I had the day off today, and what should arrive at my door but an order for a Cadian Battleforce and Heavy Weapons Squad. Also, more Lancer details in brief.

Apparently, the vendor couldn't get the Ratlings in without delaying the order further, so they went ahead and shipped what they had. Works for me.

While I'm excited to dive in and start Lego-ing these things together, I think I'm going to take time to photograph the sprues so that I (and any others) have a reference the next time we're looking for particular bits or want to theorize about how bitz might fit together. More on that later.

I had a couple of ideas for the Lancer, one conversion involving a straight-up addition of a chainsword blade to the bottom of the Cadian lasgun. The other involves using two boltguns, a lasgun barrel and power pack and the chainsword. And to be truthful, I think I like the overall shape of the basic one still. Only problem is that the lasgun I used as reference is the loose Cadian lasgun. Now that I see the sprues, I notice little hands already holding the gun's body.

Take a first look at how I plan to model the basic COG soldiers, and discuss how I might model their oh-so-recognizable weaponry.

An Apology

So it's been a little too long since I've been able to post. Work's ramped up for me, and I had traveling friends staying at my place (a one-bedroom apartment), and then a family friend passed away... yeah it's been a little hectic. But I digress — I'm here now to talk about where things stand.

The Storm Trooper squad that I wanted to field is partially done: the one test model is completed, and eight others are just past the wash stage. But I've been preoccupied with figuring out how I want to model the run-of-the-mill soldiers.

I'm not the only one who's considered an Gears-themed army. I've read their ideas, and mulled back and forth over which army I might field them as. Often cited as the picture for inspiration will be the image of Marcus, Dom, Cole and Baird. And while that's a half-decent starting point, let's be real: those are the heroes of the COG. Those would be veterans, not typical dudes. And their armour varies from your typical soldier too. I think the best starting point is actually the Carmines - you can see a shot of our helmeted friend in a previous post. Watch the opening cinematic to Gears 2 and you may agree with me that the COG would feel better as an Imperial Guard army rather than Space Marines. I mean, look at them - they're getting their asses beat!

Guardsmen it is.

So I've picked up a few things to get things started: a Cadian Battleforce, a Heavy Weapons Squad, and a box of Ratlings. Yes, I get that Ratlings have nothing to do with Gears of War, but I liked the models so I might just keep using them. And I want to have them on hand in case I play against a rather snarky opponent who doesn't feel that COG soldiers with snipers can count as Ratlings. Here's what I've come up with so far.

Heads

After looking around a fair bit, and getting the OK from the red shirts at the local GW, I've decided on using these Heavy Infantry Visored Heads from Pig Iron Productions. No, I can't field this army in a GT, but I'm not that kind of player. When I worked at GW, we had a pretty strict policy on the use of other ranges (in fact, we weren't even allowed to use LotR bits in our armies), but things have become more friendly since that time. I've seen these heads on Cadian bodies and I think they look great — see further down.

Bodies

I will use the standard Cadian bodies for my soldiers - I think they look great as is, though I might decide to file off the Imperial Eagle. Typical COG soldiers have a COG skull imprinted on the armour, but I'm not ready to make that conversion 80+ times. And they'll be covered by guns. The alternative I'd considered to Cadian bodies were Space Marine scout bodies, but those are prohibitively expensive — that said, I think making a veterans squad using the scout box is definitely on the table.

Arms

Pretty much planning to use standard-issue Cadian arms for all of the COG soldiers. In Cole Train fashion, a few veterans might have Catachan arms, but he's definitely in the minority. The only difference here is that COGs have gloved hands, while the Cadian arms don't. I've considered swapping the hands for, say, Space Marine hands but I'm worried about scale differences and ... well a butt-load of cutting.

