Company Commander: Captain Nero

Afternoon, everybody!  Excitement abounds this week as I'm making full use of some time off work to smash through a load of projects (hence the rapid succession of posts).  Most of this has revolved around 40K, so I'm going to get some more historical stuff on the go soon.

Anyway, the other day saw a post on one of my platoon commanders, Darius Galbrio.  I tried to make it a bit of a 'multimedia' post covering fluff, gaming and painting as well.  This week, it's the turn of the famous Captain Nero and his command squad:

Painting

Captain Nero himself

Front Rank - L-R, Cmsr-Capt Hartmann; Captain Nero
Centre Rank - Honour Guardsmen
Rear Rank - L-R, Capt Athacae, Ch/Sgt Tallurius, 1/O Lutz 

The Executive Officer, Commissar, and Ordnance Officer

The Battalion Commander, Major Biblius 

Company Honour Guard, with signifer (standard bearer) and bucularier (bugler)

As ever, they're painted in the standard Palladian scheme with the white hats and red banding.  The commissar has the simple red-and-black scheme, and 1/O (First Ordnance Orderly) Lutz has Cadian armour and colours.  This stems from the fact that most technical or specialist Departmento Munitorium officers in the Palladian Guard are actually Cadians on detachment.

I did make a bit more of an effort with the army command squad, as regards conversions.  For the battalion commander, standard bearer and XO, see the original article (from way back in the day!) here.

Gaming

Unlike my platoon command squads, Captain Nero is a bit more properly kitted out as I expect him to last a few turns.  There are plenty of power weapons in there as it's their job to single out the enemy commander and take him out; the rest are just taken down with a wave of bayonets.  This actually worked once - against Space Marines!  (Check out the battle report here, Turn 3 is when it happened.  Sorry Headologist).  Capt Nero often finds himself in the thick of the action which is appropriate to his Medal Hunter trait.

Background

Captain Nero has a dark and murky past - he was a career N.C.O. who more than once came close to being executed and was demoted to the ranks several times. Only his excellent war record, and a mysterious friendship with the Praetorian regimental commander (who happens to be called Colonel Scipio - hence my blogging pseudonym!) kept him from the hangman's noose. All of a sudden, he's been brought out of enforced retirement and given a very rare brevet commission to lead the senior company of the Praetorian Second Battalion. What mysteries and intrigues lie beneath?  Well, for those of you interested in a bit of 40K fiction you can read a short story on Nero's background here ...

Well, that's it for this week!  Thanks again for reading and hope you enjoyed it.  Please drop a comment if you have any thoughts, there are a few more officers to go in this series so stay tuned!  Happy gaming, and may all your dice be sixes!