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STEEL LEGION - MECHANISED INFANTRY
Imperial Guard armies are literally vast, so it is easy to
get distracted by the multitude of possible units you can include in one. For
this reason I prefer to always start an army with what I consider a 'core'
formation. These are large formations that you will almost certainly construct
the rest of your forces around. For the Guard those are really Infantry,
Mechanised Infantry, Tank or Artillery companies. Out of these for me the most
useful straight off is a Mechanised Formation with its mix of infantry,
transport and armoured support, an ideal fast moving centre for my forces with
lots of units to soak up any blast markers.
The basic
formation includes a Command Unit with Salamander transport and twelve
Infantry units plus their Chimera transports.
For the Guard units I used the current editions plastic
Imperial Guard infantry, to which I added six of the metal Chimeras. For the
Command Unit I simply based a selection of heavy weapon and infantry figures
around a command figure. For a bit of character this one has an Ogryn
bodyguard.
The Salamander Command Vehicle is from Forge Worlds resin
Epic range, however if you were using this as part of a Tournament army then
the Salamander would need to be replaced by another Chimera. I have kept mine
in the formation as it was originally built that way during development and
later changed in the final rulebook.
To achieve the Steel Legion colours for the vehicles they were first
undercoated with a black primer before being given a base coat of codex grey.
Over this a black ink wash and fortress grey highlight was applied prior to
the camo patches being painted in a mix of rotting flesh and bleached bone.
Expanding the Formation
As a Steel
Legion Mechanised Infantry formation is a company level core choice, it is entitled to
include a number of Support Platoons and upgrades. Lacking much in the way of heavy weapons
my first addition was to include a Fire Support Platoon which consists of four
heavy weapon teams. As the formation is part of a mechanised company I will
also need to provide some Chimera transports for them, but I will leave that
for another day. Like the units in the main formation I picked out the
uniforms in bubonic brown and highlighted them with a 50/50 mix of bubonic
brown and bleached bone. The same colours were also used to pick out the
autocannon heavy weapons. For all of the infantry bases a fine sand was first
applied with watered down PVA glue which, once dry was given a black ink wash
and a graveyard earth and bleached bone dry brush in that order.
For my second
upgrade I included a Steel Legion Tank Support squadron of three Leman Russ
battle tanks. A bit of heavy armour never goes amiss so I felt adding the
squadron would give the formation lots of mobility and plenty of punch. For a
formation of this size, Hellhounds would also have been a great choice and
will certainly be added to the army at a later date replacing one of the
upgrades depending on who they are being fielded against. The Demolisher on
the right is part of another unit that has been seconded to the company for a
particular battle, as can be seen by the 'Stygies Bridge' campaign badge on
the side of the turret.
The final company
upgrade was a Hydra anti-air battery. As the chances of this formation being
the target of an enemy ground attack mission, some anti-air defence can come
in very handy. Although I could have used one of the metal Hydra units, I much preferred the resin Forge World version as it matched
the Hydra's in my 40K army. Naturally if I find that no enemy flyers are being
used I can drop this unit in favour of another upgrade, most likely the
aforementioned Hellhounds.
There is still quite a lot of detail painting to finish on
the vehicles as well as markings, but nevertheless the formation is ready to
game and will certainly see some action before I start on the next formation.
With that in mind, two more formations are already
starting to shape up in principle on my workbench, Armageddon Tank Company
and the powerful Steel Legion Artillery Company. Most likely these will be
started in the next few weeks so keep your eyes peeled for part 2.
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