Devos IV Detachment: Captain Aelius

Hi everybody, hope you're all okay reading this from your respective corners of the globe.  My own corner is boxed in with paints, brushes, glue, knives and Silent Hunter 3 at the moment but that does mean I've managed to plough on with a fair bit this week.  First on the painting list was a detachment I did for Zzzzzz over at Devos IV, a liaison squad of an officer and a few Honour Guardsmen.  This is part of a few detachments and collaborations I've got in the works at the moment - it's actually quite refreshing painting for someone else as it ups your game and makes you get down to it a little more!  Anyway, without further ado ... first slide, please.

Captain Aelius, with his Honour Guard and Centaur Arty Tractor

The idea was that Zzzz sent off the bits in the post and I built them up as Palladian Guardsmen, sending them back to take their place as 'liaison squads'.  Now, for those of you who don't know the Palladian Guard are stationed right next to Cadia, so most of the time they dress in normal Cadian armour.  However my army represents a special full dress battalion.

These guys were representing something in between - full dress troops, who've beet on on detachment for a while and so have picked up some armour and special weapons.  To do this, I used ordinary Cadians (from the Command Squad boxed set) and combined them with some excellent 'Life Guards Torsos' from Curious Constructs.  Capt Aelius' cap is from Victoria Lamb's Tannenberg Guard set.  Everything else comes straight out the box.  As you can see I went for the traditional Palladian greens in painting, with the red sashes being the distinction of command and staff units.

Now, for a bit of fluff...

Captain Aelius is a rising star in the Palladian's First Regiment of elite 'Praetorians'.  He comes from a noble military line (always important for a career in the Palladian Guard), and his great-grandfather was both a Knight of Palladia and a Crux Macharia winner.  He was commissioned into the Second Battalion several years ago - about the same time that this unit of parade-ground guardsmen began to be deployed in combat roles.  He graduated second in his commissioning class, giving him an immediate promotion to First Lieutenant, and on the first day he found himself the most senior platoon commander, by virtue of his rank, in all the 8th Company.

But the warriors of Palladia are nothing if not human, and soon jealous tongues began to wag.  The Second and Third Lieutenants, who had served in the company for years (having graduated in more usual fashion in the low twenties of their respective classes), and they resented the arrival of this young pup beating them to command the senior platoons.  Normally this wouldn't matter, but one of the subalterns in question is none other than 1st. Lieut. Darius Carmichael Scipio the Younger - nephew of Colonel Scipio, regimental commander. 

A quiet word in the right ear, and all of a sudden Lt Aelius found himself a captain at twenty-one, posted out of Second Battalion into a liaison job on Devos IV ... where? With whom?  There was no time to wonder, as he boarded the Governor's Retribution bound for the far off world.  What will lay in store for him?  Feral Orks, rebels, Chaotic hordes, or worse ... obscurity!

That's all the fluff for now, I've not said much about where he's going and what he'll be doing as that's up to Zzzzz ... incidentally, if any of you are reading this and haven't seen the Devos IV blog, make sure you read it!  Thanks for picking me to build one of them Zzzz and they'll be winging their way to you in the post soon!

In other news, me and Mordian7th have a project in the works ... he's started his half here, and I'll be doing a building post to follow up on my planning post in the next few days.  Thanks again for reading, and see you all next time!

The Colonel