Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Imperial Guard - Heavy Weapon Teams and Sentinels painted

Still banging on with the Dark Future weekly painting challenge, which has been keeping me motivated to put brush to miniature! This past week I've been chipping away at the Guard once again, with two trios of heavy weapon teams (my entry for this weeks' contest) and a pair of Sentinels.


The first trio are armed with vehicle-busting Lascannons, and are usually tucked away inside some building overlooking the battlefield. Coupled with the various orders available to them such as "Bring it down!" and "Fire on my target!" they can be rather nasty!


The second trio are the Missile Launcher teams that will more often than not be attached to the three infantry squads of 1st platoon. I'm a big fan of their ability to fire Frag or Krak missiles depending on the situation, and I'm looking forward to finding out how the Flakk missiles will work into the army lists.


While I was rooting around in the box of Cadian bits looking for arms for use on the Hypaspists for the upcoming Ad-Mech army, I ran across a pair of Sentinel sprues and knocked them together. The original Mordian 7th army included a pair of Sentinels armed with Assault Cannons, and I'm rather bummed that's no longer an option. Instead I went with Plasma Cannons, as for the most part the Guard don't get many opportunities to take them. Of course, I'm sure they'll melt down into steaming pools of metal on turn one every game!


In keeping with the black with red trim theme, the sentinels really ended up looking rather ominous. I couldn't come up with a knife design that I was happy with for their army badge, so I went with a jagged tooth pattern instead - reminiscent of an upper and lower jaw to tie the two models together thematically. I'm quite happy with the sense of motion the new kits allow, the legs are very posable!

Next up on deck for the guard is the Leman Russ Vanquisher and the command squad's Chimera, and I'm in the middle of painting the Knight Errant as well. Pics to follow soon!

6 comments:

  1. Where to start?! First, those missile launchers look great - especially the one halfway through firing. The bases are really realistic and all the colours are very vivid and clear, some really nice contrasts there. The Sentinels are very dynamic too.

    What do you think about the new vehicle overheat rules? (I heard on the grapevine they can now overheat in vehicles) - I always liked the explanation that they had much bigger coolant systems and could take the heat. If its the case I'll probably take mine off altogether, and replace with meltas just like I did for my infantry.

    I take my hat off to you sir.

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  2. That's a lot of work in a short amount of time. you should be proud.

    Especially like the contrasting colours on those Heavy Weapons teams between the charcoal, yellow and green.

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  3. Thanks folks!

    @Colonel_Scipio - I appreciate it! I like doing missile launches, it gives the model some dynamism. I've done something similar on the Whirlwind for the Thousand Sons a while back. I kind of dig the overheat rules for vehicles, though given my luck it'll be 1's all day long. Hah! The AP2 helps with those pesky Terminators though...

    @Dai - When I first started the new paint scheme they were definitely a little too monochrome, the bright yellow may not make much sense from a camouflage/tactical standpoint, but it does help identify the weapons on the tabletop. :)

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  4. I really like the use of green in the lascannons, looks like energy pumping from the power cells.

    This emissive launchers look great too. I'm always a big fan of cinematic effects in minis.

    Awesome work as always!

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  5. Nice work! Keep it up!

    Also, we'll destroy you loyalist dogs!!! Heed the Word!

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  6. Sentinels look amazing, the colours are quite rich and I like the running poses.

    If I can just offer one thing I did with my sentinels (also running and crouching on rubble) is cut the 'toes' and angle them down a little if they're off the ground, I find the flat look a tad jarring (try running keeping your feet perfectly flat)..

    Cheers,
    Nick

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