The Yantar 8th A.K.A. Why didn't Bonehead do this while he was building and painting them?

[Bonehead]

The Yantar 8th are my first Victoria Lamb army. I started them in order to have something to contribute to the Augustine Crusade shared setting which can be learned about here: https://apologentsia.blogspot.com/p/augustine-crusade.html, and also to be able to contribute something new to Greenscorpion's paint and build challenge a year or two back- it was in fact how I ended up joining the forum.

But I never made a blog for them, even though as you can clearly see in the photo above, I rapidly succumbed to scale creep and ended up doing more than a hundred infantry and four vehicles.

And I haven't stopped, although I have slowed down. There's a good few more than a hundred infantry now, and also rough riders waiting for paint.

So: the lore, such as it is. The Yantar regiments are light infantry from a semi-industrialised agri-world and generally unremarkable among the vast panoply of imperial guard regiments but for their oft-noted and truly unreasonable doggedness.

Yantar regiments tend to be packed with averagely-trained and motivated troops, lightly equipped with man-portable weapons almost exclusively except for the regimental artillery and reconnaissance companies. The only unusual characteristics of their loadout is their propensity for armoured gasmasks -Yantar itself being prone to unfriendly airbourne microbiotical outbreaks- and their standard issue lasgun. The Kolesnik pattern lasgun is noted chiefly for being unecessarily rugged and heavy even for a lasgun, and featuring a higher powered output than the average coupled with a fully automatic fire mode. The related ammunition consumption increase is generally reckoned acceptable due to the extraordinary availability of power packs in a typical guard deployment, which pairs with the typical rate of attrition to effectively curb supply issues.

Combined with their above-noted stubborn nature this results in Yantar regiments being somewhat prone to heroic, or at least heavily damaging last stands, as compared to the average regiment's more typical rapid attrition and eventual rout and dissipation.

Yantar regiments are reckoned to be generally effective in line holding, advance and reconnaissance operations, less than ideal in frontal assaults, and only effective in defensive roles in the extremely short term due to their typical failure to conduct an orderly retreat.

There are only two regiments I've created any specific history for. One regiment, known as the 'Wolves,' were reduced to less than two hundred survivors in a typical final desperate defence that was eventually relieved with the survivors granted retirement rights back to Yantar- so it must have been a strategically vital defense indeed. Their sole remaining commissar was re-assigned to the Ebla 45th Mechanised, some of whom are visible on the far right in the image above.

This army is the 8th; and their history is somewhat happier, although it began very shakily indeed. On their first deployment, an aggressive landing during the mid-period of the Augustine Crusade, they lost their commanding officer and headquarters group early on. Most regiments would have been reduced to ineffectiveness after such a disaster and the 8th almost were, but their position was relieved and they were assigned a new commander, Major Degteryeva, a promoted battalion commander.

Their subsequent service earned them the rare distinction of limited grudging respect from the notoriously elitist and arrogant Ebla regiments also deployed in the landings, and they now move forward into the continuing crusade against the red hand dominate with a degree of professionalism and self-respect. They're not Cadians, they're not Catachans, and they're not any other famous and effective regiment starting with C, but if you have a a very specific job that needs doing, and doing just about well enough, you could do worse. And better.

So yeah; I made them Space Ukrainians, because screw that Putin guy. But modernish Warsaw Pact themed guard, because you don't see them.

Here's the command HQ, featuring the major herself, a navy liason, and an artillery spotter from a different regiment (excuses to invent new colour schemes):

And here's the best part of an infantry platoon in a box, because I like the picture:

And let's immediately move on to the fun stuff that I'm currently working on.

Dr Ruminahui pointed out that sharing my various vehicle conversions in my LOTD log purely because I was eager to show them off is all well and good, but they should really be on the loyalist side of the forums, which is the main driver for how we got here.

Thus:

Tauros venators with multilasers, mother hubbards! You can totally convert them from the necromunda kit with parts from the old sentinel kit and a little ingenuity. And a lot of patience, and some plasticard.

I always loved the tauros models, and it was saddening that they were discontinued. Although considering I have tourette's and drop things a lot probably for the best that I ended up with the far less shattering-prone plastics.

Of course, I loved the smaller model too. And crucially I wanted a squad of them because they can take heavy flamers, and this army desperately needs some heavy anti-infantry firepower as well as some mobility. Which is how we ended up here:

Yeah, that sentinel kit is really coming up with the goods.

The thing is, I painted the full-size tauroses while they were fully assembled, which was a complete pain. Doing the wheels was a chore. So I pinned these ones on.

And inevitably, I noticed that it would actually roll a few inches before the wheels fell off, so that had to become a feature. I'm still working on it at present, but after a couple of not very good plans failed, I think I have an actual good one this time. Which is good, because after trying out a bad plan the front suspension has a few more holes in it han it should:

Yeah, not a terribly good result, especially considering it didn't work and the thing still doesn't roll.

But it looks even worse because there's apparently random bits of wire and green and black paint all over the front too, making it look even less tidy.

Which.... well, about that. The thing is, I have to solder stuff regularly for my job fixing guitars. And my iron was out on the desk while I was working on the gunner's position. And well, things got a little out of hand. Feature creep once again entered the picture. Which is how we got.... here.

So yeah, the fun stuff I'm curently working on pretty much justifies the log, I feel.

Expect more related content pretty regularly for the next little while.

 

[WAR]

Man I love your blog and now you started this thread. Can't wait to see what is next. 

[Tallarn Commander]

Wonderful models and a compelling write up! I look forward to watching what happens to the Yantar 8th.

[Gnasher]

I'd say these lads & laddess' deffo need some sort of fast taxis, standard taurox with wheel conversions would fit in well with the buggys & add to the "We're not the rich kids" feel.

 

Lightly armed & lightly armoured.

 

Hit submit before remembering to say they look top mate.

Edited October 25 by Gnasher

[calgar101]

Great background write up and love the army, well painted. 

I'm not sure if I'm being dense or not, but the Necromunda Tauros kit, is it much smaller than a Venator was? How hard is it to convert to make the plastic kits suitable?

Thanks.

[Gnasher]

20 hours ago, Bonehead said:

 

I was looking at this & something seemed a little off realism wise, then I twigged what it was. The camo goes through the power cells, surely they would get swapped out & would be a uniform slightly different colour? I think the winged skulls on the lascanons would look cool if picked out IMO in white or metal as well.

