Praetorian 24th of foot - Tom Cullen

Why/what attracted you to play your army/race?
Pith. Helmets. Rule. (also Zulu)

What's the theme/background to the army?
My theme is fairly simple, it's what I'd think a command unit of an army should look like. Disciplined troops with lots and lots of guns, advisors, elite storm-troopers and did I mention lots of guns? This explains all my doctrine points too, all on skills and troop types.

In theory the army has something that can deal with anything that gets thrown at it, although this theory seems to fail when it comes up against my perpetually frustrating ineptitude at playing 40K.

What was your inspiration?
See question one. Seriously. Pith helmets RULE.

How did you go about painting the army?
I painted the army for the carnage tournament, so it was a fairly disciplined process. I painted all the infantry in one go (not including command sections). Yes, fourty metal Imperial Guard in one go. I couldn't even tell you how long it took, but I was seeing floaty lasguns in my sleep, taunting me with jibes and/or tomfoolery. [is that a deliberate pun? -ED]

In fact, I do have a fairly good system for painting my lads. I start of with a white undercoat and then paint the jackets red gore mixed with a bit of blood red. The faces are dwarf flesh, the epaulettes are snakebite leather and the helmets are bleached bone. Then I give the whole thing a wash of slightly watery chestnut ink. I then ink the helmets with brown ink and paint the lasgun and boots black.

I then highlight the models fairly simply and leave the eyes and trousers last. The epaulettes and trim are the most complex, highlighting up by mixing snakebite leather, bubonic brown and skull white. Still basic stuff, but it beats the hell out of using a metallic gold which just seems silly to me. The helmets are a very thin bleached bone applied with a standard brush (size 1). I apply it as a large puddle using water tension to stop it flowing into the cracks. It's tricky but I love the results, so I can justify the time it takes.

This basic technique applies to everything else bar the heavy weapons, (which get scrubbed with boltgun/black and given an ink wash before more scrubbing with pure boltgun and then standard highlights of chainmail to make it 'pop'.)

A simple basecoat followed by an ink wash helps keeps a uniformed look and is a fantastic speed/quality compromise. The colours between the more exotic units do vary slightly, but I'm sure you don't need a full lecture on how to paint a Ratling's turban (use khaki, by the way ;) )

I'm happy to say that this technique seems to work, which surprised me as much as anyone since whole armies aren't my forte. Still, two best army awards in a row is nothing to sneeze at, so usually I can ignore the more glaring faults unless I'm feeling particularly masochistic.

The basing is even easier, paint it brown, glue on some sand, let it dry and wash it with chestnut ink. When dry highlight with snakebite leather then bleached bone. Wallop, done.

How well does the army perform on the battlefield?
In a word, terribly. Actually that's slightly misleading - in tournaments it tends to be underpowered. I've deliberately ignored making a competitive list in favour of making a fun, fluffy army. It doesn't fare well against extremes since I have very little redundancy to cope with multiples of...well...anything. It's fun to play with which is far more important.

In fun games against other balanced lists it does adequately, much to my surprise. It holds a highly impressive 60-40 win-loss ratio.

Are there any conversions/paint jobs you're particularly proud of?
I'm most happy with the conversions of metal guardsmen, so my officers and standard bearer. Simply because they take more time, effort and skill than simple parts swaps. The standard bearer was causing me sleepless nights - I didn't want a paper banner, but I had no idea how to make one from greenstuff. I did know the pose I wanted though. I had some kind of epiphany whereby I realised that with a fairly basic (though time consuming) resculpt I could have the pose I wanted and have the banner stuck to the back of the colour sergeants helmet, solving the durability problem. The pole is wire, the top is the standard one from a praetorian banner bearer. The banner itself is greenstuff which was rolled flat inside the plastic wrapper it comes in. It's the only thing it won't stick to. The frogging is done with a very sharp modelling knife. The chap himself is the missile launcher model with the missile removed and his arms/epaulettes have been resculpted. It's the most time consuming model in the army.

The Jockgryns and Ratlings don't need much explanation, just how I like it. I greenstuffed lots of things on the jocks, and the Ratlings have greenstuff turbans with High Elf feathers. The Jockgryn bone 'ead has a spiffy red jacket and a military style beard that wouldn't look out of place on, say, a brigadier.

Have any units in the army out-performed themselves consistently?
The stand out performers at the tournament have to be the Ratlings and the command HQ. The Ratlings have never failed to make their points back directly and can be used for all kinds of tactical shenanigans. They killed a Wraithlord and an Avatar in one game, which was most acceptable. The HQ are used as my counter-assault, there are just so many powerfist attacks that they usually smash what they hit, although everyone except the officer tends to die. So far their kill count includes Lords of Khorne, a Bloodthirster, a T7 Carnifex, a daemon prince of Slaanesh and countless Marines and Terminators.

Recently the Ogryns have become the stars, though. Two notable performances were against Necrons and Grey Knights. In the former, they were assaulted by a unit of Wraiths, which bounced off them and were run down. They followed this up by finally killing a Destroyer Lord that was bullying my poor Ratlings then running down a ten-strong unit of Necron warriors to cause phase out and win me the game.

Against the Grey Knights they did just as well, getting to charge several times and taking down many marines and terminators. I've found the trick is to assault units which will break or get wiped out easily, then use the consolidation movement to either hide or initiate a new assault. Now if only I could charge some other guardsmen with them, some day....

Do you have a regular Army List?
The tournament list for this army is pretty complex, even for guard. I used all five doctrines and included some expensive ones. Everything that can have sharpshooters does have sharp shooters, for example. It has an expensive HQ with two heavy weapon squads attached plus the ever useful commissar. The core is a large chunk of infantry with melta guns and lascannons, not forgetting my "toy" units; my Ratlings, Ogryns, Storm Troopers and Sentinels.

Further plans?
I don't know, there is so much that I'm not 100% satisfied with I may start again from scratch. This is my usual routine, anyway, whether my armies win an award or not. I'm planning an elite regiment of Praetorian 1st of foot consisting of steam-powered armoured guardsmen using sisters of battle rules. No idea how I'll do it yet, but it'll be something fun and exciting.

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