Medusa V: The Lost Magistratus

Not all of the civilians made it off Medusa V when the storm came.  It was assumed that they were killed. They were, but they didn't stay dead!

I finally went and brought a copy of 6^th ed from my GW and I was dying to give it a go, so I thought a small solo game was in order.  I also wanted to try out Spyrle’s custom solo mission, but in the end I ignored a few rules (+2 attacks to traitors on the charge, the ‘They came from the warp’ rules,  and the ‘traitors must fire first’ rule). It wasn’t that I didn’t like them, but I could see with the force that I had put together those additions would have made it too one sided. Really I wanted to see how 6^th played out with two matched infantry armies and there was enough other stuff to try and remember! All the other rules in the scenario worked really well, so I may give it a full go another time.

WIP-Praetorian 40th Line Regiment.

Its been a fortnight since I reorganised my praetorian forces so I thought it would be a good time for a progress update. I have started on the first 40 men. They will form a blob squad of 30 (Sergeants with power weapons, and a commissar which is still to come) with a command squad of 4 grenade launchers and a special weapon squad of 3 grenade launchers. I have a second one of these 40 man firing blobs to do as well. I can't decide whether to convert up some plasma rifles to go in the main blob? If I do want to, I will convert up 6 from the 2nd batch of men and swap 3 into this lot. OK! On to some pictures and remember these are still WIP.

"suddenly one of the models turned to look at me" HELP I'm losing my mind!!

I started painting these a fortnightly ago.
Just as I was getting into the painting, suddenly one of the men turned to look at me. Well I know that's impossible but....

20 Questions

OK, I'll jump on the band wagon too!

Favourite Wargaming Period, and Why?

The future, because anything goes! With a bit of tweaking you can mix every historical period into a great big sci-fi jumble mix tape! Plus I do enjoy sci-fi which I only realised when I got to my 20’s.

28mm Steampunk by Spartan Games

Dystopian Legions!!I I saw this on  Ady's Praetorian XXIV blog and thought I'd share it here for my steampunk friends. 

Here is the quick run down from the Spartan Games' site: 

"DYSTOPIAN LEGIONS is a fast-paced, action-packed 28mm scale tabletop game set in the exciting world of Dystopian Wars, where Victorian super science fiction has created a fascinating and brutal arena for a deadly world war."

The Thunder Guard's arrival on the Grand Cruiser Praetoriae Vindictam.

(Four posts in two days- staying at home with a cold has done wonders form my blog!)

Here is a short narrative of an officers of the fleet regiment's initial meeting with several Thunder Guard officers aboard the Grand Cruiser Praetoriae Vindictam.

Expeditionary Lieutenant Creswell opened the wardroom hatch and stepped into the anteroom for the fortnightly officer’s game of Mordian Holdem. Seated at the long-table in the room's centre, were five cavalry officers from various regiments of the Thunder Guard. Creswell was momentary caught off guard. He had not expected the Thunder Guard to embark until the following rotation, but obviously they had arrived early.

Reforming my Imperial Guard (part 2) (and the truth about my dark addiction)

The second part of reforming my Guard are my Praetorian miniatures. I have been conflicted with my blue coated Praetorians for a long while. I really like the fleet regiment aspect that I reverted back to in April- that’s not the issue. There is still a little bit of me that wants to paint some red coats. Not so much for the historical aspect but from the point that I love the original look of them. I realised I felt this way when people would say 'sham you didn’t paint them red'. In truth if I didn't care then that comment would mean nothing, but there was always a little part of me that would say 'yeah, kinda wish I had'. 

So why didn’t I paint up some read coats? I collected lots of praetorians and I wanted to paint them all the same, cos you know - 'that’s what you have to do'. But in reality (and here is my dark secret) I have way too many praetorians for one army. I’m not saying this to brag at all, in fact I’m a little ashamed that I got so addicted to buying them that I have this many. How many I hear you ask? I'm not sure, but more than 500. I haven't counted them any time recently. It was my dark secret, my 'crack' praetorian addiction.

Here is a photo from a year or two ago when I stopped buying them. I tried to pull them ALL out but I ran out of time and room on the table : / 

Yeah, it’s a lot I know. It’s almost unbelievable, especially considering what they sell for now on eBay.

The point is I do have enough to paint up more than one army. This allows me to keep my blue coated fleet regiment- for nostalgic reasons, and do other things too. What I would like to do is a few different small armies. These are at various stages of painting but here is what I have in mind:

The Macharian Thunder Guard

The Macharian Thunder Guard
A cavalry division that was established in 400.M41during the Macharian Heresy. After Imperial order was regained on Macharia, many of the veteran ex-crusade regiments that maintained their loyalty to the Imperium were hastily formed up into battle groups to bolster the segmentum’s Imperial Guard. As was typical of cavalry divisions, they were issued a name instead of a number, taking their name from their planet of origin and the nickname of their senior regiment - the 12th Praetorian Hussar - ‘The Thunder Guard’. The 12th Hussar themselves had received the nickname in reference to the breed of their mounts- ‘Storm Greys’.

Reforming my Imperial Guard (part 1)

Still, I have been away from my modelling desk yet to get back to all my awaiting projects. As devastating as that is, on the plus side the space away from my models has allowed me to rethink what I want to do with them and how I would like their fluff to work.

Also the space has made me realise that, essentially I can do whatever I want with my miniatures. It is nice to have fluff that doesn't contradict the established universe, but even if mine did, nothing would happen. At the worst, someone would say, "hay, that doesn’t work!" to which I would reply with a shrug "so?". This freedom was what I really enjoyed about modelling in the 40k universe (opposed to historical modelling) when I started out. You can do whatever you want with your colour schemes or be utterly ridiculous about the planet you say they are from. As it turns out it wasn't too hard to make my fluff fit (and I don't think my colour schemes are all that ridiculous), but knowing that I could do anything was very freeing.

So, in a grand reorganising of my miniature forces I have broken my Guard up into distinct elements which I will post about separately. First off, I have my Macharian Thunder Guard, my blogs name sake, and a group of minis that I suspect will take up a lot of my future modelling time. I decided this would work best as a division rather than a regiment. What I wanted was a division of several different regiments, which would allow me free rein to come up with whatever cavalry units I wanted. Like I said, it’s all about feeling free to do whatever I want. :)