Cadian 101st and Friends

Thuga Baine has been with Minka for some time. Starting of being assigned to her squad during her time when she first makes Sergeant and finally joining her command squad after her field promotion to Lieutenant.

A hard drinker, a gambler and a bare knuckle boxer: Baine is a typical dog soldier. Quick to get out of any day duty but first into the fray when the squad deploys or first in line when the mess line opens.

There are quite a few times in Traitor Rock were Baine is the trooper who’s on the auspex of the squad’s Chimera, passing info on to (then) Sergeant Lesk. This leant him something of the technical member of the group so I made him the Master-Vox trooper for this command squad and it seemed more in his wheel house than anyone else to be working the coms.

Like Kavik before him, this earned him the coms specialist pauldron.

Orugi was once the trooper who would lug the squad’s special weapons around. Of above average height and build, he would often be assigned to carry these heavy sets of gear as well as supplies of grenades or special mission equipment.
This might have made him a pick for the role of “Veteran” equipped with a special weapon in the squad but I wanted this role for Yedrin (see following this) and I need someone to be the Medi-pack trooper.
This is a required selection for Cadian Command Squads and is a great pick on the table as it gives the whole squad a 5+ Fell No Pain which is just great for command survivability so yes please. Rather I picked him for this as the “guy that carries the stuff”, like field triage equipment.

He gets the customised Cadian Gate pauldron as well for being in the command squad.

Urea Yedrin is another Whiteshield that comes up with Blanchez and ends up following Lesk on Malouri as forces are scratched together over the course of the war.
Originally, Yedrin acquires a flame thrower in his first deployment and puts it to effective use as the Whiteshield cadets hold a trench for several hours against waves of enemies until they are eventually relieved.

In the novel itself, it is a lighter variant with an under barrel canister rather than the back mounted variant that comes in the Command Squad kit.
This moment in his career lives on in spirit though as Yedrin is still wielding a flamer, with the added bonus of the command squad being able to put out a decent number of attacks on average and add a bit more threat to overwatch should an enemy break through the Shock Trooper lines and think about charging this HQ unit.

Like the others, he gets a Cadian Gate pauldron for being a trooper in the platoon’s command squad.

This is Lieutenant Arminka “Minaka” Lesk, the principle protagonist of the Cadian Honour novel series who was promoted to the Command of 2nd Platoon at the end of the Traitor Rock.

For those wondering: Yes they did announce a new book to be accompanied by an official model for this character. Yes, this was literally the day after I finished building this particular model. Yes, I want Games Workshop to know I take this personally. =P

That aside, here she is in squad commander armour. I maaaaay consider getting the official model when it’s available to switch in but for now I am quite happy with this.
She has the Powersabre she looted on Malouri and her Marauder pattern Bolt Pistol she was issued upon her promotion (which is supposed to have a drum magazine based on the book but hey, not even the official model has that so I don’t feel to bad about the detail either).

Who knows what the new Novel, Shadow of the Eighth, will bring but this is where I am taking the squad from for this build.

I went with a custom head from MGS Miniatures that has the bangs and the bun we so often see Minka sporting in official art. It’s not as high up as the official model but I am still happy with it for a kit bash and my own take on the character.

For a her Rank pauldron, she gets the default Commander option which I have decided has the skull which means Lieutenant.

By the end of the Traitor Rock, Blanchez (no we don’t get a surname name, or possibly forename) has essentially become Lesk’s sharpshooter and she takes Blanchez into her command squad. Beginning as a cadet in the new Cadian Whiteshield program, taking children born to Cadian’s off world to try and train much needed reinforcement for the rapididly declining diaspora of Cadian Shock Troopers, she earns her Trooper status and falls in with Minka during the course of the war.
Now, not only is the Sniper Rifle not a great pick for this squad (I expect this one to be up at the front with the infantry for the Regimental Banner bonus and to be issuing orders) so it’s Heavy type wrecks it’s ability to move and shoot but there isn’t even a Sniper Rifle/Longlas part in either the Cadian Shock Trooper kit, the Command Squad Kit or the Cadian Upgrade Kit… so that’s a bust.
Rather I made her the standard bearer and gave here sleeved lasgun on the back accessory to give the vibe of “she could pull it out and attach a scope and what not” but for play purposes she’s the “Standard Bearer with Lasgun” I need.

She’s also the first on this list with my modified “Command Squad Pauldron”. This is the pauldron we saw on Colour Sergeant Tyson with the Sergeant Stripes ground away (the camera flash really catches the edge of the marks but trust me, they blend in to the naked eye).
Moving to Lesk’s Command squad infers no particular rank in the Cadian 101st so I didn’t want the stripes but I did want something other than blank plate that basic troopers get so I settled on this as it leaves that small Cadian Gate at the top of the pauldron as a distinguishing mark. This’ll be seen on others in this squad.

Blanchez also got a head from MGS Miniatures. She is described as having a pony tail in the books but blow me down if I could find a head with a pony tail that would fit in place with that banner just over the shoulder that didn’t have her staring straight into the pole to make room.
Rather I settled on a head that came with a pony tail, soaked it on hot water and broke it off at what was previously the tie back for said pony tail. At a distance this looks like a small bun (a bit like Lesk’s, but smaller still) and the hair in front give a good impression of having the long hair.

The Platoon’s Standard got the winged skull topper, just because it fits nicely as one step down the Regimental Order from the Company Standard’s laurelled skull.

I’m splitting this squad into two posts as there’s not enough entries on a post to do all five.

