A Cult In Waiting - Hopefully Not As Long As The Genestealer Cult Waited

What do we have available so far?

Command and Heroes come courtesy of Blackstone Fortress.  At present, this consists of a Traitor Commissar and mutated Ogryn along with two Psykers.

One of them is in the colours to align with the Sons Of Sek.

Renegade Guard as Blood Pact.

Two squads of Renegades merged as one. You can see some of the putrid hands across their faces.
The heavy stubber was converted from the second set of Cultists of the Abyss I purchased.

The Blackstone Fortress Cultists.  I have a second set of these waiting to be constructed although I will have to find a different weapon for the Stubber operator to carry. This photo was taken while these were only part painted.

Two sets of Chaos Cultists courtesy of Warhammer Conquest.

The spare Beastmen and Negavolt Cultists.  Beastmen in the Grim Dark have had a bit of a boost recently featuring as some of the first heretic troops to make Terra in the most recent Horus Heresy novel.

Finally some shots of generic Cultists from Frostgrave.

I'm a fan of the HMG upgrade although I may have to upgrade to a biffer base and perhaps lean the bipod on some scenery or another Cultist.

Flip Side To The Guard - The Lost And The Damned

In the same way as the Guard are the main army of the Imperium supported by the strike forces of the Astartes, the Lost and the Damned bear the brunt of the fighting for Chaos as given life by Dan Abnett in the Gaunt's Ghosts series of novels.

Although not an army by itself in the main 40K system, GW has been releasing various flavour of Cultists via various side games as well as featuring in the Dark Angels vs Chaos starter box.

I've already featured some of the Renegade units from Blackstone Fortress but another squad is on the go after being purchased as a single sprue from the supplementary release.

These are Sons of Sek inspired from the Sabbat Crusade even down to having hands from spare Les Grognards models glued to their mouths!  Read the books, it makes sense!

Also ready for painting are the Cultists from the Frostgrave game.  Twenty figures for £20 with the option for buying scifi weapons and heads as a resin upgrade sprue from the North Star website.

Praetorian Imperial Guard - The Way Ahead

As I mentioned in yesterday's army review, I have 536 painted Praetorians.

That's an important distinction.

What about the unpainted ones?

There are a fair few of those as well.

First up, the thirty unpainted models to join up with the Sudan campaign inspired squads to make the full 55 strong platoon.

This is the rest of them.

Now, there are six complete but have no space available in the full army yet. Wait, that actually makes 542 painted models!!!

As can be seen, there is a big mismatch in what is left over, mainly due to the random nature of what I've picked up in job lot auctions and so on.

Lots of heavy weapons but a shortage of basic troopers.

With what is available, I can make up the bare bones of another platoon consisting of a Command and two Infantry squads.

Now, I am tempted to go for a Highland scheme with these but going for tartan trews rather than kilts.
How to increase the size of the platoon without making further purchases?

Plans are afoot:

1. I can look at freeing up basic trooper models from the painted ranks by subbing in Heavy Weapon troopers.  The obvious ones are the Lascannon and Mortar aimers.  These are the best ones to add to Command and Infantry squads as the Vox operators

2. I have five Armoured Fist squads that have no heavy weapons.  My fluff reasoning there is that the squads are meant for rapid strikes and their transport is packing their heavy fire support.  I can add spare Heavy Bolters and Lascannons to them.

3. Command Squads could receive a heavy weapon.

I'll see how things go but first things first is to get the remainder of the latest Platoon painted up.  That's a couple weeks away, I'll show what I'm catching up with first in a post later this week.

Praetorians...Faasands Of 'Em...Well, 536 Anyway!

It has been a while since I worked on the Praetorians and with my rotation off coming to an end, it's time to take stock of where they are now.

As an aside, a lot of the third party miniatures that previously featured in the Blog have been moved on to create space and funds for more purchases. As a result, what's on the table is GW product. It's even laid out on the old GW paper 6ft by 4ft Cityfight mat that I've recently got my hands on.

There have been new additions, promarily new characters for the Imperial Guard support units such as Psykers and Priests that came with games such as Blackstone Fortress.

Some stats first:

536 painted Praetorian Imperial Guard.
37 Mordian Iron Guard.
41 Ventrillian Nobles.

They've been seen before but the main Commanding Officer made from a converted Finecast Commissar Lord (not counted as one of the 536).

As a Supreme Command, I've borrowed and repurposed Creed and Kell along with the Ogryn Bone 'Ead I use as Nork Deddog.

Both use High Command red Chimeras.

Astropath, Fleet Commander and Master of Ordnance.

The original Yarrick, first painted in 1994.  The oldest model in the army.

A big army requires a big Commissariat.  Some old Rogue Trader models there but they're now bang up to date with a Severina Raine in all her big base glory in the background.

The psykers have also been reinforced with a new model from Blackstone Fortress.

Two new additions to the Ministorum also courtesy of Blackstone Fortress.

I reintroduced the Black Library Ephrael Stern a couple of posts ago.  Here is Inquisitor Silas Hand who accompanied her in the Black Library diorama.

The Tech Priests are on the scene with, again, a new addition from the Blackstone Fortress expansion (or the Combat Arena game if you're in the US).

Moving on to the main meat of the army now, the massed ranks of the Infantry. The Heavy Weapon Teams are not permanently attached to the bases but I mass bought a pile of MDF 60mm bases so they at least look the part for the current rules for heavy teams.

The Redcoats have six 55 strong platoons with the sixth one being completely Chimera mounted.

The Armoured Fist Platoon.

Three sets of Sentinels.  Two are three strong with a lone Lascannon equipped Armoured Sentinel for backup.

My original Rough Riders and the new Ogryns along with two Mortar squads.  The mortar squads are part of the support to the Redcoats that also includes three Lascannon and two Special Weapon squads shown in the following photos.

The main platoons are backed up with two Special Weapon squads.

As a result of Redcoat fatigue setting in, the more recent miniatures have been painted in alternate schemes.  The 55 strong platoon below are transported by Mantic Veer-Myn Tunneler vehicles ( not shown) are  loosely based on a British army khaki colour scheme.

Mounted in Taurox transports, these four Veteran squads are based on the original 95th Rifles colours of dark green.

The newest additions, only 25 strong so far but look out for future posts, are based on Kitchener's Camel Corps from the Sudan Campaign.

Heavy armour now.

Amongst the rest of the boxes I rediscovered another Leman Russ with the Command upgrade radar and comms so I have six, not just the five I featured in an earlier post.

The Stormlord in all its glory and accompanied with its dedicated 40 strong contingent of Veterans.

Not sure its been featured before but I also have a Deathstrike launcher shown here along with three spare Chimeras from the motor pool.

By moving on the third party models, there is space again for my first Imperial Guard army, the Mordians.  Much reduced from their original number once I started with the Praetorians, I still have the units shown for sentimental reasons.

Finally, the new boys.  The Ventrillian Noble platoon and their scout Rough Rider unit.

The army will continue to grow though. Wait until you see the unpainted pile!