Some pictures and Reflection

So I've been playing with guard for a little while now, luckily I started collecting around the right time of year and was lucky enough to receive a Lord Commissar, Cadian Battleforce and my beloved Valkyrie model. Some pictures will follow but first I will be taking a quick look back on the first portion of my venture out in flak armour.

I have, thus far, only played one battle with my guard, which I won but I feel this victory is hollow without following it up with further experience. My opponent was seriously unlucky with his armour saves and although I'm confident my tactics were sound, I'd like to test my men out on a larger variety of foes. What the battle did teach me is that redundancy is an important part of the guard, nothing is strong enough to be the only unit in the army capable of it's job, a rogue krak missile nearly took out my melta veterans' transport which would have resulted in a very different game as the ability to have a roaming squad of BS4 men firing 3 STR 8 AP 1 shots was very useful.

Another thing I have learned is that guard is fun, I have recently joined a forum for the Imperial guard and it is genuinely the most fun I have had speaking to people about the hobby in a long while. The variety and versatility of the miniatures is just part of the fun and maybe it's the change from power armoured giants after fifteen years, but I am thoroughly enjoying my conscription!

All in all this Imperial Guard is definitely one of the most under-rated armies in the game, the 5+ armour save on normal humans, no different than modern day armies but for a few futuristic tech pieces is easily over looked, but the might of many marching boots is not to be sniffed at.

The Lycerians of the 133rd 

Lieutenant-Commander Jackson R. Bellis

Veteran Guardsman O'Grady, still in last night's drag make up.

The Comedian and his heavy flamer counted for 8 Space marine scout kills!

Veteran Sergeant Badass and his friends Mr. Shotgun and Senior Powerfist

My Valkyrie, Rogue 1, will take a close up of the side art at some point soon. 

Result of the battle and WIP shotgun veterans

So it's been a while since I last posted and have a little bit to update on. I've been quite busy with work but did manage to get a quick battle in with 500 points of my Lycerians, which I won! A good start to the Imperial Guard, I played a space marine player who, after five turns of my chimera mounted melta veterans turning his transport and men into slag and my plasma equipped ccs blasting anything that survived apart my opponent unconditionally surrendered after realising there was no way he could wipe me off the three out of four objectives which I had hunkered down in.

My next project is to convert all my melta veterans in to shotgun wielding, meltabomb toting, demo charge throwing killing machines. Everyone except the special weapons have been given a shotgun and meltabombs with a backpack and over the next week or so I hope to craft some "Assault armour" for them (still counts as flak armour but will make them look cooler, like veterans should.)
Heres a couple of pictures of them so far;

The full Squad

Sergeant Marston and his Powerfist

Another shot of the serge 

My custom built Demo Charge

Demo Charge guy from front

The Two Backpack types I've used (From the HWS sprue)

Have a happy New Year Everyone

Lycerian High Command

First Blood.

I've nearly finished painting my initial 500 point force (well a bit over actually) and pictures will be up soon. I've finished work for a few days over christmas so my first game with the Lycerians is drawing near and on the 27th of december they will march to war against a space marine army of similar proportions, I will of course give an update (with pictures) afterwards but for now I will leave you with the two army lists and a taste of the battle to come. History will be written by the victor, so not only the lycerian's lives but their reputation as loyal servants to the emperor is on the line.

Lycerian 133rd

HQ

Company command squad
Vox caster
2x Plasma Guns
Medic


TROOPS

1st Platoon

Platoon Command squad

Power Sword
Bolt Pistol
Vox Caster
Platoon Standard
Flamer
Meltagun


Infantry Squad 1
Vox
Grenade Launcher

Infantry Squad 2
Vox
Flamer

Veteran Squad
Vox
2x Meltaguns
1x Flamer
Grenadiers

Chimera "old lupus"
Heavy stubber
Multilaser
heavy bolter



The Astartes Renegades (in my oppinion atleast)

HQ

Chaplain

Troops
5 man Tactical squad
Powerfist
meltabombs

5 man Scout squad
Power sword

Elites - (I know, audacity)
Dreadnaught
extra armour

Razorback
Lascannon

So thats the forces, here's the background;

The Lycerian 133rd were called to the planet of Hallow in response to the uprising of the people there, eventually progressing to the planet declaring itself a free state. With the fate of their homeworld still fresh in their minds and the inquisition keeping close watch on the regiment, they were desperate to prove their loyalty. Colonel Ammidae dispatched his forces without hesitation and the 133rd soon found themselves hard pressed to secure a beachhead. The first company found themselves in the thickest of the short range firefighting with the unexpected foe of the Astartes of the mail hammer chapter.
Attempts had been made to make contact the marines but all had been answered by bursts of bolter fire. Convinced the astartes had turned renegade Colonel Ammidae had authorised his regiment to engage....

