Ogryns with ripperguns - 1st unit

Here are the pictures of my first unit of Ogryns with ripperguns. I am sorry the lighting is different in some of the pictures and not up to its best. I will keep working on that as these picture was taken the first time I used my lightbox. Hopefully when I take pictures of my second unit in the future, the quality of the pictures will have improved a bit.

This first pic shows what comes in one box of Ogryns, 3 figures with slightly different poses.

Like I have written in earlier blog posts, I like to replace their heads with the heads of their Age of Sigmar counterparts to smarten up their looks and make them look a little more wild.

The Ogryn on the right in this picture is my favorite so far.

Originally from the instructions in the box, some of the Ogryns come without shoulder guards and most come just with one if they have any, but I think they should wear two if they can, so all my Ogryns is equipped with this as standard equipment. I think it makes the models look cooler, sort of more military and more in uniform. I imagine they strap them on somehow, and that is why you can wear them even though you don't have any other body armor. The exception from the shoulder guards are some of my Bullgryn suppressors that I have built from the Age of Sigmar Ogor sets, as they don't come with shoulderguards in the box. But they look so different anyway that this can be easily explained.

One thing that is not uniform is what they carry on their belts. I try to add a mix of pouches, grenades, extra ammunition and water bottles to give them some individual character. 

Here are two more. The one on the left in the pic is the squad leader, a so called Bone'ead.
For the Bone'eads I like to use the heads supplied in the box, and for this reason he looks a little bit different than the troops he command. He doesn't have the wild beard his other fellows often seem to have, but he has a mustache instead. He also has a steel plate in his head where he has gone through some augmentation, and it is much easier to show that by using the original head than trying to implement something by cutting in to- and gluing on to the others.

I was not too happy with the color of the t-shirts of this unit, but since it was called Ogryn camo I just had to try it. I think it came out a little too bright, almost neon, but still it looks ok so I decided to keep it. I might even use it on another unit at a later time, but for most of my Ogryns I think I will use more of a traditional light green color.

Then we have the final two, to make this a nice unit of six.Like the first two this is one with and one without t-shirt/singlet. 

What now?

I managed to finish my 3000 points painting pledge with Games Workshop Oslo. I had planned to have lots of infantry in those points, but saw that if I wanted to complete in time I needed units that gave more points so I skipped normal infantry and painted up an Ogryn bodyguard and a unit of Ogryns with ripperguns. That means I still have plenty of Infantry to paint up, but I also have lots of tanks. 

I don't think I've shown off the Ogryns with ripperguns here yet, but I will in just a few days.

Just a few days ago I got two boxes of Ogryns from Necromunda, they are called a Slave Ogryn Gang and each box contain 6 Ogryns. They have equipment made for working, like welding gloves, power lifter gloves, other welders tools and wrenches.  So I plan to use them in my Imperial Guard army as Ogryn mechanics. I would love to build and paint these as soon as possible to get them in to my army.

One other thing that I really want to paint up are my Necron army, and I have started on them  and found the paint scheme that I would like to use. I am making my own Dynasty so it is my own paintscheme.

So far I am working to paint up a Canoptek Wraith to the look I want. Most of it is done, but I am working on the details. When I am satisfied with it I will transfer that look to the rest of the painted minis and to the ones not built or not primed yet.

One of the minis I am working on now is Illuminator Szeras from the new Necron range.

Imperial Guard Ogryn/Bullgryn Bodyguard

This is my first finished infantry model in the new design. This is also my first time using a lightbox to take pictures, but I decided I much rather wanted to do that instead of taking my usual half-bad pictures with a lot of mess in the background. Hopefully I will find a better setup with time. Lord knows I have a lot of models to practice on when I get to work my brushes. It is an study to find the best spots for the lights and the camera.

This model is an Orgyn or Bullgryn (never understood the difference) bodyguard. He is either protecting a high ranking officer in the Walpurgian 3rd or one of the visiting Regimental advisors serving with them.

There is only one bodyguard model made by Games Workshop, and he is one of several versions you can build from a box of three. This bodyguard is the impressive Nork Deddog, but you can only have one of him in your army. So the remaining two gets to serve as something else, and if you do this three times you have three bodyguards and a unit of six Ogryns/Bullgryns with another setup. 
I have done it twice as much, so I have six bodyguards so I needed to personalize them a bit. One of the six is Nork (but with a new name) but the remaining five have gotten some things changed.

