9 - Imperial Guard Veterans Squad

The second member of my Hardened Veterans squad is complete. I'm still not sure what to call them yet, but I'm toying with a handful of nicknames: the Gravediggers (because Hardened Veteran squads are patched together from surviving members of depleted conventional Guardsmen squads, thus many of them joke that they've all, at one time or another, been on grave digging duty); the Inevitables (because Hardened Veterans have cheated death so many times, the inevitable will eventually catch up to them); the Bulletdodgers, the Walking Dead, etc. In other words, I want to come up with a unit nickname that captures the fatalism inherent in being a member of the Imperial Guard, especially one who, against all odds, has survived long past his expiration date.

This second Hardened Veteran was, again, converted from the Standard Guardsman by adding a handful of bits here and there: his left-hand claw was from a Chaos Rhino sprue, the Purity Seal dangling from his right shoulder pad was from a Space Marine sprue, the sword and scabbard strapped to his back was from a Bretonnian Knights sprue, and the Ork Skull was, I believe, from a Dark Angels sprue. Oh, and his head was originally from a Space Marine Scout. The paintjob has gotten more uniform with every Guardsmen I do. It hasn't necessarily improved, but I think I'm getting the basics of miniature figure painting down. Psychologically, I feel ready to start working on my highlighting and then moving on to blending/ glazing/ layering/ feathering and all those other advanced painting techniques. Also, since this Hardened Veteran was one step up in terms of conversions versus the first Hardened Veteran, I fully expect my next Hardened Veteran to take my conversion skills another step upwards.

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