Before I get into the series of posts on my new guard project I wanted to share a bit of my history with the guard army. This post is a is a dovetail to the Junkyard of Shame where I offer up images and commentary on infantry models that remain from previous projects.
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| The glorious age of green bases and battlefields like golf courses |
The Tirnov 9th were my first guard army. I started this force in 1999 and built them from converted Praetorians. I wanted the army to have the feel of a Napoleonic Russian force. It was my first foray into sculpting with greenstuff. Looking back it was pretty crude and simple stuff but it was ambitious for me at the time and if I hadn't tried I never would have kept at it . I had a sizeable force painted in this style (I'll guess more than eighty but less than one hundred soldiers). It took a couple years and I'm fairly certain the bugler on the right was one of the last models I converted for the project (2001-2002?) and is probably the best of the bunch. There was a converted standard bearer I built at the same time but he ended up sacrificing his limbs for some project I can't recall.
By 2004 the army was looking pretty rough. I'd "quit" the army after building a squad of cold one rough riders and an accompanying mounted priest (in 3rd ed a commissar or priest got a mount if attached to a mounted unit). The painting was below the standard I thought was acceptable at the time and I wanted to try something new. I'd had become bored with the scheme as well and had introduced some alternate colour schemes to the force that detracted from the uniform feel of the force and made it look even worse.
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| Strangely the company piper was always, "Found Wanting" |
The Juran 11th Expeditionary Force were yet another cruel adventure for the poor Praetorians. No sculpted disfigurements but I painted them with trews rather than dress pants. I built this army with a "Victorian Lost World" feel. Imagine determined and dour Scots knee deep in the jungle with dinosaurs. The commissar was the "Hero" model from Schaffer's Last Chancers. His role in the force made him the "other" in the regiment and the choice of a model styled asian was a nod to the dated writings of Sax Rohmer that fit the pulpy roots of the army. The photos here are old ones but offer a "before they were beat up" glimpse that high quality images only make worse.
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| Gentle Ness- the big beast with a heart of gold |
Gentle Ness was intended as a centrepiece for the army. I'd wondered how I might build a Russ on dino back but the more archaic feel of a field gun made it a better choice. Ness was inspired by the fat plastic cold ones at the time. I made here out of a dollar store rubber dinosaur and a lot of miliput. This army never made it too far. I doubt I broke thirty models. The Praetorians were amazing Perry sculpts but scale creep and improved sculpting techniques had begun to outpace the models.
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| Goldfish were bored as a result of the basing material |
When the most recent guard codex dropped I came back. I opted to design a more modern looking army this time around. The Bradenvoss 812 were a regiment in transition modernizing their structure after a bitter campaign. I'd played with Cadian plastics since their release but couldn't get around how generic they looked. I thought a head swap would make everything right. I figured out a way to sculpt a passable wedge cap as a head dress. I ran into some difficulties with a shortage of bare heads to work with. I ended up adding a red combat scarf to many of the models I was working on to hide details on the surrogate melons. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it looked like garbage. More often the latter so again the project died.
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| Bradenvoss holdovers |
There were some things I liked about these models and the ideas behind this regiment. The cam pat worked well for an urban winter theme even if it was too dark and the brief history provided the kernal for the current project. There you have it; What came before. If I can knock off a full test model I'll post it and some information on the Pohlesian 8th.
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