Rocket Boots are my Inspiration

Hey all,

things here at the ATB are all pretty quiet - the army is slowly progressing.

However, I bought my GT ticket on Monday, so it is all going on (I'll write up my feelings on the new GT format soon Nic, don't worry). So, the clock is ticking, it's all go - in short, woop woop!

That's all very well Willard, but you still haven't told us why you're doing a Guard Army with Jump-Packs?

I've always wanted to do a guard army with Jump-Packs - ever since I saw this piece of art:



It was in the Rogue trader compendium back when I was about 11 - back in the golden age of every guard army dying instantly to literally everything, and eventually being cleaned up by your mum or eaten by your dog. The biggest enemy of the Imperial Guard at the time was indifference.

I do wonder about what happens to all of the Imperial Guardsmen who get bought by 11 year olds. Or people with the attention span of twelve year olds, like Adam Evan-Jones or Jeff McDeath. (Adam, if you're reading this, honestly, I think you're great - but my god man, finish an army!)

Most of them stay on the sprue, eventually being binned. Maybe they get used as decoration on the base of the inevitable Chaos marine army that comes along a couple of years later. Whatever happens, it's not a good life. Maybe they go to a better place - probably Ebay to a bloke in Texas, in this day and age.

Anyway, I was 11. Chubby, useless at sport. Loud. Basically, the same as I am now, but with less money and worse dress sense. Yes, that is possible. On both counts. One wet afternoon in Maidstone, I turned over my pocket money to the greasy bikers who ran GW Maidstone and bought the 40k compendium. Sitting on the bus home, I realised how awesome rocket pack guardsmen were. They had rocket packs! And pistols! Pewpew!

So, I really wanted an army entirely composed of guys with rocket packs. This was possibly just because I was sitting on a bus in south kent in the nineties, with the roof leaking, and thought rocketing home would have been cool.

But after that hour long bus journey plan, it just never you know, happened. This was in the days before mailorder, before ebay, so you had to actually get a shop which had jump-packs in stock to buy them. Finding Imperial Guard was hard enough, let alone rare bits. It was like being metal-eating hunter-gatherer. I'd have starved - I used to buy most of my figures in a branch of Athena - a shop best known for pictures of tennis players scratching their arse.

It was also hard to do an army like that back then. Soon after I had a chat with our local rules lawyer, who pointed out I needed a mountain of other models before I could take even one squad of Rocketeers. I was thwarted. The army lived only in my dreams for an hour, on the bus, then vanished. I forgot about it.

Until a year or so later, when Battle for Armageddon came out. I've waxed lyrical before about how much I love the game. But, the game had one unit that stood out for me. A whole Army Corps of Assault troops! Their stats were 8/1/1...and they took 4 turns to build....making them totally rubbish. But they had style. I never forgot them, kept thinking of ways I could do them.

So... I guess doing this army is all about me making something I really wanted as a little boy come true. Cute, huh?

Anyway, melancholy musing aside, this week, it's all about the choices I'm making for individual weapons.

Democharges

I've never really liked any of the GW democharge models. I want my charges to be interesting, huge and varied. I tried a bunch of ideas based on models of real explosives - from circular magnetic mines, to German Gebalte-Landungs (basically, seven stick greandes tied together), but nothing was working. Ultimately, I was watching "The Thing", and it came back to me - why not try the classic bundle of dynamite?



Below is my first go at a democharge - a little rough around the edges, but it does the job, I think.



Feedback from Nerds welcome! And yes, in honour of the Kurt Russell character, this model is totally called Macready - such a shame you can't have a flamer AND a democharge...

Other guns

As for other equipment, I want a real mix of weapons in every squad, let alone across the army. I've been very influenced by the idea of "every space marine is a hero" that Dan Abnett wrote in "Iron Snakes", which has influenced loads of the models that Smithy, Andrew and Nicola have made over the last couple of years.

It's also a reaction to other Imperial Guard players. With the introduction of the latest guard codex, you see far more veterans than you do ordinary guardsmen. Sadly, most of these "veterans" are just Cadians straight out of the box. I'm determined that if I am going to use veterans, they will at least look the part.

I've got a mix of weapons below:

Submachine gun -



Big Revolver -



Break Barrel Shotgun -



I'm particularly happy with the way this guy turned out - I had to do a lot of cutting and filing and sculpting to get him the way he looks. I especially like the way the shoulderpads (from a Superheavy tank commander, no less!) mark him out as very, very experienced.

I'm pretty determined now to try to have a different gun for everyone who can have one... Damn all this work I'm making for myself.

Right, must dash, tis late... Soon, I'll write up what I think about the changes to the GT format, post my list for commentary, and start showing you Valkyries - colour scheme inspired by: