500pts Praetorian list

Hello everyone

It's been a quiet week on the hobby front. I've had to move for work which means I am currently without all of my miniatures and hobby tools! Sad times indeed.

This does mean that unfortunately there are no pictures of cool new models to post, however it has got me thinking about other aspects of the hobby, namely gaming and army list writing.

In May I am off to Warhammer World to take part in the Badab War pt2; the Badab War for those who don't know is a two day campaign weekend with 5 special scenarios with custom rules and various army sizes. To take part I need 500, 1500, 2000 and 2500pts army lists. In addition every army gets a free special HQ character worth up to 130pts (HQ is 0+ in all games as this guy always plays and is free), the type of character is specified but you can equip as you like. For the guard it is the Lord Commissar.

In the many years I have used Imperial Guard I have never ever taken a Commissar (my Praetorians are quite disciplined enough thank you!), so this will be a first for me. I have tried my best to spend 130pts on a Lord Commissar but it is unfortunately impossible. Nontheless here is my load out -

Lord Commissar
Plasma pistol, power fist,
Carapace armour,
Camo cloak,
melta bombs                               total 120pts

Any ideas on making a cool conversion for him would be well received. So far I have bought the finecast LC model and am thinking about using that as a base.

 The 500pts List

Today I want to look at the smallest of the army lists I need for Badab War, the 500pts list.

The mission type for this game will be Seize Ground with only 3 Objectives and the deployment will be Spearhead.



For this mission given the small points allocation I think it is probably wise to play to my strengths, i.e. number of cheap troops and cheap armour. While some armies might struggle with such a small engagement I can field a rather large number of troops and tanks. As I get a free commissar Lord I can safely leave the Colonel and his Command squad in the barracks knowing my troops will be well led and hopefully sticking around long enough to kill some enemies! Here is what I have so far.

Free Lord Commissar

Platoon 1
Command squad, melta gun, banner, bolt pistol    Chimera
Squad 1 autocannon, flamer                                   Chimera
Squad 2 heavy bolter, plasma gun                          Chimera
Platoon 2
Command squad,
Squad 3
Squad 4
                                                                 Total          497

This means that I will be going to battle with 50 troops (all troop choices for objective claming) and 3 tanks. Squad 3 and 4 will likely be blobbed together and will be given lots of 1st rank 2nd rank orders targeting whoever dares get close to 60 lasgun shots. To this extent I might drop the banner from the command squad (doesnt seem right going to war without a flag...) get a few more special weapons and maybe a vox. The army should be very mobile with the chimeras, and I can't imagine anyone taking too many anti tank weapons in such a small force (either way smoke gives me a good chance of survival). I might also swap the heavy bolter for another autocannon to have a bit more AT myself.

I think 500 pts is a really interesting size for guard ans there is real potential for interesting armies. Rough Riders at 55pts for 5 could easily fit in at the expense of a chimera and give me some power weapon combat support. Another nasty trick could be to heavy flamer up the chimera, template weapons could be very costly to any enemy that tries to get into close combat with me. Considering othere options any large tanks would likely be targeted straight away and should they be destroyed it could be game over quickly and elite troops are a bit to costly coupled with not being able to claim an objective.

 I think with this army I will need to focus on killing their troop choices quickly and then try to keep one of mine safe on an objective to secure the win. It is very manouverable which means that no objective is safe from me and the numbers will give me a psychological edge against the inevitable marine player who will be rueing the loss of even one marine.

Please let me know your thoughts and ideas for a 500pts list and what you think of this one!

Finished Praetorian Storm trooper!

Despite having a dozen other things on the painting table (particularly the veterans which need to be done after a lot of delays!) the storm trooper which I converted yesterday captured my paintbrush and forced me to sit down until he was finished.

He is the first of what will be a squad of 10 (luckily for me I got 11 in the post so he is just a tester should I wish to change things!), as it is the DKOK grenadier squad there will be a flamer and a grenade launcher (which might be converted as I'd rather a hellgun...).

Any comments very welcome!

Praetorian Storm trooper WIP

Managed to get some greenstuff onto the tester model and heres what it looks like.

When it is properly cured I will neaten it up a bit and get all the greenstuff edges nice and sharp. The helmet crest is pretty basic at the moment and something may well get added to it, but so far I'm pretty pleased with it!

