Forces of the Imperium

 Greetings vaqueros! Today we will be looking at a small force of Imperial Guard I've been working on - with a handful of superhuman allies!

Imagine being a normal man, an innocent man, in the grim darkness of the 41st millennium. Arrayed against you and your feeble man-hands are all the most fearsome creatures in the galaxy - violent aliens of every shape and colour, evil daemons and their worshippers, semi-sentient flesh eating flora, extra-dimensional psychic abominations, and giant clams.

You won't be laughing when it uses that WS6 to bite your leg off.

The only thing you have to defend yourself with is a natty jump-suit, flak armour, and your trusty lasgun. And your human brothers and sisters in arms, who number in the tens of millions. And some pretty sweet tanks, and giant walking warmachines. And various assorted super humans and demi-humans have your back. Actually, maybe being a human in 40k isn't all that bad! It's kinda rad!

Just don't let it go to your head. And by 'it' I mean 'bullit'.

For the start of my Imperial forces I've painted up a unit of 10 of some of the first guardsmen models Games Workshop produced - mainly armless metal variants that were supplied with plastic arms and weapons. These weren't my favourite things to assemble but I've had a lot of practise with my orks, so it wasn't too painful.

The next 10 guardsmen were a lot less fiddly - they are in fact brand new sculpts from Satyr Arts Studios in the US, and all single piece casts, hooray! They are modelled after some of the classic miniatures of the Rogue Trader era such as the Chainsaw Warrior set, and the 'Heavy Trooper' Imperial Guard variant. The guy with the missile launcher is a personal favourite from this bunch but they are all lovely.

Next up - some ogryns, sculpted by the wonderful Bob Olley. These guys will provide some much needed muscle to the manlings, and can lay down withering short range fire with their ripper guns, which, in some of the earlier editions at least, didn't require a hit roll...

Finally we have a small unit of the Emperor's Finest - Mantis Warriors, a chapter descended from Jaghatai Khan himself, present to provide some surgical striking power where needed. Ever since I watched the web series of Helsreach I've been greatly enamoured of the idea of a small force of marines bolstering the human defences. Despite the RTB01 marines being quite small compared to the monster marines stomping about today, they still have a pleasing size and bulk compared to the RT Imperial Guardsmen - if only the marines didn't hunch so, it's so bad for their posture. 

So there it is, my budding forces of the Imperium, just itching to get to grips with their many foes! I have plans to add some IG bikers, rough riders and an IG Land Speeder; I've also got marine scouts and some marine assault troops, which will inevitably branch into a proper marine force if I can maintain this momentum!

And what's next? Well, what Imperial Guard force would be complete without robots! Big robots! HUGE ROBOTS!

Hang about, these huge robots seem a little on the... small side...?

See you next time!