14th Grand Company

Perhaps the title is a bit misleading, are any of our little plastic armies ever really finished? Perhaps not, but I completed the 2,000 point army I brought to the Seattle GT  including a display board for it.

Two models that were last to be finished also completed (though very late) ToEMP #10: officer of the fleet and the company command’s chimera.

The officer of the fleet is a real help against reserved based armies such as drop pod marines. During the tournament he wasn’t a game changer as none of my opponents relied on reserves, but then again maybe they just changed their tactics in response to him?

The Chimera was used to protect my command squad with the invaluable Commander Creed. This tank was destroyed in nearly every game in the tournament but Creed was lost in only 2 of them, so I think all in all it was well worth its cost.

As for my results? I achieved my goal for my first ever GT: win 2 games. In fact I even tied a third while grabbing the secondary objective. The two I lost were both hard losses. The first was against Nidzilla and only a sole sentinel remained at turn 6. The second was the last game against a fully mechanized guard army which would have been a great deal closer if luck had been better with me.  In the end I placed 47th out of 80 some great 40k players (and cheating one who won but was later disqualified!). After spending the last few weeks getting over the hard losses and the less than I hoped painting score, I’ve started to reorganize my army composition and think hard about how I want to play this army. I may move to a more mechanized army with squads of veterans rather than the platoons, but I still want to stick to the theme I’ve started so may look at replacing the tanks altogether and build a completely foot based army. We shall see what the future holds…

I have just finished my Company Command Squad for my Traitor Guard and in doing so met the first Tale of Even More Painters challenge. I know Admiral Drax (and his troops with hand painted Aquilas) beat us all done, but I think I may have just finished second.

Equipped with power weapon, bolt pistol, metla bomb, krak grenades, plasma gun (I love plasma…), medic, regimental standard, vox. Total Points: 137

There was little conversion done on this squad, just a bit of kit bashing and work with the knife/file. The regimental banner already had a sculpted on Chaos star (well perhaps it is some silly loyalist symbol…) and the medic looked crazy enough with just the needle and chain knife (a bit of a Fabius Bile flashback).

Yes my company commander is Inquisitor model, I liked the model so much I decided he would make a perfect leader for my army, even if it is a bit ironic. I filed off the Inquisitor icons and filled in the icon on top of the head. I may go back at some point and paint a Chaos star on his chest, but for now he is considered done.

Points Earned:

• Foot Sloggers x5 = 5 pnts
• Icons/ Symbols/ Marks (the banner counts?) = 1 pnt
• Eyes/ Lenses/ View Finders (commanders eye lens) = 1 pnt
• Beating Deadline by at least 24 hours = 2 pnts
• Meeting Deadline: 2 pnts

Total Painting Points: 11

I have to spend some time figuring out what is up next to paint. Options are: 2 heavy sentinels, 2 scout sentinels, missile launcher squad or a mortar squad. I haven’t tallied up the points I have painted, but I think I’m getting close to the 1k I need for the painting competition at my local GW. Because of time constraints (I’m out of town all of next week for work) I may start with the heavy sentinels to add some more character to the army. I am going to paint them like Dezartfox’s World Eater Rhinos over on the Vanus Temple. After painting so many tanks for my Iron Warriors, I want to try out a “painted” tank (aka not another silver one) and although I’m trying to stay away from the blood pact theme, bloody walkers could look so intimidating!

I have finished painting the 82nd Platoon of the Iron Army of the 14th Grand Company. Some of you BoLS viewers may recognize the command squad as it was entered in their hobby challenge. Thanks for those who did vote for me, really I just entered the challenge to give an example of what is possible with the great plastic kits GW produces and to get any feedback from the community their.

