Boarding Party, And Everyone's Invited!

Greetings all!

Latest FW purchases: L-R, DKoK Equipment, Cadian
Hazardous Environment suits and Space Marine Boarding
Party conversion kit

My painting has been put on hold for a few days as I put together my latest Forgeworld acquisition.  After chatting away about the new Forgeworld Zone Mortalis rules, I decided it was about time I jumped on this bandwagon and got some Boarding Teams of my own.

But what to pick?  Now, they'd be based on the Cadian models, obviously, since my army is mostly clad in Cadian-pattern armour.  A bit more thought led me to make them Fourth Battalion troops (2 Battalion being the full dress Mordians, and 9 Battalion being the 'Cadian' light infantry).  4 Battalion made its name rescuing an Imperial Saint from the hands of rouge spaceship crew, bursting onto their ship and storming through the passageways to rescue St. Elutor.  Anyway, they've since evolved to become heavy combat types, specialising in close-in urban pacification (mainly sewer clearance etc in the Underhive) but also hulks - anything with tight corridors, basically.

A Hazardous Environment
suit out of the pack

Standard shotgun trooper

So, heavy Cadians.  I thought about using Kasrkin, but decided against it due to their un-convertabiliy and the fact that they're very common.  I wanted these guys to turn heads, since I'm only doing one squad.  They are specifically hazardous environment, and a quick search brought me to the Forgeworld website.  The Hostile Environment set looked perfect - they could be used as boarding crew but also double as haz-mat teams in other games.  

Next, weapons.  Shotguns, flamers and meltaguns were the obvious choices but again I wanted something that stood out.  How about some heavy riot shields?  Forgeworld to the rescue again with the Space Marine Boarding Assault set.  The shields were attached to Space Marine arms, but I wasn't too fussed as there was going to be a mix of Cadian, Scout and Marine arms which I would explain away as being padded armour.  Finally, the Death Korps Equipment set would give me some lovely Tellermine-style melta bombs/demo charges, as well as plenty of grenades and knifes etc.

Converted meltagunner, with a missile launcher
shield stuck on in place of the muzzle break.

As I set about building them, I quickly came to realise how important it was to 'bulk out' the waists with equipment (see photo of the shotgun guy).  You can get away with scout and even normal marine arms, as they are very interchangeable.  But since the legs will always be Cadian, there is a tendency for them to look 'top heavy', with laden-down arms and small legs.  This can be offset with a healthy selection of equipment around the waist, and a base as well.  Apart from that, everything seems to be going okay.  I have six shields, so there are going to be:

• Six troopers with shock shields and shotguns
• One flamer
• Two meltaguns
• One sergeant

I'm planning on using the rules for an ordinary Guard veteran squad.  As for painting, I'll probably take the opportunity to paint them up a bit differently rather than my battlefield olive drab.  Maybe black, with white trim?  Decisions, decisions!

Sergeant with Plasma pistol - chainsword will
definitely be painted in the black/yellow
diagonal 'hazard' pattern!