Feudal Guard Blog (Updated January 10th)

[Macfeegle]

fishspit - at no point did I mention the word terrible in relation to your army. I said that until it was easier to determine what was what, is was not acceptable as a 'counts-as' army.

Currently you appear to have two meltagunners both armed with different weapons, one a revolving barrel, the other an 'established' meltagun. I have no objection which you choose, but I personally don't see how you can include both. This is what I mean by 'visual cues'. If I look up and see a revolving barrel, and you have told me that it is a meltagun, I know what I am facing, regardless of which model or unit is carrying it.

I am not sure why you raised the issue of missile launcher/cannon, however if all cannons 'count-as' missile launchers in your army that reinforces my above point.

I also note how you 'snipped' the middle of the quote you used from me where I again offer you constructive advice to advancing your army. Whilst I have no problem with you 'cherry-picking' I would ask that when you ask me how I suggest you make them more like guardsmen, you actually include the piece where I mention it.

robertm - You seemed unaware of the STC which is why I answered your question.
I didn't realise that the question you were actually asking was about using alternative models. Again I state (and this can be for everyone) that I have no problem with 'counts-as' models or vehicles, I even mentioned conversions by members of this community in a previous post.

Gabriel Lupus - To address only the 'cherry=picked' issue, and I think I addressed some of it in the first part of this post, it is about visual cues.
I want a quick, fun game. I don't want to constantly be asking what that unit is armed with, I want to be able to quickly look up, assess threat and make my moves, plans, etc.
Seeing crossbows and muskets representing the same weapon, a lasrifle, does not sit comfortably with me. If you are using a 'counts-as' weapon, especially in a change of this magnitude for a feudal world, then there needs to be the consistency.

Most players by now are familiar with the shotguns, and also lasgun conversions representing shotguns. What Fishspit is proposing is something completely different to that and therefore it requires more thought and work to get it right.

For example, say you were to take all the miniatures currently available to the Empire range and then 'map' them onto the IG weapons list first that would give a framework to build the army around.
Hangunners could form the 'core' guardsmen for example, mortars to mortars, hellblaster could be an Autocannon, Rocket battery could be missile launchers, cannon could be lascannon. The revolving guns could be Heavy Bolters. The characteristics and visual cues the weapons provide would form the basis for the mental link back to the 40K equivalent.

Telling someone that this 'counts-as' that is great, but if the mental link cannot be formed then it is likely to impact on the gameplay an the enjoyment of the game and the inter-player experience.

robertm - if you came to a store in my neighbourhood with bottle tops or coins for miniatures, we would lend you an army to play with. If you wished to continue to play with bottle tops and cardboard boxes, I am sure there are places that cater to that.

Read back through my posts before you criticise me, or my LGS, on 'counts-as' because it does happen frequently and I provided examples to it.
Finally RobertM, Fishspit posted his miniatures up here for comments. I echoed the comments of many posters before me, added constructive advice, and made the point that as it stood it was not playable at my LGS. That is the thing that seems to have caused the majority of the consternation on this board.
Throughout the course of this discussion I have been consistent in my position, and have offered input as I would expect the community to do were the situation reversed.

Edited for typos - apologies for the long post.

[fishspit]

Jul 10, 2010 22:14:17 GMT -5 Macfeegle said:

fishspit - at no point did I mention the word terrible in relation to your army. I said that until it was easier to determine what was what, is was not acceptable as a 'counts-as' army.

I know you didn't come out and say it, but you vehemently insisted that it was not a playable army, which is just about the same thing.

Currently you appear to have two meltagunners both armed with different weapons, one a revolving barrel, the other an 'established' meltagun. I have no objection which you choose, but I personally don't see how you can include both. This is what I mean by 'visual cues'. If I look up and see a revolving barrel, and you have told me that it is a meltagun, I know what I am facing, regardless of which model or unit is carrying it.

I was going for the visual cue being "glowey red bitz on gun with backpack" for meltagun to be honest, but I can understand where you are coming from. However, If I were to tell you that the glowing "revolving barrel" thing is a meltagun, and so is this actual meltagun, i don't think there would be a problem. It is a touch inconsistant, I'll admit, and I'm not completely sold on it yet myself, but the fact that it is an actual meltagun should help. The fact that it is the only specail weapon I plan on using cross my army should help as well. I think it is acceptable to say "here is my vetran squad in a valkirie, they have three meltagunners" and move on.

