Tag Archives: forest guard

Colonel Watts

Posted on by tjkopena

Colonel Watts walks out of the jungle. He’s seen some shit.

Avast, me hearties!

Avast, me hearties!

Sure is a pretty sunset over yonder...

Sure is a pretty sunset over yonder…

This was a quick paint job the other night. For the most part I did not do my usual drybrushing, edging, and other detail work, instead relying heavily on washes to provide depth. This is in keeping with the approach I’m trying to follow with my Imperial Guard, adopting the mantra of Gettin’ It Done.

Unfortunately I switched to a new can of Krylon Matte Finish and it doesn’t seem to be taking the shine off nearly as well as the last couple dull coat sprays I’ve used.  Secret Weapon’s Black Wash in particular seems to leave a healthy shine that this is not knocking off. Still a solid looking space dolly though.

The model is a Dark Vengeance Cultist Champion I found in a bits bin at NOVA and couldn’t resist at $1.50. He’s had a head swap with a Tempestus Scions Sergeant, an operation made just slightly trickier by the Cultist being a 2-piece snap-fit and already assembled, necessitating that the head be chiseled out rather than just cut off.  A few Chaos icons have also been greenstuffed away and a Space Marine Scout rope coil thrown on. Colin’s bits box provided the GW resin skull base while he wasn’t looking. All in all I’m ok with the paint job, but stoked about the model itself.

The dude abides.

The dude abides.

Nobody f'cks with the Jesus!

Nobody f’cks with the Jesus!

The PAGE crew maniacally churning through the bits bins at NOVA.

The PAGE crew maniacally churning through the bits bins at NOVA.

On the table this guy will sally forth as either Colonel Straken or a Company Commander. As discussed, they’re two of my favorite pictures in the Astra Militarum codex and I’m excited to have a model very much in line with them. The name is a reference to Peter Watts, author of some truly excellent sci-fi books, who has a short story up on Tor.com called The Colonel, introducing a primary character in his latest novel. In Forestway mythology, Watts and his company were shot down in their transports early in the fighting for the planet and presumed dead. Eventually though him and a small, ragtag band of hardened survivors from his company reappeared just in time to join the evacuation, having trekked halfway across the planet fighting both invaders and the local fauna.

Colonel Straken. He lost his arm to a landshark. No, seriously. That's its skull on his side.

Colonel Straken. He lost his arm to a landshark. No, seriously. That’s its skull on his side.

A Company Commander.

A Company Commander.

40k IG Colonel WIP

Posted on by tjkopena

With the Apocalypse looming, the Kimball Prime Manufactorum has belched back into life. Mostly there’s a bunch of Necron flyers and lords as well as some Space Marine airbrushing experiments on the table. But this evening on a whim I assembled another HQ for my IG:

The dude abides.

The dude abides.

Nobody f'cks with the Jesus!

Nobody f’cks with the Jesus!

He’s a simple conversion from the cultist champion in the Dark Vengeance starter box. It would be a really simple conversion except I actually bought him assembled from the bits bin at NOVA this year. I therefore had to carefully cut out the head without damaging the collar behind. Fortunately this was pretty easy. I gather the main body is two pieces, and the head is entirely on the front half rather than being molded into the collar as I originally feared. Instead of having to basically drill it out, I just had to slice through at the neck; the champion’s head is actually still pretty usable. It was then real quick to drill in a bit of a recess and pop on a head from the Tempestus Scions box. A Space Marine Scout rope coil adds some more bits while covering a small Chaosy looking bojangle on the rear of the jacket belt. An embedded Chaos star in the gauntlet is covered with a very thin layer of greenstuff. The Chaos brand on his chest I covered with a greenstuff triangle which I’ll probably notch or line later once hardened. Several of the standard IG commander models have a very similar device indicating rank. The base I think is actually from GW, but I’m not sure. I stole it out of Colin’s basing supplies tub when he left it here to work on our NOVA board.

The PAGE crew maniacally churning through the bits bins at NOVA.

The PAGE crew maniacally churning through the bits bins at NOVA.

Originally I had no plan for the model, but figured I couldn’t go wrong with $1.50 for such a cool figure. I came across him again tonight while scrounging for some other bits and realized he’d make a great colonel. He’s dead on for two of my favorite pictures in the IG codex, Colonel Straken and the Company Commander.

Colonel Straken. He lost his arm to a landshark. No, seriously. That's its skull on his side.

Colonel Straken. He lost his arm to a landshark. No, seriously. That’s its skull on his side.

A Company Commander.

A Company Commander.