 

This reminds me of a 40k Generation Kill force, fast & lightly armed ahead of the tip of the spear.

 

[Bonehead]

Good point that, Gnasher. I'll go back and paint them a different colour when I remember. I did the sentinels laspacks in black- that should do.

Thanks also for the compliment again mate! As for transport; not these. Light infantry all the way. I wanted to make an army with only a few very light vehicles, just for the hell of it. As you've seen the traitor guard get lots of big hulking tanks and the RT guard are mechanised. With the Yanter 8th I want to be able to field an entire infantry company in a 2nd ed game!

1 hour ago, calgar101 said:

Great background write up and love the army, well painted. 

I'm not sure if I'm being dense or not, but the Necromunda Tauros kit, is it much smaller than a Venator was? How hard is it to convert to make the plastic kits suitable?

Thanks.

I've seen a comparison and the plastic venator is slightly larger than the resin one. I don't have any resin ones to compare though. As for converting the big plastic one into a little plastic one, it's definitely not for beginners. You need a razor saw and skill in using it. And then getting the rear part cut at precisely the right length and angle can be a pain.

You need to cut the back off like this, and keep the cut dead straight (which I failed to manage, and paid for):

And then you need to use a measuring device like this to make sure you trim the rear part at the right angle:

And of course you need to know how long to trim it. I'll try and take photos of the process while I do my third one.

And that's just the start. You have the side armour panels to do, and then the turret ring needs trimming down so you can still fit the roll cage. I'll do a bunch of photos.

3 hours ago, Tallarn Commander said:

Wonderful models and a compelling write up! I look forward to watching what happens to the Yantar 8th.

Thanks, commander! much appreciated. Let's hope I can keep the level up.

7 hours ago, WAR said:

Man I love your blog and now you started this thread. Can't wait to see what is next. 

Thanks! You're too kind! Next- well, I have obviously a bunch of infantry that I'll do posts on. Not having to paint them first will make that a joy. Then there's the big tauroses and the sentinels- one in particular of those is a doozy. And then some ++++++REDACTED-SPOILERS+++++.

God damn it. They're watching every damn thing. Well, next we'll have the wee tauroses as they go on, and the ongoing lighting/rolling wheels adventures.

Right now, actually:

Plan C was to try embedding some m2 nuts in the wheel hubs so that I could just screw some m2 bolts in to act as axles for the wheels. So I got these, to test the idea:

But I was going through my various pin vice bits and found the largest one was 1.6mm, so I tried that on the front hub as a step up from the 1mm bit I'd initially used. i figured I'd work up to 2mm so as not to split the plastic.

Then something possessed me to try simply screwing the bolt into the plastic- so I did, and it just worked. It tapped the hole as it went. So I didn't need the m2 nuts in the end.

Now the front wheels roll without being able to fall off:

Got to order longer m2 bolts though, because I don't have any long enough for the back wheels and I realised I need longer ones for the front anyway. For the record, you want 10mm bolts front and 15mm bolts rear.

I think the best part about this is that I can very easily just trim the hubcaps and glue them on over the top of the bolt heads, and they'll spin with the wheels.

You can see chassis #2 in the background: that's all wired up now. Made a right bollocks of the side armour panels, but it'll be fine with green stuff.

The big innovation with that one is also having rear lights:

Wiring those is a little more complicated because I wanted the rear lights to be duller, so I had to put resistors in line. I also needed two per side for the rear, so the soldering became significantly more complex.

You can see that one light is brighter; that's because the duller one slipped as I was gluing it in. It is actually as bright as the other one, it's just facing the wrong way slightly. Annoying. The two on the original tauros are duller because I didn't realise an important thing. LEDs are brightest when they have a very smooth outer surface. They're directional, and the smooth domed top acts light a headlight lens. I only had larger LEDs when i made the first tauros, so I filed them down to fit. Filing them down essentially turned the outer surface into a diffuser, like a lamp shade, and softened the light. On the new one, I still had to file down the smaller LEDs (the headlight fittings are tiny) but I didn't file down the fronts, which meant they should still have projected forwards perfectly and would have if only the one didn't move while drying.

Wiring took about four hours this evening:

You can see various features of note.

In the centre, I fashioned a simple battery cradle using two offcuts form the sprue, which I cut down and held in place around the battery while they dried. In between them, you can see the other parts of the cradle are simply made of the same tinned copper wire I made the entire circuit from. I filed a small depression in the middle of the underside of the vehicle, about half the diameter of the wire, and glued a wire in it: this sits proud of the surface and is therefore gauranteed to make a good contact with the positive or live face of the battery. Suspended from either of the sprue battery braces are two more wires, each connected to the lights on its respective side, which form the cradle itself. These are bent upwards in the middle so that they hold the battery against the positive contact while themselves forming the negative or earth/ground contact. No switch necessary, and because the coin cells are so very lightweight they'll do the job just as well as any dedicated battery holder. Total cost: pennies. Probably about four of them.

In the litle hollow sections above and below the battery cradle you can see the current limiting resistors, which are 2.2k for the record, and which limit the curernt flowing to the rear lights. A massive shock to learn, no doubt. Limiting the current reduces the brightness. I also filed the surfaces of the rear LEDs in order to make them softer and less directional.

Towards the front you can see the two conductors or legs of each front LED appearing through the mudguard and moving toward the body- I put heat-shrink tubing on one leg for each LED to prevent them shorting against each other.

It's easier to do all the wiring while the chassis part is essentially bare- I've only added a few components in areas where it's important to glue things in place first so you don't run a wire somewhere you need to glue a part on. Even so you still have to be careful to make sure you're not blocking the vehicle from being finished.

And of course, I blocked off the glow in the rear and the front with green stuff so the lights only show in the right directions:

There! the lack of glow in the shaded mudguard area or the rear is proof that the job worked.

Ok, time to watch some tv with a beer now. There's a very cool documentary supposed be on Netflix from today about a young geezer who had a wasting disease and couldn't go out, but managed to gather a group of really good friends through WoW. He died young, but his parents were surprised as hell when people from all over the world came to his funeral. God knows the world could use a nice story at the moment, even if it is also a bit of a sad one.

Time to do one. Laters!