This is my take on Colonel Sparker; Officer commanding of the Cadian 101st Regiment’s 7th Company. For those familiar with typical military ranking and organisation, you might be wondering “Why is a Colonel in command of a Company? Colonel are typically in charge of entire Regiments” and in this case you would be right.
The 101st does have a Regimental Colonel, one Colonel Banting, however the Regiment is an amalgamated force of Mechanised Infantry created from the remnants of an Armoured Regiment and several Infantry Regiments after the fall of Cadia. The loss of the planet and it’s expansive military training programs has led to a dramatic shortage of senior commissioned officers in the right place. Whilst many junior officers are raised from the ranks in short order, senior officers have taken up atypical commands in order to keep the regiment functioning and combat effective. One of which is Colonel Sparker here.

In order to best show off the fact that he is a Colonel, I decided to make him up using the Cadian Castellan Kit. I may yet make an actual “counts as” Castellan if I decide to bring Colonel Banting into the mix but for now, this is my squad Commander.
I gave him a Powersword and a Plasma Pistol as he is the most senior officer I currently have and, whilst the Cadian Honour series doesn’t give us a lot of details on his personal weaponry, I figure such a senior officer would have access to some of the best equipment in stores.

I um’d and ar’d about what head to use for him as, what the books DO tell us is that, he is a fighting officer who regularly gets stuck in with the rest of the Company when they deploy and I thought about giving him the helmeted head option but he is also described as having a prominent moustache so in the end I couldn’t resit the dress hat with the walrus moustache option.

Deployed on a tactical rock he is ready to lead 7th Company onto the field

Colour Sergeant Tyson is the Company Colour Sergeant (who would’ve guessed) so he was the natural pick for the Company Standard Bearer.

The first choice I made for him was the field cap and this was later paired with the sort of casually hanging grip on the lasgun. Have you ever watched the film “We Were Soldiers” with Sam Eliot playing Sgt. Major Basil Plumley? This is pretty much the vibe I got for Tyson and that attitude of “Sir, by the time I need a Weapon, they’ll be plenty lying on the ground”. He’s not here to get stuck in himself, he’s here to make sure orders are relayed and everyone else is getting stuck in. Sure, he’ll fight when it comes to down to it but he knows that’s no longer his primary role in the Company.

Secondly, I picked the skull and laurel stand top for the Company Standard as the whole laurels = veteran theme you see in 40K and it stands it a little above the Platoon Standard (which we will see later) with the winged skull top.

And lasty I gave him the shoulder plate of a Veteran Sergeant. This will come up later with some modification I made but I decided to read the stipes and rank and little Cadian Gate mark as a sort of command/veteran marking. As the Colour Sergeant, Tyson gets both.

We don’t get a lot about Sparker’s Aide Kavik in the novels. Typically he is seen around the barracks, putting up notices and running messages in and out for Sparker. Given his role of being something like an adjutant and a few references that he does indeed take to the field with Sparker I decided to make him the Master-Vox Operator for the squad.

Like Tyson, I gave him a field cap as he’s not particularly on the very leading edge of any attack, more concerned with voxing orders, tracking squads positions and passing on messages from other Imperial forces on the field (hence the magnoclars and the pointing gesture as well).

The build guide suggested the pauldron seen here for the vox build and I decided I like it. The tall pole with the waves coming off of it reminds me a lot of the old RKO Pictures logo and fits in quite nicely as a marker for more senior coms trooper so Kavik gets one to wear.

These two I made as a pair.
On the right is Orderly Evrind and on the left and kneeling down is Chief Medicae Banting.

I envisage these as a little diorama. Evrind, being the Orderly is lumping all the gear so I made her* as the stretcher bearer medi-pack trooper with the upgrade sprue arm holding out the blood pack. Banting is kneeling down with a injector in hand and reaching out for the pack. Put them together and you get the effect of the Medicae calling for supplies to see to a wounded trooper.
This left Evrind without any sort of Rank pauldron but I don’t much mind. I gave her the medicae helmet as a nod to her role as Banting’s assistant and as a field medic. Banting got the full on Medicae looking pauldron as is due his position along with a backpack for carrying more medical gear.

On the table top, I expect to be running Everind as the “Trooper with Medi-pack and Lasgun” and Banting as a “Veteran with Laspistol and Chainsword” just to be table top legal. This is only because Evrind actually has a lasgun and Banting actually has a laspistol.
At some point I plan to go digging through the bits box for a chainsword that isn’t being held by a hand that I can paint up and attach to Banting’s base, like it’s a weapon he carries for defence but he’s dropped it behind him to tend to his medical duty.

* In previous posts, I referred to Evrind as a he. We get very few scenes with Evrind involved in any of the Cadian Honour books but I was going back through it and noticed a passage in Traitor Rock where they are explicitly referred to as she. So for this I picked as more female looking head for Evrind to better represent her as a model. Though it typical Guard model fashion you have to get really close the tell the difference but I certainly feel happy knowing I got this right before anything was glued in place.

So, I had all the parts I wanted for this build so it was time to get building. Realising that I had a bunch of parts to spread around I decided that needed: “A Plan”.

To alleviate my fear of getting bits everywhere and trying to keep everything together I opened up Google Draw, set the size of an A4 page on it’s side and started drawing circles and boxes. 40 25mm circles and 10 28mm circles to be precise, each with a little rectangle next to it. The idea being I could line up the infantry on the 25mm circles (4 squads of 10) and my command squads on the 28mm (2 squads of 5) and the little boxes would allow me to place any pieces next to the respective model to keep them together.
Confusing? A little.
Let’s have a look at this photo for reference.

This is the sheet as it was partially set up that I hope demonstrates the point.

In each of the circles, I made a note of the model that would be in it and in the attached rectangle I made a note of what parts I need to complete said model.
I then set about lining up all the models before digging through the upgrades, heads and leftovers to pick out pieces for where they where needed. I lined these all up on my master board in preparation for cleaning and gluing.

