|
ALTERNATIVE GUARD ARMIES - PART ONE: MORTANT 27TH
BATTALION
Imperial Guard armies come in all shapes
and sizes, the Steel Legion being just one particular Guard
Regiment amongst thousands. Having completed the majority of
formations that I wanted to include in my Steel Legion force,
with the exception of a few reinforcements that I will add at a
later date, it was time to move onto a different army. For my
second Imperial Guard force in Epic I have chosen a combined
formation consisting of both Mortant Head Hunters and Cadian
Armoured elements. The reason for drawing units from two
different regiments is to (hopefully) demonstrate that although
an army made up and painted to represent a single Regiment looks
great, there is no reason not to construct a force made up of
elements from different Homeworlds. One of the reasons
Armageddon makes such a great backdrop to a campaign is the
diversity of forces that fought there, units in the field often
being drawn from many different regiments.
To get the ball rolling, this article
covers the first of the Mortant armoured formations that will
provide the bulk of my forces; the Cadian support elements to
follow in Part Two. The other reason for starting a second
Imperial Guard force is twofold, firstly it lets me try out a
different colour scheme to the Steel Legion and secondly I can
add in units not already covered, such as the Griffons and
Manticores.
 Mortant
Artillery Company
The Mortant Artillery Company consists of
six 'Armageddon' pattern Basilisks, three Manticore Missile
Launchers and a Trojan Command vehicle. As this army is being
assembled to take part in a campaign that will be covered later
in the year within the jungles of Armageddon's equatorial
region the colour scheme I chose was a drab green.
Each of the artillery pieces were initially
undercoated black over which I applied a rough dry brush of
bestial brown and bubonic brown. Over this a watered down coat
of catachan green was applied and finally a wash of black ink
and catachan green watered down very thinly. This may seem a
rather long winded process, but it produces what I call a 'bleed
through' effect allowing patches of the brown underneath the
catachan green to bleed through the thin topcoat creating a
natural blending of the colours and a soft smooth finish. To
complete the effect a light dry brush of catachan green was then
applied followed by a very light dry brush of camo green. It is
important to let each successive coat dry completely before
starting the next to get the best out of this method. Colour
Bleeding is something you may want to try first on a few old
models as it does take a little practice to get right, but the
end effects are well worth it and very subtle.
 Mortant
Tank Support
No Imperial Guard force would be complete
without a least a few Leman Russ battle tanks, so to support the
Artillery Company I have added the first of a number of Leman
Russ Support Platoons. These were based and painted in exactly
the same way as the Basilisks and Manticores with any stowage
picked out in a mix of bubonic brown and desert yellow.
The Manticore Missiles I decided to paint
shadow grey and highlight with space wolf grey to make them
stand out a little more as the danger with painting the bulk of
the force in drab colours is they can look too muted and dull
overall. Making a few details on each vehicle stand out with
brighter colours is a good way to 'lift' an army visually on the
table without making it too colourful.
As with all of the vehicles in my armies I
have based the tanks on 20mm x 40mm Warmaster bases.
 Griffon
Mortars
The Griffons were added to give my Mortant
Infantry Platoons some additional fire support and soften up any
enemy strong points in the jungle. As mortars would be a
featured theme of this army, keep an eye out for some more
unusual "Head Hunter" formations in a future update.
The Trojan shown to the rear of the Griffon
formation is the final unit in the Artillery Company. Although
command vehicles were dropped from the tournament army lists for
the final release, I liked the idea so much during development
that I decided to keep them in my own formations. In this
instance I replaced the Salamander Command vehicle with a Trojan
as it seemed more appropriate.
That about wraps up the
first few Mortant formations. Next
update, I will look at putting together the Mortant Infantry,
some jungle 'Specialists', Recon and of course the Cadian Heavy
Support.
Until then, happy
gaming.
|