 

[Bonehead]

I had a thought yesterday- the headlights are pretty cool with just the little coin cell in the car, but if you connect a 9-volt battery to these little LEDs, -so long as you include a resistor to pretect them that is- they get really bright. I mean, desk lamp bright. Good enough to be an actual torch/flashlight.

And I have in the past made some nice little street lights to add diagetic lighting to photos, and a cool atmosphere to the odd game of necromunda:

They're fun. But how much better to be able to throw light from the side, as well as above? Quite a lot, if all you're after is some pictures. So I did some quick modifications to the tauroses.

Basically, I added in a little 2-pin socket with an in-line resistor, like this:

So you can go from this level of illumination (you can see the battery is unhitched because the plug's visible to the left):

To this level:

Not terribly helpful, although the difference is visible. The chief thing to look out for is the size of the null area of glow around the lights. In the first image you can still make out some of the headlight surround, and in the second it's totally washed out by the glow of the lights. In practise, they're several times brighter. How best to illustrate?

Of course, the time-honoured tradition of lighting up seditious heretics while they're up to no good, sneaking around in the dark. Let's go and find some of those wretched, contemptible fools calling themselves the 'Immortals' and put the lie to their name. The servants of Xia Hesh and the so-called Red Hand Dominate will have nowhere to hide in the long run. The Augustine crusade is for keeps.

Coin battery:

9v battery:

Oh, that'll do alright.

Once I've got them properly rolling, theoretically I should be able to take a video with the things rolling down a street, lighting it up as they go. Theoretically. If I'm lucky, the longer m2 bolts I ordered will turn up tomorrow and I can get the rolling on wheels that don't continually fall off.

They do fit pretty well:

 

[Bonehead]

OK. How to cut and shut a touros venator into a tauros not venator.

First you need to start with the chassis piece, with nothing glued to it. This makes the first cut easier. You'll want a good razor saw for this. I have a crap GW one that's 20 years old and missing a few teeth; be better than me. Get a good one if you don't have one. Don't buy a cheap one. Having said that it should be pretty cheap regardless. Spend 30 quid instead of 10 and it'll pay the difference off pretty quickly in the amount of hours you're not spending correcting for bad cuts.

Cut the back half of the chassis off, using the rear portion of the cockpit as a guide for your saw. The blade of the saw should be flat against the surface of the plastic, as here:

You can see in this picture I've glued som parts on. Do not do this yet. This was my first one and it proved to be a mistake. This is especially important if you intend to make the vehicle roll or have working headlights, which we'll cover as we go.

Once you've hacked it up like a morally dubious used car mechanic, you should have these two pieces:

You can see there's a little of the transmission tunnel section remaining on the rear of the cockpit section. This isn't going to help. get rid by placing some 600-grit sandpaper on a level surface and carefully  sanding the piece against it.

Next, we have to perform the 'Shut' part of the cut-n-shut procedure.

First, glue on the two side pieces of the cockpit:

These go on now because we need to work out how much material we need to remove from the rear chassis piece. in order to do that, we have to create the side armour pieces. These will sit flush with the forward edge of the cockpit side pieces, so we need them fixed good and firm.

As an easy way to work out how much to remove equally from both pieces of the side armour, I decided to arbitrarily use the front hang-down-mudguard-thing as a measuring point, as it's the same on either side and roughly the width of a wheel. You can see in this image, an engineer's square is really handy to make sure you're scribing agood cut at 90 degrees tot he top edge of the armour piece:

The square is butted up against the very edge of the hinge that the hanging-mudguard-thing dangles from. Scribing a line with a sharp knife against the side of the square gets you here:

That's where you're going to cut the side armour. Place the blade of your knife carefully into the mark you've scribed, and then cut through the piece. Obviously you need a sharp, fresh blade.

Do that on both sides and you get here:

It's important to note that it's crucial tha tthe cut is at 90 degrees to the top of the piece, but the other axis is less important to get right. You can trim away material or add more in with either modelling putty or just more plastic and polystyrene cement to fill gaps on the inside without really worrying about what it looks like, but the outside will need to look as good as it can right off the bat to save you having to do a bunch of bodywork later on. Not a disaster if you don't get it right though; there's stowage in the kit you can just glue over any ugly spots.

Next, we need to do the final cut on each side. As last time, use the square to line up the cut with the very edge of the hinge, this time on the other side of the hanging mudguard:

That gets you here:

Six pieces, two of which are now scrap for the bits box.

The pieces you'll keep are these:

Glue them together, concentrating on getting the top and bottom lines good and straight across the join. Take your time, line them up with a ruler, and hold them steady for a good couple of minutes before putting them carefully down to dry off. Lost the photo of that, annoyingly.

We did these now because they will give us the measurement of how long the rear chassis needs to be. Hold the armour pieces against the front chassis, lining the end up with the end of the cockpit side. This photo shows what that will look like:

Use a ruler to measure the distance from the inner angle to the very end of the side armour, as in this image:

As you can see, it worked out nicely to 25mm. Good and convenient. This is how long our rear chassis piece will need to be trimmed to. First, we need to know what angle to cut it at or the whole thing is going to end up looking pretty daft.

You'll want an angle-measuring device like this one in the picture: less than a tenner from a good hardware shop. Or a crap one like B&Q.

Feel free to write down the resulting degree measurement. I didn't, I just used the tool to transfer the angle to the rear piece. Like this:

I scored the plastic again with a sharp knife:

Man, I think I may be setting a new record for number of pictures in a post here. Whoops.

 

[Bonehead]

Right, we have a measurement of 25mm for the length of the trimmed rear chassis piece, and we have an angle scribed into it, at that measurement.

Next use the square to scribe the chassis underside where the angle line reaches it:

We will cut from the underside so we need a good 90 degree line to start with or the vehicle will come out all wonky. Scribe the angle line on the other side of the chassis so we can check both sides are going corectly as we saw.

Take a brave pill, and cut:

It's good practise to cut slightly away from the scribed line so that we have a margin of error.

Inshallah, we shall end up with a new shorter rear chassis and another scrap piece:

There will follow an interminably annoying period wherein we constantly line up the rear chassis with the front and the side armour pieces, see how close we are, take the rear piece away and sand it a little with 600-grit paper on a flat surface, then line them up together again to check the fit once more. Go slowly. Sooner or later you can be in the promised land, glueing the bits together very carefully and again using a ruler to line the edges up nicely. Get that right, and bingo:

Finally, we add in the lower engine sump piece and the exhausts:

And if you feel like it, you can cut down the transmission piece and fill the gap with that. You do absolutely need to put the rear transmission connector bit first, though:

So at this point the cut-and shut on the chassis is complete. The roll cage will not fit any more because there's no longer room for the turret ring piece on account of how some dodgy mechanic hacked about a yard out of the length of this chassis. So next, we'll sort that out.