Then it was simply time to get to it again. I just went down each line in turn and when I came to a figure that needed parts I picked up the lot, moved them to my little work tray, cleaned/drilled the parts and glued them in place. Bish, bash, bosh and before too long the job was done.

There are a few holes in that left hand command squad but this is because one of them is coming from all upgrade parts and the other is being made using the Castellan kit so they’ll appear when I review the command units following this. Suffice to say they appear in the following shot of the board once it was completed if you want something to look forward to.

If you’ve been following this project, you’ll know that I had made some reservations for my Special Weapon troopers to be ready to move around if need be. Well GW did a GW and they do indeed need be.

So, in the original printing of the English language Astra Militarum Codex, Cadian Shock Troopers could have two Troopers replace their lasguns with Special Weapons and each squad could not select the same weapon more than twice. Sounds a bit odd doesn’t it? How would even select the same weapon more than twice if you can only take two to begin with?
Well, turns out that was a misprint. All the other language versions came out with their version “could not select the same weapon more than once” and it wasn’t two long before the English got FAQ’d to be the same. *sighs*

I’ll not wax lyrical two much out Games Workshop utterly relentless release schedule and the effect it has had on quality control over the last few years but rather take solace that I was prepared for something like this.
I pulled out unit sheets and simply made some updates.
Squads 1 and 2 still have Sergeants with the Chainsword/Bolt Pistol combo whilst 3 and 4 have the Drum-fed Autogun. Now Squads 1 and 4 have a Flamer and Grenade Launcher as their Special Weapons whilst 2 and 3 have a Plasma and Melta each.
This gives some permutated variety for my Crusade Force with the view to which ever ones prove most “my playstyle” on the table likely to be favoured for selection once I start rolling in more armour down the line and I look to spend less points on infantry in smaller games.

Next I’ll be looking at the command squad and going into a little more detail on the build choices there in as these are generally more characters than the massed nameless men and women of the rank of file.

Until then.

My pre-order has come through!

Thanks to the team at the On Table Top Store (*schwing*) I know have the outstanding characters and hopefully the parts to round this batch off and move on to painting them.

A busy weekend ahead already but hopefully I’ll get the chance to get on these and post an update soon.

So, now I come onto building some more Command units.
If you read my Start by taking stock entry, you’ll know that I made a decent start on five out of the ten total models underway for filling out my two intended Command Squads, one for the command of 7th Company and the other for the same Company’s Second Platoon.

Well I have another Command Squad kit now so I can make a start on another three of them. Okay, that sounds less impressive now I type it out but I am still waiting on two more models from other sources: a Cadian Castellan kit for Colonel Sparker who, as a high ranking senior commissioned officer, deserves a fancy uniform and the Cadian upgrade kit as there are a bunch of medical bits and bobs for Chief Medicae Banting.

Well, that still leaves some room to get on with bits. Namely: Colour Sergeant Tyson, Sparker’s Aide; Kavik and Elias Orugi. So I got my trusty sectioned box out and started prepping the bits to work with.

Here you can see the latest parts marked out with prepped bases. Lets go ahead and clip the pieces and get them all set out.

*insert smash cut here*

“But wait, that looks like four sections filled in there!” I hear some the eagle eyed amongst you call out. Well yes…
One of the models in the kit that I was originally less than enamoured with was the “Veteran with medipack”. This was a very, very specific model with a folded stretcher strapped to it’s back and arrayed with medical kit bags that I felt didn’t give much in the way of ability to customise the look of a command squad. Well, I did find a place for this model with Evrind, Chief Medicae Banting’s Orderly.
So having made on a version of him with the first kit I decided to start working on a second as, of all the models that I started on using the first set, this one gave me quite a bit of analysis paralysis. Do I make them more of a soldier that happens to be carrying some medical gear? Do I make him medicae personal who happens to carrying a lasgun? So here I asked myself “why not both?” I’m not about to use the second instance of this model anywhere else in the army so lets build up the second one and take it in a different direction.~
The first is very much “soldier who is carrying medical stuff”, something like a stretcher bearer or a corpsman. He’s largely devoid of additional medicae insignia and fixtures. This second one is planned to used an arm I spotted in the upgrade kit that is handing over what looks like a blood bag or a drip feed and there are some nice helmets with medicae symbols replacing the aquilla but without the extra gubbins on them that I think will make for a nice “junior medical” look compared to the planned all-the-gubbins-definitely-a-senior-medicae look I’m planning for Banting.

Maybe I’ll pick one over the other when their done. Maybe I’ll end up with both if they look fun to paint up.

Anyway, enough waffling: lets build.

So there we go.

Now, usually I would go into each of these models and how I picked the different pieces but
A) you can read about much of my process on previous posts and
B) it would be a lot of waffle about the plans I wrote in Who are the Cadian 101st and waiting until the much touted upgrade kit arrives to fill in the blanks so rather than that I think I will leave this off here for now.

Instead, I plan to come back and do a more detailed review of the Command units once I have them completed as they are all individual characters with some specific choices rather than the mass just-make-them-different-enough-to-not-draw-the-eye of the rank and file infantry.

I got a nice little package recently, some 3D printed heads from MGS Miniatures acquired via their Etsy store. I got these as some possible heads for Lt. Arminka and Blanchez and as a quality test on the printing.

I have to say, I am initially impressed.
I’ll be giving these a clean up and seeing if they fit (I suspect the one on the right will not as there is a lot more pony tail than I expected) and maybe order a couple more to test fit and play around with. These work out at about £1 per head which I think is reasonable for getting those few key characters well represented.
I’ll report back on these (and any more I get a hold of) in the Command unit review by virtue of some of them should end up on a couple of the models.