I am not sure why you raised the issue of missile launcher/cannon, however if all cannons 'count-as' missile launchers in your army that reinforces my above point.

I mentioned them becasue thats the only other notable "counts-as" gun in my army. And don't worry, all cannons will be missile launchers, I understand consistancy. I do have a few cases of "this and this is this" (crossbows and muskets are lasguns) but never a dual purpase gun, cut me some slack. I understand what you are saying, and i disagree. The fact of the matter is, most of my guys will have lasguns, and lasguns suck. And while I can see a bit of confusion at first when there are both crossbows and muskets on the field, a few words can clear that right up.

I am thinking of calling the crossbows shotguns however, becasue I do want to differentiate between my shotgun weilding vetrans and my lasgun toting grunts.

I also note how you 'snipped' the middle of the quote you used from me where I again offer you constructive advice to advancing your army. Whilst I have no problem with you 'cherry-picking' I would ask that when you ask me how I suggest you make them more like guardsmen, you actually include the piece where I mention it.

I am sorry if I misrepresented you, and I meant nothing by it.

[Gabriel Lupus]

So fishspit, would I be right in assuming:
*muskets are lasguns,
*crossbows are shotguns,
*none standardised handgun weapons (multibarrel guns, meltaguns, other similar backpack powered weapons) are meltaguns
*cannons are missile launchers

If so, that's more than simple enough to remember and probably self explanatory in game. With that covered (and hopefully put to bed for all parties) back to the army:

How goes the modelling/painting? Have you decided upon a captain model to lead the force? I went for the freelance knight on foot, but the new "duellists" models (especially the one with two pistols) could look very nice

[Macfeegle]

I feel you should pick one weapon for 'counts-as' and stick to it, as this has been explained in my previous posts I won't labour the point.

Jul 11, 2010 10:20:59 GMT -5 fishspit said:

Jul 10, 2010 22:14:17 GMT -5 Macfeegle said:

fishspit - at no point did I mention the word terrible in relation to your army. I said that until it was easier to determine what was what, is was not acceptable as a 'counts-as' army.

I know you didn't come out and say it, but you vehemently insisted that it was not a playable army, which is just about the same thing.

If I want to say something is terrible, I say it.
Instead I suggested your army as it stood was not playable at my LGS and then offered reasons as to why. I even went to great lengths to expand on this and added to the advice given by others.

If you want to talk about it further, how about you PM me instead then you can let your miniatures do the talking here?

[fishspit]

Right, I tire of this as well. I think we have made our positions quite clear Macfeegle, and I don't want to beat a dead horse.

And with that said, I return to my painting.

[nmoxey20]

Hi guys (and girls?), am new to the forum and wanted to introduce myself although the aim of this post isn't that, I love these models think they are ingenius, not my cup of tea but none-the-less ingenius and just to stick an oar in to people complaining about the muskets and old fashioned equipment thought I better just chuck in a little snippet I found in the codex:

[Pg 37 paragraph 2, GW IG codex] "...warriors don the armour and wargear native to their homeworlds - the only piece of armament common to all Imperial Guardsmen is the lasgun, and even then some regiments have been raised with only muskets, crossbows, or even spears."

That to me makes this a perfectly viable IG army and I would certainly like to see more of it on this thread as it develops. ;D
Thinking about it this probably wasn't a good first post. XD ;D

[fishspit]

UPDATE!

Alright all, I havn't died or given up yet. In fact, My fuedal guard are thriving! Anyway, somne actual interesting stuff going on now, I have around 500 points painted up (49 models at 500 points ). A whole buch more regular troopers, and then this beauty:


I did up a steam tank becasue I love the model, and it isn't really gurad without a little tankage. This is a pic of it in Banewolf mode (I figure the turret spits a superheated steam cloud or whatever, very hurty.) I'm particualrly proud of the heavy bolter in the hull mount.

And here She is in Collosus Mode:


I like the collosus a lot ruleswise, but the gun looks a touch weedy right now. I'm going to live with it for now, but If I do another one up I'll beef up the gun and use this as a griffon to support it. I think it's pretty reasonable though, it's not medusa or basilisk material for sure.

