Red Thunder, First Armoured Fist Platoon reporting!

Just got these guys done and based and ready for battle!

Also got round to marking their Chimeras. Black for the command vehicle, grey for the rank and file, just like the rest of the Armoured Battlegroup.

For the moment, I'm thinking infantry-wise, I'm going to keep to just one platoon, altering its size as needed, then fill up the other Troops choices with Veteran squads. I'm thinking pretty much every pair of boots in my army will go forth in transports of some sort, so either they join the Armoured Fist platoon, or they are Veterans in a Chimera, Veterans coming in on the Vendettas (space for 2 sqauds!) or they could do the Catachan Devil thing and Infiltrate or Outflank.

In other news, I just got a new thumbdrive and figured I'd put some neglected decals to good use...

Before anyone says what a good idea this is, wait about 3 months for what some wear and tear does to it. It's been coated with several layers of varnish, so let's see what happens, eh?

Armour's for pansies!

Real men - not genetically engineered freaks - hurl themselves into the nightmare battlefields of the 41st millennium clad in nothing but camo fatigues and sheer BRAWN! The Catachan Devils are ready to rumble!

Still a couple of little details to sort out. Some shading here, some highlighting there...

That said, the boys are totally ready for the tabletop. I wonder who'll be the first victims of the humble shotguns...?

Catachan Veterans

Always had a soft spot for the Catachan Devils, so I'm currently painting up a squad of them. Led by Sgt Harker, toting shotguns and flame weapons, this squad is kitted to get close and seriously brutalize a unit of infantry with sheer volume of wounds. The concept, I felt was sound enough for me to put this squad together without any playtesting. I remember only too well a glorious moment involving my Sternguard, in which a unit comprising 3 Chaos Bikers and a Lord on a Juggernaut were wiped out when a team of 5 Sternguard incinerated them with 2 Heavy Flamers and 2 combi-flamers. The Catachans here won't kick nearly as hard, but for 155pts, I feel this is would be pretty decent and characterful scoring unit.

I started out by base coating them with Krylon Woodland Light Green. In retrospect, it doesn't really save all that much effort, but hell, it looks good with an Agrax Earthshade wash.

The shotguns were borrowed from the Space Marine Scouts kit. They fit significantly better than I thought they would.

The business end of the unit, 2 flamers and a heavy flamer.

Another pic of the stars of the small Catachan contingent, Sly Marbo and Sgt Harker.

Guardsmen done quick.

I do not paint prettily. I'll be first to admit that. I won't be winning any contests with my painting anytime soon, not least because of my aversion to participating in competitions of any sort. That having been said, I do like the sight of a painted army on the board, and I've a lot of Guardsmen to paint. Here's a little thing about how I get my armies painted; I mostly pick my armies based on what convenient spray paint colour I can get my hands on. And this here is the core of my Imperial Guard:

Ah, Krylon, what would I do without you... So, here's how I paint up my grunts...

It isn't anything as pretty as my Blood Angels, but hell, it gets the job done. Flesh looks like flesh. The flak armour is clearly a different shade from the cloth, and there are shiny bits on the weapons to make it look pretty. Will post a pic of what this looks like with more Guardsmen as soon as I make them happen...

What a mess...

Word to the wise: This is NOT how to keep your hobby workbench...

What can I say, I'm enthusiastic about the expansion of my Imperial Guard force. Having pondered the matter for bloody ages, I've decided that I'm going to cap the number of my armies at 5 and leave it at that, ie.:

1. Blood Angels
2. Necrons
3. Chaos Space Marines
4. Deathwing
5. Imperial Guard

This pleases me. The Guard have a lot of potential to be a really characterful and satisfying army that will look quite spectacular on the game board. Just gotta have a little more discipline, lest I swamp myself and end up making far less progress than I could. So, yeah, as it stands, I can field the Armoured Battlegroup, but right now I'm working on putting together enough Guardsmen to function as a mechanized force, then as a mostly infantry force.

And of course, there's the lure of new codex awesomeness looming in a few months...

The Unkindness...

... of Stormravens! So, I've been slinging this list around a bit:

Librarian with plasma pistol
10 Sternguard Veterans, 2 with heavy flamers, 2 with combi flamers, 3 with combi plasma and 3 with combi melta
Furioso Dreadnought with Frag Cannon and heavy flamer in a Drop Pod
5 Assault Marines with meltagun and Infernus Pistol, in a Razorback with Lascannon and twin-linked plasmagun
5 Assault Marines with meltagun and Infernus Pistol, in a Razorback with Lascannon and twin-linked plasmagun
5 Scouts with camo cloaks, sniper rifles and a missile launcher
Stormraven Gunship with twin-linked assault cannon, twin-linked multimelta and hurricane bolters
Stormraven Gunship with twin-linked assault cannon, twin-linked multimelta and hurricane bolters
Stormraven Gunship with twin-linked assault cannon, twin-linked multimelta and hurricane bolters

This comes to 1,747 pts, because poor old Blood Angels still have to pay to install searchlights. Sheesh. This is a list that plays to the Blood Angel's strengths, notably:

• Cheap combi-weapons for Sternguard. The 10 Sternguard come to 310 pts, compared to 335 for an identical loadout for Space Marines in the current codex.
• Librarians with Divination. Prescience just goes far too well with combi-plasma and Vengeance rounds.
• Stormravens with Bloodstrike missiles. Hurray for AP 1!
• The Furioso Dreadnought. Because sometimes you just need a good, cheap-ish infantry eraser. 
• Assault Squads in Fast Razorbacks, getting the most out of the Lascannon + twin-linked plasmagun configuration.

I have inflicted this list in three games thus far. Here's a brief overview of how those games went: