More PBJ. Er, PBI.

Here's the completed Red/C.


A full army shot, at least the army thus far:


Three completed infantry squads, one unpainted platoon command squad, two built (and one half-built) Rough Riders, two Highlanders (one built), and fifteen War Orphans.


What are the War Orphans? These guys:


They're the various metal Guardsmen I've collected over the years. I have zero idea where any of them came from, so I probably got them in various bulk bitz I've bought from people. Two Steel Legionnaires, four Mordians, four Tanith, one Catachan Sergeant (possibly one of my favourite models ever, the dude with the shades, bolter and cigar. I'm going to give him a Tilly Hat to make him 110% awesome.), two old metal Cadians and two old metal Storm Troopers. I'm thinking of using them as members of a Battalion of Detachments, nicknamed the "War Orphans", to quickly bulk up the numbers until I can buy more Cadians.



And, finally, I realized I hadn't done a workspace picture. Here it be:


Yes, I'm a slob.

The Armour of Carboard

I have fortifications! Along with further proof that Starbucks is awesome (as if we needed more proof...)


Defense Tower. It kind of reminds me of the castle towers in Samurai Jack... Once I've got MDF I'll give it a proper base and some razor wire and rubble barricades around the bottom.



I made the platform large enough to comfortably fit three Heavy Weapon team bases, and about twenty Guardsmen (or Marines, or any other man-sized model I would assume) fit up there. It's a little over six inches tall, but I figure it can be treated as though a full turn's movement can take a squad from the base to the platform.


A bunker! I want all my towers to be the same height, and since my wife gets grande instead of venti I had to find something else for this cup. Thus, a small pillbox/bunker thingy. Again, fits a Heavy Weapon base snugly. I saved the top half of the cup, and I think I'll use it as the centre of an [i]Enemy at the Gates[/i] style fountain/statue, because there's always one.





Defensive barricades/mini-trenches. I couldn't do a proper trench, so I knocked these together. Once I have some kind of putty or something less expensive than green stuff I'll fill in the fronts.




And the barricades with the bunker. I forgot to crop this one, and the last one apparently, so you get a guest appearance by my knee. ;)

The Cardboard City Begins

I've decided that I'm tired of mooning about the internet, thinking "I should build some terrain someday", and just to build some. That said, I'm more interested in getting enough stuff built to be able to play with, without resorting to the Book Pile of Doom and hopefully be able to get some variety. I've got a ton of cardboard boxes lying around from the last move, plus a lot of bits I've been saving over the years.


On to the pictures!


A Manufactorum. I got this kit for my birthday a year or two ago, and only finally built it properly a couple weeks ago.



A bunker. It has a removeable lid. I patterned it roughly on the templates in the 4th Ed rulebook.




A small ruin. The broken floor is new (to me, at least). I only just noticed it while taking the pictures, but I think I'll work with it as it adds a nice touch to the piece.



The above ruin's mate. This one got some CoD bits I had left over from the Manufactorum to spruce it up.



A little barricade thingy.



A big ruin, again patterned on the template in the back of the 4th Ed rulebook.






So, yeah, that's the city so far. They're very plain, and unpainted, and they're likely to stay that way until I've got enough to do a good table, at which point I'll probably come back and do a second pass to add rubble, gubbins, etc.

Any suggestions for what to do next? I was thinking the remains of a small church.

Fear the Beard!

Well, a week after Air Canada sent my bags to Toronto without me (my flight was canceled due to weather, or something, but they still sent our baggage on. O.o) we got our bags back. This is good for you because the camera was in my wife's bag. Pictures!




That's the first half of Red/C. The second half is just primered, so I didn't bother with them.

Here's a close up on the Sergeant. I gave his peg leg a little foot, but it's kind of hidden by the basing. Ah, well. I do like how the GS on the end of his pant leg turned out.





Red/Command! I'm really quite pleased with these guys. I opted for two shotgunners and two with LP+CCW, plus the JO and the Commissar, so this squad should be decent in CC. Assuming I'm fighting, oh, wet paper bags? ;)




I've always wanted a beardy army, so I've decided that every barefaced Yukoni, with a couple of exceptions, will have facial hair. Starting with Mr. Chops here.





The Platoon Sergeant Major. The aquila on his breastplate denotes his rank of Warrant Officer. Also...BEARD! I also extended his bandanna into an eye wrap.




The second guy with shotgun. Behold...sleeves!



One of the few without facial hair, this guy is one of the Yukoni version of the First Nations (also known as American Indians, FYI). Thus, because sterotypes are fun, he has a tomahawk, mohawk and severed heads.





