Melta's nd Plasma's

First off heres a couple of pics of some painted melta's, they still need some dead grass flock added but are otherwise mainly complete.
Im a fan of melta's and i've just not got enough praetorian melta models to make up the difference, plus my models are grouped in units by their pose. The zulu style 'First Rank FIRE!, Second Rank FIRE!' (my units only have two ranks unless they get blobbed... so none of that third rank malarky) and advancing units. This led me to want some more dynamic moving models for advancing units as the grenade launcher and melta models are both static and i wont always want to kit them out with a flamer. I also wanted to do a few Plasma gunners as the praetorian's never got one (just as all the other origional metal guard always missed one special weapon variant to my and my friends general rage, fudge flavour today i need to kill some marines/necrons). So i lazily found a model holding his lasgun in one arm, duely snipped it off and popped on a special weapon. I also did one more static plasma as im likely to go with the 2plasma 1 lascannon/autocannon CCS most games and wanted two different plasma models.
Im part way through painting a Marbo conversion and ive base coated the first three ogryn's so pics to come as soon as i finish those guys.

Unpainted Battle Pyskers

Just a Quick one of the battle pyskers squad. So far as i know theres no overseer model so I thought a praetorian chap looking stern static and shouty seemed to fit the bill. Plus i wanted to try using the Leman Russ crewmen as a base for praetorian troops and see what they looked like alongside the origional models, etc. I also decided having a whole squad of 9 pyskers that are almost identical was a tad dull (and seriously pricey!) so i ruined my empire armies dream of a 30man flagelant unit and made some up.

Praetorian Tank Commander

Just a little something for my upcoming Leman Russ' I plan to have a demolisher and three standard Russ (for starters at least!) with a couple of chimera's for battle psykers and others to come later.

Praetorian Commander Pic's

I'm not sure im completely happy with this guy, but i said id get a pic up soon, so here it is as promised!

Text only Update

Busy week at work, so ive not managed to get a whole lot in, ive been working on a praetorian commander model. I love the origional leiutenant model, but his equipment is less than ideal so i found a 2nd edition upgrade sprue plasma pistol to fit him up with, and sculpted a 'guard-powerfist. My picture of a guard army should be a literal mountain of men, ogryns and tanks with a commander at the top yelling orders (or RAAARGH!) so the models pose really suited that and i wanted to use him, even if cutting up a praetorian model is a little upsetting. There will be some pics of him later in the week.
Ive also done some plasma and melta gunners for forthcoming vet. squads. These are largely the running figure whose holding his weapon shouldered on the right in one arm. This made the easiest weapon swap as its literally cutting off the lasgun and adding the special weapon to the shoulder guard thats left. Again pics to come!

Praetorian Ogryns

Heres a front and back of my first three praetorian ogryn's. Id planned to do a unit of ogryns using the ogre kingdoms models as soon as they were released. Finally i got round to having a bash at them after seeing gravis' commission ones. More will follow as and when I get around to sculpting them plus further pics as i get them painted.

Praetorian Ratlings

The ratlings were put together using the empress miniatures pith helmets, before id got the knack of sculpting them myself(check out colonel gravis' excelent tutorial on this!). Green stuff epaulettes were added next. The jackets the classic ratlings use are already nice and dressy and have appropriate cuffs, so lend themselves to the conversion very well hense my use of these rather than the new models.

Praetorians!

Heres my first full unit of praetorians, i wanted to be true to the origional colour schemes, but keep to the darker toned and feel that i ususally paint with in more recent years. (My older stuff followed games workshop's much brighter classic cartoony look). I popped them on a movement tray (lotr one's are perfect for any squad with an accompanying based heavy weapon) to save having to move 50 odd individual guys every turn.

More Random Models!

Two more picking an army models, i am actually doing a classic orc badmoon ork army, however this is very much on the sidelines, a spare project to give me a rest from praetorian uniforms once in a while.

Starting a blog

Inspired by such great blogs as that by Colonel Gravis, i decided to create one of my own. This would also help me stick to my modelling resolutions and keep track of what progress i actually make on my armies over time, hopefully meaning i dont end up leaving quite so many projects on the sideline half-finished.

Over the next couple of days i'll add some pics of various units I've finished or am working on for my imperial guard Praetorian army. Any feedback or advice on flavour/modelling/painting is more than welcome (critique rather than flaming tho please!).

First to come up will be my first completed guard squad, my ratlings and then the work in progress that is praetorian ogryns.

Until ive got pictures of those, heres some pics of a white scars squad i did while making up my mind what army to collect for 40k.




Four of the squad had running legs made from Khorne B's with the chaos details removed. The sargent is a cloak dark angel vet model.