Painting Challenge Submission 10 - Vostroyan Heavy Weapon Teams

Vostroyan lascannon teams for GW's Warhammer 40k setting.

Back to 40k again for my 10th submission to Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.  These are some more Vostroyan troops, members of the Astra Militarum Imperial Guard in GW's "Warhammer 40k" game.  This is a heavy weapons section - a trio of two-man teams equipped with Lascannons, the heaviest of the approximately-man-portable heavy weapons in the 40k setting, or, at least among the heaviest available to the Imperial Guardsmen (certainly the multi-melta gives a run for the money, but those are not available in this way).

Great sculpts from GW, back in the days when they made proper, metal castings.

I had an earlier submission featuring an officer and some special weapon troopers. As with that lot, these figures have also been sitting in my hoard for several years. It is a great feeling to get some paint on them, and continue to build my small collection of Vostroyan troops into something large enough to stand on its own on the gaming table.

Spotting a target down range...in reality, these things will be doing a lot of point-blank shooting.  It is 40k, after all.

Imperial Guard forces count on their heavy weapons to have any chance in the face of the assorted alien and heretic nightmares which plague the universe of the grim and dark far-future. These lascannons will be critical.  They can knock out vehicles, monsters and heavily-armoured infantry, and the three teams firing together helps to compensate for the fact that, when I am rolling the dice, at least two will miss with every volley...

Seems...not so safe to kneel that close to a heavy weapon? Oh well...

Of course they continue to feature all sorts of baroque whackiness all of the Vostroyan sculpts have - re-breathers, spooky goggles, colpacks etc.  Some of it even features on the lascannons - note the silly embossed "V" on the weapons.  It's a touch nutty, and I really like it. These are very cool sculpts, full of character.

The dismal Winnipeg winter can be seen in the blurry distance from my kitchen...not sure what these troopers would make of it...

Hopefully as the Painting Challenge progresses I will get enough Vostroyans knocked together that they can face off against Dallas' awesome Chaos renegade guardsmen in an 8th edition smack-down.

Thanks for visiting!

Fifth Painting Challenge Submission - Vostroyan Officer and Special Weapon Troopers

Vostroyan Officer and Special Weapon troopers, metal 28mm figures from GW. 

My fifth submission into Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge included more metal goodness from GW days gone past.  The setting switches from Middle Earth to the grim darkness of the far future, GW's Warhammer 40k.  These figures are special weapon troopers for the "Vostroyan" Regiments of the Astra Militarum Imperial Guard.  They are 28mm metal castings from GW. 

Vostroyan officer - power fist and laser pistol (and feathers!)

A view of the detail on the casting - love the buckles, the bearskins...wow, these are cool and fun figures.

The Vostroyans first appeared as a box set some time in...I want to say 2004? I can't recall exactly...but it was a while ago.  I fell in love with them at the time.  They have a bizarre, baroque look that, to me, meshes just so well with the dark artwork of folks like John Blanche. The Vostroyan troops look like some manner of 19th Century Grenadier, with a grim-dark-tech touch that is done very nicely, giving them an utterly dour and ominous appearance. Other sculptors have tried to fuse the various notions of black powder-era soldiers and sci-fi (particularly GW's grimdark sort), but I have never seen it done better than with the GW Vostroyan castings. 

Plasma gunners - blue feathers on this bunch to distinguish themselves. 

The look, of course, is not for everyone.  This style of sci-fi is a bit of a specific look, and I find people either love it or hate it. Certainly I love it. I started painting a few up "back in the day" when they were first released.  This initial painting output covered most of the force from one of the starter boxes - two 10-man squads and a command squad - not very many for a game. Over time GW's product lineup has "evolved", and the Vostroyan castings (and all other metal products) became harder to find.  Before they faded from view completely, I did use some Christmas money to assemble a final addition to round out the force into something useful for the tabletop. I even painted one of these squads back in the 2013-14 edition of the Painting Challenge. 

Some different colour for the feathers on these fellows. 

Rear view showing (probably very dangerous) power supply for the weapons. 

But since then...well, I haven't touched the fellows! The project went into hibernation - still something that "I'll get around to soon"...LOL!  Which is unfortunate - at 30 troops (plus a few commanders) strong, it is a small force (although they have seen a lot of action on the tabletop over the years). In fact, even though my painted force of Vostroyans is small, they have been used a lot, usually as an allied detachment of some kind, or playing a smaller role alongside a larger force.
But if I just bulked them up a bit, painting more figures, they would make a fine overall (or more complete) force of Imperial Guard for the gaming table - after all, the vehicles do most of the work in an Imperial Guard force, so why not have nice metal sculpts to serve as the dismounts.

So, for years I have been meaning to dig out my precious little metal reserve of Vostroyan castings and paint them up. Like...well, at least five years I have been telling myself "hey, I'll do those next." Clearly my painting interests get easily distracted.

Troopers with "flamers" - squad-level flame-throwers. I would not have though a flamethrower could appear baroque, but here you are...

It is always fun during the Curt's Painting Challenges to see long-stalled efforts get some renewed energy. It is a common theme from many of the participants, and I find it inspires me to do the same, to finally tackle something that has been sitting around for a long time. I resolved to start with these fellows who had been waiting - base-coated and all - in the "pending" pile for quite some time now. Having found the will to get back to them, I did, however, encounter another Challenge...I could not remember the colour sequence I used back then...

Rear view of the flame troopers. 

So...well, I did my best to match the look of the figures I had painted...14 years ago.  I don't paint the same way I did in 2004 - or even 2014 for that matter. I like to think it is mostly for the better, as I have been able to improve with experience, as all of us do, but there are some aspects that are more about an evolution in style than a strict improvement.  As I said, I tried my best to match the look of the previously painted models, while allowing for a new touch here and there. 

Grenadier. 

Rear view of the trooper with the grenade launcher. 

There is one officer and seven troopers with special weapons - four with plasma guns, two with flamers and one with a grenade launcher.  These will give some variety to the regular squads, who otherwise come equipped with only flamers.  The plasma guns in particular are quite useful in the game, as they offer some hope of bringing down heavily armoured opponents (not much hope, but some).   The extra officer will give a bit more command flexibility too.  But most importantly, hopefully I can run more of these figures through my painting table and get that "small" initial force from 2004 to a larger level.

These figures were good for another 40 "points" toward my goal of 1200 points worth of painting through the Challenge period.  The submissions continue to pile up at Curt's blog, with a wide variety of subjects and projects trucking along from participants all over the world.  I encourage you to take some time (or just kill some time at the office) and check it out!

LegioCon 2016: Warhammer 40K Renegades vs. Vostroyans/Elysians

Two weekends ago, I assisted Conscript Greg with his outstanding Warhammer 40K game staged at LegioCon, a local tabletop gaming event that we have attended and hosted games at pretty much since it began. Above, you can see Greg's amazing desert terrain with my Imperial Bastion, LED Skyshield pad, and bunker/wall complex. It did look good!

We came up with a scenario for my Chaos Renegades and his Elysian/Vostroyan Imperial Guard loosely based on the Siege of Vraks from Forgeworld's "Imperial Armour" book series. Here is the blurb:

As an Imperial Colony is overwhelmed by a revolt, the consular guard make a final stand to protect the Imperial governor at his estate.  And they hope Elysian drop troops will arrive in time to save them? 

Longer version:

The game is set in 813 M.41, early in the 17-year siege of Vraks, an Imperial armoury world that's essentially a weapons locker and staging area for the Imperial Guard.

The Apostate Cardinal Xaphan marshalled hordes of fanatical Renegade followers on Vraks, including uncounted regiments of the Imperial Guard stationed there. Our game will depict part of the battle for the Citadel on Vraks, with loyal Guardsmen defending to the last, hoping against hope for rescue from an airmobile elite Guard unit operating in the area. Those troops have a different objective, however: rescuing the Imperial Commander-Governor of Vraks and ensuring that the arming codes for the virus bombs remaining in the armoury don't fall into Renegade hands. 

Conscripts Dave and Greg survey the bleak terrain of Vraks. The Renegade legions of Cardinal Xaphan are seen at bottom; they include a troop of Leman Russ tanks, a Medusa self-propelled howitzer, a squad of Ogryns, a large mob of workers, a penal squad, a troop of Renegade cavalry (!), and a platoon of Renegade guardsmen with a command squad in a Chimera. Their objective, the Imperial commander with the virus bomb codes, is in the Bastion at centre, defended by a couple squads of Vostroyan honour guard.

The Renegades were lined up and raring to go...

As the Death Riders surged forward, a squad of Elysian heavy bolters deep-struck into position to light them up. And they did...

 

...but while the HBs decimated the cavalry, four or five of their number survived to charge in, and their explosive-tipped hunting lances made short work of the Elysians, wiping them out to a man.

Unfortunately, after they swept over the Elysians, the surviving troopers faced this demoralizing prospect... yes, they all died :-(

Meanwhile, in the centre of the table, the Renegade guardsmen swept forward past the Skyshield defended by a Vostroyan squad.

On the left, the Vostroyan defenders of the Bastion, filled with holy fervour, leapt over the barricades and charged the penal squad! A clever move, as this bought time for the Imperial commander to flee towards the Elysians approaching from their table edge.

The donnybrook between the Vostroyans and the Renegades continued for most of the remainder of the game. But meanwhile, the Imperial commander was getting away...!

Elysian command squad awaiting the commander for extraction... they met a sticky end courtesy of a Renegade Leman Russ' Punisher autocannon.

Elysian flyers crowded the skies as they arrived from reserve, spewing death, destruction, and Elysian drop troops. You can just make out the lone surviving Ogryn Bone 'Ead on the nearside of the Bastion, just past the defence line. He will figure largely into the story later...

The Medusa in action. Jeff, a young fellow who joined us in the game, showed appropriate Renegade spirit as he insisted on dropping large templates alarmingly close to our own models...

This mostly went OK, until a Breacher shell landed on the Renegade command squad that had just deployed from its Chimera transport. The result was predictable, most of the squad died, leaving just the detachment commander and standard bearer alive, and pretty upset ;-)

A target-rich environment, to be sure. Unfortunately I'd left the Blight Drones at home and the Renegades had no anti-aircraft capability. This sounds worse than it was, though, because the mission really required boots on the ground and the flyers were just chrome.

Elysian drop-troops deploy from a Valk, ready to grab the commander.

But what's this! On the last turn the Ogryn Bone 'Ead emerged from the backfield and made a dash for the target... he needed to roll 11 or 12 to make the grab. The first die came up a six! Then the second... a three :-( So close!

So the game ended in a draw...? Yeah, that's it. The Renegades failed to capture the virus bomb codes, though, and we presume that the Imperial commander was the subject of a battlefield execution by the Elysians. Life is cheap in the 41st Millennium and as they say, no matter what happens, "you will not be missed"...

Thanks to LegioCon for inviting us to bring out our game, to Conscript Greg for putting it on, Conscript Dave for his copious 40K rules knowledge and infectious sportsman spirit, and to Gabriel and Jeff for playing it with us, we hope you had a good time.

40k Vostroyans

Imperial Guard Vostroyan Squad

Apologies for the couple of weeks off-line.  Work, life, etc. was getting in the way.  But I thought I would try and get back on track with another submission to Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge - a squad of 28mm Imperial Guard "Vostroyans".  These were a Christmas present from my lovely wife.  

Vostroyan rankers - those lasguns are really something

The figure are metal beasties -no "Finecrap" here. An NCO with a pistol, a two-man heavy bolter team and a dude with a flamethrower.  The rest have laser rifles. I think the range was originally released sometime in 2006 or 2007, and as far as I know it is one of the very last "themed" metal Imperial Guard ranges GW ever released. You can still find them in the odd corners of GW's web site as they sell down the remaining stocks (or just wait to have them melted down).

Guy on left was painted like seven years ago; guy on the right painted recently - they match OK

I painted two squads and a command group of these figures back when they were first released.  I maybe used them on the table once...20 guardsmen is not very many figures for a 40k game, so they mostly just stayed on the shelf more as a collector-type thing. I tried to match the original paint jobs with these new figures.

Love those crazy bearskins - and what's with the "bayonet"? That's huge...

I think in the fluff we are meant to see the Vostroyans as paying dire penance through service - the planet has to send all of its first born sons to serve in the Imperial Guard as punishment for denying the Imperium some manner of tithe during the Horus Heresy.  The ornate equipment of the troops is meant to symbolize some level of extra commitment to this cause, I believe.

Officer tripped out with trinkets

Is that really a dark fate? Considering the Imperium's rather grim approach to "governance" - entire planetary populations are often wiped out, or conscripted, or both, and rebels are hunted through the generations and the worlds that support them are pounded to dust - it's hard to feel too bad for the world of Vostroya. I would just assume any world refusing to help out during the Horus Heresy would have been subjected to the "Istvaan Treatment", accompanied with a note along the lines of "since you like Horus so much..." but I digress.

Lots of detail on these sculpts

These figures provoke strong views. People either love them or hate them. I'm obviously in the first camp - to me these castings really capture the dark, dystopian spirit of the Warhammer 40k setting.  Even though they are (relatively) contemporary sculpts, they very much capture the feel of the original Rogue Trader game, much more than any of the other conventional Imperial Guard figures available today.

Flamer-equipped special weapon trooper

Clad in bearskins, bits of medieval style armour, armed with rifles that look as large and ornate as pole arms, to me they are spooky and beautiful.  The faces that are visible are drawn, worn and dark. It's like someone gave a picture of an Austrian Grenadier from 1809 to John Blanche and said "go nuts".  These models are kind of bonkers, in an awesome way.

The spent shells are a neat touch that comes with the heavy bolter team

These seem to me a very fitting portrayal of a "regular" force army that would be assembled in the setting of the Rogue Trader rulebook, either to defend the planetary governor, or slog through a horrible military campaign somewhere in the "grim darkness of the far future".

Many people loathe these same design features, particularly if they already dislike the GW style and the 40k setting. I don't share that view, but I see where they are coming from. At any rate I don't think they will last much longer in GW stock, if for no other reason than I suspect GW will just want to move on at some point and leave these in the ether of history.

So I have about 30 of these guys painted now, and a rummage through the horde has turned up more, including a few heavy weapon teams and other assorted bits.  These were a lot of fun to paint, and I look forward to adding more of them through the year.