26 - Imperial Guard Veterans Squad w/ Heavy Flamer Operator

Well, it's been almost 2 weeks since my last post. Sorry for that, but recently my wife and I went on a "Lost" marathon, watching 4 seasons in about 10 days. Pretty crazy, but kind of worth it, I guess. Seasons 2 and 3 were fantastic, but the show started to slip a bit in season 4, and season 5 was just very disappointing. Hopefully the 6th and final season will wrap things up satisfactorily (unlike BSG's last season - yeesh, what a travesty considering how great the overall series was).

Okay, so what I've got here is the 8th member of my Veterans Squad - Specialist Chule, heavy flamer operator. I had a lot of trouble with his figure. First, the arms that came with the heavy flamer didn't fit properly on a standard Cadian shock trooper torso. I'm guessing it must be designed specifically for a Command sprue torso. So, I had to substitute a left arm from the shock trooper sprue (the one with the hand holding the handle for the flamer), cut off the hand, and then use putty epoxy to fill gaps in the left shoulder and the left wrist. Then, I discovered that the fuel tube was not long enough to connect to the fuel tank. In order to remedy this problem, first I tried to use more putty epoxy, but the angle was so awkward and the putty so difficult to work with that I gave up. For a couple of days, I figured I'd just leave the gap and not worry to much about it, but the perfectionist in me could not abide the flaw. Thus, I improvised and glued a bit (the coiled rope thingie painted Antique Gold) from somewhere (I can't remember right now) to cover up the gap in the tube. As for the rest of the miniature - it has a Pig Iron Productions gas-mask head, a skull on a chain bit from a Flagellant sprue, and a purity seal from some Space Marine sprue. Very minor conversions compared to what I've done on my other vets, but I'm just glad they're almost done.

Paintjob wise, Specialist Chule ain't all that great. There's some very noticeable sloppy painting here and there, but overall, he's acceptable, I think. My plan is to finish up 3 more Standard Guardsmen for my Third Infantry Squad, and then move on to painting the Heavy Weapons Teams for both the vet and the infantry squads. To the right is the partially assembled Lascannon Team for my vet squad. My infantry squad will be joined by a Heavy Bolter Team. I'm very pleased with the heavy weapons kit - it's almost like a mini-diorama! Hopefully, this change of pace will rekindle my interest in completing some more of my Imperial Guard army.

As usual, click here for more pics.