2nd Platoon - 571 Infantry company

It started out as an idea, just a little over a year ago, but I've finally finished it. So guys, here's 2nd Platoon of 571 Infantry company....

In total, there's 100 guardsmen comprising of a command squad, 2 special weapon squads, 5 heavy weapon squads and 5 infantry squads. There's no conscripts, the Corbanian 1st is a professional army! There's close up's of 2nd platoon in their last muster pic here.

I can't actually believe I've finished it, it seems like I've been painting bog standard guardsmen forever. Now that they're done, I've just got a few bits and bobs to finish up the existing projects and I'll be ready to start my 2010 projects, more on those in a future blog guys.

Another heavy weapons team

Hope you all had a good xmas and Santa brought you lots of hobby goodness. We're slowly getting back into routine, I should have been working today, but I decided to extend the holiday by a day as the eldest two are staying for an extra day.

On the present front, personally I didn't get much this year. Firstly, I didn't really ask for much 40k stuff as I'm trying to get the plastic crack mountain down to a hill. Secondly, there's an ongoing xmas theme with the nearest and dearest where she tries her best on the 40k front, but something always goes a bit wrong. This christmas was no different, first off, she got me the Rogue Trader rulebook, well, she actually got me two copies as she won both ebay auctions. So, I'm not sure which to keep, the hardback or the softback, but one will be heading for ebay. Also, I've had an itch for Advance Heroquest recently, so my lovely wife scoured ebay and christmas morning, there I was, opening Heroquest by MB games ..... gutted but great fun with the family that evening.

I managed to do a little hobby stuff, I finished the final heavy weapons team for 2nd platoon. That leaves the final squad which I've already put together and undercoated ready to paint. Once they're done, I've finished the 100 man platoon. I also dugout my sentinel halftrack and undercoated it ready for painting, it's going to be the escort for my command section.

Autocanon team

Finished off the autocanon team for 2nd platoon last night, that leaves me with the lascanon team and a 10 man squad to finish off 2nd platoon. I can't believe I've almost painted a hundred guardsmen.

Work on the ambulance continues and hopefully, I'll have it done for the weekend. I've already started on another small conversion project which I'll be showing off soon, if I can pull it off ;-)

Finally, does anyone have a biker base spare? I only need one and I'm loathed to buy a pack and postage from GW just for one base. I've got plenty of bits I can trade or a bit of cash via paypal if you want. Please drop me a line at colcorbane@gmail.com if you can help - Thanks

Introducing a friend and more command models

Before I show you the latest additions to my command squads, I want to introduce a good friend who's just started blogging. Tolcrothlogan is a good friend, who's been a long time player of various system, he's been a propainter with his stuff on the front of Wargames Illustrated and an all round military buff. He's even an ex rupert, but we forgive him for that. Check out his blog at :-

http://tolcrothlogan.blogspot.com/

He's new to all this blogging lark, so nip over and say hi, I'm sure he'll bring a lot to the community.

Now, onto the models. Sorry about the pics, with this winter light, I'm struggling to get decent pics. I really do think that I'm going to have to put together a light box. Anyway, I've painted up another selection of command squad models.


First off, we have four plasma gunners, I just love plasma and four in a command squad mounted in a chimera will be a hell of a headache for those marines.


Next up is a selection of command squad veterans. There's a new smaller banner for 2nd platoon, I decided the first was too grand from a platoon so it's going into the company command squad. The banner is actually from the the catachen command squad, so I snipped it off the arm and cleaned up where it joined the shoulder before mounting it on a normal guardsman. There's two vox casters, a standard plastic one which I put together first and then an old metal one which I found in my boxobits. Finally, another medic to finish them off.



Hope you like them guys. These finish off my command squads, so I'll be posting a full pic of the company command squad as soon as I sort my lighting issues. 2nd platoon just needs a squad of guardsman and two heavy weapons squads to finish it off.

571 Infantry Company - 2nd Platoon

2nd platoon came into being after reading some of the rumoured pre release rules of the new codex. The idea of a whole platoon, over 100 men making up a single troop choice just amazed me so much, I had to do one. I decided that I didn't want conscript, as the Corbanian 1st are a professional army. I've nearly completed the platoon, I only need to do two more heavy weapons squad and another ten man squad. The heavy weapons teams are sitting on my painting station primed and ready as I type this.

Command Squad

Transport

Specialists
Flamer Support Squad
Grenade Launcher Support Squad
1st Sqaud
2nd Squad

3rd Squad

4th Squad

Missile Launcher Squad

Mortar Squad

Heavy Bolter Squad

Bits and Bobs

Hobby time is still short but I've managed to get a bit more done. First off, I've put together two more heavy weapons squads for 2nd platoon. Sorry about the pics, the light just hasn't been right today and I wanted to get something posted. I think I'm going to have to look at setting up a lightbox. Anyway, the pics .....


