I mentioned last post that I was adding some units to my existing Imperial Guard army to adapt it to a 30K army. The cool thing about 30k is the use of technology long forgotten by the 40k universe. Some technology in use is rare even by 30k standards. I like the idea of the Survivors of the Dark Age provenance as it gives regular infantry a 3+ save to represent power armor. Power Armour is used mainly by Space Marines, but it was probably fairly common prior to the Age of Strife. A few worlds still had access to power armor, but their availability was dwindling. By the time of the Horus Heresy there would be few non-space marines who had access to Power Armour.
Many Imperial Army regiments followed Horus during the Heresy and I liked the idea of one of them being relatively favored by Horus and thus given access to human power armor for the elite squads of grenadiers. They haven't gone to chaos yet and follow Horus out of blind loyalty and for political reasons. I'm sure it'll work out great! To represent the grenadiers I drew inspiration from this picture.
The closest models I could find were Alternative Armies Ion Age Retained Knights. The models are cast in metal and I think were sculpts from the 90's. They share many features of space marine power armor, but I'm not sure who inspired who. The AA models are spindly compared to space marines which I think helps to convey that there are just normal dudes inside. I struggled with the lighting today, so the color is a bit more washed out than normal, but it gives you the idea. I just went with the standard olive green like the rest of the army, but added red shoulder pads and some Sons of Horus transfers. You can't see them due to the glare unfortunately. The banner is also a SoH transfer and the banner bearer is standing beside the platoon commander who's decked out in brass power armor. I painted up 35 models in total. That's enough for 2x 12 man grenadier squads and a large command squad.
I have one more vehicle on the way for this group and when it's done, I'll post a photo of the entire army.
Thanks for visiting!
If I remember right, these came a couple of years after the first Beaky marines - always though they looked like really interesting sculpts. Power armoured guardsmen is a great concept, and nicely executed. I seem to recall this was an option for at least one squad in the Imperial Army lists in the first 'Chapter Approved' book for Rogue Trader.
ReplyDeleteOh my god, the Crusaders from "Firefight!"! LOVED that game, if you haven't played it you really should. Brilliant idea to use them in HH, would love to see how the scale next to regular Guard & Marines
ReplyDeleteBrilliant stuff Mike! I love the old-school Rogue Trader inspiration, they look great.
ReplyDeleteWow, those guys look great Mike - and an inspired choice of some RT-style models!
ReplyDeleteWanted to add that these guys remind me of updated, better-looking Spacelords, currently sold by EM4 Miniatures. I spent most of the morning trying to remember what those models were and who sold 'em, and thought it'd be a good idea to post that here for future reference :-)
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