Mid February update

It's come to mid February and unfortunately a rather slow period in terms of hobbying is upon me. Changing job and moving house at the same time means that progress is likely to be very slow in the coming weeks, nonetheless I will try my best and put up a few posts here and there. Earlier today (just scroll down!) I posted some photos of the finished Command HQ Chimera and Salamander, these were painted last week but I haven't had the opportunity to photo them or post about them, I'm really pleased with both of them and it brings my finished tanks total up to 10, I officially don't own an unpainted tank! Huzzah! Now I just need to buy a stormlord to remedy that...

On a side note does anyone know a)if a salamander can be used in a regular IG codex army
                                                       b) what force organisation slot does it use
I like using it because it looks ace, the problem is I suspect it probably isn't legal in my army... Please help!


Those of you that regularly follow Praetorian blogs will have seen Col Gravis taking the plunge and deciding to paint a mind numbingly large number of pith helmeted buggers, well I feel that the time has also come for me to paint some infantry. My 40k games thus far have been me taking every painted model in the army in a bid to make the points up without any real tactical thought, my lack of infantry (a paltry 35ish painted) has made my army very inflexible and my deployment zones more of a parking lot than I would like.

So what am I going to paint?
Firstly the 10 Highland vets. need to be finished, upon their completion that will be 1850pts (of legal army) fully painted
3 x10 man guard squads (2 lascannon and 1 missile launcher heavy weapons which could form a heavy unit if needed), these need to be undercoated.
10 storm troopers, now you may have seen my 'commando' storm troopers that Ive been working on, but these aren't them. This squad will be converted DKOK grenadiers and the first one is built and ready for greenstuff, feast your eyes on this guy...

Epaulets will be sculpted, also filling around the arms and neck. I'm also toying with adding something to the helmet, not sure yet, any ideas?

So in total that is 50 guys that need painting (also a fair bit of converting and sculpting for the stormtroopers), it could take a while...

Speaking of painting, I have been thinking of evolving my methods a bit and getting an airbrush. Now I have absolutely not experience with airbrushes but I'm thinking that if I can paint the khaki uniform on them all with an airbrush it will save me literally days worth of time. I'm going to investigate the matter further but peoples thoughts/experiences would be very gratefully received! Also do you think I could get a result with the airbrush that would match my hand painted ones (regarding the khaki uniform).

On a final note my guardsmen are confirmed for Badab War pt 2 up at Warhammer World in May, I cant wait! If any other Praetorian players are thinking of going let me know and we could team up for the apocalypse game!

That's enough for now, I will catch you all later.

Praetorian Salamander Command Vehicle

Photos of the finished Salamander Command Vehicle with converted Praetorian Crew.

Praetorian Command HQ Chimera

Photos of the finished Command HQ Chimera. Colonel Winterborne's personal transport with plenty of free hand insignia and extra armour.

Photos Praetorians v Dark Eldar

Earlier this evening my valiant Praetorians had the fortune to be lined up against what can only be called a stunning Dark Eldar army. I'm afraid I haven't got time to write a proper battle report like my last against Necrons, but I do have time to upload photos which show the key moments of the battle.
Enjoy!

 The Dark Eldar parking lot

The Praetorian parking lot (Hellhound and rough riders led by Mogul Kamir kept in reserve)

Now the carnage begins

 Incoming!!!

 Turn 2 all 5 tanks pictured are wrecked.

 The cavalry arrive!

 Guardsmen wipe out an incubii unit with volley fire.

 Charge!

 The Dark Eldar close in...

 Valiant to the end.

 The colonel makes a last stand in a runined building.

As you have probably guessed I lost, a mighty 15KPs to 9. My unit of the match was certainly the rough riders and my nemesis without a doubt flickerfields and my opponents uncanny ability to roll them. Brilliant game and brilliant opponent!

What's new? Praetorians that's what!

As the eagle eyed informed me earlier today, the 4th Praetorian Mechanised Infantry were seen on manoeuvers not once, not twice, but thrice on the GW what's new section of todays website!

I sent them some photos and a blurb a few weeks ago and they said they liked them, sent them a few more of the newly finished tanks the other day and as if by magic on GW they appear, needless to say I'm pretty chuffed. Followers of my blog will have seen the photos before (possibly there is a new one of the rough riders with better colour), but there is a new blurb about them which speaks more of why I collect Praetorians. Also check out some photos of Big Toof River from back in the day, almost 15 years ago, surely it is about time for a rematch against the Ork foe? Also well done to Commisar Dave, who's Colonel featured as well!


