Mordian7th's Palladian Veterans: Part I

Hi everyone!  Thanks to all who've been reading over the last few days while I've been away on holiday, despite being caught by the floods I've managed to escape with only minor car damage - which I think is pretty lucky.  Back to London in a few days, where my twelfth-floor flat is in little danger of being washed out.  Anyway, fully exhausted after my six days of holiday, I'm ready to get back to sitting down, modelling and letting my shattered legs rebuild.

A holiday well spent (this is pre-flood) 

Right, onwards and upwards, with something a bit new.  Before we start properly I'll recap (more for my own sanity/reference) the main projects I have ongoing right now.

• Fallshirmjager, as well as some West Wind Germans
• Zzzzz's command squad of Palladian Guardsmen
• My converted Laser Destroyer

The WW2 stuff is on the back burner, but the other two are nearly done and I hope to get an update on soon.  Seriously, I really think these 'what's on my desk' lists are helpful.  It makes me think that there is an expectant public out there waiting for these projects to be finished, and it helps motivate me a bit.  As well as being a useful reference point.

Mordian7th's Palladian Veterans: Part I

Planning and Shopping 

Never really gone in for abhumans before,
but I really did love these Ratlings

Anyway, that new project.  Recently, I got talking about collaboration projects and the goodness there is to be had in doing a project for someone else.  I've already mentioned Zzzzz's command squad above, but also Mordian7th dropped me a line and suggested a unit swap.  I thought this might be a good opportunity to detail a project from start to finish, being a nice little follow up to the collaboration post so you can see how it works in practice.

First off, we swapped a few emails on the idea and Mordian7th suggested some units he might be interested in.  In this case, it was some smartly turned-out dress troops to go with the ironically rag-tag Night Rippers Mordian army (make sure you click the link - one of the nicest-looking 40k armies out there!).  This fitted right in with my particular skill for neatly uniformed troops - perfect!

For my part, I jumped at a squad of a few Ogryns when suggested.  I've always been a bit wary of abhuman units but my Ratlings were a big success, both in modelling terms and even on the battlefield. So I thought I'd go the whole hog and get some of these bullet sponges for the Palladians!

Some traditional, pump-action shotgun
arms like these are long overdue

So, with the ideas firmly thrashed out, we briefly chatted about models and supplying them.  Because of the several thousand miles between us, we agreed it would be easiest for us to buy, build and paint the models ourselves then send them on to save postage costs.  For my Palladian veterans, I decided to use some of Victoria Lamb's excellent 'Tannenberg Fusiliers' miniatures - they'd give me the dress troop look, but also be flexible to make them nice and distinct.  They're also free delivery at the moment!  (Also, although the VL torsos are great I recommend Col Gravis' Curious Constructs to supplement them - the Life Guards ones in particular!  I've already used them in my army and they look great).  

So I ordered legs, torsos and heads to make 8 men (like Cadian squads, Palladian veterans form merged 'remnants' so they never have full 10 man squads).  Then, some shotguns and grenade launchers.  I plan to make them quite dynamic and 'in combat', but preserve that dress troop look.  Maybe some anti-tank mines as well?  I'll also have to come out with a bit of fluff, as to why these chaps got 'left behind', and permanently attached to the Night Rippers.

We decided to leave the bases blank so we could do them ourselves - this would help them link in with existing models, as well as meaning we didn't have to fork out for the respective bits of each others' basing kits.

There we are!  That's the plan.  Just clicked 'confirm' on the website so hopefully should have them here in a week or so.  In the meantime, I'll try and round off a few of those projects that have been sitting in the pipeline for a few weeks like the Laser Destroyer.  Thanks everybody for reading, and until next time, happy gaming!

The Colonel