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Hi guys. Here's the kernel of my WIP Imperial Guard army, a Rogal Dorn and two Shock Troop squads. Apologies for the poor pic quality. Let me know what you think!

Fellow Guardsmen! It's been a long time since my last report to Terran High Command! I hope the Emperor can forgive me. But the 409th is ready to emerge from winter quarters and hit the campaign trail once again. Real life demands not withstanding, I plan to get back to the business of putting more boots on the ground and shells in the air. I tried to find my old PLOG thread only to discover that it had been so long since my last update that it had been archived! Disgraceful! I'm fixing to keep this thread from suffering the same fate. I have to admit, it's no coincidence that the arrival of 8th Edition and the new Guard dex coincide with this army coming off ice. The new regimental doctrines sound very fluffy and fun to play with. I plan to try them all out just for kicks since I run my own homebrew regiment. Since it has been so long, like YEARS, since I last seriously posted, for those who don't know about the 409th, it's primarily an infantry based Guard regiment that is inspired by the American Civil War. I've seen random threads here and there on the old Intertrons in the past that were loosely inspired by ACW themes, and always had a mind to tackle it myself. I'm using a lot of third party kit which gets kind of expensive, but I think that this theme demands more than some simple head swaps to achieve the effect I'm going after. It's been a pretty long slog, but the 409th slumber'd for long enough and my boys have their dander up! Anyway, I figured the best way to start the new thread is with a PARADE! Who doesn't love parades, especially military parades glorifying the Emperor! So, I'll start there with some beauty shots of the boys I have all painted up ready for battle: Command Section: Here's a couple shots of the ranking officers, the Senior Officer in the middle and two Junior Officers. And their Regimental Advisors: Master of Ordnance, Astropath, a Fleet Officer and a Priest in there for good measure. And here's the CO with his command squad retinue: Bonus: Checkout my old count-as as Color Sergeant Kell in the back on the right - never got around to actually modelling the actual COLORS he was supposed to be entrusted with, but hes got the power fist and 'power' sword - the only chain sword in my army! Also included for bonus fun, an Ordo Xenos Inquisitor I painted up about the same time as I was doing this regiment initially, in case he ever needed to commandeer the regiment on Inquisition business: I don't really remember where I found this guy, pretty sure he's some kind of Privateer Press mini. Elites: Well, I guess these guys are Elites now, which honestly I feel is not optimal, but oh well, gotta sell those stormtrooper sprues! When I initially envisioned an ACW inspired army on the table I had thought I'd have entire platoons (in game terms) worth of infantry patterned in different uniform styles taken from famous civil war units. However, this is not as feasible as I foresaw from a cost and time standpoint. It became more practical to run Veteran squads in some of the more exotic unit patterns of the day, rather than try and run entire platoons this way. It just costs too much!! In-game it actually works pretty well as a way to distinguish Vet squads from your standard infantry squads, and easily explained from a fluff standpoint - as units gain seniority they appropriate unique attire befitting their veteran status. Anyway my first Veteran squad is patterned after the famous Union Iron Brigade. They were also called the Black Hats since the appropriated Hardee hats as part of their uniform instead of the typical kepis and forage caps. These guys are pretty much all Victoria Mini parts, but the heads are special. Steve Barber miniatures online has a massive range of historal minis for different eras and lots in the 28mm scale. And while historical 28mm is usually too small to be compatibile with heroic 28mm, they do have lot and lots of 28mm historic heads and their heads happen to scale extremely nicely with VicMini scuplts. They also work with GW as well, but mate with VicMini perfectly. I use the Steve Barber heads in this project extensively, they are a near perfect fit for this kind of conversion. Here's more of the squad: The special weapons in initially modelled for this squad was melta, back when melta vets were the hotness. But I guess the hotness is plasma now, so I suppose I'm going to have to go back and bang out a few plasma Vets for the squad. The 'melta' arms are all VicMini and really look the part for the aesthetic. Next Vet squad: these guys are patterned after the 11th New York Fire Zouaves. I really wanted to do some Zouaves units, but pretty much chickened out, since I don't really trust my greenstuff-fu, and no one out there is making baggy Zouave-style pantaloons in the 28mm heroic scale. So these guy are my compromise since they were a Zouave unit when they mustered in at the beginning of the war, and had a different uniform, a silk uniform that fell apart during their initial campaign! This is closer to the unit's second uniform, were they ditched their jackets and adopted dark trousers to replaces the baggy zouave pants that had disintegrated. Back in the old dex, (I'm talking 5th Ed. when I was heavy into planning this unit out,) There was no regiment restriction, and Harker was an interesting addition for a veteran squad. Zouaves drilled in light infantry open-order tactics - running these guys as light infantry infiltrating harassers was what I intended. This squad has sniper rifles - cheap and cheerful harassment weapons, inspired by the 'sniper' rifled muskets of the era. This squad is lead by my 'count-as' Harker. Is he even IN the next Dex or just the 8th Ed. index?? Well, he's a cool conversion anyway, don't know if he'll find the table for a while. And speaking of snipers, these guys can run as their own counts-as rattlings (although I do need a few more) or as part of a command squad for the BS3+. They are inspired by Berdan's 1st and 2nd US Sharpshooters. They were special regiments that recruited soliders who were proficient with the rifled arms of the day and could actually aim (most couldn't). They were used often as skirmishers at the divisional level instead of fighting in traditional two-rank battle lines. These guy are my own count-as Commissars. Every civil war regiment usually had a Sergeant Major, who was the senior NCO of the unit. Anecdotally these guys were known to be tough as nails and unflappable. In my fluff, these guys are senior NCO's who get inducted into special Officio Prefectus training programs and come out the other end as Sergeant Major Commissars. I always intended to get a couple actual Commissars painted up, but never got around. There's more I'd like to do for these guys to make them really stand out as Commissars on the tabletop. And here's another 5th Ed. relic: my counts-as Marbo. I think the Index still let's you run him?? But maybe its just Shadow Wars now? He was fun one to convert, but doesn't have a place right now in an 8th Ed. army. Pity.

