Finished Praetorian Life Guards

Greetings all! 

A quick post with a few photos of some newly painted models that have been long on the workbench! 

Finally, about 3 to 4 years after the first 5 were finished, I have finally painted the second half of the Life Guards squad! Huzzah! 

No longer will I be forced to field a unit of 5 storm troopers to no effect whatsoever. I can now field a full squad of 10 to no effect whatsoever! Double Huzzah!

Anyway, lets take a look...

Photos aren't great (apologies for that), but here we see the whole squad on my painting table (chest of drawers). I really enjoyed some aspects of painting these fellas and I'm really pleased that they match the originals with little variance.

The three in the foreground are newbies. Painting these guys assemble with the arms in place was a massive pain. I think I'm going to start doing a little more painting of disassembled models. I'm reminded of the Highland Scions who are in need of paint and the thought of trying to get in to the detail is not filling me with joy!

I love the expressions on these guys. Victoria Lamb Praetorian heads are utterly brilliant. Bags of character in every model.

One final picture with a close up of this kneeling fella. I'm so pleased to get these done.

I'm now working on an as yet unseen and announced sneaky unit... I'm having to work out how to paint green...

Finally, there is blog you should all definitely check out if you don't already do so, Tale of Painters. I've followed it for years and have a link in my page banners. It is full of tutorials and the work of some inspirational painters and well worth a look. I also might add there is a fine Praetorian gentleman that has recently began contributing...

Cheers!

The Glorious IV Praetorian Mechanised Infantry

In preparation for the posts covering my army's biggest battle to date it's only fitting I share something I always love to see on other peoples blogs, photos of the whole army!

This post will look at the army current as of last weekend (21st May 2016 for the record). It started way back in the late nineties and in its current form back in 2011 when I started this blog and got back into the hobby properly.

I've got to say that getting it all out on the table and realising quite how big it now is was really quite something. It's been added to fairly regularly over the years and is really something quite special now I think.

For my whole army photos I've returned to the Tomb Kings desert board at Warhammer World. I took a photo of the army here about 3 or 4 years ago and thought where better to revisit their progress than there.

Apologies in advance, this post will be very photo heavy!

Without further ado lets take a look at a fully painted 5000 points of Praetorian Imperial Guard.

There we have it, the whole army on parade. Takes about 30 minutes to unpack and set it all up! But absolutely time well spent.

A few photos of various units coming up now. These two (above and below) have the Macharius Vanquisher front and centre. What a tank, for me its still the crown jewel of the army, such a gorgeous model.

Another angle of the army showing you more of the markings that all the tanks have on their flanks. There are particular designations for artillery units, infantry platoons, super heavies, so on and so forth.

Still quite a lot of space in the second half of this board... I think I will have to see if I can fill it!

Now a few more close up shots. Apologies for not the best photos, I was borrowing a camera I hadn't used before and focusing wasn't my strong suit!

The commissar I think is one of my best paint jobs to date. I loved painting the model and I think it shows. The model is so well detailed and I really like the pose. I think the gripe I had with the stock version (minus head swap) is that somehow, whether it is the hat or the paint job, he looks to much like he is skipping. No danger of that here with this Patrick Stewart lookalike.

Another photo of the Macharius with the Chosen Men creeping into the shot in the bottom left.

Flight Lieutenant Corvus 'Rook' from 219 squadron of the Praetorian Navy. I said when I original completed this guy, and still say now that I would love to add more fliers and continue the chess theme throughout them all. I so nearly bought a Marauder Destroyer up at Warhammer World but luckily for my bank balance common sense prevailed!

I nice photo of the Baneblade. This is another newish addition to the army, being less than a year old in terms of painting.Such a great model and featuring Col' Gravis' tank commander from Curious Constructs.

Another different angle with more of an aerial feel. Perhaps those sneaky orks were conducting reconnaissance flights...

In anticipation for the big game that weekend I made sure I added to my infantry tally. The infantry ranks have definitely swelled over the years but I still have a lot more regular guardsmen that I want to paint.

I finally finished my 3rd objective marker last week! I converted it when I originally converted Colonel Winterborne himself as this was the original Krieg banner. I greenstuffed over the skulls and then painted it. The banner I kept simple and in the colours of the army.

Another look at some of the infantry and one of the Taurox.

The commissar Lord commanding one of the many Praetorian firing lines.

A close up of the regimental banner and some of the command squad. Nork being the latest addition adding a lot of character to the unit.

Here we have the complete Command HQ, replete with the Colonel's dog and a master of ordinance/officer of the fleet.

Another closer look at the right flank of the army. I still feel the army is very light in terms of AT and Leman Russ. Perhaps that is something I will need to expand in the future.

Finally some of the heavy ordinance in the arm. The slightly different shade are all related to when I painted them and the paints that either GW changed or a heavier drybrush/wash. There are quite a few different shades throughout the army but I quite like the character I think it adds.

So there you go! 5000 points of Praetorian Imperial Guard.

I really hope you enjoyed seeing the whole army together, I know that I certainly did. 

Soon I will be returning with 5000 points of Warboss Gorblud's fiendish Bad Moon Orks and then we will move on to the main event. The final show down between Winterborne and his nemesis Gorblud...

Thanks for reading!

Battle Report preview...

A quick teaser post for you all. This weekend Colonel Winterborne faced off against his old nemesis Warboss Gorblud!

Without giving too much away at this stage, the points were about 5300 per side with a special scenario that we wrote for this battle. 

Have a look at the photos below with more coming in a proper battle report soon!

Praetorian Ridgeback

Greetings all!

It seems somewhat serendipitous that my 101st post should be about the following...

I was thinking what does Colonel Winterborne need, what would no self respecting, upstanding Praetorian offer go to war without.

The answer clearly is a dog! and more precisely a Praetorian Ridgeback!

The Praetorian Ridgeback is a dog breed developed in the highlands of Rhodia. Its forebears can be traced to the early Praetorian pioneers who settled the at the time largely uninhabited continent of Natalium, who bred the typical hunting dogs favoured by the nobles of Praetoria Majoris with the much larger feral dogs found in the new land.

In the earlier parts of its history, the Praetorian Ridgeback was known as Pernel's Lion Dog, the Rhodian Lion Hound or Rhodian Lion Dog because of its ability to distract a much larger prey while awaiting its master to make the kill.

In regiments principally drawn from the citizens of Hive Rhodia, of which the 4th Mechanised Infantry is one, the Praetorian Ridgeback is a common sight accompanying their officers into battle.



Colonel Winterborne pictured with his favoured Praetorian Ridgeback "Rex"



Severely wounded in the 3rd War for Armageddon, the company chirurgeons at the request of Colonel Winterborne endowed Rex with substantial cybernetic enhancements in order for this loyal dog to continue in service to the Emperor.



I hope you like the dog and the brief Praetorian history lessons!

Cheers!

100 posts - A Praetorian Review

Welcome everyone to the 100th post on the blog!

To celebrate my first ever blogging milestone I'm going to have a slightly different take on my usual posts. This post will attempt to review the last 10 months of blogging, showcasing some of the highlights, and having a look a look at where this army has come from and where it might be going in the future. As usual expect plenty of photos and plenty of pithy commentary and analysis!

There will be links to aforementioned posts throughout this post, be sure to check out the early ones if you are new to the blog, or if you want to see a load of work in progress, the army has come on leaps and bounds!

In the beginning...
The first post on this blog was 11/11/11 and was the aptly titled New Dawn which marked my return to the hobby after a 7 year absence! It was my stumbling upon Col. Gravis' blog and the subsequent posting of my old army on his blog that really got me started again.



Here we have the tanks that I painted before my sabbatical, devoid of weathering, proper unit marking, freehand and much more, A sorry sight...



Some miniatures do however remain the same, in particular this command section is still largely the same, though some notable models are missing.



One of the first projects on my list when I restarted the army was some new cavalry. It just so happened that it happened to be Cavember! A project started by Col. Ackland and Col Gravis and coinciding with Gravis' original cavalry sculpts I got to work making some new Rough Riders of my own in my second post entitled The whole world has gone cavalry mad

I also got started on a new Command HQ and got to work, with the help of Victoria Lamb, on finally making some Praetorian Highland Veterans! A long held hobbying dream.





It was a busy November and even Col. Winterborne himself made an early appearance. The total for November which was only my first (not even a I started 11th!) month blogging had a grand total of 11 posts! Decemember would then proceed to beat that with a mighty 15!



My Rough Riders were finished, I started planning the banner for my Command HQ and I got to work on updating some of tired looking tanks with lots of shiny freehand! Not a lot got finished in December but a lot of converting and modelling was done to bring the HQ and Highlanders up to speed and ready for painting. This month also say my first ever battle report and victory for the army!



