A PONDERING
Wot with all the rumour mills going into overdrive regarding the impending Imperial Guard codex release and potential imperial guard vets / stormtrooper (rumoured) kit and/or upgrade pack, it got me thinking....
Do we as Imperial Guard players really need moar plastic crack?
MOAR PLASTIC CRACK YES PLEASE
I love me my beret 40k stormtroopers. There's something about these counts-as-carapace special ops human soldiers that attempt to valiantly serve their duty, in a world of time-travelling superhuman robot-armoured mecha-riders and weapons-spawning xeno-sapiens. Something just doesn't make sense, but in this magnificent paradox, I love them, I really do.
That's why I bought me a load of the 2nd ed. style Beret Stormies (I detest the Moon unit michelin men stormies, and prefer the Kasrkins myself) and refurbished them, painted them all up as per a previous post... also, here:
But that was another lifetime ago, and I have since left them, abandoned, for the greater glories and maddening furies of an all-white paint job Grey Knight project for the past 2 years...
STORMTROOPERS: A NEW BEGINNING
The rumour mill got me wondering: Could I create my own plastic beret-wearing stormtroopers, irrespective of the truthiness of this new stormtrooper kit rumour?
The answer, is... Yes We Can!
Inspired by those recent rumours, I have resurrected an old to-do-project of mine. All you need are some of these maxmini commando heads, a bit of imagination, and an extensive bitz box consisting of the ever versatile Cadian plastic troopers and throw in a few spare Space Marine scouts, and voila!
A picture comparing my new headswap kit-bashed vet stormies so far (which I intend to use as count-as shotguns vets for the meantime, I do like these oversized Arbites-style space marine shotguns..). I'm also attempting to give each kitbashed model a unique feel, with custom weapons, a little amendment here and there.. An interesting xeno-weapon collected in a faraway locale, medals of service from time spent under the watchful command of an Inquisitor, extra grenades and medipacks, etc, etc..
A nice little touch I thought would be to imitate the ol' 'Targeter' wargear on each Stormie's backpack, I trimmed a bit from a lasgun scope and attached it to the top of a modified voxcaster pack. I think it looks great!
I'm aware the maxmini heads do suffer from an 'anorexic' look as it veers towards a 28mm non-heroic scale, but hey-ho. It'll do!
In addition, I'm aiming to convert a few more Cadians with counts-as 'hotshot' lasguns, but using that modified 'bullpup' lasgun look, as per these brilliant images floating about the interwebs:
autogun carbine by lt. gregor
Inquisitorial stormtrooper by miniature tim. Paint scheme is after my heart!
To be continued...