
this is the Leman Russ Exterminator tank commander that came with the old kit (1999). it belongs to Teo and his name his J.A. Tiger (ahah, very A-Team)! obviously counts as knight commander Pask!
personally i'm pretty proud of the aquila sign on the helmet and the specs. do you like it, guys?

Catachan testpaint over!

this is the final result, i'm pretty satisfied with it. quite similar with GW's Catachan scheme but with more personality in my opinion.
if you are wondering from where this miniature is coming from, well, it came together with a tank commander in the old Leman Russ Exterminator kit (1999). yes, with the 3rd edition codex you could deploy that tank but it was far less powerful than now. it is a leman russ passenger, and should look like this:

how nice! the tank commander is the next!

Catachan testpaint part II

so this time we've got to think about the lasgun's camo scheme. which is better? black + snot green (above) or black + camo green (below)?

please, let us know!