Colonial Imperial Guard

This army uses the GW Praetorian Imperial Guard figures. They come from a limited edition boxed set from back in the late 90's, it came with artillery pieces and some dead and wounded figure. At the time Zulu had recently been on TV and the figures appealed to me. The original plan was to make a small army for WK40K having played it once only way back in 1987. Of course they just sat in the box for years and I never bothered with 40K. Eventually it occurred to me that they'd make a nice HOTT army and whilst lodging round Sebastian's gaff in Nov. 2002 I started painting them.

I went through the usual dilemma, should the troops be Blades or Shooters and did I really want the artillery pieces in there ? I settled on no artillery for the moment but rather having dropships as aerial elements. The troops became Blades as it better represented my impression of their 'eliteness' and their lack of enthusiasm to get their Colonial uniforms dirty in the rough going. I also wanted a Hero, because I can of course. Originally it was due to be one of the NCO figure with pistol and sword, but that meant using a heavy weapons figure in with the Blades (limited figures) which I was loath to do. I settled on the Grenade Launcher figure heroically protecting a wounded guardsmen which came out very nice. Of course I later acquired more figures but it was fine as is so I left it. The dropships were planned to be Airboats but on reflection Dragons suited better, they fly fast are heavily armed and you can't be sure when they'll turn up. This meant I would only need 6 elements of Blades and so again save on using the heavy weapons figures. I expect in due course (years) to paint the artillery as alternatives.

The army is due to be my standing army for Berkeley 2003....subject to a few playtests ;-)