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.


I have repainted the company command squad for my Death Blades. It was an act of madness I suppose. I have at least a six month backlog of painting that I still would like to get done with this army, and I decided to repaint a unit.
But there were a few things I wasn't happy about with the last iteration of the command squad.
The old Di'Anno was actually a Commander model, not a Captain model. This grated with my desire to paint and model this army with a nod to the original older models. I could have used the old model as the captain, and used the captain model as a commander, but I am pretty sure that at some stage the little obsessive compulsive voice in my head would have become loud enough to warrant a change.

And it might have been too late by then. They might have already taken to the field in their incorrect insignia, further increasing my anguish. No, no, no. Better to nip it in the bud now, rather than to lose sleep over it later.
I also magnetised the pistol arm on the model, allowing me to swap it out whenever I had spare points, or just wanted him to use a different gun. Because magnets win wars.

Next up was the standard. It was always temporary as a red flag with a Necromunda tank transfer on it. But it needed to be made more grand, as befits a rag that men die for.

So I used the box art, and painted a somewhat impressionist version of John Blanche's regimental standard. It is slightly more impressionist than I intended, but my eyesight isn't getting any better with age. Unlike my beer gut, which is coming along nicely thank you.

And last up were the command section themselves (no blurry close up photo of these guys sorry, you will just have to squint and look at the group shot above). Previously I had a rough rider sergeant torso in the lascannon team, and a sergeant model with a lascannon. I decided to replace these with a heavy weapons trooper from the imperial army range, and a Olley guardsmen, who was a one off in my collection. I did this to use the previous models elsewhere, as well as make it look more shooty and less chainsword-y. Also the heavy weapons trooper just oozes character, with his hand on his hip and confident pose. Great models like this deserve to be painted and used, adding something different to the army, rather than sitting in a bits box.
So that was the rationale. The thudd guns, sentinels, rapiers, land speeder, veterans, arbites and everyone else had to wait. Because without the right character to lead them, and without the company standard to inspire them, they just wouldn't be fighting for the right things anyway.