Also, I have two of my three cannon/missile launcher crews done. The third is done, but they all decided to come off their base just the other day.



Finally, my most recent project, I think I'm going to run some ogryns and outflank them wiht my creed standin (higher points games), and the ogre leadbelchers are pretty awesome looking IMO, so I did some up.


I got two more in the pipe, and the striped pants guy isn't quite done yet, but thats still progress.

I've moved my guys ina new direction as well, my old lists were kidna crappy and I could just feel the orkyness left over from my other army (orks in case you didn't pick it up.) I put the airship on hold as well as the Vetreans (no steampunk meltaguns anymore, no meltas, no vets, no ship, I'm kinda happier to keep it pure.) The shift led to a more "gunline" army with a counterattacking focus. Roughriders without mogul will be fighting, ogryns, and plenty of penal legionaires. The idea is to dull the enemy push and then take objectives making use of outflank.

One thing bugged me though, creed can outflank a unit right? Wrong. He can outflank any infantry or vehicle unit, meaning my roughriders are the ONE UNIT IN THE ENTIRE CODEX that can't outflank That would be awesome.

Anyway, C&C is encouraged.

[ElegaicRequiem]

Yay! He's not dead!

I like the tank, but I'm not sure about having it stand in for every chassis. Even if you still wanted to use that model, you should do different things to the hull itself for the different types of tanks.

And that's a interesting (read: infuriating) find about Creed. I guess there's room for improvement for everyone, even a tactical genius.

[fishspit]

Yeah, you'd think that a squadron of three lemun russes would be infinitly harder to outflank then five guys on horses. Actually, just about everything would be harder

As for the Chassis, they are both chimera based (hellhound's got the side armour going for it) so I figured it was alright, but I never see myelf using it as a hellhound varient so that really wont be too much of a factor. (I just wanted to paint it TBH) Looking at it now thouhg I might mod that turret into a hydra one...hmmm...

[robertm]

Complete surprise! Whoa. I like the painted models. I think you should do another wash on the Ogryns faces. Just so the recesses would show better. Aside from that. AWESOME.

[igdude]

I still think you can make these more futuristic. I mean right now they are very nicely painted, but they still feel too fantasy. I like what you did with the melta guns, and I think if you continued that effect, it would create an interesting army.

[monkeyrick]

I have to agree witht he genral concesous I love the paint scheme but they don't look 40K, its a question of range and firepower even the Munitorum would not send a guard regiment out equiped with antiquainted muskets (and crossbows??) even the orks have better tech!

Have you considered replacing the muskets with plastc las rifles, scoring some lines int them to simulate a wood effect and paintng them in a wood effect? this would fit the theme and 40k them up.

or

posibly adding the las clip under the musket??

[fishspit]

@ RobertM
Yeah, I'm fighting to give the skin bettter depth, I'm not used to apinting fleshtones on such a large area and so each ogryn is a different experiment in painting. The tricorn guy I think has far too pale a skintone, but I'm getting better.

igdude, Monkeyrick
I've heard that a lot, and I appriciate the input, but Im finding this level of fantasy perfect for my army. The idea is that these guys are NOT a Guard regiment, but rather the standing forces of a fuedal world represented with the guard codex. If they are a regiment though, you could always say they have las-locks (exactly what it sounds, a single shot, flintlock-style lasgun.) After all, they have these odd bone coloured tubes as reloads, could be powder could be las lock cartidges? I'm not sure how a las-lock is supposed to function to be honest.
Plus, I don't actually have all that many 40k guard bitz. And buying a box of guradsmen for the lasguns doesn't feel like an effective use of my (VERY limited) resources.

Anyway, slight update time. I finished off the striped pants ogryn, and touched up the tricorn one, and got to work on the third.

Striped:


Other: (still PiP)



I also took a few pics of squads I don't remeber posting before.
The sniper: (unfortunatly I made him BEFORE I decided to not have any snipers in my army, might just have to now.) Note the black and white varient sceme, It signifies that he is an engineer, unlike the blue and white rank and file riflemen.



The Platoon command squad filler, the blue and red denotes veteran status within the army. The flute is a vox, platoon commander will either be a Checkov counts as or a powerfist/warhammer weilding commander.


