The Imperial Guard
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| My Imperial Army for Horus Heresy! |
Warhammer Horus Heresy 3rd Edition has recently been released, and it has motivated me to finish up my dream army, Imperialis Militia! However, I will just be referring to my force as the good ole' Imperial Army.
When I first started playing Warhammer 40k back in the days of 3rd Edition, the Imperial Guard were my army. I was just a junior high kid with no money trying to scrap together enough miniatures to make an army. Plastic Catachans, metal Cadians, Steel Legion and even Mordians made of my infantry. While a few precious (because of their cost) Leman Russes and Chimeras filled out the heavy support choices. I even had to use an Inquisitor in my army just to have enough points to play a standard game. The armies I took to a few local tournaments could not have been less optimized or competitive, even if I tried! But boy did I have fun.
Over the years new units were added in as I picked up updated releases, but the army always was a weird Frankenstein's monster of units. Then when my interest in playing 40k ended I sold most of my armies, but I could never let go of my Imperial Guard, or as they were retconned, Astra Militarum.
Other games pushed out 40k for a long time, but then when the Horus Heresy game was released, I was interested, as I enjoyed the lore for that time period. By this point the miniature gaming hobby aspect far outweighed my interest in actually playing, so the more narrative and hobby-based nature of the Horus Heresy game was just what I wanted. I slowly modded a Raven Guard army with Space Marine plastics and the occasional Forgeworld bits, but I've never been the biggest fan of the gene enhanced, brainwashed super soldiers. I love the regular baseline human standing there against the most horrendous monsters in the universe, with an old rifle and bayonet!
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| Teenage me wouldn't be able to image this! |
I picked up the Horus Heresy Book Five - Tempest when it came out and all the excitement of looking through the 3rd Edition Imperial Guard book came back when I saw the Militia and Cults list. It was made for customizing and creating a unique army of just regular people in the most catastrophic war imaginable. I got to work, a unit of 10 Grenadiers and 3 Ogryns were painstakingly converted from various GW plastics before other things pushed that project to the backburner.
Since this has already been too long, I'll fast forward to Horus Heresy 2nd Edition and how I really got into the game full on then. My Imperial Fists, grew from nothing to one of my most complete, and fully realized armies with the great plastics GW released, and my own 3D printer! I learned a lot about building up a large army and finishing it in a timely fashion (instead of getting sidetracked with other projects). At the end of 2nd Edition HH I started on my dream project of a massive Imperial Army force (using the Imperialis Militia rules) based on Nfeyma's incredible tanks, and the Valour Korps from The Makers Cult. This force would be based on a French DLM from World War II. So, a heavily mechanized force with plenty of tanks. One of the main things for me is that the miniatures and paint scheme be consistent from start to finish.
And now that I have their updated list in 3rd Edition, and it doesn't lose any of the fun, quirky options, I can finish things!
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| A unit of Grenadiers with shotguns. |
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| Ogryn's with power mauls and shields. |
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| A second unit of Ogryns. |
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| Lots of Lascannon gun teams. |
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| These were finished for 2nd edition, where they were better. |
