Monday 25 July 2022

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!

10 comments:

  1. All of a sudden, you have half an imperial army mec !
    The colour scheme is extremely effective and while mantis warriors are not the most appealing chapter to me, I find they look great on their own but even better with those IGs.

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    1. I was just feeling really green, and they are amongst the greenest of marines. The soldiers have painted up nicely and quickly, which means I cna spend time on some cool toys for the force guilt free...

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  2. Nice to see you back Crooks! And in such STYLE! Your IG and Ogryn Boys look particularly fantastic. :)

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    1. Thanks Mr Composer, seeing your own stuff around the interwebs lately helped spur on my blogging efforts - I have quite the backlog of minis to show off after that hiatus ;)

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    2. Fabulous news that! Got a little more painting done myself that I'll need to post up shortly and more story should be incoming. :)

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  3. Not the deadly sand clam! I've always thought that it would be cool to have an army solely made up of silly monsters from Rogue Trader: sand clams, pterasquirrels, cudbears and those teleporting Britain's Farm crocodiles... Anyhow, these guys look really cool, and make me all the more determined to repaint my derpy RT Eldar. I particularly like the hazard stripes on the marine's power fist.

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    1. I would play against that army AT LEAST once. Thanks for the comment Toby, you should definitely get those Eldar out!

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    2. I will! That will be the next project. Incidentally, that Bob Olley ogryn in the centre is one of my favourite models, up there with the Genestealer Patriarch on a throne.

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  4. Ohhh, pretty neat results there! The RT Imperial Guard is a favourite of mine, you can never go wrong with these guys. The Satyr ones are a nice discovery though! And I think I can say the same about the mighty RTB01, I am so in love with them! Man, you are a bad influence, now I want to paint Imperials too!

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  5. This is just too good! Looks fantastic!

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