  Another three bolts hit straight above his head and exploded, tearing gauges into the wall behind him. Jackson watched as the marines moved faster than he thought possible with all that power armour encasing them, darting from cover to cover, stemming the night wolves' advance with precise bursts of bolter fire. He watched from his cover as Kurtis' squad was blown to bloody ribbons by the traitors, Jackson Rhys Bellis had been a sergeant in the days of the Lycerian 5th but now he was a lieutenant in the 133rd and with his veteran platoon he had laid snare mines along the path the marines were now treading, he watched carefully as the first one stepped past the trip wire, then as the seconds' armoured boot came into contact with it. "Now!" he yelled to his men, who as one, stood up from their cover and fired their weapons at the renegades, engulfing them in precise las fire and plasma bolts as the snare mines tripped and blew two of the enemy apart. The marines returned fire, cutting down Jackson's squad to three men and himself, but the plasma blasts tore through the last astartes before any more loyalists could die.
Turning to the east he saw captain Rowley torn apart by a space marine chaplain, his command squad butchered to a man. Turning to his men, he ordered a message to be sent to all survivors to rally around them. They would wrest this beach head from the Heretics with the only currency left available to them, good honest human blood....

Will let you know how the battle goes.

Thought for the day; Idleness begets doubt, doubt begets heresy. Know thy place and sing praise to him on earth.

Lycerian High Command

The Night Wolves

In the lower cities and under hives of Lyceria, the people speak of a beast that stalks the shadows at night, hunting it's prey through the streets and then leaping from the darkness to tear it's victim apart. This is the night wolf, the beast of legend from whom the first company of the 133rd take their name. The company earned it's nickname from the war for brogue's gambit, a planetary system overrun with Orks. After a series of bloody battles in which the 133rd and their allies were continuously pushed back by the green skins, Imperial strategists tried a new tactic and led the Orks to Brogue IV where it was hoped that the Imperial Guard regiments would hopefully die slowly enough for a space marine strike force of the venerators chapter to kill warlord 'ead chompa' and his retinue without any meaningful resistance from the ork horde.
    Out of the seventeen regiments sent to Brogue IV only 3 survived the initial assault on the capital, Charith. With the planetary defence forces' garrison as their last bastion, the remnants of the Lycerian 133rd, the Mordian 567th and the Ruskan 7th bolstered the defences in preparation of the final Ork push, but the 1st company of the 133rd were not willing to let the all out Ork wave sweep them off the face of existence, and so, passing it by the commissars and Colonel Ammidae, captain rowley led his company into the ruins of Charith at night fall.
   For six days the 1st company would strike at the Orks from the shadows, always taking care to destroy something vital to their attempted assault on the pdf garrison and thus delay the Orks from doing so. They would only ever strike at night and a great fear soon took over the ork's primitive minds, they whispered that a great, fire breathing beast would come out at night to "kill any of da boyz wat it findz and chomp on der bones". Eventually, the 1st company had a covert supply line and comm links set up with the garrisson of Charith, keeping them abreast of their activities, always careful to stay hidden during the day, going out at night to torch the orks out of the city with flamers.
   After a further week of the guerrilla style of warfare, the Lycerians finaly broke the waaaaagh! Coming across a camp of about two hundred orks, and knowing by now the basic workings of the orks' mind, captain rowley and his company spent three hours taking out the camps' sentries with silent attacks and then led his men in a mass assassination, slitting every green skinned throat bar one, a random ork that rowley had ordered saved for a purpose he would not reveal.
   When the ork awoke to find it's entire warband dead, it ran away to find it's warboss as rowley had anticipated. As news of the beast wot nawz on bonez' latest attack spread through the assembled orks, they began to terrify themselves, shooting at shadows, and each other thinking that the beast would come for them. After a covert communique from rowley, Colonel Ammidae led the remaining pdf and guard forces in an all out assault on the green skins' position forcing them towards the outskirts of the city, into carefully prepared positions. The 1st company lay in wait, flamers at the ready. Jumping out of their locations as the orks were driven before the unexpected imperial guard onslaught, the 1st company let out howls and fired flamers into the xenos ranks time after time until only the warboss and his retinue stood defiant between the jaws of the two forces. Not wishing to get bogged down with needless losses and fighting, rowley ordered his men to fire upon the beastial warboss with all they have. Several thousand las bolts filled the air along with several flamer, grenade and plasma blasts, tearing the remaining orks apart.
  From then on the waaaaagh! lost it's momentum and without ead chompa to lead them they were easy prey for the imperial guard and the space marines to finish off. The 1st company was to be known as the night wolves and the 133rd were moved on to their next war zone.