The Current Company standard, not the best paitnjob but he is due to be replaced soon, might become a platoon standard, but those are too many points for what they do IMO.

The replacment (so many people use this bit, but thats becasue it is SOOO awesome. ;D)


C&C wnated as always.

[monkeyrick]

I like the difference in uniform with the engineer to make hi stand out!

I actually like the sound of a las lock, possibly they load a single cell intothe breach of the musket rather than a full clip? Could work nicely with some green stuff piping coming out of the musket and into one of the puches on the models (which could contain the power pack for the gun) OR maybe a conversion for some fuedal Stormtroopers !

Ive put some thought into the crossbow armed guardsmen, and have come with two ideas:-
Conscripts - Not fully trained to use las - muskets
Penal troops - Not trusted with the longer range and firepower of a las musket.

A very intresting prject that I am looking foward to seeing more of.

[fishspit]

The crossbows are for my Penal legionaires, but the fluff doesn't have them as penal tropps, but rather as "rangers" if that means anything. I use them to outflank and try to take objectives (at least I worry the opponent.) So I figured that a musket would be too heavy and loud for infiltration. Plus i ran out of muskets before I made those guys, so crossbows it was!

Minor update, I (somehow) won second in my FLGS painting competition for the two finished ogryns and the steam tank. I really was suprised by the steam tank, as there was an amazing landraider that really should have won, oh well, regardless, no prizes for 2nd :\ But a good time.

[fishspit]

Ahh, the perfect interval for everyone to forget about me and BOOM! :oFishspit's Fuedal Guard are back imn you face demanding attention! Complete with the classic microupdates, misspellings form trying to type too fast wiht two fingers, and general ramblings...

No real significant progress since the last post, got a bit done to show with pics..but mostly I just took them off the shelf and started the project again.

First off, I polished off my first heavy weapons squad, all that remains is the base on the final cannon.


Finished the ogryns.


Detail on the bone 'ead, I really like how this guy turned out. The ogre models are a lot of fun...and the best part is, this squad has let me get out my urge to paint ogres without starting another army! I might do ogres someday anyway, or an ogryn-nob army someday. I don't know.





My creed standin built from the steam tank engineer, no idea how to do the little hourglass on his belt though. Shoes are still black also, but he is getting there.



And finally my either astropath/master of the fleet/commissar/master of ordnace whenever I need a badass enough model guy. Usually my astropath though. Originally built to be captain of the goldfische, he is one of my favorite models thus far.



And thats all I got for now folks. Feel free to insult comment and ciritcize. The next expansion has got some more rangers (penal legion), mortars for the squads, cannon, and more ablative wound guardsmen lined up. Oh, and a hydra or two, but don't expect that soon.

[Rolling Thunder]

Personally, I think it needs more conversion work. That is the best way to personalise things.

[igdude]

Jan 11, 2011 17:08:22 GMT -5 Rolling Thunder said:

Personally, I think it needs more conversion work. That is the best way to personalise things.

I agree with RT here, it's a good army, but I feel as if you can make it more your own.

[krasimirova]

I'm with RT on this one too.. Don't really feel any thought has gone into the army.. Simple things like how can a crossbow be Assault 2...? Why not make it a double barreled shotgun..? Surely when your guys have a Blundbus they will be able to have some kind of dual barreled edition of that.. And how is blunderbus Rapid Fire..? If you did some really easy work (Magasins and a few bits of armor) on the models to make them "yours".. They seem so far away from steampunk as I can think of, they seem like Fantasy models on 40k bases, the idea you got with making a more feudal Guard army is cool, but don't think you can pull it of just by making the fluff match.. :/

[fatuous]

Very intersting idea not me personal taste tbh, but they look good, you have a strong theme to why they look like that and over all, lasguns, autoguns, solid slug weapons, etc.... are all pretty similar in stat line, so muskets aren't really out of place

Compare them to these lasguns, and while slightly more lasgun like, I do not see all that much of a difference between these and what you have (of course that is just my opinion).

www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440249a&prodId=prod1070173

Would I play agasint you? If you were close enough lol I htink it'd be an entertaining game, and you are making the army that YOU want. So kudos.

