Choosing an Army...

I thought before I get too far into the modelling side of things, I'd tell you a bit about the ideas and motivation behind my army.

Knowing very little about 40k before I got into the hobby, I spent hours trawling different websites to try and get a feel for the different armies. In the end, as I'm sure you've figured out by now, I went for the Guard. Why? I'm not really sure, to be honest. The summary execution rule for the Commissars appealed to me (or at least a sick, twisted part of me) and I guess I just liked the overall 'feel' of the army. Knowing a new codex was just around the corner didn't hurt either!

Not having done much modelling since I was about 10, I figured I'd start with some plastics - both for the ease of assembly and the opportunities for trying my hand at some of the great conversions I'd seen on forums and blogs around the place. Obviously, that meant choosing between the Cadian and the Catachan range, the former of which I liked the most.

Next it was off to buy a box of Shock Troops. I didn't invest too much to begin with, just in case I decided I didn't, in fact, want to delve too far into this crazy hobby.

Whoops.

Anyway, with the help of a mate I got my first guy assembled and painted. The colour scheme wasn't inspired by anything in particular, I just thought it would look good on the table.

In coming up with a theme for the army, a WWI Western Front-style force immediately sprang to mind. Having trenches, mud, duckboards, craters, barbed wire etc. would allow for some simple but effective modelling opportunities, and I figured I'd have a lot of fun with it.

Below is the second Guardsman I did. You'll notice the colour scheme has been reversed from the first trooper - I thought this would be a clear way to distinguish command squads, and this is something I've continued with for the rest of my force.



My army as it stands, these guys included, needs some repainting work. At the moment though, I can field them on the tabletop so my priorities are currently to get new units built and painted - more of that to come!

If you've read all this (I know it was a fair bit!) I hope you've enjoyed the insight into my choice of army. I'm certainly happy with the choice!

Next time, a little bit about the background for my army and the army list I'm working towards as we speak.

Hello!

Hi all, welcome to my blog! If you're reading this you've obviously come to have a look, so thank you very much! That, or, you've stumbled across an apparently deep, dark, nightmarish hole of the internet inhabited by miniature plastic men and a guy who should have grown out of playing with them years ago.

Probably the latter. If so, you'll probably want to leave while you still can.

I'll be using this blog to show the progress I'm making with my Imperial Guard army, as well as any other 40k-related matters of interest. I'll aim for at least 1 update per week to begin with and see how I go. I'm also posting my army stuff on the Boot Camp and WargamerAU, but I aim for this blog to address a broader range or topics. That, or max out my photobucket bandwidth...

I've only been in the hobby for about a year, and the 77th are my first ever army so I'm still learning a lot about the whole modelling side of things. Hopefully you'll be able to see the progress I'm making, and offer any suggestions you might have along the way!

That's about it for now, but as a small start, here's a couple of pics of the first guardsman I ever did:

Since my time-management skills aren't always the best, I'll slowly work through my backlog of pics to give me a bit of time to do some more modelling before I run out of things to post.