Imperial Guard
One of the armies that always interested me in the 40K universe was the Imperial Guard. The bulk standard human army that faced up to the alien and genetically engineered forces that surrounded them.
Unfortunately I don’t really like either of the plastic kits too much, so I decided to have a go at butchering a few different sets together to provide some basic troops and some elites. The chosen kits were the basic Cadian troops to get the essential Imperial Guard bits, some Space Marine Scouts and some different heads from Pig Iron to stop anything looking too much like the original kits.
The Pig Iron order went nice and smoothly, arriving in good order, very quickly. On arrival though it was clear that the heads were rather smaller than the GW equivalent; especially the Kolony Inner Guard heads. Still. They are nice, so I decided to go ahead and try anyway.
The visored helmet (used in the first unit below) works on the Cadian body without too much work. all that needs doing are some high, padded collars adding onto the body to level off the heads. They are still very narrow compared to the standard GW heads, but it’s not too noticeable once they are painted up. The Inner Guard (domed) heads are far too small for the Cadian body, it just looks silly.
These guys are for general guard, replacing the Cadian/Catachan models. It’s a pretty simple combination of Marine scout legs, Cadian body and arms with the Pig Iron heads. There are knee and elbow pads added onto them in addition to the previously mentioned collars. You’ll also notice that they also have cut down/modified lasguns. It seemed to fit the aesthetics of their new, bulkier appearance. If I ever get around to doing a full Guard force, this is certainly going to look nice on the battlefield.
For the Elites I had to do a little bit more work to get it looking right. As I mentioned, the domed heads that I ordered were far too small for the Cadian bodies. Thankfully, with a little bit of work, the scout bodies make nice carapace armour for these new Guard. First I carefully removed the eagle, giving it a smooth front to the armour. Next up I had to raise the front of the Scout bodies and build a new respirator block on the front. This leveled off the top of the armour so that it looks like the Inner Guard head only comes down to nose(ish) level. I’m not quite finished with these yet, but here’s a WIP shot of the comms officer.
Cool. I can see I am going to have to get a move on with my Orks so that we can start some slaughter!
Not really. I’m a bit bored of painting camo… just as well I didn’t buy boxes and boxes of guard
Painting lots of things in the same schemes was always my downfall. Probably why I always liked Necromunda, Mordheim or Warhammer Quest as you only had to concentrate on a few individuals.
I’ve been thinking of trying to build a couple of Mordheim and Necromunda gangs out of existing plastic kits or homemade bits as there’s more character and would allow us some games without having to build up full armies of anything
There’s also a gaming club (Spikey gamers) on thursday evenings in Reading (no kids allowed); or some other friends have a club at the university on tuesdays
I too collect Imperial Guard, although have had to stop due to work contraints and such.
As soon as I have time and money I will be starting up again, with the idea of getting a force setup in the way outlined by the Imperial Guard Codex.
Big, full of men and lots of armour.
the guns look really good how did you do it?
The short lasguns were easy. Cut off the front part, just after the hand and shave off the half eagle that is left. Cut off the barrel and stick this back onto your lasgun.
Then file down the area between the two bumps on top of the lasgun and stick a small strip of plastic card over the top to create the handle
There’s a post on DakkaDakka detailing loads of different variants, this was one of them.
You can use the spare piece of lasgun to create a sniper rifle, by extending the body of the lasgun
Hey!
Your models are so nice! I am on the same project man, only I am doing them a bit different, but these models you have, is one of a kind man. I have to try it out, they look so nice!;)