Annnnnnd that’s that for now. I have about run of road until I the other kits arrive to finish these off. I’ve already been thinking about painting these and I have decided that my first step is to airbrush all the Infantry with Zandri Dust from Citadel for that classic Cadian Guard Khaki as a base layer and work up from there. The hitch is that my hobby space is also my home office so putting everything away and setting up the airbrush is something I like to commit to as a weekend job where I can get a bunch of stuff done before packing away again for another week of gainful employment. As such I’ll really want all of these models fully built before I start applying this first layer.

I’ll probably find something else to keep me out of trouble, after all: I too have the ubiquitous pile of potential waiting to have something else plucked out and worked on. Hopefully the hiatus will be short and I’ll be back before too long with a brief update on filling in the remaining blanks for these units.

Until then friends.

So, the next step is to add to the base bodies I had at the end of Part the First and complete them (or as close as I can for now, but more on that at the end).

With the constant quest for variety I decided to start with the “obvious” choices i.e. the things were there wasn’t a lot in the way of choice or some build options I hadn’t already used yet making them a shoo in.
So I went gathered up these and set about making them up.

Sergeants (Red)
If you recall from my previous entry, one of these squads is being geared for closer range and the other for longer. The Sergeant for the former (A) gets a chainsword and a bolt pistol whilst the latter (B) will be getting a “Drum-fed” Autogun. I put that in quotes as there is an option on the coming upgrade sprue that is a belt fed model variant so, with the only autogun in the kit already being in use with another sergeant, I’m waiting on this alternative.
Heads were easy as there are four across the kit and I only want three, through I did decide the one with the lho stick like thing in his mouth definitely had to lead the squad with the flamers.

Vox (Green)
Vox operatives, because every guard infantry squad continues to need them really. They’re free and quadruples the range of Regimental Orders from Command Squads with a Master Vox. A is complete and B is awaiting an alternative arm (again, the upgrade kit for some more variety). These two where simple, as were the heads. Vox ops have a mouth piece that I like so they all get the same head.

Special Weapons (Blue)
These are the special weapons for the squads. I got into much more detail in my previous post but in short: A is a Flamer using the default Flamer build, B is a Flamer but using the Vox body (i.e. one of the only other bodies with no back pack sculpted on), C is the default Grenade Launcher build and D is the the Grenade Launcher arms on another body that I found they would fit on.
Some of this was a little hodge podge at times, Flamer B in particular. This only just fit such that both the arms and the fuel tank had to have their contact points doused in plastic glue and the whole thing squished down until they fused together. It’s dried in place nicely but it definitely felt a little touch and go getting all three pieces in place at once.
I put off the heads on these as I had an idea I wanted to look into. I did figure this out but I have some other photos so I’ll pick this up later.

Other (Orange)
These were just the last two build options that I discovered I hadn’t used in either of my previous two squads so I went ahead and made these ones up in the first instance. I couldn’t resist putting a shouting head with that raised arm on A so I found one I hadn’t used elsewhere before and stuck that on.

So, now it’s time to add the rest of the arms. I wish I had taken more photos of this process but it’s been a manic week at work and home so I did most of this by lamplight in bed. I did get a few of some key points and I’ll do my best to describe as I go along.

So the aim of this was to find arms that fit with bodies that I hadn’t matched them before. I noticed that I had 8 bodies that still needed arms and eight lasgun build options that I had only used once before in other squads. A fortuitous occurrence so it became a matter of cleaning up these sets and matching them up. I decided I wanted to dry fit all of these first as, after the experience of the Flamer troop that only just fit, I didn’t want to get most of the way through and end up with a set of arms that just did not fit around it’s assigned body.

I laid out these sets on this diagram: the number refers to model on the Cadia Stands Instruction booklet I have been using and A/B refers to the first and second options for each of these respectively. I then set about dry fitting each body model (and a label for it) against each set until I had everything matched up and was happy with the variance. These then got glued into place before I moved onto the last of the heads I currently have.

Next was the heads.
Much like the arms, I wanted to go through and make sure I had utilised every basic options to keep that all important variance up. Again, like the arms I went to my notes on which heads I had already used and worked out which I hadn’t. This turned out to be a little cluster in one of the corners of the sprue (see the first photo below). I clipped these, cleaned them and more or less dotted them around more or less at random: the only real constraint I gave myself was making sure that the Grenade Launcher squad has two more heads than the Flamer squad because….
Whilst the Infantry Squad only had options that I would describe as “normal helmeted heads” or “bare heads”, I had noticed whilst working on my first Command Squad sprue that there are some full face gas masks (see the second photo below, they’re in two pieces: helmet and mask). I couldn’t resist the aesthetic of fully masked flamer troops so these also got cleaned up and glued in place.

Once I had these all assembled, I moved onto attaching the bases. I have mentioned that I like to label my bases, just because I like things organised. I had previously sanded these down but now it was time to write them up.
My system is fairly straight forward (or at least I like to think so). Upper left is what squad they are apart of (S1 through S4), upper right is their role (Sgt for Sergeants, Vox for Vox and Pvt for lasgun Privates) and bottom is the Model it is built off of. The exception is what I have called L. Cpl (Lance Corporals) who carry the special weapons. These didn’t get squad numbers as I expect they’ll be more fluid from game to game.
Each model then gets stuck down to it’s respective base.

So that’s the Infantry done for now. Those missing arms and heads are waiting for that upgrade kit I’ve been talking about (on order to store.ontabletop.com *schwing*). I’ll return to these when that box arrives and these can truly be finished off but in the mean time, I’ll be turning to my other Command Squad and building what I can in this. I think this is about two and half models till my next order arrives but progress is progress so we shall soldier on.

Until then.

So, this is the infantry that I built out of the Cadia Stands box itself (almost, a few missing pieces but we’ll come back to that). I had an idea how I wanted to build these as I have a system I generally use for putting Kill Teams together.

