Imperial Guard Salamander rides again!

A special post on something I don't do a great deal of. Rules and game mechanics!

As you may have twigged from the post title I want to talk about the Salamander, and more importantly its new rules.



Here is a photo of my Salamander Command, possibly one of my all time favourite Guard tanks.

Now it may be that people don't care about the Salamander, maybe nobody owns one other than me, nonetheless I'm going to do my best to educate you all on the wonders of this tank and the great rules it got in the latest IA book, Imperial Armour 1 2nd Edition.

The first great change for the tank is that the Command is now an Elite choice (anybody take many elites, no? Didn't think so...) so it slots in to the army nicely, the scout is fast attack so has far greater competition. The big and welcome change is that the command tank is now BS4! Fast and has scout! Furthermore it can forgo shooting and reduce the cover save of an enemy unit by 1. All this for only 60pts. Bargain.

The scout is 55 and can be bought in squadrons of up to 3, is also fast with scout but sadly is only BS3 with no other special rules.


That scanner can do wonders...

So what are your thoughts? I'm thinking my Salamander will very quickly become a staple of my guard army.

Praetorian Thudd Gun update

Greetings all

A brief update on the thudd guns that will (hopefully) be making their debut at the upcoming Vidar's fate campaign weekend up at warhammer world!



So Thudd guns (or quad guns as they are now know) are 50pts of fun with 4 st 5 ap 5 shots per turn (with the missing turns out part having been removed in the latest faq). So this little battery will consist of 9 guys and 3 guns which are all separate models. They take up a heavy support slot (so face competition from leman russ, medusa, colosus, thunderbolt, hydra, deathstrike... to name but a few) but that is no great problem as these days I can either take an allied guard detachment or a second primary detachment.



I decided to get a bit creative with the crew and have a mix of lascannon gunners, mortar firers and finally a missile team. The missile loader now has a spade and the gunner has had an arm swap and is the lead gunner (a close up of him at the end). I've done a fair bit of work on the bases too mixing some of the GW basing kit resin pieces, sandbags, a servo skull and a tripod with a view finder mounted. I'm pretty pleased with how they all look and think they really add something to the guns as models.



So I started off with carriages and have painted them the same way I paint my tanks. I toyed with alternatives but this seemed easiest and I thought would look pretty cool.



The weathering I go for seems to get more elaborate each time. On this one we have sponged rhinox brown (is that what its called? I dont remember or have it to hand). Then the three stage process of ushabti bone, black followed by boltgun metal for the more serious scratches and marks. When it all gets mounted to the base proper I may well do some drybrushing for dust etc.



The carriages are really great models in themselves and come complete with a little display and interface behind where the guns sit. I've got to say I'm really impressed with the models.



Here we have the three finished carriages with preliminary drybrushing on the bases and undercoated guns. The guns will be black and metal and will be painted separately before I stick them in (as will the base).



Another photos of the carriages.



In this photo you can see the viewfinder on the tripod.





Here we have the gunnery sergeant with a pointing arm from the Cadian command sprue, a hand with a bandage (which will now be a map! Praetorians like to do things the old fashioned way). and a vic lamb epaulette and goggles (which are great!).

I'm hoping to have the guns done in the next few days or so with any luck and then it will be a mad dash to paint the guardsmen when I have some more free time after April 5th. I'm not sure if I will get anything else done for Vidar's fate but here's hoping. I'd love to take more guardsmen and leave some of the mech for once but we will have to see what I can manage!

Thanks for reading!

March update - reinforcements incoming!

Greetings everyone!

Apologies for the lengthy wait for this post, the past month or so has been very busy and continues to be for the next month or two. I'm in the time consuming position of working full time while studying part time for some professional exams, the thing which unfortunately has to give is my painting and modelling.

Nonetheless, I haven managed to paint at least one miniature which you will see shortly, and in addition have completed the far less time consuming task of purchasing some much needed reinforcements to bolster the ranks of the 4th Mechanised Infantry.

To make amends for my hobbying transgressions I have a jam packed post for you that I hope you will all enjoy.

So without further ado, lets kick this post of with the newest recruit, the techpriest enginseer...