But not now. I'm tired.

After this point, there are a number of different ways to proceed. If you don't intend to put in headlights or have the vehicle able to roll, then you can assemble the front suspension as per the instructions and install the pieces that close off the side pannier fuel tanks that you can see gaping open above. The rear suspension won't fit any more though, so you'll need to wait for the next exciting installment before that goes in.

Cheers then yeah? Bye now

 

[Bonehead]

IF YOU ARE NOT ADDING LIGHTS OR ROLLING WHEELS

One last measure to take before I cover getting the wheels rolling- You need to attach the turret ring in order to get the roll cage on- but it won't fit any more. You're going to have to trim it down, obviously. Precisely how you do that is up to you, but I did it by removing the two upright pieces that fit into the rear of the cockpit while the turret ring was still on the sprue- preserving the entire turret ring so that it can be used in a future conversion or on some scenery.

They get glued on, as here:

Also note that I've trimmed down a piece of 1mm plasticard and fitted it above the transmission, behind the driver's seat. This is where the gunner's seat will go, and it needs the support.

With the two parts of the turert ring section trimmed and glued in, the roll cage now fits, as below. But for christ's sake don't glue it in yet:

Realistically, you don't want to be gluing that in until you've finished painting the thing, and absolutely not until you've finished the cockpit and put the driver in.

DO NOT do any more of the things in this post if you want to put lights in.

We'll be doing some further fun mods, but you could very well pretty much just finish assembling it, forgetting the lights and rolling wheels. In order to do so, here's the next bit.

You'll need your gun of choice, and the gunner's seat. And a gunner, of course. I've gone with Victoria Mins to suit my army, but you could just slap a cadian torso on the legs that come with the kit, and get some gunner arms from the heavy weapon team kit.

I've gone wiht the heavy flamer form the oop sentinel kit- mostly because I had two knocking around. Built my sentinels with lascannons, so just like I got a pair of multilasers for my big tauroses from the two kits, using these saved money. You can still pick these up on eBay, and I think they work pretty well. Bear in mind the og smaller tauros had a choice of a heavy grenade launcher or a heavy flamer, and that was it. I think Anvil doa  grenade launcher that might work, but these were free.

Cut down the lower section of the flamer to make it flush with the lowest trim line, then if you want to be fancy about it glue on a carefully trimmed piece of 1/8 inch styrene tube, to look like this:

No one says you have to, and it's a pain to get right. But, if you can be bothered, there are benefits. Chiefly quite a lot of poseablilty. First you'll need to use some .5mm plasticard to fill in the hole on the left side of the gun. It's a good place to put an imperial eagle, if you can be bothered. I was lazy, but I might come back and do it later. It should look like this:

If you're going fancy-schmancy, you'll next need a 1mm bit in your pin vice. Drill a bunch of holes into the section fo the roll cage shown:

Then use a sharp ( i got a fresh one out) knife to join up the holes and trim the upper part you've exposed to make it roughly cylindrical:

I imagine you see where I'm going with this, but the result is, your heavy weapon is now a snap-fit, and poseable:

Right, little more to go. Next the gunner.

Temporarily, place the driver's chair in position If you aren't doing headlights, you can glue it in now. Chuck in the roll cage (don't glue it), and put a gunner in the seat, and glue the gunner's seat (and only the gunner's seat) in like this:

The gun isn't on in this picture, but you'll find it useful to have it there so you can get the gunner's hands to line up nicely with it. The chair ought to have some front-rear movement to enable this.

Hopefully once the seat's glued in and dried, everything should line up like this:

You can see that I've added some roll cage extensions here- those are entirely optional. Best not to do them yet if you're adding lights, but if you aren't, use some more of the 1/8 inch styrene tube, and I realyl can't give you any better advice than to experiment and not be afraid to cut material off the inside of the tauros to fit them- no-one looks under the armour plates.

Right, assuming that you're building the buggy without lights, next you might like to shove in a flamer fuel tank. The sentinel kit had one, so i used that. i trimmed the rear mounting lug, and then drilled a little (1mm) hole in one of the fittings. I'll make a tube from the tank to the gun out of a guitar string- but any small flexible wire or a green stuff cable will do. like this:

This should fit nicely behind the gunner's seat, like this:

It does depend on how closely you've wedged in the roll cage extensions- if you fitted those. It'll fit for sure, but it might look a littl worse depending on the roll cage positioning.

Again ONLY IF YOU AREN'T PUTTING LIGHTS IN OR MAKING IT ROLL, you can pretty much finish it easily from here. Sort out your driver and gunner; get their arms in position, make sure they fit with the dashboard and gun.

I still wouldn't glue in the roll cage, crew, or gun until I've painted the thing, but that's your call.

The front suspension and wheels will go in exactly as per the instructions.

The rear wheels and suspension need a little extra work. Because we've cut down the chassis, the little holes the suspension fits in will not be in the right place. No worries, glue to the rescue.

Basically, you're going to take some more of the 1/8 inch tube, and cut a small section that will extend the rear of the wheel/suspension assembly. It's about a quarter inch/7mm, but this will vary because the cut and shut isn't an exact science. If you've made it this far, you've got this. The result should look like this:

Without all the wires and that, obviously. You can clearly see the section of styrene tube between the rear piece and the suspension assembly. It's not rocket science.

Bosh, that's it. for the basic version, you're done!

You should have approximately this:

Driver arms pending, naturally. Fill the side armour holes with putty/sprue goo/don't, just glue luggage over them, and you're ready for paint. The fuel line between the gun and tank should go in after painting the whole thing, when you add the crew and glue down the roll cage.

Good luck.

Next, I think I might take a break from this tauros business, and shoot an infantry platoon for you to look at.

 

Edited November 8 by Bonehead

[WAR]

Have I said how much I love your thread......cause it is so awesome

[Bonehead]

Thanks mate! Pleased to hear it. Glad someone enjoys this rambling nonsense.

