Hey guys, after a long hiatus from war gaming I've decided to come back and work on my Imperial Guard army. The Cadian 501st.

Initially I wanted to get the army into some kind of fighting shape. So like a newly appointed officer I set about evaluating my troops.  I made a small 1500 point army that I wanted to work towards that would let me branch out into other builds fairly easy, as well as expand to 2000+ and apoc games. That meant focusing on the humble infantry squad.  I separated all my basic guardsmen into 10 man squads, with 1 special weapon (meltagun) and 1 heavy weapon (autocannon).  I ended up being able to put together 3 regular infantry squads with the load out mentioned. Initially I want to blob these guys up into big assault oriented masses. That being said I needed a priest and a commissar. I found a commissar unopened in my bits box. After a quick conversion I had him up and running in no time. I then put together a simple 4 flamer squad for the command squad of the platoon and bam, platoon was all set.


With the infantry some what squared away I moved into the command HQ. I want this army to run semi mechanized with a heavy focus on overrunning enemy positions with masses of infantry screaming FOR THE EMPEROR! I needed something that would support the assault element. My initial impression was to reach for Creed as his furious charge order is extremely potent, especially combined with his ability to issue multiple orders at 24”.  However, my age old trusted command Colonel Festus is more akin to Straken. Back in 2nd edition he was loaded out with all the goodies… bionics, power fist, plasma pistol, etc, etc, etc. Straken’s rules seemed the perfect fit for a count as.  I filled out the rest of the command squad to support this. So I added 2 body guards, a priest,  a medic, vox, a meltagun for can opening duty,  master of the fleet, and an astropath.  After sorting through my minis I had all these available and lumped them together and set them on the painting bench.








First off my older paint scheme was very over ambitious and I felt that it would take too long to get the army ready for the table top. That being said I settled on a technique akin to dipping, but in a more controlled fashioned. I dub it Devlan Shading. It mostly uses a few layers of  Devlan mud to bring out shadows and recesses and creating the illusion of highlights. To my surprise it worked quite well. I tested it out as you  ca see here on my astropath.





With that done I turned to finishing my conversion for the Colonel himself. I initially wanted to have him some what in the stance of the original cadian commander from 4th edition with the monocle and power sword. I swapped out the power sword for a mechanical arm/power fist, and gave him a bionic infused head. He is a kit bash between the new Cadian Command Squad box and the Baneblade commander. I sculpted his fist in a clenched position and set about painting him.  Once he was done I noticed he stood a few millimeters shorter that the rest of his command squad. I remedied the situation by putting him on some cork and modeling it like a piece of a destroyed building or rock.








~So that’s it for part 1. I’ll be moving onto adding some mechanized veterans, valks, and russes to the list over the next few weeks. Keep an eye out for updates!