Hi all So I started a WIP thread on my Mordians in the Forge section because it was being swamped by those over zealous pompous astartes. http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/317558-mordian-painting-project/ Someone suggested I post here too. To avoid double posting I thought I would focus more on the tourament I will be entering with it with just the occasion shout out when I've updated the original thread. Quick background started with Mordians back in 3rd before taking a long (15yr) break. Had about 30 odd mordians and some praetorians. Since then I have picked up another 30-40 odd. I've stripped off my 3rd ed paints and the paint from the models I bought and will be updating their scheme to fit with 7th ed. The tournament is only 750pt single allied detachment FOC (no formations). So I am using it as an excuse to get all my mordians done even though I wont use them all. The tournament will be 3 games and scoring consists of primary marker objectives, secondary [bRB] malestrom and tertiary points based on kill point differential as well as the usual 3 suspects from the main rule book. The list I have in mind is Lord Commissar w/ m. bombs Primaris Psyker ML2 1 PCS w/ heavy flamer 3x Infantry squad w/ lascannons and GL (1x sgt w/ m. bombs, 2x dedicated taruox) Vendetta Wyvren That puts me at 750pts on the nose. The tournament is meant to be somewhat friendly. The TO has already stated they will turn down any cheesy/OP lists (scatterbike spam, 2++/2++, 2+ FNP deathstars etc). My goal with the list was to try and exploit IGs ability to spam somewhat useful troops at low points, whilst still having some mobility. I'm hoping for a 4+ on the IG/AM WL trait list to either gain orders or relentless. Also of note as allied detachment was designed not to be a primary detachment you do not receive the ideal mission commander rule. I'm also hoping will ML2 I have a better chance of picking up that 4++ on the divination table. 30 relentless guardsmen w/ lascannons and 4++ sounds like fun :-) Ill most likely be blobbing the guard unless I can see a reason not to do that for any particular game. The taurox with their built in dozer blades and obsec will be running around grabbing objectives until they meet their demise (quite promptly I imagine). The pcs will chill in the vendetta to grab end of game objectives and the vendetta line breaker. I'm sure the wyvren needs no explanation ;-) The tournament is end of January so I have a couple more weeks to get my models painted. Hopefully I'll be able to get a couple of practice games in too before then.

Overall I feel like the recent "Muster the Guard" event went reasonably well with lots of participation, but I would like to ask the members of the sub-forum about your feedback in case there are things that can be improved which are within my reach to change. But beyond looking at the past, I also wanted to give you a glimpse of the future and what I have been thinking about for the next Astra Militarum event. After an event mostly focused on painting, I think we need something a bit more generic and with a larger extension focused more on overall hobby progress rather than just focus on getting everything painted. The idea is mostly to get people making some progress in the hobby at their own rhythm but with a bit of an incentive from the rest of the astra militarum hobbyists. I based it a bit on the collect, build, paint and play system from the magazines like Conquest. The duration of the event would be 3 months, with the event getting a new edition for the following quarter if people liked the idea or in alternating quarters to give a break in between events. Badges would be earned per each of the three task types, based on the amount of tasks completed, regardless of the complexity of the task itself, so for example pledging to build 100 models as a task would earn the same badge as pledging to convert a character. The idea is to get people pledging small feasible tasks in order to complete more than if they just go with a single huge task. The focus of the event would be in 3 different categories: Build, which would include pledges for building, converting, sculpting, scratch building and so on; Paint, which would include painting, repainting, basing and other decorative tasks like decals and so on; Discover, which would include reading books from Black Library (or listening in the case of audio books), reading fluff in the codex and so on (potentially writing for those who like to write their own fluff); These tasks would help people to focus on different aspects of the hobby and share their progress from time to time in a way that can help work through the blockers that can happen in this kind of hobby related tasks. I am still trying to determine when this event would start, but I wanted to check if there were any suggestions or recommendations based on what I have just shared.

Commanders! We have seen many of the Emperors loyal sons and daughters receive needed gifts from Terra and the AdMech. Some may feel slighted, that the fiercest of his fighting force are yet to gain any meaningful reinforcements. Such talk is heresy! The guard do not require such gifts! We shall continue to sally forth, with our proven and trusted lasguns and under the eternal bellows of Leman Russ cannons! To show your on-going duties to the Emperor new orders have been issued: Objective: Raise 1 unit to be parade ready (assembled and painted) by 28 - 2.This unit may already be pre-assembled and primed, or yet to be built.Critical dates: Jan 1 - 14: Sign up periodAll participants must register before the 14th 23:59 in their local time Once you have made your pledge and posted your before picture, you may commence building and or painting the pledged unit To enter, post your before picture with your pledge: "In the name of the Emperor and Lord Commander , I Commander <name> of the <regiment>, shall raise a <unit> by 28th February." ​​Jan 1 - Feb 28: Hobby periodHobby in earnest! WIP and update posts are encouraged! Feb 28: End of eventPictures of the completed unit must be posted by 23:59 in your local time Those who successfully carry out these orders, will be provided a medal honoring their service to the Emperor and Imperial Guard. Any who pledge to complete this challenge, may display the below banner in their signature line: [img=http://bolterandchainsword.com/uploads/gallery/album_9518/gallery_30308_9518_1445.jpg] Any further questions can be directed to you local Commissar. Carry on troops and good luck! Completion ribbon for the commanders who successfully delivered! http://bolterandchainsword.com/uploads/gallery/album_9518/gallery_30308_9518_314.png