State of the Army and a new challenge!

I've decided to take part in the Unforgiven Angels "A Tale of Even More Painters" competition as a means to finally finish off the remaining guard for the Mordian 7th regiment. However, as I'm going to be attending GenCon Indy this coming week, I'll likely be unable to participate in the 1st challenge. Nevertheless, I did pull out the army to see where things actually stand - I tend to store all the models in Sabol trays on shelves in the Closet of Doom, so I rarely see all the models set out at once. I'm actually pleasantly surprised that a fair majority of the army is painted, and realized that I'm just a few units shy of my goal for recreating the original Mordian 7th as well!

As it stands right now, the army is a bit over 6500 points, including the models in boxes in the background. There are a few units that still need to be built, hence the empty bases for placeholders. All I have left to build to complete the intended recreation of the original Mordian 7th are 1 more Lascannon team, 1 more Beastman Attack Squad, and 1 more Hardened Veteran squad! So close!

While my intention is to recreate the original Mordian 7th regiment, I'm also expanding on it - I am a big fan of the Imperial Guard tanks so the heavy support options for the army have been expanded significantly, including a Stormlord, a Macharius and 10 Leman Russ tanks of various designs. I also have four Chimeras in boxes for further conversion work.

The mainstay of any guard army is of course its infantry, and the Mordian 7th includes 4 Tactical Squads, 2 Hardened Veteran Squads, a Stormtroopers Squad, and 2 Beastmen Attack Squads. In addition, the army also has a squad of Ratling Snipers, a squad of Ogryns, a Psyker Battle Squad, and 3 command squads (the regimental HQ and 2 platoon HQs). A pair of Tech Priests and their servitors serve to keep all of the regiments armored units functioning. In the background is the artillery detachment, including a Medusa emplacement, a proxy Griffon, a Thudd Gun and a Rapier Laser Destroyer.

On the Fast Attack front, there are two squads of Rough Riders on Hornet motorcycles, a Hellhound, two Sentinels, and a Scylla light tank (proxy armored sentinel), as well as a Valkyrie (built and half painted), a Vendetta (with the FW upgrade kit, still in the box/bags), and a FW Vulture armed with the new Punisher Cannons (still in the box). In addition, the Imperial Navy has provided a Thunderbolt fighter for air superiority. In the far corner you can see the beginnings of my Deathstrike Missile carrier - Once I'd built the missile, I realized it was a bit too large to be convincingly carried on a Chimera chassis, and decided to use the crawler I'd originally started working on for my Adeptus Mechanicus army.

While I have plans for several other large projects to accompany the army (the Leviathan command carrier and a Warlord Battle Titan), those are still in the planning stages and I don't expect to work on them any time soon.

Overall I'm hoping to use the painting competition to challenge me to finish this army - I'm realizing that it's been in process for the better part of 3 years now... Yikes.