Most GW 40K kits let you build X models and each model has a number of variants (in Kill Team, this would be one of two specialists or a choice between a specialist or your given basic unit) and the new Cadian Infantry are much the same. The 10 models in the kit are the Sergeant and 9 infantry with each of the 9 being a choice between one trooper and either a trooper with differently posed arms or a specialist (Vox or special weapon). Seeing as my system worked in the past I decided to carry on as I knew how so first set let’s begin walking through I manage to break these units down and get them built.

I begin with the things that don’t really involve any decision making. In the Cadian Shock Troopers this comes down to the bodies. All of the bodies are four part mono-pose sets (right leg, left leg, torso back and torso front) with the available variety coming from different arms and heads. It’s not the most variety I’ve ever seen in a kit but I have to say with all the special weapons and equipment that goes into a squad you really need to line them up to easily see the repetition.

These get dropped into these nifty little sectioned boxes I have from a brand called Wham (12 small slots and 1 larger one through the middle, great for breaking down squads with some space for extra bits or larger things like standards or particularly long weapons).
Then it’s simply a case of cleaning the pieces and gluing them per the instructions. So far, so straight forward.

The other thing I have been doing, which I don’t for Kill Team, is to take a bit of sand paper and my mould line tool and just scrape down the moulded writing that GW has on the underside of these bases. This is just because I like to put some basic identification markings on the under side of the base. This is just broad info like which “squad” this is from (1 through 4), just because I like to know that I can keep them together once I go through the trouble of sprinkling variety through each squad.
Is this worth the time? Does it make any appreciable difference? Probably not, but it’s something to do whilst watching TV and I like to keep my proverbial ducks in a row and it makes my brain give me the happy juice. These will get marked once each model is otherwise assembled and I am sticking them down to their bases.

Next I turn to the simple decisions: the troopers that aren’t just carrying lasguns. Picking lasgun arms will be an exercise in picking a set that’ll fit with the model such that we avoid that repetition but the other squad members are want for a little more: namely special weapons and Vox. This is all because of backpacks.
No really.

So, most of the sculpts have backpacks moulded into the back half of the torso to make a single piece, rather than a separate piece to be attached. Not all of them however as there are exceptions. Namely the first, second and sixth bodies counting clockwise from the top left corner in the photos above. These are the Sergeant, the Vox operator and the model that can make the Flamer Trooper by default. And so we come to our first problem. We want variety and we have three bodies to create four troopers. If you recall I am getting on with making four squads that each carry two of the four available special weapons (flamer, melta, plasma gun and grenade) and then I can make the odd swap around if I want to make some changes. This wasn’t a problem with the squads I already built, melta and plasma guns are just arm sets, so I just spread them around different bodies. What are we to do here?

Well, the first model is the Sergeant. This one is moulded with some nice details like an orders pouch style satchel and a small Vox unit. Fine, I’ll accept that. This leaves us with two bodies for three models. My solution comes from building multiple squads. Across the two squads we can pull these bodies for Vox and Flamers twice, giving us four bodies for four models (each squads Vox and the two Flamers). I’ll simply make one Vox using the default Flamer body and one Flamer using the default Vox body. I can then make one Grenade Launcher trooper in each using different bodies and then these squads can swap a trooper.
With enough different heads and accessories, I should be able to cover enough similarities for these duplications to hide in the mass of bodies.

So far, this has been the most difficult part of these kits. The mono-pose bodies are very nice with much less of the fiddly-ness of the previous kit. For example: every body has a bayonet modelled on somewhere at the belt and variety of canteens, pouches and grenades so we avoid the painstaking clipping cleaning and attempting to fit the chunky bits around the waist without them being all wonky and getting glue everywhere. It does however mean that you lose an element of that variance we so often look for in multiple squads. It also means things like attaching actual bayonets to weapons may look odd as there’s no empty sheath options like was in the accessories of the old kit.

Perhaps it’s enough to say that after four units, I am unlikely to want more of the Cadian Shock Trooper kit in my army. Perhaps I’ll look to the likes of the Kriegers from the Veteran Guardsmen kit or even go further afield (Anvil Industries? Wargames Atlantic?) and run some other regiments pegged to the most appropriate stat card from the Codex.

So, time to get on and sort those options already picked. When I return: filling out the lasguns and the heads.

I said we’d come back to this. Yes, some of the heads and arms are missing from the models in the very first picture. This is because I am either holding out from some alternative I saw in the coming Cadian Upgrade Kit that has been announced or I am searching for alternative pieces to represent a specific character. The most obvious of which is my Commander of the Command Squad at the front.

See that project picture at the top of the project? That’s wasn’t chosen at random. That is Arminka Lesk from the cover of the novel Traitor Rock, when she was still a Sergeant. By the end of said novel she has been field promoted to Lieutenant, hence the new uniform, but I’m looking around for a head that better represents her tied back hair and stern demeanour.

The Cadian 101st are the Mechanised Infantry regiment that protagonist Arminka “Minka” Lesk comes to serve with Justin D. Hill’s Cadia Novel Series and was a large part of the inspiration behind starting a Guard Army.
For me, it was the stories that got me into 40K. I love a good battle and the grand stories as much as the next Warhammer fan but the stories that really got me into all this was the stories of the (relatively) little people: Gaunt’s Ghosts, Ciaphus Cain, Cadia, Severina Raine, Eisenhorn, Shira Calpurnia, Sister Miriya, 15 Hours. These are what attracted me from jumping from reading the novels and playing the video games to wanting to make my own stories on the table top.

