Well, they may not end up being called that, but a little bit of alliteration never goes astray, and I didn't think Brigadier Bob's Buddies sounded quite right...
Anyway, I've been working away on my first veteran squad. They're led by a Sgt. Bastonne counts-as, with carapace armour and 3 meltaguns. It's a hefty lot of points, but they'll get a Chimera eventually so hopefully I can deliver them to a target, destroy it with meltas, and still survive a round of shooting with their 4+ save. I took Bastonne mainly for his ability to give orders and regroup regardless of restrictions, as this squad might end up moving out of orders range from my command squads in order to engage targets.
For the most part, the models were made using pieces from the Cadian, Catachan, Space Marine Scouts and Tau Fire Warrior sprues with a few other bits and pieces thrown in. I was aiming for a mix of parts to personalise each trooper, but with enough similarities to tie the squad together.
So here's the main event. What you've all been waiting for... *cue drum roll*...
Pictures!
Firstly, here's the squad as a whole:
The armour was done by taking Tau Fire Warrior legs, cutting of the feet and replacing with Cadian boots, and then filling in the gaps with Green Stuff. Some poses require more work than others, but I think it came out OK. The heads are from Pig Iron Productions.
Now a few pictures of the individual models and some notes on the conversions:
First up we have the Bastonne counts-as. He has a hellpistol, so I cut down a lasgun and tried to copy the hellpistols from the Kasrkin models. I'm actually pretty proud of the job I did (if I may say so myself) and I don't think you'd be able to tell the difference once it's painted. The backpack was a cut down vox-caster, the power sword converted from the Cadian Command Squad and the chainsword arm from the Troops box, and the hoses for the pistol simply electrical wire. The black bands were heat-shrink pipe cut down to size. You can find this stuff at electronics stores, and you put it over what you want, then heat it with a hair dryer (there is a proper tool for it, but anything that blows hot air will work) and it shrinks down.
Now I know you all think I'm amazing and get everything perfect the first time around (or at least, I like to tell myself that you think so) but here's the previous iteration of the sergeant:
You'll see the hoses were originally connected to the side of the backpack which made them look way too long and out of place. I think the new version looks a lot more streamlined.
This was the first veteran I did. He has a Forgeworld Resin Backpack, Space Wolves knife and some Space Marine Scout belt accessories. Some minor green-stuffing and I came up with the above.
This guy is one of my favourites. He has a Space Marine scanner for something different, and the armour plate he is resting on was just some platicard, melted with a lighter to look battle-damaged (kids and accident-prone people, make sure there's an adult around!) and some rivets added from chopped up styrene rod. The meltagun nozzle is some styrene pipe, because when I was drilling out the barrel the bit snapped off and I had to destroy the original gun to get it out. Lesson learned...
This guy was just for a bit of fun. He's the token 'crazy guy in the squad of battle-hardened troops'. You know the one...
Anyway, I hope you like them - I certainly enjoyed converting them up! As always, thanks for looking and watch this space!