I've also been working on the Hellhammer. I've added a bit more detail and started working on the battle damage. I can actually see this getting finished sometime soon - phew!


I've got a quiet weekend coming this weekend, so hopefully, I'll get the Hellhammer finished for next week.

More for the command squad

Sorry I've been silent for a while. Life has got very hectic and I've had very little time for blogging or anything 40k related at all. I'm itching to get a game and I'm seriously considering drive 80 miles to mates to get one.

Anyway, I have managed to do a little more on my hellhammer, all the metallics are now done and it's time to start the battle damage. I've also completed the three extra models for 2nd platoons command squad. Sorry about the pics, I'll get some better ones done once I've finished the platoon. Only two heavy weapons squads and a troop squad to go :-)


That's another 3 off the painting points, I'm getting there slowly.

Bits and Bobs

It's been a busy couple of weeks and hobby time has been rare to find but I thought I'd do a little update on the bits and bobs I have managed to do, which in all honesty isn't much. I've put together a few extra models for 2nd platoons command squad. The signalman and standard bearer are from the new command sprue which has lots of juicy bits. The medic is a old metal one, I want to save the medic bits for a future project.

Anyway, here's the models ....


I've also been working on my hellhammer. I've only added some decals, the tracks, a vehicle identifier and cleaned up some of the overbrushing. Not much but every brush stroke gets me closer to the finished tank.


Although the hobby time has been short, I have been able to quite a bit of reading time in and I've just finished the third Gaunts Ghosts story, Necropolis based in a hive. It's cracking cityfight story and it's got me inspired to play some cityfight, the Corbanian 1st are a cityfight force after all. Time to dig out the cityfight stuff.

2 more squads for 2nd platoon

I've been avoiding the Valkyrie and Hellhammer quite well this past week. Instead of tackling these mammoth projects, I've been working well within my comfort zone by knocking out a commissar and another two squads for 2nd platoon.


That leaves me with one more troop squad, two heavy weapon squads and a few odd models for the command squad. I'm also going to have to do quite a few vox casters to take the best advantage of the new orders system. On the painting point, with these guys and the commissar done since the last update, that's 21 points from the infantry total, finally taking me back into the black and slowly towards my goal.

I'm going to leave 2nd platoon for a while now and get stuck into a few of my other projects, including the trenches now my nearest and dearest has let me back on her newly repair editing suite.

Commissar for 2nd platoon

I finished my first commissar last night and IMHO, he's one hard looking SOB.


I've still got the two additional squads to complete for 2nd platoon. Hopefully, they'll be done by the end of the week.

Bits and Bobs

Not a full post this time, I'm posted out after the Valkyrie tutorial - lol

Things are slowly progressing on the 40k front, with various projects getting bits of my limited time this week.

Commissar of sorts ..

I've never really liked the idea of commissars, my boys are professional soldiers and don't need some sort of pistol toting political officer keeping them in line. The late one night whilst looking over a few bits, I had a thought. I'm planning a special operations squadron for my storm troopers, so it would be ok fluff wise to include special ops liaisons with my squads as stand in commissars. They're relatively good fighters, I can see them making the squad stubborn and yes, I can see them slotting the squad sergeant if he loses his bottle.

So, here we have the first of my special operations liaison officers. He's almost finished, but I was that pleased with his skin (my first proper attempt) and his beret, I had to post a pic.


Valkyrie updated ...

After a comment from Alliance, I've updated my magnetising the Valkyrie post to include how to magnetise the wings for easy transport. I've finished putting the major bits together and now it's ready for priming. I recently picked up the FW masterclass book and it's opened my eyes to a whole new level of painting, I'm planning to really up my game with the painting of the Valk. I figure that I can get away with going further with the flyers as if I do a tank, I know I'm going to want to update all my tanks and that's just too much work.

Anyway, my Valkyrie ready for priming.


Painting points ...

Thought it was about time to update my painting points. Now, remember that I work mine differently to Lone Pilgrims in that mine is a count of models waiting to be painted, the idea being that this number goes down over time. So, how have I been doing, well, since starting the count I've completed :-

3 Heavy bolter teams (9pts)
2 Six man special weapons squads (12pts)
2 Ten man guard squads (20pts)

So, a total of 41 points from the original troop total of 274 gives me 233, so looking good. Well, that is until you look at my purchases and also gifts (I've had a birthday this month) I've received this month.

