Generation 40Kill

I LOVE YOU FRUITY RUDY

All quiet on the Cadian front here at the 512th. Work, girlfriend, travel, and other real-life concerns have meant the 40K-verse has fallen a bit by the wayside for me, but have a time to put up a post to say "I'm still here!" to all you out there in the blogosphere.

First up, are some images of my much-loved much-used IG vets squad, the first group of models I had converted up and painted lovingly, quite a while ago.

These differ from my usual Cadian 512th grey and black motif, in that they have black helmets and silver shoulder pads to denote "elite" status (as do all my sergeant models in their respective squads). When I mean "elite", I am of course talking in terms of the last, redundant codex.

I had also gone through the trouble of trimming the nibs of the lasguns and adding spare rifle butts to form the forestocks/foreends to give a look of a pump-action shotgun to as many as I could to a group of basic Cadian 10-men models. That and adding whatever spare, colourful heads to distinguish them from my other vanilla Cadians and create my own unique group of vets: Sentinel pilots, and some Dark Elf heads did the trick.

What is it about Vets that make them so much fun?

Vet squads are definitely a must have in that they tick all the boxes. They are an essential part of the new-edition IG list as they're previously elite status has been downgraded to troops, but still retaining all the advantages they had previously. They are cheap, they are useful, they can bristle with special weaponry and their fragility can easily be circumvented by sticking them in an equally cheap Chimera.

And they are fun to convert and fun to paint, to give a unit that belongs uniquely to the owning IG player.

I know some people accuse Chimelta Vet IG players (like myself) as basically playing a Marines-lite / Eldar-wannabee list, but there's just something about a bunch of normal guys, grizzled from consecutive tours of Imperial war duty that are not enhanced superhuman or pointy-eared fey aliens, that really appeal to not only myself, but a whole lotta Imperial Guard fanatics.

To me, Vets stand out head and shoulders above basic Guardsmen in everything: Abilities, value for points, fun factor. And that they are uniquely mine.
So, one night I set about giving them some support assistance, in the form of a heavy weapon crew that I could swap into the squad as and when I felt like it. This is the result:

I've always felt that the heavy weapon crew stances that the Krieg Death Korps or Elysian models have were a lot more realistic in their execution than the standard kneel/squat/point/wave poses that the current IG heavy weapons range are based around, surely a remnant of the Rogue Trader/Napoleonic Wars era design legacy (along with other things like IG Landspeeders, Jet-packers, Penal Legionairres, Roughriders, Ratlings, Ogryns, etc. But that's another story..).

So I cobbled together some spare Cadian/Catachan bits I had lying around, rigged-up a Heavy stubber to "counts-a"� an autocannon/heavy bolter when the fancy takes me, and voila! My heavy weapons Vet team of gunner and spotter/loader, that is "Trooper Ace and Trooper Hart".

Took me a while to get the legs, bodies and arms to a position I was happy with, but once done and painted up, these guys look like some mean motherfraggers..

I'm quite happy with the overall effect, even though they've effectively "gone to ground" and look cooler, but do not gain any such bonuses (though they are harder to spot, and likewise, harder to use during games to try to get them to spot enemies in turn!).

Still, like I said: Uniquely mine. That is the joy of 40K vets.

Be advised, Brad. Stay frosty.