More Background

A bit more background on my Lycerians while I wait for my paint to dry.

The Lycerian 5th Infantry regiment and the Lycerian 133rd are intricately linked, for all intents and purposes they are the same, for their history is one continuous line.

It was in 986.M41 that the Lycerian 5th, a long standing regiment from Lyceria fought a long and terrible war in the Therrum system to rid the area of barbaric orks. When the war was done, the guardsmen of the 5th waited for a new posting. Hanging in space, the navy transporters were a prison to the Lycerians, one they couldn't bear. On the fifth day the astropaths on board all received a desperate plea for aid, it came from Lyceria.
Twelve weeks later and with numerous unsuccessful attempts at establishing contact with the planet, the Lycerian regiments' transports broke from the warp. What they found shocked them to the core, the towering hab blocks and factory stacks were cast down and burning, the streets were filled with blood and the people, their families, were dying. The Lycerian governor had denounced the imperium and announced that Lyceria was his and his alone. The common people had revolted and in responce the governor and his nobles unleashed the full might of their private armies against the loyal subjects of the Emperor.
The 5th immediately made planetfall and established a landing zone where re-enforcements could be brought in and a forward base could be set up, all under the watchful eye of their commanding officer, Lord General Cormack. Cormack didn't rest at his beach head, he sent out astropathic calls for re-enforcements and then set about reclaiming Lyceria from the hands of the governors private armies. In the battles that followed, it became clear that not only had these men turned from the emperor but they had found a new master to serve. They proclaimed his name in the streets as they charged head first into volleys of las fire from the fifth, they hailed praise to their god as they slew the emperors' faithful citizens; Blood for the Blood God was their cry.
Cormack led his men with cunning and used the traitors own bloodlust to his advantage, using the angled streets and carefully planned lines of fire, the lord general used his own men as bait to draw the governors' armies out of cover and into the waiting guns of his men. The war was bloody but as more and more regiments were drawn in the tide eventually turned in the loyalists' favour.
With full control of the vast cities within his grasp, Lord General Cormack turned to the storming of the Governors' palace, once a testament to the power of mankind and their immortal Emperor, now a charnel house where the screams of the innocent could be heard over the dark prayers to Khorne. Cormack would not let it stand. Assuming control over a force of thirty four regiments from across the sector, the Lycerian 5th and their commander led the assault. Forcing their way through after a precision timed artillery strike, the sheer weight of numbers beat down the defences and allowed the Lycerians to gain entry to the palace of blood.
Inside, horrors unimagined were met with courage and a bayonet, leading his men from the front was Cormack, bellowing orders and firing off shots with his plasma pistol. His mens' timed volleys of las fire brought down wave after wave of traitors and slowly and at a steep cost in lives, they made their way to the throne room. There, in the centre stood the thing that was once governor Veil and his nobles, all of them warped by creatures of the immaterium, red skinned and horned, muscles protruding at odd angles, the things were an amalgamation of human flesh and tainted spirit made visible.
Never faltering, Cormack ordered his men to form ranks as the beasts began to charge, when the volleys of las fire failed he ordered a bayonet wall and when that was swept away he led his men in a counter attack. Eventually, though they took scores of guardsmen down, each monstrosity was brought down. Cormack was laid low in those last few minutes by the demon governor as he drove his power sword through things chest, a great unearthly axe cleaved the general from shoulder to hip.
After thirteen terran months, the war for Lyceria was won, but only a relative handful of soldiers from the 5th remained alive. After burying their commander, the Lycerian 5th infantry waited to learn of their fate. The value of these men was not overlooked and the remnants of the 5th were reassigned to start a new regiment, forming the core of officers and veterans in the newly founded Lycerian 133rd and dispatched under the command of colonel Ammadae to bring the Emperors' light to rebels and xenos across the segmentum.