The Cadia series in particularly stood out to me as, even though Minka is definitely the protagonist and our point of view for much of the series, it always framed as what was happening to 7th Company and Minka’s own 2nd Platoon as a whole rather than a posse of key characters from across an entire Regiment (Gaunt’s Ghost being a good example). I know Cadians get a lot of flack for being the Ultramarines of the Guard but all in all, I became an fan and have always wanted to put play them on the table (even if the table top game is a little more faceless and has a higher casualty rate when characters cease to have plot armour).

So, with this goal in mind I set about laying out how I would represent this unit in a table top army, as easy as it is to map out all the named characters and units they ultimately need to fit into rules of the game for play. Ultimately, I may use this for other games besides Warhammer 40K (Grim Dark Future being a go to in my local play sphere for lighter pick up games) but 40K is the most proscriptive system I regularly play (and I am in the middle of a Crusade at my local club) so this is where I will be starting.

So, this is my take on marrying the force as a functional set of toys along with their lore. Lets have a look at who they are and how they will be represented

The Cadian 101st – “Hell’s Last”:
The Cadian 101st actually began it’s service as a Armoured Regiment and served across the Cadian Gate prior to the 13th Black Crusade. Recalled to Cadia to aid in the planet’s siege they became part of Ursarka E. Creed’s counterstrike force, held in reserve during the initial battles and deployed to strike back at the invaders when the opportunity arose. Yet, as Abaddon’s plan to drop the Blackstone Fortress Will of Eternity on the planet became apparent, much of the regiments equipment was destroyed or abandoned in the evacuation. With the Regiment’s Colonel, now General: Isaia Benedict promoted by Creed during the Battle for Cadia the Regiment found itself without a commander, without adequate armour and without the adequate crews.

Rather than allow the Regiment to die, reinforcements where scratched together from the remnants of other shock trooper units that had escaped the planet and found themselves similarly without a functional command structure. The tank crews had their skills reassigned to operate Chimera Armoured Transports and the troopers reorganised as Mechanised Assault Infantry.

The nickname “Hell’s Last” was earned during the Battle for Hive Markgraaf. During Operations to retake the Hive from chaos worshippers, the Hive became simply known as Hell as units where forced to take long tours through the dark and decaying superstructure to hunt down traitor units. During one of these operations, the 101st became cut off by a hive quake that collapsed the tunnels they had entered. A number of the survivors eventually emerged from the ruins after High Command had long given them up as lost. These survivors become to known as the last to pull out that Hell and the moniker stuck for the regiment as a whole.

7th Company is merely the company under which many of the characters are organised, though a few will be showing up from elsewhere in the regiment. So far, I have committed to factoring the Company HQ as a secondary command squad (the Astra Militarum being all about coverage of Orders after all).

Colonel Sparker and Command Squad:
Unit – Cadian Command Squad

Colonel Sparker is both the 101st’s Regimental Commanding Officer and 7th Company Commander in Charge. With a lack of readily available senior officers when the Regiment was reformed, Sparker ended up filling the role of the 7th’s CIC, a “temporary” posting that has stuck as the loss of Cadia has meant commissioned officers are in even shorter supply than troopers. This means that Sparker often deploys with the 7th, taking to the field with the Company before establishing the Regimental field command in their wake.
To represent this, I intended to run Sparker as Command Squad with mostly “unit on the field” abilities, to be deployed in larger games where he can hang back, offer bonuses and shout Regimental Orders over the vox to any units not already being ordered by 2nd Platoon Command. He probably won’t see as much play as Lesk’s Squad but I still look forward to being able to create this part of Company echelons.

Accompanying Sparker will be: Colour Sergeant Tyson (Regimental Standard), Sparker’s aide Kavik (Master-Vox), Chief Medicae Banting (Veteran with Laspistol and Chainsword) and Banting’s orderly Evrind (Medipack).
Tyson has the banner as he is literally the Company Colour Sergeant, Kavik gets the Vox as this makes sense for the officer’s aide in the field.
I’ve given Evrind, the orderly, the medipack simply because that equipment choice also carries a lasgun and Banting is here for the rule of cool with basic personal defence weapons. This gives me more room to work with some bits previewed for the upgrade kit and there is a trooper in the Command Squad kit festooned with satchels and bundled up field stretcher. This feels more fitting for the assistant orderly than chief medical officer.
If I ever want to make this more competitive I may swap Banting out for a nameless veteran with a special weapon but for now, Banting is in.

2nd Platoon is Lesk’s current command. Brevetted ranking officer during operations on the planet Malouri when the platoon’s prior officer, Lieutenant Dido, is wounded during an assault on the secessionist bastion of Tor Kharybdis. When Dido passes away, Minka’s promotion is confirmed.

Lieutenant Arminka Lesk and Command Squad:
Unit – Cadian Command Squad

Lt. Arminka “Minka” Lesk is the novel’s primary protaganist. A Whiteshield cadet when Cadia came under assualt by the forces of the 13th Black Crusade, she survived the conflict and eventually escaped the planet. As one of the initial members of the newly formed 101st she makes Sergeant when the regiment lands on the Cardinal World of Potence and several other depleted Cadian regiments are folded in as reinforcements. Promoted again after taking command of the platoon on Malouri when the platoon’s CO is wounded in the field and fails to return.
I could write a whole novel on Minka but Justin D. Hill already wrote three and he’s a better author than I. Simply to say I’ll be making her with Bolt Pistol and Powersword as, at the end of the Traitor Rock, she is issued with a Marauder Patter Bolt Pistol (this is distint in that it has a drum mag but I might have to give up this detail unless I want to get creative with greenstuff) and carrying a powersabre, used in a desperate moment during the penultimate assault and kept as a trophy. This will also have some interesting painting opportunities as she carries a blade given to her by Kasrkin Captain Rath Sturm. Sturm was the commanding officer of the mixed force Minka was a part of during the Battle for Cadia and she carries it as a keepsake (and occasional backup weapon).

