Heavy weapon update

Finally I feel that I am making some progress. The two lascannons are what I am building first.

The first lascannon team will be ready to go to war tomorrow, but there will still be some details that needs to be fixed. I have backpacks, lasguns and other details to add, but that doesn't need to be there before they go to war if the call comes.

Right now, the gunner is missing his head, but all that needs to be done before I glue it on is to paint his goggles with Tamiya Semi Gloss Black, as I don't think Games Workshop have that effect in their paint range. The spotter is only missing an arm and the rangefinder, but hopefully that will be glued on before I go to bed tonight.

The second lascannon team is waiting for the lascannon to have it's black parts painted. The spotter is missing his right arm and the rangefinder, and that will be glued on tomorrow as I need to paint his laspistol. 

I've also got a problem with the gunner, as the trigger broke while I painted it, so I will try to glue the trigger together while assembling. Should be possible to get it quite ok as the gunner is behind the weapon and might be partly covered by other details.

The third team is not yet painted, but I have begun the assembly of the gunner and spotter and the ammunition. 

Imperial Guard setup

I thought I would write a little bit about the diferent kinds of units that I plan to introduce to my Imperial Guard army and roughly how they will be organized on the battlefields.

Infantry: The infantry is the backbone of the army. Infantrymen are mostly humans, but there will also be units of Ratling snipers and of Ogryns.
The human infantrymen are consisting of riflemen, heavy weapon squads and special forces.
The infantry is split in two different branches, one is made up from Cadian miniatures, and the other is made up from Catachans. When everything is ready, they might all be just one force where the Cadians are urban warfare specialists and the Catachans are terrain specialists (jungle warfare).

Mobile Infantry: Some of the infantry will be set up with dedicated Chimera transports, and will act as rapid response troops and mobile infantry. They will serve as infantry protection for armored collumns, work with the cavalry and also be able to react fast to enemy attacks and give their support where the fighting is the heaviest.

Artillery: The army will probably not be the most artillery-heavy army in the Imperial Guard, but they will have their share of guns and rockets to soften the enemy or provide a heavy bombardment for the Infantry to use as a shield while they're attacking heavily fortified enemy positions.

Cavalry: There will be quite a lot of cavalry forces in the army. Some units of airborne cavalry, but mostly tanks. The cavalry units will have many of the different Leman Russ versions, and also some Hellhounds (and similar wehicles) and a small selection of Super Heavy tanks. Already there is one Baneblade ready to roll on to the battlefield.
The Leman Russ tanks will be painted up both for urban and terrain fighting, while the Super Heavy tanks will only be painted up for urban warfare.

I will see what I do when it comes to making up companies and regiments. I was thinking of having several different, but at the moment I'm thinking more along the lines of holding the army as compact as possible to keep the nessessary commanders down to a minimum.

Been busy

I've been too busy this last week to get any painting done, but I've done some thinking.

I have decided to make both the gunner and the spotter at the same time, and also make two units at the same time. I will start with the first spotter and the second base tomorrow. And this time, it will really be tomorrow!

Imperial Guard update

Work on the first of the three bases is progressing nicely. I have built up the sandbags as much as I dare because of the issue with having enough space on the base, and if I get enough space, after the gunner and spotter are placed on the base I might add some more to the wall of sandbags.
The first base is with a lascannon, and status so far is that the tripod is glued on and painted. The lascannon is painted in Gun Metal and Chaos Black, and only thing remaining now is to paint on the fine details.
The cables are painted Blood Red on one of the sides, and the batttery box is painted Chaos Black on half of the box. The gunner is painted with Adeptus Battle Grey pants, Chaos Black boots and and Fortress Grey jacket.
The sandbags are glued on to the base, but not yet painted. I figure I can do that a little later on, as the lascannon can be removed from the tripod until I glue the cables to the cannon and battery box.
Now it's time to wrap up for the day and go to bed, but I aim to keep on painting tomorrow.

Ogres are finally finished!

