SHOWCASE - The Praetorian 4th Mechanised

Following the first Showcase post featuring Victoria Lambs Praetorians I recieved a email from a fellow Praetoria collector, Phil Anderson with a few pictures of his army, the Praetorian 4th (now where have I heard of the Praetorian 4th before?) Mechanised (ah, mechanised!). I think Phil's army is another great example of a Praetorian Imperial Guard collection, and one which deviates from the normal scarlet tunics, to a kharki uniform instead! This goes to show you don't always have to take the conventional route. Phil shows a real attention to detail with minor conversions like the addition of Aquillas to some of the helmets and includes a squad of Roughriders converted in the same way I converted my own early ones, and they look superb! I'll now pass over to Phil for a few words!

The 4th Praetorian Mechanised Infantry

The 4th started life over 10 years ago, inspired by the Big Toof River display at games day ’97 and British history (like many other Praetorian collectors). They army has gone through many different incarnations (painted, stripped, repainted... at one stage it was sporting a lot of union flags), and abandoned the red livery, in favour of desert fatigues worn by British troops in the late 19th century. When the Steel Legion were released with the option of fielding imperial guard as mechanised infantry the 4th were truly born.

Unfortunately about 8 years ago I stopped playing and collecting 40k and my armies have been drifting in the warp (or more appropriately the loft), but I’ve always had kept an interest in it and have been thinking of getting back into it for some time. I recently stumbled upon this blog and was very interested in what people have been doing with their praetorian armies, some of the models I’ve seen here are absolutely amazing and have persuaded me to dust off my pith helmet, fix bayonets and take the 4th out on parade.

The army (looking at the painted finished models) being mechanised infantry obviously has a lot of armour, there are 5 chimera, a medusa, a hell hound (affectionately named ‘singing sally’), a sentinel, a leman russ, and finally my own take on the executioner that I like to call the ‘bulldog’ variant leman russ (sporting lots of heavy bolters).

No praetorian army would be complete without rough riders, and my army has 6 of the plucky devils. These were made using standard bearers and sergeants sawn at the waist just beneath the belt atop rough rider legs (how are those ancient miniatures still current??) with the boots cut off and replaced with the boots of the aforementioned praetorian. All that was needed was a little green stuff and repositioning and lances made from uruk hai pikes (I seem to remember there was a lot of uruk hai kicking around in my bitz box at the time so to use those pikes just made sense).

There are lots of little conversions in the army, sergeants and members of the command HQ have aquilla modelled on their helmets, and one particular kneeling guardsman (originally a heavy weapon crew member) has been given a chainsword and now commands a firing line. For a heavy bolter gunner I’ve used a wounded soldier who looks like he is valiantly manning his post continuing to fight on (heavy bolter is from the old metal heavy bolter space marine scout).

The Command HQ has had the most work done to it (and is certainly my favourite unit). Firstly a heavy weapon loader has had his magazine converted to a medi pack. The standard bearer has a banner I sculpted where I’ve loaded it with purity seals, honours, and litanies. There is a zulu warrior complete with animal hide shield and spear (anyone got any ideas what model has been converted???), a priest, a representative from the inquisition in the form of a storm trooper and of course a bugler. The supreme commander was one of the last additions to the army and is simply the Cadian Colonel (sorry no pith helmet! Will have to be changed if I start the army up again...). The second in command has had quite some work done to him, once again he lacks the pith helmet (and the fact he is a giant of a man due the scale of the plastic IG) and is made from the plastic tank crew with a converted bionic arm, power sword on his belt and sculpted epaulettes.

One unit I always wanted but never got round to creating was some kilt clad veterans, something akin to the black watch...

The army saw some serious action and was a regular down at Poole GW many years ago, wasn’t always too successful in the field (some days it seemed the tanks were made of paper, and lining your men in neat firing lines may look good but template weapons were always a worry...) but was great fun and always kept the Praetorian end up!