Greetings Terrans. As I approach the end (for now) of my Elday project, I can’t help but look forward to the next big thing on my hobby agenda – an army that has fascinated me since the first time I saw it in the Warhammer 40,000 Compendium in 1989… You may have guessed from the title that I’m talking about the army presented in the article ‘The Pacification of Flotis III‘ by Graeme Davis, and beautifully illustrated by the peerless Pete Knifton. The army is a real showcase of the units that were available to the Imperial Guard at that time, and is still recognisable today, (Ogryns, Ratlings, Rough Riders, Sentinels and so on), but of course the thing that drew me in the most was Pete’s artwork:

I mean c’mon, it doesn’t get any better than this! The whole IG section in the book is a feast of Pete’s work, and really I think my love of the Imperial Guard is really rooted in these images. Sadly, Pete passed away last October, and that sad event really resurfaced this piece in my mind, along with my long-held ambition to recreate this imposing army – helpfully listed out here:

Now, this is a massive project… 147 Imperial Guard, 36 Horses, 20 Beastmen, 5 Ogryns, 5 Ratlings, 2 AdMech, 4 Servitors, 2 Artillery pieces, 2 Jetbikes, 2 Sentinels, 2 Rhinos… That is a LOT of stuff – like 227 individual things! Now, I would love to do this all with authentic and accurate minis, but let’s face it, that is never going to happen… Sourcing all the models would take an age, and the cost would be insane. Instead, I want to do this in the spirit of OldHammer, which allows for a much looser approach, (though I do still want to capture the look and feel of the article).

As a showcase army, I believe that the article was meant to promote sales of the then-newly released RTB7 Imperial Guard plastic boxed set:

36 minis for (I think) £10, and just look at that box art!! (Blanche of course). So with that in mind, somewhat unusually for me, I started thinking about not shying away from using plastics in this project. That got me to further thoughts that this might actually be a great project to try other ranges and attempt to build this massive army on a budget… Very much in the OldHammer spirit!

So, as these thoughts started to coalesce in my brain-box, I thought it would make sense to set out some ground rules:

1: Original lead miniatures are fine for some of the characters where appropriate

2: Plastics are fine for the vast majority of troops, vehicles and artillery, as long as the selected models fit the aesthetic

3: However, NO modern GW Plastics… that would be too easy, to expensive, and would move this too far away from being an OldHammer project

4: Recreate the force organisation as it as written, but resolve any discrepancies with the army list published in the same book (there are some)

5: The whole army to be painted per the various descriptions in the article, and inspired by the RT07 box art

6: I will be keeping the homeworld as Mordion, (not Mordian, as in the Iron Guard introduced in 2nd edition…). Maybe the two names are related, with Mordian being a later typo or something, but the Imperium is a big place & I prefer to think of the two worlds as being different.

So, that’s as far as I have gotten with this, but I have been eyeing up various models and bits and am starting to get excited… I hope you are too! I’ll keep you posted :-)