Here's a little update of my painting table for today, we have the HQ chimera Salamander which (other than the crew) both just need chips and insignia painted. My inquisitorial Valkyrie (just needed a base, its the old forgeworld one so had to do some drilling and pinning) and two smoke markers. I decided that my tanks also need to look good as wrecks (what with fielding 10 of them) so smoke markers were a must!

Who knows, perhaps this represents a softening of the GW stance on pretending Praetorians don't exist anymore! We can only hope. All that is left to say is...

For Praetoria!

A Praetorian guide to tank track weathering

Followers of my blog will know that recently the poor guardsmen have been overlooked in favour of finishing off a lot of armour and painting lots of chips and damage to the paint work and weathering on the tracks. The current tank being painted is my command Salamander, when I last left it (see the old post) I had finished the main colour of the tank.
Since then Ive painted the black parts and given the whole hull a wash of 1:1:1 water ogryn flesh and badab black where I was carfeul to paint the wash on making sure not to apply to much and leave a patchy finish where it collects on the flat area.
In the picture below I have added the tracks (I can never get them to fit properly and so always have to chop bits off the tracks where they can't be seen...). The tracks were sprayed black on the frame and drybrushed first with tin bitz and then boltgun metal and then chainmail, followed by a wash of 1:1 ogryn flesh and badab black. I then removed them from the frame with a knife added them to the tank and touched up any bare plastic with black.

Right thats the intro now on to the weathering! (you will also note that the rest of tank magically becomes more painted as the track weathering progresses!)


Step 1
I think the tracks always look better if they have picked up some dirt and look like they haven't just driven out of the showroom. When you add the weathering is up to you, at the end when everything else is painted works well or at a stage (like the salamander) when the surrounding area is done. So to achieve the look we go mix up PVA sand a little water. You want to have a bit less wet than my photo or else you could end up with a bit of PVA glaze!

Now you apply it to the tracks where you want the dirt to be. Think about where it might have collected on the hull and skirts of the tank, you can use it to hide errors and cover up parts where the tracks dont join quite right. I tend to place it pretty evenly around the whole track never leaving too big a gap, I also have it collecting along the skirts and towards the back . I would avoid going too crazy and putting lots and lots on but each to their own!

Step 2
So now we have applied the weathering we need to paint it. It will take quite a while to dry so don't rush it. It should now look a little something like this. What with being sand on a sand coloured tank and transparent PVA glue not much to see but its certainly there.

The base colour for my weathering is 1:1 chaos black and scorched brown (depending on your bases for the rest of your army you could paint it different colour), you want it watered down somewhere in between a wash and paint from the pot, you want it to apply well but also be opaque so you dont see the sand colour through it. Paint it on generously but stick to the sand as much as possible. Dont be afraid to paint this colour on the tank a little as with the following drybrushing it will all come together.

Step 3
Now the drybrushing begins. For this I used a medium drybrush, remember with drybrushing you want to remove most of the paint from the brush, you can always drybrush the bit again if not enough paint was applied. I will post the next few pictures with the colour used, the lighter the colour the less paint on the brush, you want to build a depth of colour. Also get a little on the rest of tracks here and there as it looks good.
Drybrush colour one - Calthan Brown

Drybrush colour two - Khemri brown

Drybrush colour 3 - Komando Khaki

Final drybrush colour - Bleached bone (possibly the most useful paint for my army there is!)

Step 4 
So your drybrushing should have also added a little bit of colour the tracks and might seem a little light in colour now. We want to bring it all together and add tone it down a bit. To do this we have another wash. This one is 2:1:1 badab black, ogryn flesh, water, apply to all of the tracks but do not wash the dirt, a little bit here and there is fine to mix it up but once again paint your wash on rather than haphazardly slapping it everywhere.

Final step
When your wash is fully dry (don't risk it when wet!!!) we apply our very last highlight in the form of some more drybrushing. This time we are going to drybrush chainmail on the tracks to bring the metal back to life. This is a very very light drybrush and it does not go everywhere, I tend to just put it on small areas here and there and mostly away from the dirtier parts.

There you go! Finished weathered tanks. The colours can be adapted to suit your needs but the method remain the same.

It might sound like a lot reading through but in practice it is very quick and easy to do, especially if you are doing a few tanks at once its very fast.

A few other examples of my other tanks, it is no problem if the colours, darkness, or amount of weathering vary from tank to tank, it all adds to the look!

Next step for the Salamander is to paint it and then add the battle damage and paint chips, I will add another how to post for that when I get it done.

I hope that was useful, it's a nice subtle weathering which adds to the look of the tank rather than being too obvious or drawing attention away from the tank itself. If you have any questions let me know!