Mortar Squad for the Brood Brothers

With Armies on Parade over, I've finally gotten back to finishing up a few projects that I'd had lying around. One of them is a fun little Heavy Weapon squad with mortars. The nice thing about this particular unit is I can slot it into my regular Genestealer Cult army or I can kick it over to the Astra Militarum detachment depending on what I want to run. The miniatures started out as the the basic Cadian squad, but I've come into a fair number of "bits" recently, and I decided to go a bit crazy with these guys as advanced modeler's syndrome kicked in.

New Cult Russ - Gryphonne Pattern Vanquisher!

I'd finished this particular model a few weeks ago, but I've been super busy working on some other items, and never got around to posting the photos. This is yet another of my "vintage" kits that had been lying about the house for ages that I finally decided to re-purpose to the Cult. These kits are from the days when the plastic Leman Russ kit didn't include the vanquisher option, so the only way you could get it was through Forgeworld. This is the Gryphonne IV version of the turret on a Classic Russ chassis. Unfortunately it looks as if the turret has been discontinued, which is a real shame because I kind of like them more than the current plastic offering.

Doin' the Neutron Dance - The Cult has a Valdor

I honestly can't believe it is already August, 2020. If you'd asked me what I would have been doing at this point, normally I'd have been getting ready for my son's Scout summer camp - of course with all of the COVID insanity, that's been canceled. Honestly most of 2020 has been canceled for all intents and purposes, and sadly it looks like that it isn't going to let up anytime soon. I'm still working toward Armies on Parade for this year, but I'm not sure that will actually happen either. Hopefully it will at worst be postponed for a few months, but in the meantime I've got a lot of miniatures to get painted!

I've always loved the Forgeworld line of resin kits and conversions for Warhammer 40K. I came to 40K from a background in static model building, and in the early 90's built and even cast some of my own resin kits. I've continued to keep my hand in the game with some of my 15mm projects as well. When I saw the Valdor Tank Hunter on the Forgeworld site, I knew I had to add one of these beasts to my burgeoning Cult Brood Brothers force.

Hail Hydra! Anti-air Support for the Brood Brothers

The Hydra Flak tank is a newer (though not exactly new) vehicle based on the ubiquitous Chimera chassis for the Astra Militarum. It appears to draw inspiration from several real world anti-aircraft tanks such as the Gepard and Shilka, though it uses an open topped turret more reminiscent of earlier vehicles. I honestly liked the look of the vehicle, and thought it would fill a niche as an anti-flyer vehicle in my Astra Militarum Brood Brothers detachment, so I decided to take the plunge.

Two Random Infantry Guys for the Brood Brothers - and Why They Matter!

While I was painting the crew for my first Imperial Heavy Mortar, I was also painting up a couple of Guardsmen - Brood Brothers guardsmen to be exact. I've even given these two guys names - Mutt and Jeff (pictured below). I know - not terribly original, and not so unusual, but why two? Well, therein lies the story of trying to create a reasonably modular army for Warhammer 40K and trying to maintain squad identity through the use of squad numbers on their paudrons (shoulder armor).

Brood Brothers Second Squad Transport has Arrived!

In August of last year I posted an entry detailing some of the first vehicles I'd gotten together for my Genestealer Cult army. Included in it was a Chimera numbered "21" that served as transport for my first infantry squad. A few weeks ago I finished up my second squad of infantry, and I figured that they needed a transport of their own. Ultimately I'd like to have dedicated transport for all of my Astra Militarum / Brood Brothers squads, and I'm planning at least two more squads so far, though if I'm honest the final tally will likely go higher than that, because the Four Armed Emperor loves the poor bloody infantry!

Ratling Squad - Reporting for Duty

In our post COVID-19 world, time seems to have taken on a fairly relative quality. Though it seems longer, a couple of months ago I posted a write-up on the first of my ratling conversions for my Brood Brothers Astra Militarum detachment. I still have some post varnish detailing to do, but I'm happy to report four more converted ratlings have joined the fold and I can now field a squad of five of the little buggers. I plan to do five more total to get a full-sized squad of ten as you can never have too many sniper rifles in the character happy world of Warhammer 40K.

Second Brood Brothers Infantry Squad

I just finished painting up my second infantry squad for my Brood Brothers detachment. The nice thing about the infantry squad is I can use it either directly in my Genestealer Cult main force, or in a Brood Brothers Astra Militarum detachment. If I want to be particularly cheeky, I could just run it as straight Astra Militarum - call them something along the lines of Savlar Chem Dogs. In short, these squads are fairly versatile, though fragile. I try to maximize firepower, and have a variety of it so my opponent can't simply ignore them. In a recent battle against Tau, my first infantry squad's autocannon actually ended up being quite effective.

Second Command Squad for the Brood Brothers

A while back I'd gotten a standard bearer together and painted like I wanted it (taking heavy cues from the flag of the Soviet Union crossed with the Genestealer Cult), but I hadn't gotten around to finishing the rest of that squad, including the platoon commander. I've now finally been able to get this crew together and they're ready to take on the world - as long as it's not too tough...

Brood Brothers - Ogryns!

The Astra Militarum (Imperial Guard for us grognards) has long had a history of "overlooking" certain mutations from the human norm and recruit "abhumans" into their ranks. In the current, and recent, editions you can still take Ogryns (large, brutish humans adapted to live on high gravity worlds) and Ratlings (AKA halflings or hobbits). In previous editions, Beastmen were also allowed, but they have since been dropped as an option. For my full Astra Militarum detachment, I wanted to include a unit of Ogryns as they make great battering rams, and it gave me an opportunity to try some slightly different conversions.

For my Cult Ogryns, I started with the basic kit, but decided rather than simply going with some forehead ridges as you'd see on the normal Brood Brothers infantry, the Ogryns would develop full cranial protection remnant of tyranids or hybrid metamorphs. I also decided to go with one Ogryn wearing a gas mask as that is fairly right for the overall army's theme.

Old School Leman Russ Demolisher - Pressed into Cult Service!

Games Workshop first produced their plastic Leman Russ kit way back in 1994. At the time it was a major breakthrough for Guard players, and given the capricious scatter mechanics of the day, the Russ was an absolute beast on the table as battle cannon shells could bend and curve like the Matrix and blast vehicles from the side and rear with near impunity. They also started producing alternate variants of the Russ either through Imperial Armour (later Forgeworld) or through the addition of white metal parts to the standard kit. I had one of these vintage beauties lying around that had never been fully painted, so I decided to "requisition" it for the cult.

This one I'd built in ages past with a rather unusual mixed armament of the Demolisher Cannon, one Heavy Bolter, and two Plasma Cannon. As the Demolisher variant isn't in the normal Genestealer Cult codex, this will purely be a Brood Brother Astra Militarum detachment addition to the force, which is perfectly fine with me. It will give the Baneblade company!

Scout Sentinels for the Brood!

The base Genestealer Cult codex includes a few Astra Militarum units which can be taken as part of the core army. This is nice option because the units include the faction keywords Tyranids and Genestealer Cults automatically. A GSC army can field both Armoured and Scout Sentinels as a part of the core list. Of course, these can also be fielded as a part of an Allied Astra Militarum detachment as well, making them fairly versatile. I finally finished up a full squad of three Scout Sentinels for my growing force. One of these days I'm going to have to take a group picture of the whole army, but that will likely wait a couple of weeks or so.

As you can see, I've continued with my "50 Shades of Soviet Green" theme here using two different shades of Russian green for the sentinels. The one on the far left is done with a Second World War vintage 4BO Russian Green (A.MIG-019). I went with a simple red cult insignia on this one. The middle and right-hand sentinels are in a more modern Soviet/Russian green called Dark Green (BS 241) (A.MIG-915). I went back to my tried and true graffiti over the aquila on those.

Genestealer Cult Ratling Brood Brother

With the world sort of going crazy all around us, I've managed to take the enforced "home time" to start making forward progress on my various Genestealer Cult activities. I haven't been idle over the past month and a half, just some of the projects have been taking a bit longer than I'd hoped they would to get finished. However, that being said, over this past weekend I finally managed to make real forward progress on several projects. I expect until the current quarantines ease, posts to the blog will be a bit more regular - at least that's the goal!

As part of my Brood Brothers Guard force, I wanted to start including something beyond simple infantry squads (be they command, line infantry, special weapon, or heavy weapon squads) and tanks. I started looking at the possibility of converting some of the abhuman forces like Ratlings and Ogryns. The Sanctus I converted from a Blackstone Fortress Kroot last year got me thinking that there may be other good miniatures out there that I could use as the basis for some conversion, and as BSF had two ratlings, I decided to take the plunge!

Genestealer Cult - Brood Brothers Reinforcements

Over the last few weeks in the background I've been working on a few new models for my Brood Brothers detachment for the Genestealer Cult. I started with the Forgeworld resin Cadian Command HQ Squad and for the most part performed a head swap on them. I went a bit further with the officer as I wanted to retain the field telephone - so carving out that resin took a fair amount of work.

Cult Reinforcements - Nexos and Standard Bearer

Now that Armies on Parade is over, I've been able to get back to painting up some more miniatures for the cult. I started by finishing up a couple that I'd hoped to get done for my Armies on Parade force, the Nexos and the Standard Bearer for one of my Brood Brothers command squads, but now I'll just have to use them for next year's entry - more on that in what will likely be several blogs worth of material.

Armies on Parade - The Uprising!

I found out that Games Workshop holds an annual Armies on Parade event a couple of months ago. As I've been working a lot on my Genestealer cult, I figured that this would be a fun opportunity to get the army out on the table and see how it fared against the competition. I had several ideas for a scenic base, but ultimately realized that I just didn't have the time to completely build something new from scratch. I'd already been building several of the ruined plastic buildings available from GW, and I ended up picking up a Forgeworld Realm of Battle 2' x 2' base (the Cityscape Generatorium Sector) figuring with a little work I could make it look pretty good.

40K Genestealer Cult - Brood Brothers!

One of the standard troops options for the Genestealer cult is a unit called "Brood Brothers." These are standard Astra Militarum infantry that have been infiltrated by the Cult and defect once the grand uprising begins. You can also take certain standard Astra Militarum units as a separate detachment for your Battle Forged force, but I'll detail some of those options in a later blog entry.