Sunday 20 November 2011

Rough Riders

Seeing as everybody seems to be going mad for Praetorian Rough Riders at the moment with Victoria Lamb producing her own as well as Col Gravis and the whole Cavember thing I thought I'd bang out some more photos.
Shown above is the Rough Rider Lieutenant with Command Squad I made using Rogue Trader cavalry and Praetorian heads.

Below are Col Gravis' riders with the addition of Secret weapon small crests to the helmets.  I'm not too sure if it works but it hints more towards an elite corps rather than having ordinary Infantry helmets.

Post Christmas however, it will be a box of Pistoliers from the local GW and a big Paypal order to Victoria Lamb's website.  Funny how there is so much support for the idea of Praetorians after they were discontinued by GW.  The thing is though I believe that they do not particularly fit the "Grim Dark" vibe of the 40k universe but, as a true Brit, the idea of Redcoats in Space is too strong to be resisted.

Sunday 16 October 2011

The New Cavalry

First post for a while.  Damn that whole working for a living thing!!  Finally getting towards the end of the first troop of Rough Riders using Col Gravis' sculpts.  I will probably add some holsters, water bottles and bed roll type gubbins from my Bitz Box to make them look more self-sufficient.  Paint job notwithstanding, they are a step up from my initial Rough Riders as pictured previously in the blog.  I may even consider trying some of the Secret Weapon small crests just to make them stand out even more.  A project for another day.  I'm also in the middle of painting up the new 20 Praetorians I got from Ebay.  A wise £40 investment.

Monday 22 August 2011

Blast From The Past


Rooting through the bits box the other day, I found the limber from my aborted Rough Rider Heavy Weapon squad that I started in the late 90s.  The ammo limber and gun carriage were both from the Bronzino's galloper gun.  The plan to knock up another two fell through when it was clear there were not going to be rules for a complete RR army.  It was fun while it lasted though.

Tuesday 16 August 2011

Stop Firing Those Bloody Shuriken Discs At Me

Paraphrasing one of the Movie World's most quotable "He never actually said that in the Film" lines (ie Stop chucking those bloody spears at me!" sums up my little objective marker.  I think I initially made it for Cities of Death as a strategem.

Monday 15 August 2011

Mustering the Forces.

I finally found some time today to muster the entire army as shown below.




Above are the Command HQ and Chimera with Platoons One and Two in the background.

Located above are Creed and Kell with their Command Squad and Chimera (note to self, must work out a new identity for the Special characters).  The pith helmet Ogryn is used to represent Nork Deddog.  The medic for the squad is Sororita Hospitaller.  As an Army Commander I feel he could request something above a standard IG medic.

Located in the background is the Armoured Fist Platoon consisrting of Command and two Squads.


Ratlings, Ogryns and Veteran squads are shown next.  The front squads are the kilted veterans with two further squads at the back.  Grouped around the base of the Valyrie are the Army's Stormtroopers.  There are also two Rough Rider squads.  The front squad has been made using Col Gravis's new RR sculpts.

Finally the armoured strength of the Army. Seven Sentinels and four leman Russ variants.


To fnish with,  close ups of the wing mounted TL Lascannon for the Vendetta.

Comments, critiques are always welcome.

Friday 12 August 2011

Air Support

Despite the Praetorians being resolutely Old School, you cannot ignore the new Imperial Guard shiny hence my inclusion of a Valkyrie.  Although not shown, I had two sets of Landraider lascannons available following the conversion of that vehicle to serve in a Waagh!  By converting the hull mount to have two Lascannon barrels, a Vendetta was born.



Converted hull Lascannons shown.




Despite loving the pith helmet look, I could not justify it to myself that Aircrew would wear them, but I did stick with the overall colour scheme.

Tuesday 9 August 2011

Big Guys, Little Guys, Preachy Guys, Humourless Guys and Strange Guys

Time to feature some or the more esoteric members of the Imperium.  First off are the Ogryns.  I'm showing my age by including Ogryns from three different eras in my army.


A small squad of ratlings may also turn up.


Who asked for the Ecclesiarchy?


The Commisariat will keep you on the straight and narrow.



As an aside, how cool is the original Yarrick model.



Finally for today, the psykers.  One is the 2nd Ed Imperial Guard psyker with the other being a Necromunda model.



Monday 8 August 2011

Hanging out with the Big Guns

I will get more organised with presenting my army, but for the moment I'm throwing items in as they occur to me.  The majority of the Army does use the 2nd Edition heavy weapons but I couldn't resist using the old Lascannon crew with the plastic update when rebasing them.  The sandbags are from the Tamiya range.




Putting them on the base also allows you to spread the crew models further by substituting one of the wounded models as per the front Lascannon.

Sunday 7 August 2011

Borrowing Special Characters

Due to having none of their own, I've borrowed characters from other Imperial Guard regiments to add to mine.

Stonetooth Harker is wearing a spare Wargames Factory Pith helmet.

Saturday 6 August 2011

New Additions

As the models are now OOP, to get my fix I have begun using the plastic Cadian models along with pith helmetted heads from various sources to add squads of veterans to the Army.  The Cadian's flak armour can easily be classed as carapace Armour when compared to the redcoats of the original models.

The squad above use Cadian Infantry and Command Squad parts with Wargames Factory Zulu War British heads.  I now use Secret Weapon pith helmets and as shown below, mix these with Cadian parts and Victoria Lamb's kilted legs to make more veterans.



Ogryn

Using one of the 2nd Edition Ogryns, I decided to attempt a Pith helmet on the squad leader.  I believe I used modelling clay rather than green stuff.  Lightning definitely only struck once and I was unable to replicate the effort to my satisfaction on other models.


Early Days for the Army


Having been raised on a diet of Sunday afternoon Classic films, it was a no-brainer that an Imperial Guard army based on Zulu with its Redcoated, Pith helmet imagery would have to be mine.  I initially picked up the Big Toof River set and was able to find a second one later.  After that there was no looking back and GW Mail Order did a lively trade from me, especially in heavy bolter gunner bodies so that I could liberate their heads to make my Rough Riders.



These were created during 2nd Edition 40K using Rogue Trader era Riders with Praetorian heads.  The five above were initially a RR Command Squad when such a thing existed, now they get linked up with the otther squad to make a full ten man gang.

More to follow.

Friday 5 August 2011

Trying Something New

Well, as inspired by Col Gravis' latest releases, I thought I might try this blogging lark and display some of my (not quite so well painted) Praetorians.  Progress may be slow, as I have just upgraded from Slate and Chalk.