Hey everyone! As mentioned in my last Work Bench post, I think it's time to come back to my 40K army series and touch base on the newer factions that I've added to my collection over the past 12 years. Some of these will be from the last post about budding armies, and some of these are totally brand new!
So lets pick up with what is my 5th largest army - The Imperial Guard!
 |
| Baneblade and Stormlord tanks |
 |
| Ratlings |
When I did start the army, I began to look at the different series that could inspire me. At that point, I had a Tyranid army themed after Tron, a T'au army themed after the Covenant from Halo, Necrons themed after the Geth in Mass effect, and Space Marines that were a hybrid of Salamanders and Dark Angels, but color wise based off of British Columbia Rail (that's still the weirdest source of inspiration in my whole collection). I also wanted something with newer colors that weren't green, red or blue as my previous 4 armies. I ended up inspired by the forces of GDI (Global Defense Initiative) from the Command & Conquer games, specifically Tiberian Sun. The brown fatigues and golden/yellow armor was distinct form my other collections, and I felt there were good parallels in some of the units between the two game systems.
 |
| Special Weapons Team - Plasma |
To start, I had picked up a Command Squad box set and a Chimera. I knew right off the bat that I wanted a heavily mechanized force designed around each squad having a transport and being mobile. I was also beginning to play around with the newer Games Workshop inks. I was incorporating Nuln Oil and Agrax Earthshade more in my color schemes. I was also starting to switch to a grey basecoat away from the black I had traditionally used for the previous 4 armies. This lead me to experiment using Agrax over a grey basecoat which lead to my brown fatigues.
 |
| Infantry Sergeant |
For the armor, I had originally tried Dorn Yellow, but found it to bright. I switched it out for Zamesi Desert with a Casandora Yellow shade. Weapons were Leadbelcher with Nuln wash then Abadon Black over the casing parts with a Runefang dry brush over the whole weapon. Castellax Bronze with an Agrax wash was used on Imperial insignia to round out the details.
 |
| Leman Russ Tank Commander |
I started doing vehicle hulls the same as my infantry armor until I watched a StrikingScorpion82 video where Luke Barker, the channel's host, talked about how he did stippling on his Admech units. This in turn inspired me to try the technique out on my vehicles, using Steel Legion Drab and Zamesi Desert, with a Ushabti Bone dry brush to give a sort of desert camo feel to the hulls. By this point, I had decided that my army would be my take on a Tallarn Desert Raiders army.
 |
| Militarum Tempestus |
Not too long after starting my Guard collection, Games Workshop released the then new Tempestus Scions, a reimagining of the old Karskin special forces. That Christmas, they released a battle force box with 2 ten-man squads, a 5 man command squad, two Taurox Primes, and a Valkyrie. I wanted a cool special forces addition, so I grabbed that set and then started to work on them. Initially, I was using the same color scheme, but it didn't sit right with me. Then I got hit by another source of inspiration. Being very much into X-COM: Enemy Unknown at that point, and with my normal color scheme being very close to the base X-COM operative color scheme, I used the color scheme for the carapace armor soldiers, which had blue fatigues and silver armor. I used the same armor color scheme for the vehicles and purposely used the X-COM firebrand color scheme on the Valkyrie.
 |
| Commissar Felix Emanuel |
I then also needed a cool Commissar to lead my Scion forces and was able to get the then Lord Commissar model which I just loved for it's pose. He's one of the few character's I've named and provided a bit of back story to.
 |
| Scout and Armored Sentinels |
The army didn't really take off until 8th edition. With the massive shift in the core game and the individual armies, I had intended to let my T'au and Necrons rest and build up my Tyranids. But I was underwhelmed when the Tyranid codex came out that edition. When the Astra Militarum codex came out the following month, I found a lot me inspiration for my guard army and dived right into growing it. The army ballooned over 8th and 9th edition swelling from a small handful of units to around 4,500 pts around the end of 9th edition.
 |
| Ogryns |
As my playing of 40k dropped off by the end of 9th edition, due to changes in career and becoming a parent, plus Covid lockdowns, the army has seen less overall growth. At the time of this post, I've now completed anything I had in my backlog for this army and have no current plans to expand it. Games Workshop has also redesigned the army's overall aesthetic, so if I did grab any new units, I'd probably plan on them being part of a new platoon/company separate from my existing forces. I'd also love to see Games Workshop release Tallarn upgrade kits to their infantry and mounted units.
 |
| Platoon Command Squad |
For the overall lore, I decided to name my guard army the Tiberius Regiment, in a nod to Tiberian Sun games that I drew inspiration from. I figured the world of Tiberius was a mining world with a barren landscape, mineral wealth that the Imperium drew upon. The barren landscape would make sense for a mechanized force and on that used mounted units. I also figured one of the moons could be the site for the Tempestus training facilities. Outside of Felix, I haven't really named any other characters in the collection.
 |
| Old Vs New vehicle color scheme |
My guard forces are new on my list for getting their gallery pictures done. Once I get them completed, I'll update this post to have a link to the gallery.
Until Next time!
Czar Ziggy