And Herr Kommissar. Alles is in fact klar. He's only other smooth-chinned member of the army thus far, to help mark out the fact that he isn't a Yukoni. His pistol is meant to be some kind of stub- or auto-pistol revolver type thing. I think it turned out okay...




And the Old Man himself, Captain "Wolfbiter" DeJean. Fear the mustache! Fear it! I didn't get any pictures of it, but his cape is off the Marauders sprue, and still has the skull on it. I didn't want to ruin the cape so I didn't remove it, and it just occurred to me to make it into an Ork skull.

Aye, gie em wind!

You know you're a tough guy when you don't need a helmet.




That's the Sergeant of Red/C, the whole of whom can be seen here:



I want to finish 'em off as quickly as possible so I can get to Red/Command. I've got a few of them done or almost done, in violation of my one-squad-at-a-time rule, and I think they're awesome and want to show them. But rules is rules!


Speaking of adhering strictly to my self-imposed rules, here is the Highlander. I like him so much, especially his tam o'shanter, I think I'm going to replace one of the platoons with him and his ilk, just for fun. Also, reading Brave Battalion isn't helping. There's just something so compelling about a mob of soldiers rushing across no man's land, through mud and barbed wire, dressed in kilts with a piper urging them on. You can keep your hyper-modern special forces, I'll take the Ladies from Hell any day!

I need that to grasp!

I'd love to be showing off the latest round of pics of the Yukoni. I really would. Red/C is almost totally built, and I'm quite pleased with the Sergeant especially.

Also, I built a Highlander, for no readily apparent reason beyond having a compulsion to put kilts on things.


So yeah, I should be having pictures to show, but instead the batteries are powering an extra XBox controller for the wife and her BFF to play Left 4 Dead (I can hear the screams and moans of dying (re-dying?) zombies as I type this) so the camera is as dead as those zombies should be.

To make it worse, I can't keep working on said models until such time as I can take pictures because I slipped while cutting up a lasgun in preparation for drilling and GS'ing and drove the point of my Exacto knife in the meat at the tip of my thumb. It hurt. And bled. A lot. So now my left grasping digit can't have any pressure put on it and everything that needs doing requires exactly that. Curse you, Salazar!


In other news, I think I've got the plans down for how I'm going to represent the Medusa Siege Guns and the Thudd Guns. For the Thudds, I'm going to make Nebelwerfers with plasticard and Ork Zzap Gun carriages. The Medusas are going to be WWI British Mk5 8" howitzer made by HLBS Figures. I was originally going to use their "Big Bertha" German Krupp 420mm howitzer, but after looking at pictures of both and comparing them against Forge World photos of the Medusa, I think that the Bertha is better for a Bombard.


My other news is all literary... I bought Only in Death and read it in an afternoon. Excellent book, but I kind of wish the Ghosts would go back to proper stand-up fights. Abnett does the bizarre stuff really well, but it sometimes gets in the way of good old fashioned soldiering when there's spectres and giant ambulatory spinal columns wandering about. I also got four Canadian military history books, the first of which I'm to read is "Brave Battalion" by Mark Zuehlke. It's about the history of the 16th Battalion (Canadian Scottish) through the whole of the Great War. It's probably what prompted me into making a kilt-wearing, tam o'shanter-topped, lascarbine-weilding Yukoni Highlander. I might replace Green Platoon with a Highlander Platoon, just for fun.

The army list

As Muskie so aptly pointed out, I've neglected to post the army list for the 23rd. D'oh!


Anyways, here it is:

HQ
Senior Officer
-Power Weapon
-Carapace Armour
-Medallion Crimson
-Iron Discipline

Command Squad
-Meltagun x2
-Veteran w/ Standard

Commissars x4
-Power Weapons x4


Heavy Support
Medusa Siege Gun x2
-Indirect Fire x2


Elites
Quad-Launcher x3


Troops
Infantry Platoon – Red Platoon
-Junior Officer
--Power Weapon
--Iron Discipline


Squad A
-Meltagun

Squad B
-Meltagun

Squad C
-Meltagun



Infantry Platoon – Blue Platoon
-Junior Officer
--Power Weapon
--Iron Discipline

Squad A
-Meltagun

Squad B
-Meltagun

Squad C
-Meltagun





Infantry Platoon – Green Platoon
-Junior Officer
--Power Weapon
--Iron Discipline

Squad A
-Flamer

Squad B
-Flamer

Squad C – Remnant
-Guardsmen x5
-Flamer