Gün Schwarm 28mm Power Armour Infantry - "System Troopers"

Gün Schwarm power-armoured infantry - "System Troopers" from Pig Iron

Continuing with the escalation in the race against FuturKom, I have painted up some 28mm "System Troopers" from Pig Iron Productions to serve as hard-hitting, power-armoured infantry for Gün Schwarm. Pig Iron offers a lot of interchangeable heads, and I opted for the "Kolony Inner Guard" heads instead of the standard issue ones. I find that particular head design maintains the armoured appearance, is slightly less bulky, and makes them appear to be a little more sinister - they are here to fight, but not to help, if that makes any sense.

See how I screwed up the one back-pack for the guy on the right? Didn't notice that until I was painting, and just left it like that to be stubborn - figured he was the "smart one" for the squad...

In terms of battlefield roles, I can't top Pig Iron's own description of this particular figure line: "Seriously heavy futuristic infantry - these figures feature large amounts of armour, equipment and ridiculously large guns (just as we like 'em) and are designed for cleansing pockets of fierce enemy resistance." These guys will help hold off the Kommulist hordes, and in particular look to take on the hard hitting power-armoured troops of FuturKom's elite recon forces.  

Special weapons - SAW on the right, some kind of plasma/energy gun on the left

These are very, very chunky models.  They barely fit on the standard GW round bases.  The weapons are huge, and the figures are big, solid hunks of metal.  The poses appear a bit laboured, but I think that is perfect to match the idea of troopers wearing powered armour that provides extra "oomph" and lots of protection while limiting their flexibility/maneuverability.

Rear angle view of the special weapon troops

In terms of special weapons, I had hoped to see something a little larger.  The SAW-style gun looks pretty good, but the plasma-gun-ish weapon is disappointing, and on troops this size, it looks like a hedge trimmer or something.  I am going to experiment with some conversions from spare GW weapons to see if I can come up with something a little more ominous-looking.

One drawback of the Pig Iron figures is that they are so incredibly chunky that conversions for anything other than different heads or backpacks will require a lot of work. But that's a pretty slight drawback in my view.  In a world of "Finecast", my praise for Pig Iron and their sturdy metal figures is high! I've heard reports they are going to do some multi-part versions of their models. That will be fabulous if it turns out to be true.

Evolution of Gün troops - regular Grenadier on the left, "Schwere" Grenadier in the middle, Power Armoured Trooper on the right - the Pig Iron System Troopers are healthy-sized 28mm figures

In "Tomorrow's War", the rules for power-armoured troops are pretty tough - a small group of power-armoured soldiers can take on plenty of enemies.  They have extra dice for armour, tend to carry lots of heavy weapons, and get first-aid-check benefits that makes them hard to put down. Eight or nine of these figures would be able to take on twenty five FuturKom regular troops, or even more if the differential is there (D10 vs. D8, for example).

Even small power-armoured fireteams are very hard-hitting in "Tomorrow's War"

But we won't just be playing "Tomorrow's War".  At some point, I know we will want to fill a 6'x4' table with tons of troops and vehicles again, and that will call for good old SpaceKrieg.  For when that day arrives, I'll need a lot more than eight of these guys, so I hope to paint about 24 of the figures.  I hope this will provoke Dallas into seeing his six power-armoured guys are outnumbered, and respond in kind...

Pig Iron's figures are an absolute joy to paint, and I do really like that "Kolony Inner Guard" head look, so I am experimenting with a paint scheme or two using the heads on the Kolony Militia figures.  Whether they will end up as stand-ins for 40k Imperial Guardsmen, or some new faction for SpaceKrieg, who knows?