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.
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 nuancing 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 otherwise the dry brushing will tear the underlying paint. 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.
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 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. Mortant and Cadian Formations. |
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Mortant
Artillery Company
Mortant
Tank Support
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.