The original black and white of the latter was actually my favorite in the book alongside the 5th edition Ogryn picture; the face was less distorted in that version.

In any event, those are great pictures and characters. Unfortunately I don’t really like most of the Catachan jungle fighter models. They’re getting up there in years and often kind of dated and cartoony. Hopefully they did redone at some point soon.

So, Army-wide I’m much more drawn to the look of the Cadian shock trooper models than the Catachans. Conceptually though the artwork for the latter have a lot of appeal. Much of it really exudes a strong Vietnam feel of guys stuck in a horrible nightmare for ages. At some point looking at that company commander image I got this idea of a grungy, ultra-veteran sporting that burnt-out, rogue look who is nonetheless leader of a prim and proper Cadian army. Him and his closest troops have just been through too much to care about much else or anything. With this conversion I now have just such a model, with a scrawnier, starving look that I like and think is more appropriate for that concept than the mega-buff Catachans. I don’t have a name or other background story yet, though there’s definitely an interesting juxtaposition to be had between him and the more WW2 English looking Captain Higgenbotham.

Unfortunately this does mean that my IG is getting pretty top heavy: Two Company Commanders and a Lord Commissar to lead a Command Squad, two Platoons, a Heavy Weapons Squad, and a Sentinel?  Hmm…

40k: Forest Guard Sentinel

Posted on by tjkopena

Recently I finished up another model/unit for my Imperial Guard Astra Militarum:

Who wants some?!

Who wants some?!

These pictures aren’t perfect, they’re a little dark, but I’m super happy with how this guy turned out. What I’m most pleased with is that the posing is pretty dynamic for a walker. It was a little fiddly to hold everything at the desired angles while also gluing the joints, but the whole leg assembly is really posable and the feet and cab are on ball joints so there was a lot of room to play.

Whoa, buddy, hold 'er steady!

Whoa, buddy, hold ‘er steady!

This was super fast to paint, and it came out simple but effective. I couldn’t come up with a two-tone vehicle scheme to match my Forest Guard infantry pattern that I was happy with, so I went with straight brown. In the end I think it’ll go well with the duders while also standing out from them, is more realistic than a two-tone, isn’t green or gray like GW’s demo models tend toward, and was easy to do. The core process was basically:

  • Primer: Army Painter white spray
  • Body: Steel Legion Drab base coat x2, Vermin Brown drybrush (this color name is no longer produced by GW), Agrax Earthshade wash
  • Metal bits: Leadbelcher base, Mithril silver drybrush highlights, Nuln Oil wash
  • Rubble: Skavenblight Dinge base coat x2, Codex Grey drybrush, Bleached Bone base & Skull White drybrush for the ossuary skeletons and skull, all washed with Nuln Oil
  • Base: Vermin Brown base coat, several coats along the outer rim

The Vermin Brown drybrush all over the body was heavier than I meant it to be and made the model a little lighter in color than I was originally thinking, but introduced some nice subtle colorations, particularly after the wash. On some of the larger panels it has a really neat sun-faded effect (hard to see in the photos).

Unfortunately I must have let too much matte sealer spray coat collect in some places because the colors shifted and muted a bit in places, particularly the metals. Some of the finer details also frosted over a bit. It’s particularly noticeable around the skulls on the weapons. Didn’t affect the cab too much though, and won’t be noticeable at all on the tabletop.

The rubble served two purposes: It let me build up a little height to give the body more of a loping, firing-on-the-move cant, and let me introduce a block of dark grey to subtly further connect the model visually with the Forest Guard infantry two-tone.

To the left!

To the left!

To the right!

To the right!

The weapon side of the cab is magnetized, and I have both a plasmacannon and a lascannon ready to go.

You feelin' lucky, punk?!

You feelin’ lucky, punk?!

A lascannon on a BS3 chassis. Yep, that'll scare 'em.

A lascannon on a BS3 chassis. Yep, that’ll scare ’em.

Painting my Guard has been really fun so far, as long as I totally ignore how few points are getting done with each session. I’ve consciously worked to keep the painting process simple and to be a bit faster and less obsessive than I had been on my Kingbreakers. That’s paid dividends as I’ve then let loose a bit on those Marines as well and they are also now getting done faster, with no true consequences on the quality. Having this other small force going also helps a lot with the monotony of doing millions of shoulder pad trims, definitely the part I hate most about Space Marines. Not doing any hard edging or highlights, and having two core colors (brown body + gray armor) rather than four (tan legs, blue torso, green arms, red trim) makes quite a refreshing change in switching to the Guard for a bit. The Forest Guard also look quite different from my Kingbreakers, though they work together pretty well visually.

More to come!