Okay, long time no paint. I’ve been pretty much out of the hobby loop for nearly a month now, so let’s try to get back on track. Once again. Here’s a Vox-caster for my Astra Rodentia, finished back on my winter break.
As I said in my last post, finishing this guy was delayed because I didn’t like my original scratch-built handset on the vox-pack. So I pulled it out and replaced it with one from a Skitarii backpack. I was instantly much happier with this one, I think mostly because the “connector” between the pack and the cable. And the much more detailed handset doesn’t hurt either!
Painting-wise, there’s not really much to talk about – very much the same process as with the rest of the rats. I’m chuffed with the white checkers on his orange cowl, I did those one squeare at a time without the help of a grid. And I meant to paint the vox-pack’s speaker as brass, but should’ve gone with a more yellow, golden color as now it ended up looking like rusty steel. No matter though, looks alright!
Now that I’m starting have quite a collection of these Astra Rodentia (almost a full squad’s worth, hehe!), I thought I’d take a groupshot of them. Even with their mishmash of colors and equipment, I think they look like a cohesive group! For future models, I think I need some more guys with brown/gray armor, so that the sniper and vox-caster won’t look like they’re special..
mcmattilaminis 
Very nice- love how the squad is coming along. How many are you planning in total?
Cheers,
Pete.
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Thank you very much! I don’t have any set plans, but at some point I was looking at typical kill team sizes for Imperial Guard and they seemed to be around 12-15 models. I’d be at the half-way point of that now. I have ideas for some more models, and a Chimera would be really nice, so maybe one day I’ll hit that number!
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Awesome work! 🙂
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Cheers Bjorn!
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I’ve been waiting for this group shot since you first said you might take one, and it does not disappoint!
Such a great little force, the Skaven and Guardmen bits seem to work together so well. And another great paint job on this one. As you say adding some more brown and grey armour should help.
Are you thinking of adding rat ogre / ogrings?
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Much appreciated! Sorry it took so long, meant to take the shot during my break but forgot the camera and now it’s been kinda hectic with work..
And yeah, I actually bought the two Island of Blood rat ogres last summer. I’ve planned to convert one of those into my 40k Rodentia, maybe lugging around an autocannon or something. But I think it’s safe to say that that idea will take quite a while to materialize 😀
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Life is hard at present so I can fully relate to things going slower than planned.
Glad your thinking of a rat ogre, would one of the older multi part plastic be easier to work with?
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Hmm.. I’m not sure, probably not for what I’m thinking, and I’m not a fan of those models at all. I think the poses on the IoB ogres are pretty good, but whatever I end up doing I’ll most likely need to do some sculpting work. Should be interesting!
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Another looking great – the different coloured armour/pauldrons work to make those models stand out at a glance if you were to use them for gaming purposes as well, even if you don’t/didn’t add more brown or grey in the interim.
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Yeah, I’ve thought of that too. Still, I’ll probably end up making a couple more “standard” las-/autogun rats wearing brown or gray flak jackets. These guys are pretty fun to model, after all!
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