Finished Praetorian Chosen Men

Finally about a year and a half after finishing the first three, the final two Praetorian chosen men are finished! Huzzah! Here are some quick ad hoc photos. Enjoy!

The two in the back row are the ones I have just finished. They had been sat 80% for a long long time. They were all supposed to be painted for an Armageddon campaign weekend July 2013 if memory serves. Sadly the night before I was furiously painting and had to prioritize time and so could only finish 3. Luckily the minimum squad size for Ratlings is 3 so they still got some use (I used them as count as Ratlings).

I trawled the old photos and have added on a couple from that campaign weekend after showing the new guys off below. 

I've manged to get the first of the new guys in focus. Painted the same as the ones over a year ago. The bits I had to finish were the skin, gun, grenades and a few other little details. They look perfect with the other guys so I'm very pleased.



Once again the new guy is in the back . Fits perfectly. Painting the faces on these guys was a pleasure, Victoria Lamb sculpts have some of the best faces in the business in my opinion!



We don't see enough backs of models, so here we go. You can see the cross belts they all wear fron the Victoria Lamb torsos. You can also see all the GW accessories from the guard kits that I added to keep them in line with the rest of the army. Additionally, note the legs are the standard imperial guard ones to tie them in further. I was always keen they should be Praetorian Imperial Guard, not just steam punk sci fi troops.

As mentioned earlier, here are couple of photos from Armageddon where they were positioned on the roof of a Chimera factory the IV were ordered to defend against a Bad Moon horde.



Get your binoculars out, the chosen men are in the middle most tower.



I also dug up a WIP photo of the models. Amazing what a lick of paint can do.



Thanks for having a look!

Heroes of the Praetorian IV Mechanised Infantry - Gallery photos part 1

Keeping up this new found regularity of posts here are some of the promised updated gallery photos of the army!

Starting with some of the heroes of the glorious Praetorian IV Mechanised Infantry.



First up we have some very old and some very new favourites within the army. Starting from the left we have the Praetorian Hunting Ridgeback of Colonel Winterborne. It's the cyberdog that accompanies the enforcer and was a forge world event only model from a few years back.

In the middle we have the senior liaison officer with the Mechanicus, Vitus Theron. This is the old metal Cadian Colonel who featured on a golden demon entry over 10 years ago. Over the years he has proxied for many a different officer or advisor.

Finally on the right we have one of the Colonel's bodyguards, Chuxo, from one of the native nomadic tribes of Praetoria Secondus.



Here we have Colonel Winterborne and the Regimental Command. On the left we have the medic, standard bearer with the regimental banner depicting the slaying of the Ork Warboss Raguk during the second war for Armageddon. To the right we have comms adjunct and a veteran guardsman. Finally in the middle we have Colonel Animus Winterborne.

The squad were converted from the DKOK command squad using Victoria Lamb and Curious Construct heads and with plenty of green stuff on collars, aquila on helmets and the epaulettes. Additionally the banner is an old blood angel assault marine banner with the original Praetorian top and a copper rod for the pole.



Another very old miniature, veteran sergeant Castor Varren who is a plastic Cadian and greenstuff conversion I made over 10 years ago. He had proxied for the old sergeant Bastonne, master of ordinance and even a commissar!



Another of my historical relics! If I remember correctly the preacher was painted up (once again over 10 years ago) to form part of an inquisitorial war band. The inquisitor and most of the group were sold on eBay, however the preacher became attached to Praetorian IV.



While not individual characters the Praetorian Chosen men are certainly heroes of the regiment. Wearing the green piping and white tipped feather awarded to marksmen and the Chosen men are some of the best shots within the Praetorian regiments.

They are converted from a mix of Victoria Lamb miniatures and the plastic Cadians. There is green stuff work on the hats and cuffs. There are still two of these guys to finish painting to bring the squad up to 5. They've stood in as ratlings before in the absence of viable human snipers. Although I've yet to play a game of 7th or with the new codex, I imagine they will be ratings once more.

This concludes part 1 of the Heroes of the regiment, I hope I've managed to finally produce some better quality photos that show my painting in a better light!

Any comments always welcome, stay tuned for the next post with the tech priest, captain caine and much more...

Tallarn new recruits and Praetorian Chosen Men

Before I post the next load of my Wars of Armageddon photos I thought I'd give you a few photos of the new Praetorian Chosen Men that you might have seen defending the Chimera Factory, and also the test model of a platoon of Tallarn Desert raiders that will be joining the Praetorians in the future.



So far only three finished Chosen Men. I wanted to get all 5 done for Armageddon but sadly 3 was all I could manage. Luckily for me 3 was the minimum unit size for Ratlings (count as) so no problem with fielding them at least.

The legs are plastic IG, there are various items on the belt which are IG and the torso, arms, epaulettes, guns and heads are Victoria Lamb. The greenstuff addition of the Rifleman plumes on the front are my own work.



Here we have the leader lighting up a cigar.







For these guys I kept the same main colours with the white belts etc and the khaki uniforms, but as denotes their special status I ventured into green for them, as colour which hasn't really featured in my army up till now with red being the preferred colour.





You can see from the photos the the Victoria Lamb epaulettes are absolutely brilliant, successfully saving me a lot of hours trying to do my own, and in particular they ensure they are a uniform size and shape.





Here is latest edition! The test Tallarn model Using the same colour for the tunic, I've used the white for the head scarf, a new gray for the trousers and then brown for the wrappings, belts and pouches etc (not least because the white is a pain to paint so much of!).





The Tallarn range have some fantastic faces which are great fun to paint.



With the armoured shoulder guards I can include squad markings. This guys here is from Squad B or possibly company B.





Another of this characterful guy and then the the squad with the Tallarn for scale and comparison. I reckon a platoon of the Tallarns will look great lined up with my Praetorians. I'll have to get a lot more chimeras I reckon, can't have all these poor buggers walking to battle.



In the next post you will once more get to see the Chosen Men in action facing down a truly immense ork horde...