Pandoram Mining Guilds

[Sanguis militis]

So my gf suckered me into watching Pandora for the first time last week and the movie really didn't do anything for me.. Especially seeing Sigourney Weaver not* murderig massive amounts of aliens which lets be honest, it's what she was made for.

 

But anyway I was really interested by the human soldiers and especially the final battle and it made me think about using them as the inspiration for a homemade imperial guard regiment. I wanted to open this topic up for discussion for people to create and discuss story, equipment, combat doctrine, and expand up it more to see if we can create a very unique regiment.

 

My ideas were to have them based off a frontier mining world where they act as the military force for imperial mining guilds. The world can be on the border of space between the imperium and possibly a kroot empire - still apart of the greater tau empire - yet with their own level of autonomy.

 

My ideas for their lower level of technology could be the cause of their own level of independence from the greater imperium, and the factories/forges in their frontier system manufacture stub weapons and bolt weapons instead of the standard issue las. Because of the gravity on most of these worlds, as well as the majority of the planets having little land mass or being planets made up almost entirely of floating land masses, they make extensive use of adapted and improvised Valkyrie/vendetta gunships, as well as larger almost Titan/super heavy sized fliers (like the dragon ship, aka the big helicopter in the movie). Actual ground forces are made up of soldiers with grab chutes and cheaper versions of the astartes jump packs, as well Exo suits fitting a role between the Leman Russ tanks and sentinels.

 

I would love to get some ideas going to give me inspiration for starting my own guard regiment based off what's discussed here and will turn this Into a WIP thread as well.

 

So what do you guys think? Please, if you find this interesting and would like to add don't be shy!

 

I'm also a big fan of battle fleet gothic so ofcourse I'm going to add in to their backstory of having a sizeable battle fleet, curiously large for what is basically a mining/minor forge world system with only one major hive world. :)

[Sanguis militis]

Ps: some more food for thought.. This could be a good idea to finally give the sky sentinels some background lore

[RolandTHTG]

I'd look at the exo suits for your hell-hound/devildog tanks. For the infantry look, I'd look at the Forgeworld Elysium drop troops.

[Sanguis militis]

I'm hoping to one day soon get my hands on some Elysian drop troops from forgeworld to form the backbone of the infantry, with veteran squads of kasrkin

[Artemid]

It's a neat idea. It could also well be the garrison forces/regiments of a Rogue Trader or the like who owns the planet, or at least the mining establishment in question. The far-remote location and the grunt level duties (because who the heck is going to look too closely at a mining garrison regiment?) is plenty enough reason for some leeway. Besides, most regiments are responsible for raising their own gear (I think) leading to huge local variations in roughly-equivalent equipment.

[Argun]

Hmm... now that I think about it, those new Space Marine suits might be what you're looking for.

They come with drills, so that fits with the mining aspect... You'd just need to get rid of the SM icons, replace with IG ones... maybe do a bit of tinkering with how it's piloted?

[hendrik]

the exo suits could be allied dreadknights, witht he troops being some henchmen/miners serving under corteaz 

[Tankenstein_PhD]

You could use exo-suits as counts-as Hellhounds (or any variant thereof) as someone mentioned. But really I'd say if you want some exo-suits have them count as being Sentinels. Just makes the most sense, IMO. Plus, Sentinels are going to give you the most weapon options. All weapons for the Hellhound variants are close range.

[WarriorFish]

I've not seen Pandora so I can't really help here, but wherever the idea came from it sounds rather cool! You could have a lot of fun with it, would Sentinels (or as counts as) fit the theme?

[hendrik]

he means the movie avatar i believe ;)

[WarriorFish]

3D Dances with Wolves in space?

[Tankenstein_PhD]

Yep, that's the one, WF. With the Greenpeace ninja-smurfs.

 

On topic, perhaps this is an opportunity to use the upcoming Centurion kits everyone loathes so much for a nice kitbash.

[WarriorFish]

If the rumours are true and they don't have an invulnerable save that might be all they're good for! :P I think it's only the assault version that looks bad, it's hard to take it seriously as an assault platform especially with Slow and Purposeful.

 

What could they count as in a Guard army though? They might be too small, being approximately Terminator sized.

[Tankenstein_PhD]

I was thinking they could be count-as Sentinels. Using the Cent models would make them look more like exo-suits if you sand off some of the marine iconography. Didn't realize they weren't big enough, though, so nevermind.

 

And I'll agree, the assault Cents look worse then the dakka ones. Not sure I'd want either, but if I had to choose.

 

Back on topic, perhaps a Broadside could be used as a base to kitbash a mining suit?

[WarriorFish]

Back on topic, perhaps a Broadside could be used as a base to kitbash a mining suit?

You should be ashamed for suggesting such heresy, but with enough effort such as maybe stripping it down a bit and some plasticard to make it more Imperial it could be pretty cool. That might be a fair bit of work for a flimsy and cheap model like a Sentinel though unless you took Armoured ones.

[hendrik]

I believe there is a conversion of an exo suit representing a form of scouts dreadnought floating around on the internet that would fit perfectly