Legs

Let's be honest: the Cadian skirts are not going to fly well with me. I may have to bite the bullet here and use them anyway out of money concerns. But I have a fair number of Catachans that I'm willing to chop up in order to give my COGs more appropriate legs. Problem is, I don't really like the Catachan boots. This is another case where, if you ask me, the best solution is with the Space Marine scout legs. But I've already talked about why that's going to be a problem. A $6 a model problem. For an army with 80+ models in 1500 points. But they look cool! Consider this image from End Transmission, who uses the Scout legs AND Pig Iron heads to make some wicked looking guard:

The Gun

The legendary Lancer. I've scoured the net for conversion ideas. And while I think there are half-decent conversions based on the Boltgun, I'm not full convinced that it's the weapon I'd want to use. Obviously I'm biased because IG don't carry Boltguns standard, but hear me out! If you've ever used the Lancer in Gears, you'll know as well as I do that the Lancer kills with quantity, not quality. It kills by hitting baddies with a million pillows. The Boltgun shoots friggin' explosive, rocket-propelled bullets. So I look at the Lancer as being more similar to an Autogun / Lasgun than a Bolter in power.

In terms of look, I've found that Boltguns look too short for the Lancer model. The Cadian lasgun, however (not the Catachan one), looks much more in proportion. In fact, one of the best chainsaw bayonet tutorials actually has the boltgun chassis extended. The Cadian lasgun shouldn't need that modification. So in the end, I'm going to try using a Cadian Lasgun as the basis for the chainsaw bayonet conversion. But I won't have any conversion pics up until the Battleforce arrives. The image at the right shows the Lancer model at the bottom. The green lasgun, the bolter and the chainsword were all taken in one picture, while the cadian lasgun was taken and scaled in relation to the Catachan lasgun (using the trigger/handle as reference).

The Base

Finally, I think I'll go with an urban or grey base for my models. The COG fought most of its battles in ruined cities, and so I'd want to mimic that. I've also already got an army on dirt and grass, and I could use the change.

So that it for the basic COG soldier: what do you think?

Today I was able to take the afternoon to paint up a test Storm Trooper using the previously mentioned paint scheme as my guide. In the end I was reasonably satisfied with the result, although I admit that I'm a little rough around the edges: this is the first model I've painted in about 6 years. This article is a step-by-step guide to how I painted this model.

Step 1: Undercoat

The first step was of course to make sure that everything started off from the black undercoat. I had primed the model with Chaos Black spray yesterday and today I started off by taking a slightly watered down Chaos Black to the areas I missed with the primer. Once dry, I'm ready to apply the base colours.

Step 2: Base Colours

Now it's time to apply the base colours for the model. I used Tallarn Flesh, one of the new-ish foundation paints to the face, Chainmail to the metallic parts (in retrospect I probably should have used Boltgun Metal), Fenris Grey (another foundation paint) to the armour, and Scorched Brown to the leather parts. Obviously, the model looks like ass at this stage.

Step 3: Armour

This was a small step, but what I did here was paint over the Fenris Grey areas in my 1:1 mix of Enchanted Blue and Chainmail. It looks quite bright from the picture. Again, in retrospect, I don't think I need the Fenris Grey foundation. The cloth areas were painted a 2:1 mix of Chaos Black and Codex Grey.

Step 4: Washing

Now to apply the washes. The entire model, except the face, is washed with Badab Black. Once dry, I applied a wash of Ogryn Flesh to the face. What you see in the picture below is the result after drying.

Step 5: Face Details

At this point, I decided to focus on the facial details. I applied Tallarn Flesh the raised areas of the face (nose, cheeks, chin), and metal over the optics on the left eye. For the eye, what I do is paint a black oval on the raised part of the eye (helped by the wash if you see the Step 4 picture), and then paint two white dots on the right and left side of the black oval. I tried to the same kind of thing to the mouth and teeth, but garbled it (my bad. After I took the pictures I fixed it up).