In Minka’s Squad are several trusted members of her former 4th Squad that she brings with here into her command. Here, where we can have up to four models in the unit besided the commander I have chosen Blanchez (Regimental Banner), Thuga Baine (Master-Vox), Elias Orugi (Medipack) and Urea Yedrin (Flamer).

• Blanchez begins as a Whiteshield as a part of the controversal program to find the children of Cadians born away from the planet or aboard fleets and restart the Whiteshield training program. First deployed on Malouri and makes the rank of Shock Trooper after surving her first action. Acquiring a sharpshooter’s Hot-shot Lasgun variant during the fighting, she proves her skills with the weapon and it permitted to keep it. Falling in with Minka’s squad during the assualt on Tor Tartarus she becomes a member of Minka’s squad for her ability to pick off priority targets. That being said, there is a lack of good sniper rifles in the new kits and the Heavy rule for the Sniper Rifle weapon profile is rubbish for a mobile squad so instead, Blanchez gets to carry the Regimental Standard and I’ll aim to model her more as a designated sharpshooter just for the rule of cool.
• Thuga Baine was Minka’s second in command in 4th squad, he gets the vox here because someone has to carry it and was shown to be capable of running vox equipment in the squad’s Chimera before Minka’s promotion.
• Elias Orugi was something of a simple giant, having taken a severe head wound that was surgically repaired with a metal plate. Whilst much of his personality was lost he retained his muscle memory for weapons and his above average strength and he often hauls excess gear and special weapons for the squad. Here I making him something of a corpsman and having him carry the medipack (Cadian Command Squads all have a Veteran that carry one) so I plan to model him with plenty of baggage.
• Urea Yedrin was another Whiteshield who fought along side Blanchez on Malouri and fell into Minka’s orbit. During their initial deployment he acquires a flamer and puts it to good use and, as a fairly good anti-mass infantry deterent, I have elected to give him this weapon on the table.

The Squads of Second Platoon:
Unit – Cadian Shock Troopers

Their are canonically four squads in 2nd Platoon so, seeing as that is about as many Cadian Shock Troops as I could ever want without getting into hugely titanic battles (and even if I do, I would probably look into some other options for flavour: like running Krieg Veterans or basic Infantry with Heavy Weapons and playing with modelling other known units if that would prove useful) I have decide to map and create each of these.
We don’t get a lot on these squads in details apart from Minka’s own former 4th squad but half of them are dead or transferred into the Platoon Command at the end of Traitor Rock. This works fine for me though as I have no desire to detail, story and model every inevitable casualty across these units. Rather I will instead give a little bit of attention to the squad sergeants and equip each squad for a different tactical role. The differences being the Sergeants loadouts and the special weapon options.
I am basically running this down two axes. Closer range vs longer range and anti-infantry vs. anti-armour/elite. The closer range sergeants will be getting bolt pistols and chainswords, the longer range will get the drum-fed autoguns.

1st Squad: Elhrot – Not a lot is said about Elhrot so pretty free with this. This will be my closer range anti infantry option on Crusade so this squad gets flamers.
2nd Squad: Raske – We get a bit more on Raske with the details that he has prominent face augmetics over an old injury so I’ll be looking for a head that shows this. This will be my closer range anti-armour and so will carrying meltas.
3rd Squad: Barnabas – We only really get a personality for Barnabas, a older Veteran so pretty free again. Squad 3 will the longer range anti-armour and will be equipped with plasma guns.
4th Squad: Dreno – As Minka’s old squad we get a lot more details on 4th but I’ll be keeping this simple. Dreno is something of an arrogant man so maybe a nice big cocky grin or something chewying on a cigar/lho stick. I’ll see what the new kits offer up. Lastly, this will be the longer range anti-infantry squad and carry grenade launchers (though the krak profile on the weapon won’t leave them helpless against hard targets).

I may chop and change these depending on whether this feels like I’m losing options on the board when not deploying all four squads at once and may switch some of the special weapons around to create some more flex (like squad 1 and 2 having a flamer and a melta each whilst 3 & 4 get a plasma and a grenade launcher). Point is, once these are all built I’ll have enough toys to mix and match till I’m happy,

Chimeras:
Unit – Chimeras

The 101st are a Mechanised Infantry regiment and this is how they are typically mechanised. Whether I ever make all five is questionable given that to take the entire platoon at once with Dedicated Transport would be a really big points/power sink but their here on the Org Chart for reference. The only details of note here is the Command Squad’s Chimera. The Saint is named after stories of troops having visions of an angelic figure appearing accross Cadia during it’s final days. I have always chosen to believe this is a reference to Saint Celestine and may do something a little more with this particular Chimera when it comes to painting. Everything else are just transports so my squads aren’t half dead before they get to objectives and into range of enemies.

Platoon Level Weapons:
Units – Heavy Weapon Squads

Not much to say on these so far. There is no dedicated heavy weapons support troops in the narrative, rather heavy weapon are things that troopers jump on or are provided tactically. However, the Cadian Shock Troops unit can no longer take Heavy Weapons as an options so I threw this down based on the idea of Platoon level support weapons, a common practice in the early 20th Century in our own reality of warfare. With the introduction of Field Ordinance Batteries these may not be a priority but I’ll leave so I have some space to play around and maybe come back to them down the line.

Kasrkin Veterans:
Unit – Kasrkin

There are references to the fact that the 1st and 2nd Company are made up of Veteran Kasrkin troopers and we get the name of some Captains buuuuuut I don’t really feel the need for another command unit at this time and any further details are oblique. I want some Kasrkin because the models are cool and rules look fun so I’ll make them part of 1st Company, 1st Platoon unless another novel comes out and expands on this.
Otherwise these are mostly here because their a fun Elite slot options and you know… Kasrkin!

