Confederate Cadians, and a few more Squats.

Just a quick update on a couple of WIP projects.

The first is what to do with my Warhammer 40k Cadians. I had planned to convert them up into a carapaced veteran force to go with my Praetorians, giving them pith helmeted heads. However, I thought I would do something different.

After trying out a couple of different head swaps and test models over time, I found the Kromlech Confederate heads pack. So I decided to try out doing a Confederate inspired force from the American Civil War.

The Cadian army I have is small, about 65 miniatures, and so will be a force of veteran squads and a HQ choice, with borrowed tanks/sentinels/etc from the Praetorian army. Being blue/grey, the tanks will fit in with the Confederates. I would like to do some Confederate Sentinels and some Rough Riders eventually.

Why Confederates and not the Union?
Well the grey looks nice, and as the army is a small veteran army, there is plenty of scope for making them more individual and characterful. Sky blue trousers, and the occasional butternut colour will add to the colourful mix, and also there seems to be more scope for the 'ragged confederate' look of extra blanket rols, pouches, and equipment. Regular Union troops, beyond the Zouves etc, look duller to paint. I will add some of the bareheaded Cadian heads and metal heads along with the Kromlech ones.
As an army, I don't plan on finishing them or even starting them soon, the aim was to get a good idea of a plan, then pick it up when I have finished other projects.


The other WIP are the Squats.
I spent an hour or so sifting through bits boxes and found a variety of Squat arms, heavy weapons, and enough bits for four chaos exo-armoured Squats and another bike. Also, as Squats can be equipped with a lot of heavy weapons, I have converted up several of the plastic Squats to carry heavy bolters, whilst some those with the 'heavy weapon arm' carry spare metal weapons.

I only really need a few odds and ends to finish the army, then just have to paint them. I will probably go for the Classic Mjolnir Brotherhood scheme as the brown and green test model I did seemed a little dull.

Of course, both these armies really need to take a back seat as I am still in theory painting Wood Elves! I will get back to those at the weekend. 

Three head swapped Cadians.

I have gone for a mix of trouser colours to give that 'on campaign' look. I painted the armour metallic as grey made them look too bulkyand the heads look too small (which they are'nt), and to give a lower tech feel to them. Might 'muddy-up' the boots too.

Front and back.

 The backpack is from a batch I purchased Gripping Beasts WW1 range.

One of the two packs of Kromlech heads I bought from e-bay.

You get two sprues of the one above. 

They are made from a resin, not too brittle or soft. The sculpting and detail is excellent and there were no bubbles or miscasts.

My only problem is the head on the left has a monocle, which is I feel characterful if you have one or two in an army, but silly if more.  I plan on either drilling it out, or green stuffing one in the other eye to make spectacles, or building it up more to make a targeter eye piece.

Squats. 
Heavy Plasma gun and Conversion Beamer conversions onto plastic Squats.

The Conversion Beamer conversion has the 'heavy weapon arm' I mentioned earlier.

It might look unwieldy but back in Rogue Trader many forces, including Squats, had heavy weapon  suspensors, tiny anti-grav devices, to take the weight of the weapons. 

Guild master and Heavy Bolter trooper. 

I have used plastic arms from the Rogue Trader era Eldar Guardians to give a bionic look to them. They are about the same Squat arms. The Plasma pistol is an old one from the same era.

Exo-armoured Squats. 

I found few bits of both Chaos and Loyal parts and think that they might be ok to stand-in as loyal Squats. The left arm on the one on the left is a loyal Squat arm. The arms on the other two were broken chaos arms I have repaired them with bits from the time, and will remove the star of Chaos from their shoulder pads. The power fist on the centre one is an old Ork one from the 1990 plastic box set. He was missing part of his tencled horns and so I cut them off anyway to give a cleaner, less Chaos look!

They will look better when painted. :)

The next blog update should be some more Wood Elves. I have also been asked to explain how I have done thier bases so will add that too.