The great thing with the Ogryn product line is that they are interchangeable with their counterparts in Age of Sigmar where you have many more choises of heads and weapons. Most of my Ogryns/Bullgryns have heads from the Age of Sigmar Ogors (because abviously they can't have the same name in both systems...), as I think they look much better with lots of hair and wild beards and most of the boxes of that range has extra heads in them anyway.

This bodyguard is based on the model of Nork Deddog, but I had to replace his head, so I gave him one from a Bone 'ead. They are supposed to be  smarter than the regular Ogryn, so I felt that would be fitting. Would not want him to smash the head of the officer he is guarding...

Nork also has a great big knife, but I am not sure if that is something special for Nork or if that is standard equipment for bodyguards, so I replaced it with a big, heavy club. This is also from an Ogor box. 

To make him stand out as a bodyguard I decided to give him the same gun as Nork with the round magazine. I also placed the mechanical Commissar head with the Commissar cap on his shoulder. 

Around his hip I placed a pouch but I am not really sure what he keeps in there. Single bullets maybe. And he also got a couple of hand grenades to really be able to fight off an enemy.

Here he is from the back. From this angle you can see that his armor is quite nicely made, this is so he gets more acceptable by the high ranking officers who often wear very flashy uniforms. They can change for festive arrangements, but the bodyguard need to wear the same equipment all the time so it is important that he looks decent.

I think the Ogryns/Bullgryns might be my favorite unit to build and paint. They are easy to convert and even I with my limited skills can make them look alright. I have built and primed many of these, and some of them are already partially painted so more will follow fairly soon.

Imperial Guard Hellhound

This Hellhound is the first model I painted with the new squad colors, and I am quite happy with how it turned out. The Hellhound is designated a flame-tank and is built on the chimera chassis.

It is armed with an Inferno cannon in the turret and a heavy bolter. The Inferno cannon has a shorter range than the heavy bolter, but it spews flames in to every nook and cranny and makes everything it fires against go up in flames. Hellhound crews are often seen as crazy fools for serving in these kind of vehicles with that much of explosive fluids in the tanks in the back.

This vehicle is from the first squad and is commanded by Lieutenant William Scott Ketchum. 

This is how it looks like from the sides. The left side has a short armor plate and then a relay array, while the right side has the full armor plate with the Imperial eagle symbol. On this model I remembered to paint the rectangle in Dark Angels green before taking the pictures.

Here is a picture taken from above to show the tanks that are in the cargo hold. This model has four tanks. They are painted in red, just like the prometheum tanks that the flame troopers have on their backs. On this model I painted the barrels before I assembled them in the cargo hold, but on some of the other Hellhounds I have built everything before painting so I am a little exited to see how it will be to paint those. I know I will get more of these, so if painting a fully assembled model is harder I will go back to painting the tanks before I assemble them in the back.

The final pick show how the Hellhound look from behind, as one can see the tanks are pretty well protected.

Imperial Guard 2 more Leman Russ tanks

 Here are two more tanks for the 2nd Armored Regiment. This is an Eradicator and an Executioner

The Eradicator is part of the 3rd Squad as one can see from the tan markings on the turret. It belongs to Tank Company Alpha and is commanded by Lieutenant Benjamin Franklin Butler.

It is armed with the Nova cannon who easly blows away both barricades and the soldiers hiding behind them (just bout the same cannon as in the Hellhammer just a bit smaller). It also has a lascannon and the side sponsons are armed with heavy bolters. 

It also has a searchlight and smoke chargers. as I like to put that on as many tank as I can. But for this one I opted not to put a dozerblade on it. I do love dozerblades, but they don't come with both Leman Russ tank sets, and it is not usually on all tanks anyway. This is the first Eradicator in my army, but I am sure it will not be the last as I like the look of the Nova cannon.

From the back it looks like any other Leman Russ. I like the look of the Leman Russ tanks from all angles, and that might be the reason why I want to have entire tank companies.

The Executioner is a relic armed with a plasma destroyer as its main weapon. It belongs to first squad of Bravo company and is commanded by Lieutenant Oliver Otis Howard. Its side sponsons also have plasma cannons, and the front has a heavy bolter and a dozerblade.

Here we see it from the side, and as we see the side sponson guns are pointing quite far out from the tank. I am not sure how it happened but they sort of stuck that way either during building or during painting. I would have liked them to be a little closer to the tank body, but one has to work with what one is given.

This is what the Executioner looks like from behind. What differentiates it from other models is the extended back part of the tower where it has a plasma coil.