Paint scheme

Just a few pictures of my commander, platoon lieutenant and my Chimera "Old Lupus"
Will add some more when I've finished my infantry, enjoy!

Fluffdate

So I think I've finally got a decent colour scheme for my guard. I'll upload a picture as soon as the wife remembers where she's left the card reader. For those of you who can't wait it's a pretty simple yet effective scheme, the armour is a base coat of ultramarines blue, a wash of midnight blue ink a highlight of ultramarines blue with progressive highlights using 2:2 mix of Ultramarine blue and electric blue working up to a 1:3 and finally pure electric blue on the edges. The cloth bits are just the black under coat with grey trim and a quick dry brushing of 1:2 chaos black and fortress grey.

The extra attention and details will only be strictly adhered to on my officers and their squads as otherwise it will be extra long painting which i find can suck the fun out of an army. On to the real reason I'm posting; a bit of fluff on my regiment and the 1st infantry company - the night wolves. I'm sure you all know that it's a lot more fun to play when theres some underpinning narrative to your army, when your characters mean something to you its a lot more dramatic when they face down the enemy in an epic duel or die to an unexpected volley of fire.

   Lyceria is somewhat of an oddity amongst the planets of the galaxy, a night world of average size covered in densely packed hab blocks and towers. The equatorial belt contains a wasteland of sorts, too radioactive for humans to live, it is home to various mutants, degenerates and worst of all, warp spawn. Lyceria's oddity comes from the fact that it does not orbit a star but a black hole, caught in a localised warp rift. The two stellar anomalies seem to keep each other at bay, the black hole still able to draw light towards it but unable to effect the material universe in any other meaningful way. The warp storm on the other hand is kept from growing and devouring the Lycerian system by the effects of the black hole on the ethereal plane. Scans of Pitch, as the anomaly has come to be known, have revealed the possibility of something hidden at the centre of both the black hole and the warp storm. Adeptus mechanicus have denounced it as an impossibility, but anyone who see's the infra picts and psyker prints can't deny the glimmer of something hidden within the depths. An answer may lie with the ancient Eldar, whom call the anomaly 'Il'thair Noori' - the prison of darkness, to the people of Lyceria, it is unimportant, to them it is merely the dark star.

    The people of Lyceria live in dense hab blocks and crowded slums, making a living in the ebonite mines that pock the planets' surface. Ebonite is a rare material, it exists in both the warp and realspace simultaneously, it is exceptionally responsive to psykers and is vital for the construction of gellar field generators. If it wasn't for the Ebonite tithes and the regiments' raised there, it is likely that Lyceria would be left to rot. The Lycerian regiments themselves are invaluable to the imperium, they are masters of urban warfare and thanks to their home world, some of the most successful night fighters in the galaxy. Lacking in the huge artillery batteries and siege weapons of some regiments, the Lycerians prefer Valkyrie insertions and chimera redeployment tactics to pounding the enemy to the ground with shells. That is not to say that Lycerian regiments lack the firepower the Imperial Guard is famed for and several armour regiments are active, fielding Leman Russ battle tanks and even mighty baneblades should the need arise.
    Once inside an enemy city, the Lycerian ethos is simple, march through the streets and blast anything that stands in your way off the face of the map. Veteran squads tear through the streets in chimera transports, melting and burning away blockades and defences, grounding infantry under tread and lighting up the night with white hot plasma shots. Infantry swarms forward, flamers and grenade launchers razing enemy command posts to the ground, massed lasgun volleys at short range tearing enemy units apart. This is the Lycerian way of war, their brutal efficiency is terrifying to behold and it is impossible to stop their advance, the lycerian regiments have won many honours and many wars fighting like this.


So that's a brief background of Lyceria and her regiments, will get more up specifically to do with the night wolves soon, for now I will be painting up my force in anticipation of my battle after christmas and getting some pictured up here soon.

Thought of the day: Blessed is the mind too small for doubt.

Lycerian High Command