Major-General Margrave Chretzo Sigenandus

I finally got around to finishing a few more miniatures!  This is Major-General Margrave Chretzo Sigenandus and his body guards and staff. He is a Margrave from Praetoria who has brought a commission in the Imperial Guard. Some of his back story has been explored in a previous fluffy post.

Andy Hoare Writes For Victoria Lamb

I popped on to facebook this morning and saw that an hour ago Vic posted up some background fluff about her main regiments, written by (ex-GW) Andy Hoare!

Check these out:
Galaxy’s Finest by Andy Hoare.

The Tannenberg Fusiliers

The Highland Guard

The Victorian Guard

The Cthood

A message from The Lord Governor of Praetoria - New command is imminent

He placed the Dataslate on his desk and blankly looked off into the distance. His dead eyes were dry and scratchy from the lack of sleep. He imagined that any other man might sob given the tempest of feelings he had inside, but no - Margrave Chretzo Sigenandus had not been brought up to cry. Men of his breeding never cried, they were bread for action. 

The Ruins of Medusa V: The Issue of Inquisitor Sasppenny.

Prologue

The situation was tense. Fifty of the Emperors beloved Blood Angel Space Marines surrounded the mixed Praetorian Guard force. Neither side had moved as they waited. Fifteen, twenty, then thirty minutes passed. The two ranking officers, Major Holtman and Colonel Ackland, exchanged knowing glances. Finally Ackland offered, 

“I say, this is getting rather ridiculous. Hmm, Stand fast old boy, I’ll see to it.”

With that, Ackland marched out to a Blood Angel shielded in gleaming gold armour. After saluting he said 

“My Lord Captain, Do you have orders?” 

The Blood Angel Captain blankly stared down at the Colonel from his ornate battle mask. There was silence for a moment, then in a booming yet softly rounded voice the golden marine spoke, 

“We are here, as are you, at the bidding of Inquisitor Virgil Sasppenny. We await His holy orders.”

“Yes Lord, but may I respectfully point out that the storm will soon descend on the planet again. If the Inquisitor has been waylaid we cannot stay here indefinitely. We engaged a traitor force on our journey here; it would be unfortunate if some ill fate had befallen the Inquisitor.”

There was silence, until finally the Blood Angel spoke again, 

“Noted.”

Ackland tuned to march back to his fellow Praetorians, a sea of scarlet girt by blood red. He whispered to himself

“Sorry my good chap, but old Sasppenny won’t be giving out any execution orders today.”

 Inquisitor Virgil Sasppenny, Missing In Action on Medusa V, presumed dead.
Search attempts withdrawn due to warp storms. 

Introducing a new 40k Guard army!

After receiving some pickelhaube heads from Curious Constructs I have started on a new small regiment. 

Full fluff to follow but to give you an idea...

“The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood.”

"Where some states have an army, the Prutenian Army has a state!”

“The less people know about how sausages and laws are made, the better they'll sleep at night”

New officers for the meat works!

Having decided to kill off my officers in the style of Colonel Scipio's army I have made up various new officers to lead my men. As I fight battles I’ll give these guys names and background stories. I have only just started their painting but here is where I'm at:

Armored WIP

As sighted in my previous battle post, I pulled some of my tanks out of the shed. The first 2 were a Demolisher and converted Hydra.

Some Finished Men!! (and some WIP)

A few weeks ago I finally finished off some of my red coats and a few Lascannons. The hardest part was commandeering the camera to get some shots of them...

2000p game. Killed everything. Lost nothing. Over by turn 4.

...and I really mean I lost nothing- not even one Guardsman fell.

The game was Guard verses the new Chaos Space Marines (of course), against my regular opponent.

The question is; am I just really good at playing Guard or is the new Chaos codex a bit poo? I suspect it’s a bit of both considering that I have played Guard pretty much non-stop for the last 15 years and also a few people have griped about the codex on the blogosphere.
(Edit: Or a third point, as people have pointed out in the comments, it was a lucky match-off of a Rock vs Scissors battle!)

Free cover? I'll take it!

I have a narrative battle report that will follow this post but I wanted to simply discuss the point first.

Victoria Miniatures vs Curious Constructs

Victoria Lamb vs Rob Angell: Two different people doing two different things that on the surface seem very similar.

No. It isn't a competition. But as a miniature hobbyist you might be looking at purchasing from one of these two (if not both) and if you are new to this niche in our hobby you might be interested in who these people are and how it is that their miniatures and conversion ‘bits’ are so similar but again so different! If you’re not new to either of these names you may be still interested in my thoughts and honest review of the products produced by these two little companies.