The new year saw another great surge of hobby activity and recorded a blogging high of 18 posts in January! How on Earth did I find the time... There were battle reports against Eldar and Chaos, and the Command HQ was finished along with a fair few tanks weathered and updated.







It was sure a busy month as my work station testified but rather alarmingly there are some models I was working on that I still haven't found time to paint!







These guys really need to get done, even to this day I haven't finished the modelling side of them and need to get the green stuff out!



February saw me paint my first new tank from scratch and you got to say how I do it from start to finish with the Salamander Command Vehicle (I love this tank, I really must get a few more for the army...)



February also saw the 4th lose against a beautiful Dark Eldar army, me manage to get a whole heap of tanks finished and also the very first storm trooper using the DKOK grenadier models.









Somehow March seemed to fly right past and it wasn't unitl April that my next posts registered. Nonetheless I focused on two units... A new Lord Commissar started to raise his head and the Highland Vets finally neared completion...








May. Oh May, what a month, a mammoth of a hobbying month. I played in a South coast tournament and was off to the BadabWar Part 2 Campaign weekend at Warhammer World at the end of the month and it spurred me on to tremendous hobbying feats! I finished no less than a deathstrike, a bane wolf, a chimera, storm troopers, leman russ executioner, 20 man blob, commissar lord and the highland vets!


















The army as it stood before the painting and modelling frenzy...



I even invested in making some explosion markers for when my vehicles got hit.



A bloody encounter with the ork menace at Triple Helix in Westbury.













The boys did me proud at Warhammer world and I managed to scoop not only the best badab hero for my commissar but also best army and a I finished on the winning side of the campaign! Three cheers for Praetoria!











Hobbying sadly seems to come in peaks and troughs and after May the frequency of my blogging has declined somewhat, not through disinterest or lack of passion but unfortunately due to the pressures of the dreaded real life! That hasn't stopped me (hopefully) producing some quality posts but it has meant they have been fewer and farther between.

Being up at Warhammer World for the Badab War made me get my wallet out and a few goodies from forge world were swiftly mine, a bombard, hydra and most significantly a Macharius Vanquisher! While to this day the two smaller tanks remain in a state of undercoat the month of June saw the Vanquisher finished (minus the crew who came later) and there were plenty of posts about what I consider to be the best looking tank GW or FW have ever produced.







I absolutely love this tank, I really must get a squadron of them...



I spent almost the entirety of July away and consequently got no modelling or painting done whatsoever, I did however take part in a rather epic apocalypse game of 40k - The Siege of Magnus Hive (the battle report for which has been in my to do list for some time, hopefully soon it will be ready!)

But here are a few sneak peak photos...

More of those to come in the future along with a full report...

August, September and October have only yielded a handful of posts but I have still managed to make a few new additions to the army. Notably the tank commander for the Macharius and a Psyker to make the most of their new rules in 6th.

And that walk down memory lane brings us just about to the present day and the present state of the army (more or less with the addition of Macharius tank crew and Aegis defence line).

It has been a thoroughly enjoyable 100 posts of blogging and I hope you have all enjoyed it too. Here are a few statistics about the blog. 

Here we have the top 5 posts of all time, by individual page views - 

1 Black Dragon Space Marine Army (not even a Praetorian post!!!)

2 Praetorian storm troopers and highland guard update

3 Photos of Praetorian Lancers

4 Praetorian Storm Troopers Gallery Post 

5 Finished Rough Riders Photos

So quite a surprise there, but the most popular post doesn't even feature any Praetorians! I'll have to see what I can do to rectify that in the next 100 posts...

So what next for the army. There is plenty that needs to be converted and painted on the to do list - Hydra, Bombard, AT heavy weapons teams, a dog, tech priest and servitors, 2nd platoon. On top of that I really want to get a thunderbolt and a Baneblade and chimeras for everyone that is stuck walking at the moment. I've already filled a massive KR multicase with this army and I think I might need to get another... Not a good army for space economy! 

Right that is quite enough of what has been an utterly mammoth post. I hope you have all enjoyed it. To finish I would like to say a massive thank you to everyone that follows my blog, comments on my posts and posts equally brilliant stuff on their own blogs. In particular I'd like to thank the Praetorian community who are always inspirational!

Here is to the next 100 posts!