You can have a bonus shot for that:

Yeah, all three are built now. All three roll freely and also light up. Just got to sort out crew (Anvil sent me the wrong arms) and finish blocking off the last one so the light only comes out where it's sposed to and they'll be ready for some paint. Probably might sort out some of the wonky front wheels first though.

Meanwhile, Infantry platoon.

1st platoon, Company C, 1st battalion, Yantar 8th light infantry (the Questioning 8th).

Most Yantar regiments are light infantry accompanied by a few artillery regiments, and notably no armoured regiments. Infantry regiments are organised in a conventional way: three battalions of three companies each constitute the main infantry strength, supported by a headquarters company, a transport/supply company and motor pool, a sappers company, an (light) artillery company usually split between battalions and a reconnaissance company. In typical operational procedure, two battalions are actively on the line and one battalion is the reserve, behind the line and resting while remaining ready to deploy forward at need. The various support units will be called to action at the discretion of the commanding officer (usually a colonel) but typically at the request of a battalion commander (usually a major).

The rule of three extends from regimental level down to battalion level, company level, platoon and eventually squad level. On a battalion's line, one company will be the reserve and two will be on the front. Artillery will support the line directly and sappers and recon will be engaged according to their ability and training.

1st platoon is outfitted one of the two typical ways a Yantari platoon is likely to be, and as such is a good example. Yantar regimental doctrine emphasises a typical attitude among the guard: 'infantry deal with infantry, artillery deal with artillery, armour deals with armour'. An ideal operation will combine all three arms to best effect. In practise, nothing is ever ideal. Nevertheless, standard doctrine dictates that within a company, three infantry platoons will variously be armed either in an anti-infantry role with heavy bolters and flamers supplementing lasgun squads, or a more general role with more flexible grenade launchers and missile launchers. There is generally one such generalist platoon per company. The headquarters platoon will contain a command group and multiple fire support units with mortars, heavy bolters and more missile launchers to be deployed as conditions, mission and terrrain permit. As light infantry, heavier and non man-portable weapons such as lascannons and autocannons which require regular ammunition resupply are limited to vehicle-mounted use.

1st platoon is clearly equipped in the anti-infantry role.

The headquarter unit of the platoon is used as a flexible reserve with specialist weapons and personnel; typically a meltagunner and grenadier to provide modest offensive flexibility, certainly a communications specialist with a vox unit, and normally a medic ready to triage casualties and dress wounds.

A rear view shows the reasonable degree of good equippage in a Yantari regiment: sidearms for the specialist gunners, a power weapon in a sheath for the junior officer, a sturdy and reliable if old-fashioned vox unit to keep in touch with company hq and medical equipment in abundance for the aid man or woman:

Note also the junior officer's total lack of rank marking; without his obviously non-standard issue Phobos-pattern boltcarbine and sheathed power weapon there is nothing to distinguish him from his troopers. Yantari tactical dictrine eschews all rank and unit markings as a simple anti-sniper measure that has proven its value repeatedly- likewise the lack of a platoon insignia or banner. (I thought the bolter would make for a cool pose, so I just went ahead and built it):

(Zoomed to about eight times the original size, the lenses look pretty good- they ought to, they're the one part of a typical model I take much time on. Bearing in mind the gradations of colour you can see are each probably only a couple of tenths of a mil wide (about ten thou for people calculating in black and white), I reckon for a horde army they're a good standard.)

First squad, 1st platoon:

(Not actually the best one to start with as the plasma gun here is out of typical order- I ran out of flamers.)

Nine soldiers led by a sergeant, with their lasgun armament enhanced by a heavy bolter team and specialist weapon, unusually a plasma gun in this case.

(I started off modelling squads one of two ways- either as a firing line or in advancing poses. As they went on I added variation to make for better photos, honestly- troopers reloading, peeking round corners and relaxing a little add more variety to the picture potential. These are plainly a firing line unit, as best seen at this angle):

(Here's the heavy weapon team- VM don't make arms suitable for holding a gun like this, so each HB team is a one-off conversion involving lots of careful trimming, swearing and patience testing)

(The loader is a stock VM Pose)

The side view shows the moderately dodgy gunner's grip and there's also some spent shells hiding in the brush:

(Notable poses in the squad include the pointing sergeant and grenade-chucker):

(The plasma gunner's head is a long OOP sentinel pilot part that I mail ordered for a different project decades ago. The trooper far right is actually built on the legs of the VM standard bearer model, which I cut up to make the company commander. A rear view shows the sergeant actually does have a sheathed sword):

Second squad , 1st platoon:

This unit display exactly the typical armament of a Yantari infantry squad. Kolesnik pattern lasguns, enhanced with a heavy bolter and flamer.

(This squad are in 'warily advancing' poses. I put more squads with this loadout in advancing or 'action' poses because their role would be leading the line while missile launcher squads are mostly 'firing' because they'd more typically be holding position, covering.)

Weapons team:

(The poses are intended to show the team deploying their gun. The gunner is adjusting the sight and the loader is putting down an ammo crate and swinging up her lasgun.

More notable poses from the squad):

(On the left is my favourite standard trooper, covering her comrade's advance with a levelled ak lasgun. Just looks cool to me. The other trooper is one of very few unhelmeted troops, a measure to save me time while painting. His head is from VM's 'Arcadian Sergeant kit but I prefer to have my NCOs look like the other troops)

(Another unhelmeted trooper - whose helmet is actually hanging from her belt - and another grenadier. VM don't actually make suiatable grenade arms, so these are from the 'sword and pistol arms' set, with the hands changed).

Third squad, 1st platoon, again displaying typical Yantari armament:

(This squad are in 'advancing carelessly' poses, for want of a better term. Not all squads will be on the very front line, and these poses were fun to work out and make for a lot of useful models to include in action photos. These two demonstrate one extreme of the set, completely at ease):

(while these two are more switched on, actively holding their lasguns ready at least. I particularly like the crouching trooper looking up- it's an unusual pose in the army and just adds useful variety):

(And finally the weapon team. The loader is a standard VM pose again, but the gunner was a total pain and not entirely successful. Had to add a pistol grip to the gun too, it doesn't come with one):

There. A platoon done, just in time to go and watch Match of the Day. Cheers!

Edited November 13 by Bonehead

[Gnasher]

They look ace, top job!

