Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Cadia's Finest (Hopefully)

For my first post on the blog I thought I would show my direction for my army; both artistically and from a gaming perspective.

My one and only army is imperial guard. I started the hobby at a young age, and like a lot of people, I lost my interest and then later in life picked it up again. This is how my Imperial guard army started.

Now for an embarrassing photo.
Googly Eyed!
Beware of his googly eyes, poorly constructed bolter, and thick tangerine skin!

My first attempt at guard was pitiful, but then again, I was 11. My army consisted of two minimum platoons, a basilisk, a sentinel, and for some reason a Forgeworld Salamander. This of course made no sense from a gaming perspective, but, the models were cool (even if poorly painted).

Flash forward 7 years and I take up the hobby again with a friend who had also played when he was younger. I understand the game mechanics a lot more, and can actually paint due to art training and doodling in school. I don't really have an idea for an army at this point, I just want to get the models and start playing games. So I purchase a chimera and two boxes of cadians. For a long time this was my army (along with the old catachans vehicles).

It was fun to play with but lacked any style or consistent theme. It also was not very effective. I decided I would start taking the army building a little more seriously from this point on. I repainted the basilisk (this most recent summer), bought a leman russ Vanquisher, a lot of infantry, and two heavy weapon teams. Things were getting serious.

Artisitcally, I always loved the color blue and really liked urban themed armies. So I decided upon a blue scheme for my army army with a lot of grey and black.
I ended up with this.
Bandage Vet
As you can see I have improved my painting quite significantly. This is the standard I want my army painted to.

With this scheme in my head and level of quality in my head, and the army constructed in my mind. I set out to painting. So far I have almost three squads completed, two command sections, 6 Heavy Weapon Teams, 3 Sentinels (salvaged the old one and bought two more, a Leman Russ, a chimera, the basilisk, an earth shaker platform, and lastly, the oddly placed Salamander scout vehicle.

Here is an example of a squad (Metla gun and shot-gun wielding Veterans)
Vet Squad

Currently on the painting block I have two more special weapon troopers.
Special Wep To-Do

And this behemoth (thank you forgeworld)
Macharius Vanquisher

Although my army is not built with a competitive list in mind, it is fun to play and looks really cool on the table (especially an urban table).

Later this week after my exams I will post some progress on the two troopers, some list ideas with the new codex in mind, and some more army shots.

7 comments:

Kevin said...

LOL, beware the googly-eyes guardsman!

Great first post Alex- I freaking love that Macharius- it looks so badass

Unknown said...

I really like the colour choice and the Guard Sarg with sheild is excellent, thanks for posting.

Eric said...

Sometimes I wish I still had a couple of the Chaos Space Marines from my very first army, back when I was 12 or 13. I'm sure they looked awful.

I love the color scheme you're using. The highlights on the black armor really make it pop!

Admiral Drax said...

Nice work, mate.

I love the veterans,and those FW models are great, aren't they?

I look forward to seeing more.

- Drax.

The Inner Geek said...

Congrats on your first post! The painting has definitely improved, but there is a charm to the googly eyed fellow. I too have always liked the idea of an urban color theme for guard with greys and such. But, mine always seem to come out with a black and red scheme. Looks good on the troops, but I'm not sure how I should paint my tanks? Oh well, I look forward to seeing more of your work!

MasterDarksol said...

I love the googly-eyed tan-in-a-can guardsman! awesome.

Craig said...

Cant believe it, I started out with a box of catachans too... little better painted than your original (I would have been 13) but your ahead of me now id say! Great job all round.
That FW tank looks awesome. I hate their heavy weapon models though, the poses just dont seem right... clunky somehow. I far prefer the GW metal MeltaGun model, but to be fair their PlasmaGun guy isnt a great pose either... ah well, new plastic sets coming soon... Make our own poses!!!

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