Guard update

I have been busy like a little beaver in my workshop in my spare time this christmas/New years vacation, and hopefully the next few weeks will make a god start for my Pledge for 2010.

At the moment I have 4 Ogryns of a unit of 6 ready to paint. One of them is about 80% painted. The remaining 2 Ogryns are on their way in the mail, and will be assembled and painted upon arrival. They are all from the current range of Ogryns, and will work as one unit.

I also have an old-school Ogryn. He is a lot smaller, but just as mean looking. Since he is so much smaller I have decided not to include him into the unit, and instead use him as a bodyguard for one of my commanders. The commander was suposed to be Lt. Fuzz (named after the blonde, childish Lieutennant from Beetle Bailey) but as I painted him I thought he looked a lot like the Norwegian entertainer Jahn Teigen, so he might be promoted and given a new name. I'll decide on that as the army progresses. There might be the need for more command squads in the future...

My last post gave name to some Ogryns, but that idea has been slightly altered... They will now be named after actors known for their muscles (or at least not that much for brains or "good" looks). 

My small bodyguard is Sly (since Sylvester Stallone is quite a lot shorter than other muscle-men). The Ogryn that is almost completed is named Dolph (after Dolph Lundgren) and I will name the others as I see who they look like. But I think my Bone 'ead might end up as a Chuck (as in Norris) or a Bruce (as in Willis) (so far Bruce is a hot candidate because of the hairstyle). There will pobably also be a Claude (or Jean) (Jean Claude Van Damme), Arnold (Schwartzenegger) and a Vin (Diesel), but we'll see when they are finished.

At the moment I am working with 3 command squads, where the command squad with the bodyguard attached will be the high command in the field and it will include some regimental advisors and a commisar or Lord commisar.

The other two command squads will be platoon command squads and they are the start of the real backbone of the army.
I am not too happy with the information of army organisation in the Imperial Codex, but until someone tells me I'm wrong I will use the platoon organization charts and max out one platoon at the time. The platoons will differ in miniatures, but I will try to build each platoon from the same range. At the moment there is one Cadian and one Catachan command squad.
The Cadian platoon will include a unit of elites led by Sergeant Bastonne. As there are no current model available of him, I will make one from my bits box and make him the way I believe he would look.
The Catachan platoon will have both Gunnery Sergeant Harker (or in my case Gunnery Sergeant Highway) and a Guardsman Marbo (probably also assembled from the bit box as he looks nothing special in the current miniature range). Harker will command an elite unit, Marbo sort of is his own elite unit...
I have decided to keep the company colors in a few palettes to make them all look like part of the same army, and they will have the same colors for boots, Combat BDU's, armour and weapons. Apart from that there will be some platoon or unit variation. Catachan units will have green combat vests, while Cadian units have light grey jackets or frocks.