 

They really feel like a "run of the mill" adverage AM line regiment, the rank & file, mr nobody, as it were. I like that a lot, gives a great "citizen soldier" vibe, which I think was what you were looking for?

 

Only comment is that I think the skull-wings could be highlighted to add a little vavavoom to the heavy bolters.

 

You do eyes better than me too, ya ******d ! 

[Bonehead]

Thanks man. Always good to get your approval.

You nailed it exactly- I imagine there's a sort of 'typical' regiment between all the fantastical 40k touches of flair and madness, an imaginary unit that averages out as being just a bunch of vaguely 20th-century looking conscripts attempting to do a professional job, torn between bravery, loyalty and a perfectly reasonable desire not to die- and I tried to build just that. I suppose I could have a lot of fun building something totally the opposite; a really fantastical looking piece of sci-fantasy madness. I have been thinking about doing another baddie regiment- basically Star Wars Storm Troopers but IG. The old cadian torsos make for a pretty good storm trooper breastplate if you paint them white, with a black uniform.

As for the stuff in the colour text about their general effectiveness, that's just a natural byproduct of it being my army. I'm a really very average player that's a decade or two out of practise. They're never going to be world-beaters with me rolling the dice.

But I also prefer the Abnett version of the guard as opposed to the more over-the-top GW image of them just being a sea of cannon fodder; that sort of thing has been proven over and over again by history as a waste of time, lives and material. It just doesn't work. I mean, I shouldn't be taking 40k seriously of course, but still.

Of course, having said that, I'm currently reading Anthony Beevor's 'D-Day: the Allied Invasion of Normandy' which is a book that I can very thoroughly recommend, and in it the rate at which entire divisions on both sides got ground down to a fraction of their starting strength is almost cartoonishly scary. Apparently the fighting in Normandy in the early stages produced the highest casualty rates in a calendar month of any army that has records left from the entire conflict. June in France 1944 was worse than Stalingrad, the fall of Nanjing, Burma, you name it. The Nazis found that after three weeks on the front, an entire division was 'used up as a fighting force' e.g. dead, injured, deserted, captured, or just completely broken in spirit. That's at least three regiments, gone. Very tempting to say 'good, they were evil' but the allies didn't have it much better.

So maybe GW aren't all that far off the mark after all in terms of casualties, but the 'waves of witless conscripts' thing is off the mark. It also doesn't make for such good stories either. Abnett's books work because the characters are relatably human, but vulnerable enough that you feel real worry for their chances of survival. He's definitely not afraid to kill his cast off if it makes the story better, and it makes the books all the better, but it only works because he doesn't do it every other page. Well, not every other page through the entire book, anyway.

It's what makes your blood pact and sons of sek models cool too- they could also have their own human-level stories.

As for the wings on the heavy bolters; they're not highlighted because they're mostly blue-stuff mould casts. The gun is the old Steel Legion one and they cost a fortune to get hold of so I just made a mould and do them in green stuff. The detail suffers quite badly, so I try not to highlight too much of it, is the honest reason. An the eyes are a minor miracle. I have tourette's and quite shaky hands even without the twitching, so it's down to a teeny-tiny brush and sheer luck. And I've photo'd them at very careful angles to hide all the messy ones, of couse.

 

Edited November 12 by Bonehead
Removed Swear dodge

[Bonehead]

Reinforcements are coming.

Not terribly quickly, mind, but they are coming. This is going to fill out the 2nd squad in the 3rd platoon, alongside another heavy weapon team- and there are also a couple of troopers form the platoon hq included as well. And three fully built light-up tauroses with working wheels, of course. Just got to finish modelling up the last driver and get the third one kitted out with some stowage. The kit does come with stowage pieces, but I do want to individualise each model.

I'm especially pleased with the one trooper holding her lasgun in tight as she looks to the right- that pose was a total pain to pull off using VM parts, but I persevered and with a little green stuff under the arm joints it came out pretty nicely. The sergeant aiming the laspistol was a nice result too. The platoon needs an officer and a radio operator for the hq and another heavy bolter team to get up to the minimum hq and two squads. Going by the 5th ed guard codex and imperial armour lists, anyway. No tauroses in 2nd edition, but you could just make them a landbound, slower landspeeder with better armour, guard crew, and no second weapon easily enough with a willing opponent.

I generally think of this as a mostly 2nd edition force, despite the tauroses. It's something I would have liked to try if I'd had the money and time back then.

In 2nd edition this force actually has the potential to be pretty lethal. The sheer number of heavy weapons you can take in an all infantry guard force is pretty alarming in that edition. A properly not-fun-to-play-against win at all costs eldar or tyranid force would still cream them, but against an opponent who wants a fun match, all infantry guard in 2nd ed could offer a serious challenge.

Typically you'd play 1500 points- maybe 2000 if you were feeling fancy. In 1500 points, a typical space marine army might manage six heavy weapons- maybe even eight if they took a predator. Marine squads started at 300 points, and their heavy weapons were costly. 45 points per lascannon! But you did get a targeter at least, and the average bs was 4 so you started out hitting at 2+. Cover was very important in 2nd ed so you'd often have the to-hit roll knocked down to a 4+. A 1500 point marine force might have two ten-man squads, typically. Maybe a dreadnought with an assault cannon, perhaps a predator with three heavy weapons, maybe even a tarantula. One of the squads might be devastators- four more heavy weapons. That was a popular choice as you could split the squad into 5-man teams, so lots of people would take devastators, stick all the heavy weapons in one unit and have the other unit as a de facto half-size tactical squad. The other squad could be assault marines, or tacticals, or vetarans for bs 5. Good choice in a smaller game, your shooting was a lot more effective. Combine that with a couple of characters, typically close combat monsters, especially with jump packs or as librarians able to teleport, and you had a pretty able and balanced force against another such. You'd maybe struggle against a horde army unless you swapped out the predator for a whirlwind- and those were lethal in 2nd ed against hordes.

But marines were low in numbers compared to a typical ork, eldar, tyranid or IG force. As previously hinted, eldar or tyranids were capable of being min-maxed into terrifying whirlwinds of death, but even if they weren't the sheer numbers might be hard for the marines to whittle down. Same for orks, although orks were generally a gambler's army.

Honestly you could min-max most 2nd ed armies into unbalanced nightmares, guard included. Three leman russ tanks and a basilisk was entirely possible in a 1500 points game of 2nd ed, and that would be a massive problem for anyone. The eldar were generally reckoned the leading murderlators-in-chief though.