This is not a short review. I felt the need to do this properly which meant first exploring who these people are, how their stores developed, which then explain most of the differences between the miniatures.

The Ruins of Medusa V: The Incursion at Camp Exceller

The shortest game of 40k I have ever played, all over by turn 2!

+++++++++++++++For The Inquisition Eyes Only+++++++++++++++
The Holy Orders of the Emperor's Inquisition 

Inquisitor Virgil Sasppenny: Interrogation transcript of Corporal Neill, Imperial Guard soldier present at Demonic incursion Medusa V 2 748 856.M41.

The Ruins of Medusa V: The Action at Scourged Hill

Several weeks after the skirmish that became known as the engagement of “Vanquish Vally” a mixed patrol force were scouting an area nearby.

The Ruins of Medusa V: The Engagement of Vanquish Vally

1st Expeditionary Regiment -Veterans of Medusa V (Represented by a DKoK list) 

Lady Lieutenant Reave.

The ‘Fleet Regiment’ was holding a defensive position overlooking a forested valley to the west of Hive Perseus. Their two Earthshakers and three Heavy Mortars were ready to respond to any enemy that advanced on this flank although strategic analyses had suggested this was unlikely.  As the morning fog began to lift from the valley a Sergeant from the 3^rd squad alerted the two lieutenants (Creswell and Reave) to the sound of cavalry approaching. Before either of them could ready the men, Colonel Ackland, commander of the 3^rd Brigade- Macharian Thunder Guard, stormed into the camp with his horse frothing at the bit. He was accompanied by his mounted command squad and a further 10 veteran cavalry troopers. Lady Lieutenant Reave snapped a salute and called “Officer on parade…”  But she was curtly drowned out by the red faced Colonel - “Stand too; Chaos is here; Nurgle Marines, Commence Bombardment! Lieutenants! Fan the men out! Cover the Guns and Hold Fast!”

The BIG WIP Post!

With a few of the Troths off my desk I thought it was about time to look at what else is going on.

So what have we got? Two Praetorian officers, a sergeant, walkers, some cavalry and a Queen.

Staring with the coolest stuff first- the cavalry!

I have been coming back to these off and on since I finished my first lot. It takes quite a bit of time just to get the horses ready and build the lances so I'm ok with their slow progress. 

These 5 use pistoleer heads, Curious Constructs Lancer Torsos, legs and arms, and my scratch built hunting lances. 

Troths (Homo Sapien Verdantus) – Troopers of the Imperial Garden

The Troth, also known as Homo Sapien Verdantus, are an officially recognized strain of Abhuman within the Imperium, endemic on the world of Verdant (Warhammer 40,000 6th Edition Rulebook pg.405).

As their name suggests, they have pledged an oath of fidelity to the Emperor and fulfil their duty to the Imperium whenever called.  Verdant was originally classified as a Death World, but through the tireless work of the Troths it now serves the Imperium as an Agri-World and Pleasure World (or Garden World). With a world of outstanding natural beauty, many Troths have dedicated their lives to pampering the important Imperial visitors they often receive. These are frequently members of major noble houses, members of the Navis Nobilite, Planetary Governors, important Ecclesiarchy officials like Confessors and Cardinals, Imperial Commanders, Rogue Traders and wealthy Chartist Captains. Other Troths pay the Imperial tithes by tending huge jungle crops or farms of edible fungus. Finally, like many colonised worlds and other abhuman races, the Troths also maintain a tithe of men to fight in the Imperial Guard, (or as humans jokingly refer to it, the Troth Imperial Garden).

My Top 10 Blogs

I just hit 50 followers, wow what a milestone. To all my new blogger friends - Welcome!

I really love tracking down new blogs to follow. Blog networks are great for that but another way I find some real gems is by looking at what blogs other people follow.  With that in mind, I thought it would be cool to highlight my favourite 10 blogs and tell everyone why I like them.  This was way harder then I initially thought, but after a lot of cutting down, I have a list. I found that there were really two groups in my top ten - big well known blogs written by veteran bloggers that have a large following (heavy weights), and smaller less known blogs that are written by equally talented people but just haven’t been around as long or are less publicised (middle weights).

So without further ado, in no particular order, Col. Ackland’s favourite 10 blogs:

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. :)

Praetorian Sailors? Yes, I think there is such a thing!

