Without a doubt the squad I enjoyed making and painting by far the most, especially the Chaplain which was the inspiration behind making this army. The "Anubis" and jackal headed imagery was at the centre of this armies background so it was fitting that I made the Chaplain and his 'Jackal' helmet the focus of the command squad. The Apothecary was also a model I wanted to spend some time on as I wanted to capture the mix of Imperial equipment and armour with the more traditional tribal "medicine man" background of the marine; hence his totem staff  and Servo Skull. 

Originally I had made a more stereotypical standard bearer with straight vertical banner, however whilst rooting around in some bits boxes I came across the Warhammer Empire standard which seemed a lot more interesting. Using that did present its own problems however, specifically in how to paint a design that followed the folded shape of the cloth.

At some stage in the future I will add to the Sand Jackals HQ characters to include a Chapter Master and Elite bodyguard. That however is for another time.

Out of all the models in the army I took to the tournament, the Panther probably received the most comments, which was a surprise to me as I had only added it as a minor afterthought. When I originally devised the background to the Sand Jackals I tried to avoid using any kind of skimmers or jump packs as much as possible (hence no assault squads) as the idea of all that desert sand and any kind of intake just seemed to be a disaster waiting to happen. 

As I wanted to include a Land Speeder the obvious solution was to convert it into a kind of buggy instead. This is something of a classic conversion that has been done a number of times in the past by various players, the most notable (in my opinion at least) being Tony Carrusco's Blood Angel 4x4. Using Tony's original concept I developed it a bit further and added a chassis, engine, exhausts and a front suspension from various parts of an Ork Buggy and Land Raider. The missile launcher came from the plastic Space Marine Dreadnought which fitted beautifully onto the side. The other great thing about this design is that different weapon load out s can be made using the other dreadnought  weapons such as the assault cannon or twin-linked lascannons. At some stage I will get around to finishing off some of the missed details such as the roof mounted spot lamps and company marking. Definitely one of my favourites this one.