Among friends it was bad form to do that sort of thing. Creating extreme lists was a tournament git move, or something to check your oppo was ok with before hand when playing friends or in a gaming group. Generally you didn't know what mission you were going to be handed before the game started. You'd pick an all-round army unless you had agreed on a certain scenario beforehand. First thing was you'd set up the table. Then you'd draw mission cards to find out what your main objective was. It could be simple- just kill the enemy-or it could be more involved, like sniping the enemy commander, or psyker, or capturing bunkers, or being in their deployment zone at the end of the game. So a generalist army was the way, by and large. I imagine it's the same now. Then you'd set up your armies, roll for first turn, and crack on.

Orks generally suffered with reaching the oppo's deplyment zone and staying alive to score points- and marines often found themselves unable to put out enough firepower to wipe the enemy out- the high points cost made armies of around thirty models pretty common. Eldar were usually quite squishy- get a good few shots in and you could gut half their army. Tyranids were dramatically less effective without their synapse creatures, if that could be managed. IG were squishiest of all. Wiping a squad in one turn for most armies took quite a lot of firepower, but not so the guard. One good hit could send them running for cover, broken.

But my god they were cheap. One squad was 100 points, or 60 for a heavy weapon squad of three weapon teams. Same for a command squad. Heavy and special weapons were less than half what they were for marines; a heavy weapon squad with three heavy bolters was 90.  In 1500 points, you could happily take six squads, each with a heavy weapon and special weapon, four command squads with a bunch of special weapons each- flamers were especially good for guard, because they always hit so your low bs didn't matter. Spice that up with a couple of heavy weapon squads and some commissars to keep them fighting and you had nearly a hundred models on the table. You could take comm-links- basically an artillery observer with a moderately reliable off-table basilisk for less points.

Conceivably, you could set up a firebase with eight or eleven heavy weapons, including mortars completely out of sight, and still send four squads and two command squads up the table with eight flamers and four more heavy weapons. Terrifying! Even a marine player would run into the hard maths of having to make too many armour saves. an eldar infantry army would have a hard fight on its hands- and even a fully mobile one would be facing about twice as many big guns as it would normally like.

Anyway, enough waffle for now. Anyone who fancies trying it out on a table will be gladly received!

Meanwhile, I really have got to get those drivers sorted out:

Edited November 14 by Bonehead

[Bonehead]

Ooh, look. New Krieg models!

In typical Bonehead style, I'm going to ignore that and concentrate on my buggering around with models from the other discontinued Forgeworld IG range. Although I did make it into WW this weekend with a mate and took the opportunity to grab one of the last Krieg weapon packs off the shelves before they disappear entirely. So useful! They're a much better fit at this scale than the plastic guns.

Aaaaanyway. It's painting time for the tauroses.

The first stage was to cover up the apertures for the lights. No point painting over those. That would definitely be an own goal. Tiny slivers of masking tape did the job, front and back. I also masked up the surfaces where the roll cages would need to be glued on- again, you don't want to be trying to get poly cement to adhere to paint.

Once that was done, I gave them a good once over with chaos black spray, and then came in with a brush and more black to get into the tighter spots.

Then with that done, I masked them up so that the underside of each was totally covered. At that point, they god a good covering wiht Zandri Dust, which brings us here:

The tyres are incredibly easy, so I knocked them out at this stage: heavy drybrush with skavenblight Dinge, then a light drybrsuh with mechanicus standard grey. Done. We'll add washes and dirt powders later.

Here's another shot showing the extent of the underside masking:

You really don't want to end up getting paint all over the contacts in the battery cradles that you've so carefully created. That would be a complete pain in the neck.

Ok. At this stage we have the base colour for the underside, inside the wheelarches and the engine, and also the first layer of the basic camouflage. In my case, this is going to be a mix of just two colours, Zandri Dust and Death Guard Green. You could easily make the scheme really any combination of colours you like, especially if you have an airbrush, but I'm just matching the vehicles I've already done for the army. Mechanicus Grey would certainly go nicely with either of these colours- as would any neutral brown, or a nice bone-like shade. You could do black, white and grey for an urban scheme.

Anyway. For the second camo colour, you need to mask off roughly half of the surface area that remains unmasked- or about two thirds if you're going for a three-colour camo. In my case, I cut a bunch of triangles out of some low-tack masking tape, and stuck them all over, at random:

Now confusingly, here's the result of the green spray on the third one that wasn't in the previous shots:

Peel off the tape and you get this:

You can see that the headlights are surrounded by a small amount of bare plastic- we'll fix that with a brush in due course. The same is true of the taillights:

I should note at this point that the flash has made the green and tan colours appear to blend into one another more than they actually do. You can also see that the engine has been left in the black undercoat. That's a choice you may or may not agree with, it's up to you.

We should also check that the lights still work:

You know it.

It's also clear that the vehicle is listing drunkenly because of the socket I added to enable a 9v battery hook-up- let's fix that.

Oh yeah, we're starting to get somewhere now:

The wheel hubs are silver because, of course, they're just m2 screws. We'll sort that out with a brush too.

Sort of like this:

Not too shabby.

Not too shabby at all.

I'll leave it here for today.

Cheers!

Edited November 25 by Bonehead

[The Pounder]

Loving this thread @Bonehead!

 

 I’m amazed by your patience and dedication. It definitely shows.

 

 

[Bonehead]

Thanks! I've really got no idea how I stay interested long enough to sort any of this nonsense out, but there's a real satisfaction to be had from it. Maybe it's the thought of just nicking down Warhammer World and setting these up on a table for some photos that drives me on.

Of course, I am generally just kind of a perverse buffoon with a strange sense of humour. I recently joined a patreon at the highest tier purely so I could contrive a way to make the guy read out a terrible joke on his video. The drive to create something completely surprising and unexpected must be a factor too.

Or maybe it's just that I have a lot of down time while working from home this time of year and I tend to fidget if I'm not busy. Yeah, that's probably it, actually.

[Gnasher]

Whatever, it's sweet!

 

Carry on with your crazy musings, aint gone wrong so far!

