The Commissar, Man's Best Friend

As I'm working through a fair amount of Imperial Guard at the moment, it's obvious that I need representation and encouragement from the glorious members of the Commissariat.

So, part one - I've owned my Guard army in some form or another since the mid 1990's, so some models have paint jobs I consider distinctly ropey. Case in point:

This is a Rogue-Trader-era model, that I really can't remember acquiring in the first place, but I clearly painted at some point. 

He wasn't actually too terrible, just a bit unfinished. Some parts were untidy, some just needed finishing off, and it was worth trimming off a couple of bits of flash that I'd left in place back in the day.

This took me a satisfyingly short amount of time, with this result.

Much more like it. So there you go, probably has a name like Commissar Egrin Glint or something. Is a bit short since he's such an old model, but definitely now useable.

And then, of course, there's this.

A deeply silly idea that I clearly picked up off Cults at some point and printed, then forgot all about, then found and printed. He revels in the name Commissar Chomp, and was quite handy in a recent game against Pete.

Claw and Order

In a quest for variety, I've stepped away from painting 40k units to keep up with (or trail massively behind) my Combat Patrol Magazine subscription, and gone towards painting some other 40k units that were just lying around the place.

First off the pile was a unit of Tyranid Gargoyles that have been sitting around in their box since I had a sudden burst of GW enthusiasm about 4 years ago and suddenly bought several new Chaos fantasy things (some of which are, of course, still in their boxes) and for some reason threw these into the order as well. 

I normally like plastic kits with lots of possible variety on the sprues, but these are the exact opposite. Other than being able to pick which head goes on which body, and the exact angle of the arms, you don't have any choices at all with these. This was actually quite helpful given I was treating them as a quick 'n' easy job. Bish, bosh, new unit ready. 

I also had some terrain bits lying around. I printed out a couple of big aquilae waaaay back when I made some buildings using old Necromunda bulkheads and then never painted. I decided, since these would take about 15 minutes to paint, that I should probably get on with it.

Then, the main event. I'd had a metal squad of Rogue Trader/2nd Edition era Adeptus Arbites sitting around for well over a decade. I randomly painted a couple in advance of our first Apocalypse game for Christmas 2024, then they disappeared to the back of the queue again. Suddenly, it was time.

But that's not all. A while ago I'd been taken by the idea of having several squads of these to accompany an Ordo Hereticus inquisitor, so I bought some files from Monstrous Encounters on MyMiniFactory, which sat unused on my hard drive for a while, and then Monstrous Encounters had a deal to get their whole back catalogue for cheap, so I did that, and then that sat unused for a while, and then, eventually...

I got a bit carried away. 

I realised that I can use them as veteran Imperial Guard squads, which have options to take all shotguns and to have carapace armour - so it's a perfect fit.

I also had files for some Makers Cult penal legion proxies, so I've printed some of those and given them a Mordian sergeant as a penal custodian. This is another unit I'd like to do more of, although at a fixed 80 points for each squad they're unlikely to form the backbone of an army by themselves. 

I'm definitely in a Guard mood at the moment so there's likely to be more of this before I wander off somewhere else. Stand by for that!

Techno Techno Techno Techno

For no obvious reason, I decided it was time to paint the tech priest I got from a bring and buy some time ago. 

He actually made it onto the table last weekend, and had a go at surviving his first game, until I flung him into a heroic yet doomed charge in the last turn. Still, I like how he's turned out, and he actually allows the surprisingly flexible squad of servitors into an Imperial Guard army.

As an added bonus, I also painted an Astropath who was just lying around on the desk. I have even less to say about him than I do the tech priest, and I expect his main role will be "extra body in the command squad". But here he is anyway.

There you go. Some posts are short!

40k Combat Patrol Premium Delivery 2 - Howling into the Void

My insane decision to pay for the Premium level subscription for the Combat Patrol magazine has struck again, so I've been forced to paint some more things, and then, much later, take photos of them in suboptimal lighting. 

The big hitter in this set is a daemon prince.

As with the previous premium set, I've ignored the magazine's suggestion for how to assemble it, because I want huge models that have wings.

I really enjoyed painting this guy, although for some reason he took ages to get finished. 

He's using the same colours for armour as the chaos marines I've already done, but the armour is really secondary to the overall daemon-ness.

Also in this set - some Eldar Howling Banshees (which my brain for unknown reasons keeps wanting to call Striking Scorpions). 

I can't find a lot to say about these - they're nice enough if slightly boring models. 

One of them has a sword stuck out to the side, which makes it hard to arrange them in a neat line for a photo.

Also there's a little statue. How many units get one of those?

This post appears to have fizzled out. But still, stuff has been painted, so it's all progress. Or something.

40k Combat Patrol Character 2 - Haarken Worldclaimer

Well, they got me again - I've failed to opt out and thus have been charged a tenner and sent a character by Hachette Partworks.

This time, it's a character that I'd never heard of, as he comes from some version of "new" (aka "wrong") 40k...

Haarken Worldclaimer, Herald of the Apocalypse!

Or from my 5th edition point of view, a chaos lord with a jump pack and a daemon weapon.

He's in a very modern and dynamic pose, hence it's slightly possible to read him as tripping over a pole. Try not to do that.

I decided to paint him in Black Legion colours to allow him to be used as the special character if I end up using him in 10th edition, and also as a way to help tie together my vague theme of Black-Legion-aligned chaos marines. 

Not much more to say about this one, but it's another tiny step in the direction of painting all this stuff, so that's nice.