Showcase: Mechanised Imperial Guard

It’s unclear how it happened but suddenly, I seem to have finished my mechanised guard force. The plan was to make a 25-man mechanised infantry platoon with a tank or two in support. This somehow morphed into a 35-man platoon, some storm troopers, a squadron of tanks, and a super-heavy tank. The whole thing has a power level of 115.

Oops.

To draw a line under said project, this post has some pictures of the whole thing, plus the models I’ve added since my last post.

First up is the tank I’ve wanted ever since I first faced an enemy super-heavy: the shadowsword. I’ve yet to use it in a game, as I can’t bring myself to deploy it in a regular-sized battle. I strongly suspect it’ll get borked – anything capable of one-shotting a land raider may as well have a giant bullseye painted on it – but who cares? Not me, for I now own the finest self-propelled phallic metaphor.

In case you’re wondering, yes, the aerial is magnetised such that it’ll pop off if someone accidentally swipes it with their hand. The only other customisation is that I replaced the super-heavy smoke launchers with regular ones, since the big ones in the kit somehow make the tank look smaller.

My enthusiasm for painting tanks in general and the shadowsword in particular was enjoyably maintained by reading Guy Haley’s imaginatively titled novels Baneblade and Shadowsword. They were, to my considerable surprise, very enjoyable reads despite titles that make them sound like Add-On Sale: the Novelisation.

Since shadowswords are essentially titan snipers, I named this one Furiosa after Charlize Theron’s character in Max Max: Fury Road, because… er… she snipes a dude. Once. And also because I love that film to an unreasonable degree.

Painting was done exactly like the other tanks in the army, which means the weathering is doing all the heavy lifting. I felt bad doing a simple job on such a beautiful kit, but ultimately wanted it to look consistent with the rest of the force. Man, I love this tank. I particularly love how it has, you know, actual suspension.

One of my favourite details of the kit: the Mechanicum shrine. Just the right amount of Imperial bling for an otherwise rugged-looking vehicle.

Speaking of tanks, it felt only right to chuck in a third Leman Russ battle tank to complete the squadron. My desperation to increase my anti-tank firepower led to a pair of multi-melta sponsons, and weirdly the look of sponsons is growing on me, even if trying to fit all the crew in there would be… challenging. The battle cannon is another true calibre conversion, as per the first tank I made for this army.

In case you're wondering, the stowage cage was improvised with a paperclip.

Next up we have Commissar Isaiah Lachlan. Tempting as it was to freehand a cornetto on the pages of his book (just one cornetto, mind) I restrained myself. One shouldn't sully the Uplifting Primer in such a fashion. Suffice to say he’s an enthusiastic orator who the men and women of the 3^rd Company find more amusing than inspiring.

It must be said this model was an absolute joy to paint. Not too busy, not too plain, but just right. As usual when painting black, I mixed bone rather than grey into the black basecoat since it gives a softer, more natural colour.

The last model to get done for this force is Techpriest Enginseer Porphyrio Vacca. This was a lot harder to paint than the commissar, primarily because I’m out of practice with painting decent metals and the sculpt is extremely detailed. I’m happy with how the red cassock came out, but the metal’s pretty scrappy in places. Even so, it’s nice to have a couple of detailed paintjobs in a force full of otherwise basic dudes.

Finally, because I am a turbo-nerd, and because I like the characters in my army to have a sense of personality, I gave them a page on theBeard Bunker’s Cetus wiki – that’s the wiki for the Bunker’s own little corner of the Segmentum Pacificus where we set our games. It describes all the characters in the army so that when we play story-driven campaigns, everything’s ready to go.

No, really. A wiki page. I'm that keen.

The thing about 40K armies, and guard armies in particular, is that one could always add more. Maybe I will someday, but for now this’ll do.