Cadian 77th Expeditionary Force, (WIP) Army Thread

To get feedback from you all, and also to keep me motivated, I've decided to create this army thread. Here goes!

Cadian 77th Expeditionary Force - "The Lost Ones"

The Cadian 77th EF was deployed to the agri world of Ordantas approximately 160 years ago, in response to a daemonic incursion which threatened the local population. Ordantas is located at close proximity to the Eye of Terror, and a subsequent shifting of the warp rendered all contact with the world lost shortly after the 77th first engaged the enemy.

Only recently was contact re-established with the world, and a surprise awaited the Imperial forces sent to investigate. Expecting to find a long-dead world, they instead discovered a thriving human population locked in a permanent, and a century-and-a-half old, war with the forces of Chaos. These fighters were the descendants of the original Cadian forces, who had integrated with the local population once it became apparent that they were isolated from the rest of the Galaxy, and all hope for a return to their home seemed lost.

The soldiers of today's 77th are eighth generation fighters. Born and raised on the front lines of a war from which they know no respite, the 77th are natural soldiers – after all, those who cannot fight, cannot survive. Laspistols and combat knives are the toys given to children; bolters and power weapons are as important to Ordantan daily life as food and water. In their isolation, these soldiers have developed tactics and abilities which suit their situation, but which have diverged from their Cadian forebears. However, they retain their original unit designation in acknowledgment of their origins.

Ordantas therefore proves a perfect recruiting ground for the Imperial Guard, and forces are regularly taken from this world to combat the enemies of the Imperium throughout the Galaxy. The 77th have seen action in every environment, against every enemy, and have become known throughout the Galaxy for their determination and courage. The 77th are justifiably proud of their regiment's history, although they are not favoured with either equipment or assignments over their fellow Imperial Guard regiments.

Over a century of warfare has reduced the surface of Ordantas entirely to dirt and mud, crisscrossed by an extensive and permanent trench network. Frequent snow prevents large areas of quagmire from ever drying out. Below the surface lie the living areas for the Ordantan population, and the soldiers of the 77th EF have become expert tunnelers – this ability allows them to launch surprise attacks from anywhere within the enemy's lines.

Their proximity to the forces of Chaos means that it is not uncommon for the 77th to be deployed with detachments from the Ordo Malleus, although it is not made clear whether this is primarily to aid the 77th in battle, or to ensure that they are not corrupted by the denizens of the Warp. Either way, when deployed together, they form an effective fighting force.

While the future of the individual soldiers of the Cadian 77th Expeditionary Force is never sure, the price that they have paid in lives ensures that their unit will go down in Imperial records as one of the finest Imperial Guard units to have been fielded on the modern battlefield.

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Current 1500 point army list:

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Let me know what you think!
- FD

This post has been edited by Frag_Dad on Nov 4 2009, 10:56 PM

OK now for some pictures! (Apologies for the shadows, I was finding it hard to get good lighting tonight)

Here's my first Guardsman - he's the first mini I've ever painted so I'm quite attached to him However, the more I look at him the more I see that needs touching up...





From the background I've come up with, these guys are from a muddy world - think the Somme covering an entire world. Gives some good modelling opportunities with the barbed wire etc.

Here's the second guy I ever painted - note the reversed paint scheme for this guy. The grey armour and blue fatigues will be done for the command squads, while the rank and file will be painted like the first Guardsman.

OK now for the faces - this has been the most frustrating part of my painting, but I've simplified the process thanks to advice from some friends

Here's the 'old' style face on the 2nd Guardsman:



I really wasn't happy with it, so I spent a couple of days practising a 3-tone flesh painting technique. While it looked OK when it worked, it was a bit hit-and-miss and far too time consuming. I've now decided on a simple undercoat with Devlan Mud wash, which brings out the detail and is quick (and mostly idiot-proof!):



I think if I do it carefully, I can get away without needing highlighting. I'll probably go back and do the eyes later.

Here's how it looks on a finished trooper (my first one, which I went back and redid):



I probably wasn't as careful here as I should have been, as I didn't get the same amount of light-dark range as on the model above. Nevertheless, I'm pretty happy with it.