This is the first time I tried to paint plasma weapons this way. I got a guide from Duncan Rhodes who used to be the main painter for the painting tutorials on Warhammer TV but now has his own painting academy. He demonstrated how to paint blue plasma coils in a video, so I kindly asked him how he would do it with green and he told me how he would do it. I think with some time and experience I will manage to make all three colors visible in layers, but I am quite happy with how it turned out for this tank.

Imperial Guard Leman Russ Vanquisher

This is the Leman Russ Vanquisher Hand of Steel, under the command of Colonel William Tecumseh Sherman. Sherman is the commander of the 2nd Armored Regiment, and is a true tank ace. In games I will run him with the Knight Commander Pask rules, as this gives some special abilities.

This tank has the powerful Vanquisher cannon, and it is a quite rare version of the Leman Russ. This tank also has side sponsons armed with plasma cannons. Colonel Sherman is standing in the turret. 

The tank also has a dozerblade with wide hazard stripes. 

Here we see the tank from the side, and as we can see the side panels indicating squad has a golden bronze color, indicting that this is a command vehicle. Here we can see how long the Vanquisher cannon is, and we also see the lascannon sticking out in the front just above the dozerblade. 

This is what it looks like from behind. As we see the exhaust pipes has the same colors as the pipes on the Super Heavy tanks. We can also see that this tank has a flag, and that is because it is the tank of the tank ace Sherman.

Here we see a little more closeup picture of the flag. It is a sort of a griffin or something in the same golden bronze as the squad markings on the turret. Then it is mountains painted in the same gray as the tank, and a small sun peeking over the mountains near the end of the flag.

I am not sure where the flag is from, I got it from raiding the bitbox at my local Games Workshop store in Oslo when they wanted to clean out their bitz. I didn't know what army it originates from, but my best guess will be one of the Elf armies in Warhammer Fantasy (what is no known as Age of Sigmar).

I've been debating with myself a lot on how I should field my command segment, but right now I am thinking of having three tanks so that they can drive in a wedge formation, and then add a command Chimera with the regimental Commissar and a unit of Stormtroopers.

I already have the Chimera assembled and partially painted, so I hope there is not too long before I can present it here.

Imperial Guard (Astra Militarum) Deathstrike and Manticore

I feel I have spoken of these vehicles on the blog for a long time, but they are finally finished and ready to provide firepower to the Walpurgian 3rd artillery.

On the left is a Manticore, and on the right a Deathstrike missile launcher. They are built on the popular Chimera chassis, but instead of getting compartments for transporting personnel, they are given weapon platforms instead. 

They both have a heavy bolter for close protection, and a smoke launcher and searchlight mounted under the driver compartment.

The Deathstrike missile launcher is under the command of Lieutenant Richard Brooke Garnett.

It is not sent in to the heavy fighting, but like other artillery it stays in the back where it is supposed to be relatively safe. Still it is armed with a heavy bolter for close protection if needed.

The commander of a Deathstrike must be a really cool person, for firing a Deathstrike missile without the proper authorization is a capitol offence. The Deathstrike is only fired in the direst of need as the missile has such a damaging effect. It is classified as Ordnance Extremis.

When you see the Deathtrike missile launcher from the side you see how big the missile really is.

I saw when I posted the pictures that I had forgotten to paint the small rectangle with the imperial markings and a place to write a name for the vehicle. This is fixed now, and the plate is painted Dark Angels Green like the main body of the missile and the side sponsons of my tanks. 

Not much to look at from behind, except the huge opening for the flames from the rocket motors to spew out from.

The Manticore missile launcher is also based on the Chimera and armed with a heavy bolter for close proetction. But instead of one huge missile like the Deathstrike it has four smaller missiles.

It can be used both for long-range bombardment and air support so it is quit versatile. The drawback is that it takes a long time to reload once it has fired its four missiles and it is hard to do in the field. But the missiles on the Manticore does not have the same restrictions as the Deathstrike.

Here we see it from the side. Like the Deathstrike I had forgotten to paint the rectangular area just behind the middle. But on this one I had painted the green, but not the silver of the winged scull and the "off-white" of the banner below. This is rectified now.

Here is a picture from behind, showing the rocket engines and also the mechanism to raise the firing platform to the right elevation for the rockets to go to their destination. And unlike many of my builds, the mechanism works like it is supposed to.

I decided to build the Manticore with the top hatch partially open. This shows us a little of the driver, and the driver compartment is fully painted. The driver/commander of the vehicle is Captain Joseph Wheeler who is the commander of the Deathstrike and Manticore elements of the 2nd Armored division.