Like any Guard force, there are a number of ancillary members of the Imperial War Machine that are not strictly a part of the Regiment itself. I’ve decided to include a few here, some of which I will definitely build and field, some I may make a neat hobby project our of one day just for the fun of it.
This may also include the like of Attaches and Bodyguards but these would be gameplay additions rather than narrative ones so I would probably not go to great lengths to detail them.

Chief Commissar Shand:
Unit – Commissar

There are a number of Commissars that we meet over the series but the constant presence of the Officio Commissariat is Shand, Chief of the so called “Bats” assigned to the Regiment. We spend more time with him amongst the 7th Company after he personally oversees the integration of reinforcements from other dissolved Cadian Regiments.
I’ll most likely give him the classic Bolt Pistol and Powersword of the Commissars but I might upgrade him to a plasma pistol for some more punch as I reckon he could easily acquire one given his seniority and I tend to play on Power Level anyway. Maybe magnetised? I’ll see when the new Commissar kit comes out.
Side Note: Speaking on the new kit, I know a lot of talk has disparaged the new kit that is coming out and feel it is very understated compared the traditional brocade and frogging of older models but Shand is described and dour, humourless man with a scarred face and stiff bearing. The new model of the glowering officer standing ramrod straight with the stormcoat buttoned all the way to neck encapsulates how I see Shand almost perfectly. Looking forward to getting my hands on this one when it releases.

Father Kerrem:
Unit – Regimental Preacher

Father Kerrem appears infrequently but is mentioned as the regiment’s presiding priest, typically blessing the assembled troops before a major operation or attending to the fallen. We have yet to read of him taking to the field but he is described by others as being a force to reckon with in his younger days: wading into battle with a two-handed eviscerator chainsword and signing battle litanies and hymns. I’ve no idea if this unit is any good on the table but it would be fun to look at coming up with a model to include him along with the rest.

Primaris Psyker:
Unit – Primaris Psyker

Yeah, this one doesn’t even have a name yet as no sanctioned psyker has really factored into any of the novels as of yet. But I want some psychic phase abilities and denial so I’m including one under the idea of one being seconded from the Scholastica Psykana.
I’ve been meaning to read Witchbringer so maybe I’ll get my hands on that and look some inspiration to bring this one a little closer to home.

And that’s what I have so far. As I mentioned, I’m not about to sit and build all of these on one go and some things may change around the periphery. Plus this hasn’t even touched on the accompanying Armour and Artillery regiments for the Armour I’ll want to field but more on them when I come to working on them respectively. If you read this far well done! I’m not entirely sure I expected anyone to follow my rambling for so long.

Next, time to look at the models themselves and what I am doing with them (spoiler, I get more time to build than write so I’m about done with the infantry from the Cadia Stands box so we’ll see them soon).

So, for the past year I have been learning Warhammer 40,000 with my Astra Militarum and getting to know them as an army (also in Grim Dark Future, but that’s another project). However, I have been playing a lot of them in Grey and Undercoat Livery as I’ve not had the space to setup a painting space and get some colours on.

With the release of the new Guard releases that GW is working through I thought that this was the time to go back to basics, reappraise what I want this army to be and work on getting a complete table top ready army.

My goal here is takes small chunks of the army that are either being upgraded or simply existing models that need finishing off and tackle them one by block by block to get them build and painted as an incentive to keep working on them, rather than build it all for play and then be left with a mountain of painting to tackle.

With that in mind, let’s start with what I am working with as the project start.

The Infantry, the core of many a Guard force.

Not a lot here to surprise anyone familiar with playing the Astra Militarum. Three squads of Infantry, each comprised of Sargeant, Vox operator and 8 lasgunners.
These are accompanied by a series of special weapons troopers. These have been switched in for lasgunners as and when as I’ve played over the last year.

Following on is the command echelons I have been using: a Company Commander, a Commissar, a Platoon Commander and her Command Squad.
This is the area that is certain to receive the most immediate change as, as anyone who has gotten to know the new Codex can see, a lot has changed about how these all work, particularly the Command Squads. More on that in a later post.

Next, the Armour.

The proverbial cavalry, which no Astra Militarum army is complete without (not when when of the players in my local Crusade runs Chaos Knights anyway).

The fighting vehicles are a Leman Russ and Hellhound platform. The former I typically run as a Tank Commander and the later as a Devil Dog for that much needed anti-armour counter punch. These are both magnetised for a lot of pieces so I can chop and change so they’ll likely not see much in the way of work until the infantry is done simply because they will do the job till then.

After them comes the Chimeras. The Cadian 101st is a Mechanised Infantry regiment (at least at the point in it’s service I am basing it on but that’s a story for another entry) so these fit the bill. I tend to use them to run Infantry up the board before they deploy on or near objectives. If nothing else the Chimera acts as very literal armour for the troops inside so they don’t have to run through the open spend the extra turns jumping from cover to cover. With the new Mechanised Infantry doctrine I don’t think these will be going anywhere anytime soon and these may in fact gain some siblings but, as I intermated, Infantry first.

Speaking of which…

Seeing as the way Infantry works has changed so considerably, particularly with regards to command units my first priority is some of the new Cadian Shock Troopers and Cadian Command Squad from the Cadia Stands box. There’s some reinforcements ordered as my first block will be to get all four of the platoons squads, the platoon command and the company command as the first “block” to build and paint (spoiler: I actually already started on these but more on these in a future post).

These will form the bedrock of the Infantry part of the Cadian 101st Mechanised Infantry and be ready for the new rules. So next I think it’s time to look at the Force Org for these defenders of humanity, where they come from and how I intend to represent them on the table top.