It sure took long enough!
I finally got the Ogres done this afternoon, and it sure feels good to have finished my first project in a long time.
Now I'm going to work faster with my Imperial Guard heavy weapon squad, so I don't have to write as many posts about them... That is not the motivation, but I do want to get them done as soon as possible for other reasons.

But before I go on about the heavy weapon squad, I would like to finish talking (or rather writing) about the Ogres.
The unit consists of six Ogres, and they all have some sort of extra equipment like a bag of food or a keg of grog or something similar, and they all have an extra knife or a butchers axe. All in all I am quite happy with the way they turned out, and I am pretty sure that this was the first batch, and that several more will come at a later time.
The lookout platform on top of the banner is tilting a little bit forward, as it was rather big to stand on a thin pole while the glue was drying, but I figure that is just the proof of the quality (or should I say lack of quality) on gnoblar engineering. The glue has dried well now, and it should stay on.

I have earlier said that my next Fantasy-project should be dwarfs, but something has come up. This something is that I found an old can of paint that was bought for one special GW set, the plastic River Trolls. The Trolls will be used in my Goblin army as either two units of three, or one unit of six (whatever works best according to the rules existing at the time I finally get my Goblin army ready for the gaming scene) . The project will be three of these trolls (one box), and if they turn out well, then the remaining three will follow shortly.

But before I start on those trolls, there is time to do a 40K project, and that project is a Cadian heavy weapon squad for the Xerxes Imperial Guard.
For this project I will add some Tamya 1:35 sandbags to the bases to make it look a little different than all other heavy weapon bases. The sandbags will be a little big, but I figure with all equipment available so far in the future they are sure to have something to help them lift heavy sandbags. After all they are transporting the heavy weapons around, and the lascannon is bigger than a man.
This first six man squad will be armed with two lascannons and a heavy bolter. I know it's most usual to have three of a kind, but there are no rules that I can find that says it has to be so. My reason for splitting it up is that as a commander I would be concerned about not being able to defend the lascannons against an infantry attack (that is where the heavy bolter comes in). So until someone tells me it is legally wrong, I will add one heavy bolter in each heavy weapons squad.

Status on the Ogres

It's Monday again, and the beginning of a new week.
This Monday is a holiday, so I am sitting home working with my miniatures and watching time fly in front of my computer.
I know I could be down in my workroom, tidying it up and making space for me to sit down there instead, but I love sitting in the living-room working. And as long as I only have one box with all my stuff in it, and the box fits neatly under the table the wife doesn't complain that much.

All Ogres are now finished and can be used in a small game. What still remains is to add the lookout to the banner, but this will be done shortly. At the moment the platform and the large scull are given a chance to dry up before I add the Gnoblar to the platform and try to add it all together.

new week, new chances

This week must provide me with some opportunities to paint, as the Easter holliday starts on Wednesday.
Saturday was my Wifes birthday, so the day was spent making ready for a family party, having the family over, and then cleaning up afterwards.
Sunday was spent assembling new furniture, removing the old and getting clothes and stuff in to the new furniture. I also got to spend some time in between the things that were done to read The Imperial Munitorium Manual. And after reading about punishment, I am starting to feel a little sorry for the Guard soldiers I'm assembling.
I think I will have to write some special adjustments to the general Munitorium rules to guide my Commissars on right and wrong to assure that I still have an army to fight with when I reach the gameboards. Fighting on a world with stone, ash and coal for surface and with heavy winds howling almost non-stop, then it is hard to look like a posterboy all the time.
Fortionately both Commissars with the 101st Infantry, Commissar Wayne and Commissar Scott, are hard but fair. So hopefully they will not punish fighting men for looking a little dirty as long as they are healty and fights well.

My Orges will be done in a couple of days now, there are small but several details that needs to be fixed, but if I manage to stay awake while sitting in my chair after work I might get something done quite fast. There are many small items with small details, so it is possible to work with several items at the same time. I have also gotten a great start, and apart from the big scull to add to the banner, everything is painted in a basic color. Then what remains is to get the items glued on to the bodies, and get it all glued in the right positions.