Victoria Miniatures Human Bomb and 40K Ork Heavy Weapons

Here's a model that's been hanging around primed for some time, that I finally buckled down and painted today. It's Victoria Miniatures' "Penal Guard Human Bomb" sculpted by the talented and prolific Bobby Jackson.

I think I got it as a free add-on to an order made years ago. It's a resin casting of course, and very reminiscent of the old GW Human Bombs that were part of the Imperial Guard. Decals are from the excellent Death Korps of Krieg decal sheet that was in my folder for some reason!

Of course back in the dim distant past of 40K there was a part of the Imperial Guard Astra Militarum called the "Penal Legion". These were composed of chaps whose crimes (desertion, murder, overdue library data-slates etc.) were so heinous that they merited assignment to the Penal Legions... essentially food for powder. Penal Legion troopers were equipped with explosive collars that could be triggered by a commissar to thwart a desertion attempt or "pour encourager les autres" in the event of a lapse of squad morale. But the worst of these offenders were equipped with explosive harnesses and became human bombs. 

Believe it or not, there were actually rules for deployment and use of human bombs, although mercifully these have been absent from 40K for some time now... as I was writing this post I've been looking for those rules (I could have SWORN that there was an example of template/blast weapons in a rulebook that used an exploding human bomb) but have come up empty... nothing in the Compendium, Compilation, Codex Imperialis, Codex Army List... Penal Legions yes, but human bombs nada. If any readers remember where those rules were (other than in the Citadel Journal list linked above) I'd be grateful if you'd post in the comments.

 

Anyway that's it for this guy. Pretty fun to paint if you don't think too hard about what his fate is likely to be. I seem to remember that part of the fluff was that there was a chance that the explosive harness wouldn't detonate, and if it didn't, the penitent was forgiven!

The other thing I've been doing the last few days is painting some old metal Orks for the Red Star Boyz army. My plan is to pit the boyz against my Sisters of Battle in the New Year's Day 2026 game.

Here we have a heavily armoured Nob and a plasma gunner. 

Heavy plasma and heavy bolter. The heavy weapons in this lot are separate castings, except for the heavy bolter boyz that are one-piece models. 

I've painted the pants in the universal camo pattern that all the Red Star Boyz wear.

Heavy (I don't know) flamer? Another heavy bolter, and "rokkit launcha".

These old metal Orks were pretty cool weren't they?

I still have a bunch of metal Orks left should I ever get the urge to paint more, but I think now we'll be good for the game. Sadly the 5th Ed Ork codex doesn't really have a "heavy weapons squad" entry so I'll have to figure out how to fit these new models in - maybe as a Tankbusta squad??