Death Blades Company Commander

Di'Anno was a ruthless gang leader prior to his induction into the guard, and his natural leadership abilities and level head made him an obvious choice for a company commander. His reputation for ending blood feuds quickly ensured that no one challenged his authority as he took command of F Company. Unusually, Di'Anno wears the standard uniform for a captain, complete with officers hat. This is no doubt due to the recent attachment of fresh commissariat officers to the regiment after the deaths of the previous appointments.

Vindicare Assassin

Elimination of enemy leadership from the Blighted Path Nurgle Host is a fundamental component of Inquisitor Het'Fjeld's mandate. To assist in this task the Inquisitor has successfully obtained the services of the Officio Assasinorum.

At least one vindicare Assassin is present in the task force, who regularly is seen on the battlefield alongside the 9th Necromundan. As is typical of most assassins from the Vindicare temple, the persecution of enemy characters, weapon specialists and squad level leadership dominates an engagement until the opportunity arises to deliver a coup de grace on the enemy commander. In this way the Vindicare assassin provides a valuable force multiplier to the regular Imperial Guard troopers.

Inquisitor Het'Fjeld

A former member of the Ordo Militarium, the Inquisitor has more recently been battling the forces of Chaos as a member of the Ordo Malleus, largely due to the ascension of chaos in the region as a result of the escalating Sicaran War. However the Inquisitor's mandate changed with the return to real-space of a fragment of a space hulk in the sector. Initial analysis was difficult due to chaos ships picketing the hulk, however some components were positively identified as being consistent with those identified in the hulk Sin of Damnation during its famous encounter with the Blood Angels chapter of Astartes. The hulk that entered realspace was clearly a much younger conglomeration of vessels than the Sin of Damnation, and was hypothesised to be an earlier iteration of that famous hulk, from a time in the Imperium's past, potentially causing a paradox should it not return to the warp. 

An Epic Red Platoon

As well as painting up a company of Imperial Guard in Rogue Trader era 40k, I'm also making them in epic scale. It's a well known fact that people who play epic are better looking, happier and enjoy a more fulfilling love life.

The overall strategy for collecting the army is to represent F company of the 9th Necromundan, who were on the box cover of the plastic 40k and epic IG models of the time. I'm going to paint up a tactical platoon (red platoon), with an attached support platoon (blue), an assault platoon (green), and an abhuman (black) platoon, and possibly a command platoon (yellow) with my company command squad and some veterans. The models I'm using for this are the 6mm imperial guard models made by GW in about 1990. These models have the same styling as my rogue trader era 40k models, so I have decided to limit the epic army to these with the occasional other piece from a similar vintage thrown in. Luckily I have a few of these lying around.

I've recently finished the 6mm version of F company's tactical (red) platoon, complete with some sentinel support, so thought that I would post a quick update showing what I've been up to.

The walk of Icarus

Flight commander "Icarus" Hayles has the dubious honour of the most shot down living thunderbolt pilot in the task force. Due to frequent rescue efforts by ground forces, the Icarus has become a specialist liaison between naval assets and ground troops. Here he can be seen co-ordinating Thunderbolt operations to assist in the Grav-Chute Deployment of the F Company Assault Platoon. 

I spent a while pondering what to do for a fleet officer for my Death Blades.
I wanted a rogue trader era model that could be used as an officer of the fleet, but would also fit in with the 1980's models that make up the army. For a while I thought about kit-bashing some conventional Cadian and old school plastics, or even using the current officer of the fleet model. That model has a lot of character, and looks the part. However in the end I decided to stick to my self imposed rules of no recent models, and started hunting around for something suitable.

The Smith

Pict capture of 9th Necromunda "Death Blades" F Co. Red Platoon Commanding Officer Lt. Freidrich "The Smith" Adrianus, and attached Command Section.

As a former ganger from Necromunda, The Smith took command of what was to become Red Platoon after challenging and killing the then leader Madcap Stratton during a frenzy of internecine gang fighting that spread through the Death Blades upper echelons upon rumor of their induction into the Imperial Guard. 

What to do with Green Platoon

The Imperial Guard section in the Rogue Trader Compendium, circa 1988(ish) was a fun way to build an Imperial Guard army. The core of the Imperial Guard army was composed of different, customisable platoons, based on one of a couple of basic human platoon types, tactical and assault, which could be upgraded by giving them bikes, horses, land speeders or whatever resulting in either a basic infantry platoon, or a specialised platoon.  The army could then be wielded by a budding general to make a holistic force greater than the sum of its parts. The fact that the myriad of upgrades were made on a platoon level, rather than a squad level, created a flexibility was both limiting and liberating. It was from a time when there was more emphasis on infantry and less on vehicles, so consequently there was such a diversity of upgrades available with the platoon designs. 

I'm currently refreshing and adding to my army of the time, and one of my dilemmas that I'm having is what to do with Green Platoon.

The Birth of Foulmaw Cavlolo

I have recently been mucking about with Realms of Chaos again, and decided to roll up a warband that was both characterful, and somehow linked a chaos warband to my 3rd edition undead army.

My undead army is based around the Nightmare Legion, which occupy the Tilean City State of Lambrusco. So a champion of Tilean origin seemed like a good place to start.

Initially I rolled up a basic human with no followers and no gifts. I also discovered that my random dice app wasn't random, so 3d10 always returned the same result the first time you used it after opening it.  Based on this I decided to ignore the result of no followers, and rolled up two groups, with one ability each.  But first I downloaded a decent dice app! And then I discovered this blog that justified what I was thinking of doing...
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