Valkyrie (20pts)
Catachen HQ squad (5pts)
Guard HQ squad (5pts)
Basilisk (10pts)
Sentinel (10pts)

So, a total of 10 points worth of troops, taking the troop total back up to 243. I've also got 40 points worth of vehicle points bringing the total to 170. Overall, that takes my total to 413, a 9 point increase on my starting amount.

So, not the best start to my paint points project but considering we've had a new codex with new releases and a birthday in the same month, 9 points isn't so bad. Hopefully, over the next few months, I'll get the total down ready for xmas - lol

2 squads for 1st platoon, or should that be 2nd?

Putting the plastic crack that is my Valkyrie to one side, I've managed to complete the first two squads for my troops platoon. I've also been thinking about renaming the platoon to 2nd platoon as I have an idea for 1st platoon. So, after posting this, I'll be going through and updating titles, text and tags. I really should put my thought into my regiments structure, but that's a whole other post.

Anyway, back to the squads, the first two are now done, I've only got another three and two heavy weapons teams to complete the platoon. Here are the pics ....



I'm going to get stuck in to a couple more squads next as well as my hellhammer and my new valkyrie. It's getting there slowly :-)

Bits and Bobs

Things have been progressing well on the hobby front. I've been listening to quite a bit of 40k radio recently whilst painting, for a bunch of yanks, it's not that bad. I'm quickly exhausting the previous shows, so I might have to sign up.

2nd Platoon

They're coming along nicely. I'm currently working on two squads of ten, and then the same again to round up the platoon. I don't think I'm going to add anymore heavy weapons teams as I've already got three and there's other projects I want to spend my time on.


Hellhammer

Well it's grey with blue grey stripes, and now it's the daunting battle damage brown stage, which, if you've seen my other vehicles, is going to be a mammoth job. I think this one is going to be a long term project. I'm not going to be using it much and there's plenty of other stuff that I do want to get using.


Warhammer World

I'm heading down to WW in the next couple of weeks. I'm planning to pickup a few new guard goodies but while I'm there, I thought I get some pics of the models in the mini hall. I know quite a few of you lot are Yanks or Johny Foreigners in general, so, if you'd like any pics taken of any particular forces, then let me know. I'll do my best to get what I can.

Gaming

I'm playing a good player tonight at the club with the new guard list. I've kept it as close as possible to my previous mech force. The storm troopers are now Vets in caraprace armour. The sentinels now have camo and one of the russes has Pasky commanding. I've also included Bastinion as one of the vet sgts and taken a Master of Ord. I've only got one officer and Basty who can issue orders, so I'm hoping it'll be an easy break into the orders system.

2nd Platoon continued

Well, it's been an interesting couple of weeks. My desire to get stuck in with my mini's has been set back on numerous occasions with real life getting in the way. Things seem to have calmed down now, so it's back on with the modelling.

I was lucky enough to have a sneak peek at the new codex at my local GW. I didn't have that much time with it as I had wifey and kids in tow but I managed to confirm a few of the rumours. Overall, I'm quite pleased with the new dex, but time will tell. One thing I noticed is that infantry platoons can take conscripts, well, the Corbanian 1st is a professional army, so we'll be having none of that.

Anyway, back on track, here's my latest additions to 2nd platoon. First off, there's the heavy bolter squad bringing my heavy squads upto 3.


Next there's the two special weapon squads. One with grenade launchers and the other with flamers.

The flash didn't work on the second pic and it's come out quite well. That's what my troops actually look like to the naked eye. I think I'm going to have to invest some time into learning how to take decent pics, as they never seem to do my models justice.

I've got another 4 infantry squads and another 2 heavy weapon squads to do to finish off the platoon but I'm getting a little bored of infantry, so I'm going to have a break and paint something a bit bigger. I'm also going to dig out the video camera and get stuck into my trenches again.

So many projects, so little time .................

2nd Platoon WIP

I've been working on the support squads and another heavy weapons squad for 2nd platoon. They're looking good so far, but there's still quite a bit to do on them. I'm working on the bases tonight, so hopefully I'll get those done before bed and that leaves me sunday to work on my trenches. Anyway, there

Command Squad - 2nd Platoon

Well, with all the rumours going around about the new platoon structure, I thought it would be a good idea to put a full platoon together. So, based on the proposed layout from Bols, thats 1 command squad (5), 2 special squads (12), 5 heavy weapon squads (30) and 5 squads (50), giving a grand total of 97, just 3 off a 100. That's quite impressive, almost 100 men for one troop choice.

So, starting at the top, here's the HQ and the first two heavy weapon squads.



I'm going to get stuck into the special squads and another heavy weapons squad next. I'm not going to give them any unit markings until I actually get my hands on the codex.