I've wanted a techpriest for a long time. I like to think of my army in functional terms and like to have the various logistical and mechanical support to keep the army running. The techpriest is the first step in achieving that. In the future I hope to add a Trojan or two, an Atlas recovery tank and who knows what else.



My army is an Imperial Guard army first and foremost, so while it doesn't necessarily fit with the Victorian Steam Punk aesthetic I felt he was nonetheless a good fit for the army. I kept the colours to the limited palette I use throughout and juxtaposed the red and khaki seen on most units, to give him red armour (befitting the mechanicum) and khaki robes.



Once again details such as belts and pouches are picked out in white like the rest of the army, and on this model in particular I enjoyed picking out all the little details that make these models so interesting.



Before I move on to the new recruits which I recently purchased let me show you some which I recently converted. Now those of you that have been following me for some time may remember that I converted 5 commandos from the victoria lamb miniatures using the heads with caps rather than pith helmets.



Well I reviewed these guys recently and wasn't happy with how they looked. They didn't sit quite right with me. So I got out my green stuff, opened the bits box and went to work. Here is what I ended up with.



Behold Praetorian Riflemen. I swapped heads for the pith helmetted variety and sculpted front plumes on all the helmets which have a feather a small rectangular piece and then an even smaller Aquila sculpted at the very bottom.



They have plenty of of pouches and kit and have Victoria lambs epaulettes too.



I also got to work on another fella for the army, and with a few subtle conversions made a Captain Caine of my own.



He has the VL epaulettes and a double hand swap so he fits in with the traditional 40k weapons and a slightly different feel with the sword arm forward and the pistol back.

The penultimate item of this jam packed post is some new allies for the Praetorians. While I was shopping on ebay I looked at other items of one of the sellers I was looking at and low and behold some Tallarn Desert Raiders caught my eye for about half the price they cost new. Well I couldn't resist and got myself a platoon!



I've always loved the Tallarn models and think they will look great alongside the regular infantry. I have two squads and a command section, that all includes a melta gun, 2 grenade launchers, a mortar and a lascannon. A pretty eclectic selection of weapons but that has never stopped me before. Plus the mortar crewman with his hands over his ears is one of my favourite ever guard models.



I'm really looking forward to painting these guys and will be using the same red white and khaki palette mentioned above. I'm thinking khaki trousers, red tunics, white head scarfs perhaps, or maybe khaki tunics and trousers, white accessories and a red head scarf. If any of you have any suggestions I'd love to hear them.



Finally on to my latest Praetorian purchases. Now essentially I lost the plot the other day and bought probably rather too much on ebay. I know prices are usually high, but I got a quite a few squads at what I felt to be a pretty reasonable price. I actually expected to outbid on many things so I got rather more than I bargained for. So first up I have a whole load more guardsmen so I can bulk out my platoons and make bigger blobs. Including the Tallarns I have increased my army by about 70 infantry.



Also a few special weapons, now I finally have enough melta guns to try out the ubiquitous melta vets if I so desire. Also not pictured I got 3 more mortars and 3 more lascannons.



A few more officers to lead the new recruits.



And finally the pièce de résistance. Thudd guns!!! Original squat Thudd guns which were sold with Praetorian heavy weapon crews! These I picked up for just over £30 and I consider it money well spent. I have no idea what these do in game terms but some slightly bigger artillery, and such classic models to boot, was to much to resist.



The guns are immensely characterful with the small tractor on the back and the big carriage. While I am tempted to leave them as they are, I do have a mind to remove the gun barrels and replace them with longer bigger ones.

If anyone has any idea how these work please let me know, and in particular, how many crew does each need and do they need to be mounted on the base or separate models?

The last news is that Col. Gravis and I are off the Warhammer World for Vidar's fate campaign weekend. The weekend includes a mighty 2.5k per player apocalypse game! Needless to see we intend to join forces so that is a battle report you can all look forward to where the malcador and macharius shall fight side by side. It's also possible to prearrange opponents for this game, we are currently looking for 2 ork players to play against, if you happen to be going and an ork player or know of any that are then please let us know! Alternatively if you aren't an ork player but are going then also let me know.

Right that is your lot for now, I'm not sure when I'll be able to post again, I suspect it'll be a month but I'll see what I can do.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on all of the above. Thanks for reading!