Ahoy! With the anniversary of the sinking of the titanic on the weekend this post has gone slightly nautical.
In light of ‘The Pacification of Montar VII’ big-game that has been proposed for Jan 2013, I have decided to temporarily rename my regiment. Well, not so much a new name but re-issuing their old name. You see originally I called the regiment “The 1^st Expeditionary regiment of foot”. They weren’t a standard line regiment but a Praetorian fleet based regiment sooo that somehow justified why they weren’t red.

The thing is however, all Imperial guard regiments leave their home world and travel with a fleet finding war where war is needed. On realising this (and the massively frustrating point that Praetoria doesn’t exist on 40k star charts) I renamed them so they weren’t from Praetoria.  

Now I do want them to be from Praetoria once again, at least for a while, so they can take part in the Montar campaign – provided I can get to the other side of the galaxy in time. Also I do still like the original feel of a non ‘army’ regiment from the Navy or Airforce, like our Ausy Airfield defence guard (equivalent to UK’s Air Force regiment) or navy marine style forces.

I returned to the model desk! and 'How a haircut = more cavalry'?

Wow, people in the blogging world have been busy –weddings, moving houses, new jobs etc etc LIFE!  But who would have thought that wargamers would have lives!? Aren’t they all nerdy single men that live in the attics of their parents houses? Apparently not, apparently there are girls, jobs, houses, kids, holidays, mates, and lots of cool accessories and distractions that the modern nerd needs in his life.

Yeah, I feel it. I haven’t been at my modelling desk since -ummm- the end of November -Ouch! This has been in an attempt to finish my PhD thesis. I had planned to get it out by February but that flew by, then I thought end of March. Well it’s now mid-April and there is still a lot more to do. The issue is I keep underestimating how much work goes into an 80,000 word thesis.

Anyho, on the weekend I through my hands (and papers) into the air and sat down at my modelling desk – just for a bit. Oooh hello cavalry.

New Paint Déjà vu

I was perusing an old White Dwarf (WD), well not just any old WD – it was issue 222 from June 98. Rings a bell? Well you may know it as the issue containing the ‘Last Stand at Glazer’s Creek’. Here are few shots for the fans...

Praetorians' sir, they’re everywhere!

Last week it was Col. Gravis' 4th Praetorian glory boys on face book this week its Col. Winterborne's 4th Praetorian Mechanised on the GW site!

Just wanted to make sure nobody misses this cool revisiting of the good old "Massacre at Big Toof River" in the "What's New Today" write up. Also more here too!

Hey, I know those chaps!

I Just saw these shots on the Warhammer World face book page for Throne of Skulls. When the first one popped up I said with a grin "Hey that's Gravis' work!"

Facebook-Throne of Skulls Jan 2012

Breathtaking stuff Col. Gravis. Its great to see Ackland and the Duelist out and about (my most favored models of all time)!
Colonel Ackland
The Duelist

Happy OZ day! & thoughts on Warhammer 120k? hmmmm.

Allow me to interrupt the standard modelling posts to say Happy Australia Day everyone.

VICTORY on Oribella VII! The Macharian Thunder Guard are proclaimed heroes after the Battle of Little Red!

Crushing Victory. The Thunder Guards' glorious battle history is preserved. Will they ever be defeated!?

How I did my Rough Rider helmet plumes

Colonel Scipio asked about my helmet plumes and I realised I never loaded up any pics of the wire plumes. So if anyone is curious here is how I did it.

Reinforcements Approved: its now 3500p list.

My nemesis sent me a message; "I checked the points for my list and it came to 3500p, oops" to which I replied "don't worry I'll add a few more men..."

So, what does my list need?

3000p List - "Thunder Brigade" for the Oribella VII Battle of Little Red

Praetorian Expeditionary Officers and Imperial Allied Commanders of His most gracious Imperial Guard.

Presently elements of the the 1st of foot (Macharian Thunder Guard) and support regiments will depart en rout to the xeric single-biome planet of Oribella VII - known by the imperial indigenous as 'Rubella' (Little Red). A small cohort of fanatical Space Marines have been designated 'Renegade' by the illustrious Inquisitor Lady Marwood and it has fallen to my subordinate Colonel Lord Praetori (Honorifica Imperialis, Order of Macharious, Knight of Medusa) and his boys to reconcile their souls to the mighty Emperor. I have personally received credible intelligence that the enemy relies on orbital drop pod assault tactics and utilises master crafted melta, flamer and thunder hammer weapons. 

I have noted much recent correspondence on the matter of task force formation. As such, I earnestly supplicate you, my fellow senior officers, to weigh the following brigade formation for the prior mentioned mission and submit you sentiments (if any) post-hast. 

As the Emperor protects, so must we.

(Acting)Brigadier-General Ackland.