Oh, I should mention here that I'm doing all of this with a mind to entering tournaments beginning in a month, so I'm trying to make things look good but not spending hours on individual models.

Here's a model I tried to do with a custom base - a flamer Guardsman walking along duckboards sunk in mud. It's a bit hard to see now, but hopefully it'll come up OK when it's painted:



Here's where I'm at now with my army:





And here's what I have left to build to get to 1000pts - to begin with I'll include a borrowed Grey Knights army to take it up to larger army lists for tournaments, and I'll slowly replace that with Guard as I build and paint it:



I'll try and update this once I make some reasonable progress, so keep checking back!

-FD

EDIT - I will just say that I probably won't get much more painting done in the immediate future. I'm right in the middle of a South Australian summer, and the 40+ Celcius temperature makes it difficult to paint when the paint dries on your brush between the palette and the model!

This post has been edited by Frag_Dad on Jan 26 2009, 10:24 AM

These look really good! I like the blue/grey color scheme. What technique did you use for the snow on the model bases?

Cheers The snow is actually just the GW snow flock stuff - for the first guy, I wanted light snow so I left the ground underneath brown, and put some PVA down and sprinkled it with snow. For the second guy, I wanted it to look like heavier snow so I painted the underlying ground a very light grey, then covered it in glue and dunked it in the flock.

looking fine.
fantastic job on those models and fluff of your army.

how durable would you say the snow flock is? I need to model snow on about 70 models for my army and i don't want to have little white flakes everywhere i go

Cheers MurlocMage!

As for the snow Deveran, it seems to be pretty good - I used plenty of PVA, and after giving it a good shaking off and letting it dry the flock stays on pretty well as far as I can tell

The base on the top Guardsman is really neat! I like the color scheme you've got going on here- it isn't the standard, vanilla Cadian 8th, and it will probably look amazing once all that is finished.

Have to say that i rellay like the color scheme choices. The alternate/reverse scheme for the command squads looks like a great idea here.

Cheers guys! I'm hoping the reversed colour scheme will look good once I have full squads painted up. We'll have to wait and see!

Like I thought, no painting today - we reached over 45 degrees Celsius, so I feel like I'm about to melt... In any case it forced me to build some more, which is what i really need to do (if you can see in the previous pics, I still don't even have a playable force!).

Anyway, the rather boring bit is that I have 1 lascannon and all the tripods I need for now cleaned (although if you keep an eye on this, you'll probably realise that I take ages to scrape mould lines off things, so for me it's quite a lot of work):



Now I've decided to magnetise the loaders for the heavy weapons teams, so that when they are killed I can take them off the base separately and not have to muck around with wound markers etc. I went and bought a Citadel drill, but when I got home realised that its chock doesn't hold 3mm bits - the size of my magnets Not to be beaten, I unsuccessfully tried to grind down the diameter of the shaft of a 3mm bit to fit, and almost copped a drill bit in the face for my efforts.

In the end i used a dremel to cut the bit in half. With some superglue and a flathead nail, I got this:



which easily fits into the hobby drill :



With the superglue left overnight to dry, it seems reasonably solid (although I don't want to go drilling too much metal with it) and I can drill perfect magnet holes in things - e.g. cadian boots :



Just to prove these magnets are nice and strong, here's a couple holding up the Citadel modelling tool (nothing here is glued, just a magnet on both the top and bottom of the base holding each other):



Magic!

Anyway, hopefully will have something more substantial to show soon - keep an eye on it!

-FD

Base detail rocks, you did an excellent job on it.

Nice work on the color combo as well. Also the great thing about the guard is you have a lot of flak to remove. So if you can paint, you can always clean off the mold line . Hell I know because that is one of the main thing I have been doing while the temp around here is at or below 25 deg.

Hey all, just a quick update to let you know things are still moving along! No new pictures as yet, but I'm frantically trying to get things built - my hands are starting to hurt from all the mould line removal! Hopefully in the next week or two I'll have some real progress to report on!

Cheers,

-FD

I hear you about the mold lines. I really got one hell of a nasty batch of guard from GW awhile back.