Edited November 26 by Gnasher
spelling

[Bonehead]

Quick update. Got some paint on the wheel hubs and washed the whole set with the first wash- bit of green to bring the colour together, dirty it up and give all the panel lines some definition. Next it'll get black and brown washes on the tyres, and brown wash on the lower third of the bodies. Didn't have time for that yet. Once that's done, it'll be time to drybrush the green and tan back for a highlight, and then we're into detail work- all the stowage and the dials and whatnot. Then they get a coat of matt varnish, and following that it's time for some fun with weathering powders. That's all to look forward to.

For now, excuse the terrible photos:

The wash is the stage at which they really start to look like something, I think.

 

 

[Bonehead]

Augustine crusade, Ardent campaign, Samovar offensive. A Yantari long range recon patrol departs its F.O.B. at night. Precisely which of the regiments involved in the campaign they belong to is uncertain, due to the poor quality of the image and the Yantari doctrinal aversion to identity markers.

This pict-capture from an outlying observation post in a damaged building demonstrates several of the Yantari regiments' tactical adaptations during the course of the campaign. Though the 8th, 14th and 38th began the campaign as fresh replacements with no on-the-ground experience, their naivety and inexperience rapidly gave way to their will to learn and determination to succeed. Suffering almost disastrous losses during the initial planetary landings, all three Yantari regiments were steadied by experienced leadership from high command and their own natural dogged refusal to quit. Newly-promoted regimental commanders drove the troops on to secure the beachhead, and reinforcing regiments of the tenth army were able to press through their positions and force the enemy to retreat, although not without losses. Against unexpectedly capable and well-equipped opposition, the second wave of ten regiments forced the Red Hand's regulars to yield a sizeable territory to the loyalists that they were unable to ever threaten to reclaim. The second wave's 6th Lurnic Regulars and the 25th San Leo Rangers were reduced below effective strength and survivors assigned to reinforce other regiments from the same worlds, but the 6th Hoptor No-Names and the 15th and 16th Loxar Dragoons were completely destroyed. As the second wave's armoured punch the Loxar regiments took the toughest opposition and drove headlong into a Mari armoured regiment in prepared positions, and the Hoptor, assigned as infantry support, shared their fate. Barely ten vehicles per side survived the days-long engagement; but the blow fell most heavily upon the limited resources of the Red Hand. Unable to replace their armour and find motorised forces to contest further landings, they found themselves rapidly outmanouevred by the mobile break-out forces of the third wave and withdrew to a hastily prepared second front, using mobs of frenzied cultists and conscipted Red Hand citizens as suicidal speed-bumps to cover their retreat.

The Yantari regiments, initially mauled by the Red Hand's tanks and artillery, had found their man-portable support weapons disastrously ineffective against armour and their artillery companies of static guns hopelessly vulnerable. As soon as workshops and resupply warehouses were established in the beachhead, the remaining Yantari sentinel units had their multilasers replaced with lascannon and their tactical role entirely changed. Typically employed as mobile fire support to infantry companies, the sentinels of the 8th, 14th and 38th were instead repurposed as reactive anti-tank defence, their high mobility enabling them to find excellent ambush positions.

In this view we see at least one lascannon-armed Sentinel lurking behind the main bunker line and crucially also behind the blinding spotlights, where its height provides a superb field of view over an illuminated approach. The Red Hand's very few remaining on-world armoured units, and various improvised assault vehicles, rapidly learned to avoid the nominally light infantry-held Yantari positions until the Sentinels could be dealt with by infantry or artillery and only attack at night to reduce visibility.

Meanwhile, the Yantari regiments adopted aggressive motorised reconnaissance patrols as their best defence. If they were able to identify incoming armoured actions, now typically in company or smaller sizes, they would be able to position their limited Sentinels for best effect. In these actions, as seen here, it was policy for only the first and last vehicle of a patrol to employ their lights at night in order to limit the effectiveness of enemy fire, and as a side benefit prevent vehicle losses being identified by the simplest method of counting headlights.

This eventually forced a form of unequal stalemate; the light infantry Yantar regiments proving too costly for heavy armoured formations with no reserves to engage. It must be noted that the tactic, while effective, merely shifted the Red Hand's armoured operations to other fronts. The Red Hand's extremely limited armour was always in demand across the sector, not merely any one planet and consequently these forces, largely Mari Landsknechts or Kur Guards, were by this stage of the crusade extremely wily veterans and far too canny to stick to a losing plan any longer than they could help. While the losses at the landing had been a necessary, all-out effort to reverse the unlikely success of the loyalists that must be credited with the destruction of more than twice their number of loyalists in nominally identical Leman Russ tanks and Chimera-derived support vehicles, further losses on such a scale would clearly be a complete disasaster for the Red Hand.

Xia Hesh or one of his chief lieutenants clearly understood this fact with great clarity because tenth army intelligence eventually was able to discover that all Red Hand armoured units were withdrawn from Ardent several months after the loyalist landing- albeit half a year after the fact. They did however carry out a series of murderously effective counter-attacks before they were withdrawn, leaving such a traumatic impression upon loyalist infantry forces that the mere potential for their involvement in an action forced a great timidity in loyalist commanders and line troops long after they were no longer on-world.

It was yet another incidence of the Red Hand being able to move void-ships with extreme precision, undetected by Imperial forces. This, more than anything else, was the factor that most effectively opposed Imperial success.

Extract from 'The Most Glorious Success of the Augustine Crusade, in Detail', volume eleven, -Inquisitor Caiman of the Ordo Historicus' definitive military history of the Crusade. The eighteen-volume work was a painstaking life's achievement intended as a pragmatic source of objective information entirely for extremely high-level readers only.

[Bonehead]

Very minor progress this week- I was finishing up some models for the oppo most of the last couple of weeks. Nevertheless I found some time for the photoshoot that produced the above, and also to get a bit of drybrushing in on the tauroses today.

Also managed to get photos in better light:

I think they really start looking pretty good at this stage. From this point on it's mostly weathering techniques. You can see that the drybrush has spread onto the tyres in places. This won't be a problem because they'll be absolutely covered in weathering powder soon enough.

And the rears:

You can see one of them doesn't have working rear lights: I'd already glued it together before the plan to do a little more than just the cut and shut materialised. Getting LEDs in there would have been pretty much impossible. Which is not to say, mind you, that I won't be going back on the two bigger tauros venators that are already finished and giving them rolling wheels and headlights. It won't be easy, but it's far from impossible. Same for the sentinels. It's really starting to bother me that they don't have working spotlights.