For the airship......... have you considered a big hot air balloon above the deck, like in Baron Munchhousen (I think, or the follow up Mummy movie, altho that one sucked). A prop on the back and balloon on top would work, and might look quite cool. Altho will be a pain to store I am sure.

Would I have given them lasguns? Well probably, but that doesn't mean that these guys don't rock anyway

Good work, keep teh pictures coming, the painting looks nice.

[Paradill]

First of all, I really like your idea of a feudal world being brought into the Imperial fold, it's a brilliant idea with enough scope for personalisation and uniqueness to make it something really, really good. Now on to the criticism; I feel you've wasted this opportunity. I have no qualms with your liberal use of "counts as" (although many at my LGS would), I think your painting skills and colour schemes are imaginative and inspired but this isn't nearly enough. If I were to offer praise to this army it would be as an Empire fantasy army, not as a 40K one.
I understand your fluff and that these people have made little contact with the Imperium, that they are essentially at a black powder stage but you've let WFB do all the work on this army, ok they aren't an IG regiment but they're not the Empire either. Would the Imperial forces sent to claim the world offer nothing in the way of weapons or support to their long lost cousins? Even the addition of a laspack here or there and a few bits of alteration on the weapons, just to give them that extra touch of personality. I know you have a fairly limited amount of money to spend but a single box of cadians gives you enough bits to 40k up your army, for example, the cadian torso could be used on sergeants/officers to show the flak jackets brought by the colony fleet, helmeted heads for a couple of the standard troopers, maybe even a chainsword and lapistol for your officer. The lasguns themselves give you enough parts to turn your muskets into truly unique and interesting weapons, not to mention the shinguards and boots the legs give you. Just a smattering of the 40k universe is all you would need.
I'm not being detrimental and I'm sorry to reiterate what has been said before by I feel there is a lot of potential being wasted. Apart from that you have a lovely and well painted WFB army mounted on the wrong bases. I do admire you for sticking with it and don't want you to be discouraged, but I do think taking a couple of bits of advice from this thread and implementing them would let you really be creative and improve upon your fanastic start.

Paradill

[Ferrum]

I do quite like this army, and the models are well painted. My favorites are the ones that you've converted a bit, and I think you should continue to do this.

Personally I think the boat was ace...you really really should use that, it could maybe be a marauder too? It seems a little big for a valkyrie.

I'd like to see greatswords in here somewhere, either as carapace veterans or even stormtroopers, I think their models are awesome and they'll be a blast to convert!

Keep it coming

[fishspit]

Thanks for all the comments. I finished painting ym 500 points last night, so pics might be coming of a full army, or maybe not. I'll try to fix the way I take pics, everything seems so washed out (stupid flash...)

And...well...*sigh*

@ Everyone (mostly Paradill)
I do appriciate all your suggestions to add lasguns, and I may someday mix in some lasgun goodness, but I'm liking this army fine as it is. Paradill, your argument towards 40kification is flawless and well spoken, except you got one key detail wrong: This represents a planet NOT YET brought into the light of the imperium. That being said, there is nothing wrong with a little looting/archeotech here and there. I've got a few legit IG bitz sitting around, I'll see if I can manage a lasgun for a command squad vet.

Ferrum
I've not completely abandoned the boat, she'll get there.

@fatous
Yeah, I'm thinking airbags might be the way to go too. Hard to model, but I'll give it a shot later

[Taldorian guard]

those knights would make nice rough riders

[jenburdoo]

I've been reading this, and I think the army looks great. It MIGHT be a good idea to add at least a few 40K bitz.

NOT weapons or other major conversions, I hasten to add. Just something to indicate that this is an Imperial world, and not simply a feral one that has not obviously been brought into the Imperium at all. No extra tech required.

All you need to do is add Imperial emblems - Double eagles (from tank kits), skulls (from pretty much anywhere, including label sheets), purity seals (Marine kits) and the like. As an example, my Ogryn squad is converted from Fantasy Ogres, with little chopping and hacking but a few subtle additions of Imperial emblems here and there.

This works for pretty much anything, actually; I have just kitbashed a squad of savage Imperial Guardswomen from Dark Eldar Wyches. They looked just like Wyches with lasguns UNTIL I also added a few leftover ammo pouches and double eagles. Now they look like SANCTIONED Wyches, which is the intention.