Step 6: Armour, Lenses, and Leather

I admit that after the face I went nutso on the paint job without taking any pictures, so I've combined the following items into one step (which is obviously isn't). Both the armour and leather were brought back to their base colour, avoiding recessed areas made darker by the wash. The lenses were painted Enchanted Blue, then Ice blue in the lower right part, followed by a white dot or streak in the top left. On the leather pouches you can also see highlighting in the form of Calthan Brown (in retrospect I should have probably gone with Bestial Brown, which I don't have).

Step 7: Armour Highlighting

This step was a bit of a gongshow. I thought I tested this properly when I hit up the GW and mixed the paints on a palette but on the model, my 1:1 mix of Enchanted Blue and Mithril Silver just didn't really differentiate enough from the base colour. I ended up going with a 1:1 mix of Ice Blue and Mithril Silver, but I think it may be a little too extreme of a highlight. The armour, because of its metal component, naturally sheens, doing some of the highlight work for me. Still not quite finalized on it though.

Step 8: Basing

At this point, I'm more or less finished with painting the model. I don't have my usual base colour with me (Graveyard Earth), so all I was able to do was base it with sand. But if you look at my Space Wolves, you can see how the base looks when completed. From the sand, I wash it with ... well it used to be Brown Ink, but now you could use Ogryn Flesh. Then I drybrush Bubonic Brown on top, followed by a drybrush of Bleached Bone. Finally, I rim the base with Graveyard Earth and static grass it. And I'd finish it with a coat of Purity Seal.

Overall Impressions

There are still a couple of really small details that I'll continue to pound out, but for the most part I'm pleased with the paint scheme. On its own, that one storm trooper looks ... well, out of place. But once the other 14 or so look just like him, I think I'll really have a good sense of how this theme is panning out. I do actually think it stays true to the intended scheme, and I'm excited about painting up standard Guardsmen this way.

What do you think? Any feedback is much appreciated.

So my first project will be to paint a large group of Storm Troopers — the old school ones I should say, though I much prefer the Kasrkins much better (they look much close to COG Gears than mine do). That said, this is about testing my paint scheme.

It Had to Start Somewhere

For me, it started with an image. And that image is this one:

I loved the metallic blue armour of run-of-the-mill COG Gears and thought they would be a great theme for the army. But I'd have to dig a bit deeper for more details:

• the fabric under the armour is a black-grey;
• leather straps and (based on other images) ammo pouches are dark brown;
• boots are a dirty metal, with metallic blue accents;
• gloves were also black-grey;
• the helmet had plain metal and black-grey base, with blue accents; and
• lenses and lights are glowing blue

From there, it was off to the trusty Games Workshop website to have a gander at their paint collection. I saved images of the paint spots (which, at best, were approximations of the actual paints) and use Adobe Photoshop to test them against colour samples from the image.

The List (and a small challenge!)

Most of the colours were going to work translate reasonably well:

• Black-grey areas could be Chaos Black, possibly mixed with Codex Grey;
• Leather bits could be Scorched Brown
• Lenses and lights would be Enchanted Blue working up to Ice Blue
• The armour would be ... now that was more difficult

See, I needed a metallic blue. And in theory that could be accomplished in a few ways:

1. paint the armour metal and wash it blue?
2. mix metal with wash and apply?
3. mix metal with paint and apply?

The truth was, I'd have to see each of the options and compare with the picture to really know.

To the Workshop!

So I took a trip down to the local workshop, sat down at the paint station and busted out a few paints. I tried all three options with varying levels of metal, paints and wash and found what I thought was a great, workable mix. And so, my final list of paints that I took home were as follows:

The end result was that a 1:1 mix of Enchanted Blue and Chainmail came out to a blue-grey with a dulled metallic sheen to it, which matched quite well with the COG Gear armour. To deepen it, I plan to use a black wash, and then use a 1:1 Enchanted Blue and Mithril Silver Mix as the highlight. On the shop palettes, these two mixes looked great. I'll see how they look on the models in the next few days.

Overall, I'm very excited to see how these Storm Troopers turn out, despite the fact that I think I have a decent idea of how they'll turn out: awesome!