Part of the Command Squad Hobby Challenge was to come up with a few lines of fluff for the squad. Getting a bit of inspiration from the Flagellant model heads I submitted:

This is the 82nd platoon command of the Iron Army of the 14th Grand Company led by Tiresias the Lost. Tisesias was a small boy when the 14th conquered his world and as the Warsmith strode upon the field of victory, Tisesias was brave (or foolish) enough to not look down. The Warsmith had him immediately blinded and promoted to the lead the 82nd platoon. He is accompanied by Niles the Unspoken, who is required to be gagged or else will continue to scream blasphemies until he passes out.

These are the two troop squads with a basic setup of a vox, flamer and Sargentwith a power weapon. I like the imaginary of the Sargentwhipping his subordinates into action with his flail.  I know there are some major gaps on the Catachan models between the torso and the arms but since I’m going for the full look of the army, I’m not too worried about some of the “floating arms.” Maybe in the future I’ll go back and putty the joint and repaint it, but at this point I’d rather spend my energy painting the other platoon, company command and the many other things I need to add to this army.

Two lascannon squads as my anti-tank support, and don’t fret, the heavy weapon teams in platoon two are missiles and mortars, I just decided to paint the lascannon teams first. The heavy weapon teams are not completely done, I still need to finish the base and a few minor highlights but I had the camera out and want to get the pictures up.

My light box is not large enough to fit the full platoon so I am going to have to wait until I bring them in the FLGS to get some in-action pictures.

Next up is to build the four sentinels that came in the mail a few weeks back then paint platoon two. Repainted my Khorne Berserkers may jump in line though, as there is another 1500 pt tournament at the GW store and they were the only squad that wasn’t painted well.

~Update: So I just realized that instead of posting the second lascannon squad I posted the first one twice!

Here are a bunch of group shots of my traitor guard horde as it currently stands. As you can see I have the one platoon command nearly done and the two platoon squads started (well only one coat of orange so far…). At this point I have a company command squad, two platoons each with two squads and two heavy weapons squads. I have two squads of lascannons, one missle launcher squad and a mortar squad. This comes out to around 750 points which is a nice starting point and a solid core of any size game I am able to play in the future as this army continues to grow.

on to the pictures!

overhead view of my traitor guard horde

The missle launcher squad and the mortors still need to be primed, I had built them while waiting for the other models to dry. After seeing this post on From the Warp I may try priming with brown and save some time painting multiple layers of orange, flesh and light brown while maintaining the dark shadows where the brush doesn’t fit.

the company command backed by the mob of traitors

Yes, that is indeed a inquisitor model leading my traitor army. Ironic as it is, the model is great and with some slight modification looks like a merciless leader of traitors under the whip of the Iron Warriors.

Lascannon Squad #1

Because of their larger bases, the heavy weapon teams screamed for more customization and imagination. I had a great time building these squads and tried to build a story into each one. In this squad, its hard to see in this picture, but the guy on the far left got too excited and cut the power cable for his now upset teammate.

Lascannons, missiles, orange, oh my!

Here is a group shot of the other lascannon squad hiding in the ruins of a building (I know the cover doesn’t count, but it sure looks cool), the missile launchers (with a very upset spotter) and the platoon I started painting.

Mortars hiding in the back

Here is my mortar squad hiding in the back and behind a pile of sand bags. I have a long way to go to get all these guys painted but I’m hoping I can work on my bulk painting skills and bust out a platoon in a week (heres to dreaming!)

So I finally found the camera and took some pictures of the platoon command squad I’ve been painting as a test unit. I wanted to see how well an orange color scheme would look before painting 50+ models as well as the added bonus that Bell of Lost Souls is hosting a hobby challenge for command squads. I will need to take some better pictures when the squad is finished but I wanted to post some pictures as they now stand.

click on the pictures for a larger image.

Traitor Guard Platoon Command

Traitor Guard Platoon Command (rear)

The squad is currently armed with two grenade launchers, vox and a platoon banner. The commander carries a power sword and bolt pistol. As I build the army and start playing with it I may change up the squad a bit. I don’t think the banners are worth it but they are great visuals that this is a army dedicated to Chaos.