+ Imperial Guard heavy weapons +
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| + Lasguns can achieve a lot, but every Guardsman appreciates a big gun at their back. + |
'Imperial Guard heavy weapons are crewed by a team of two men. Generally speaking, one crewman carries and fires the weapon whilst the other carries and loads ammunition. [...] This arrangement is unique to the Imperial Guard.'
+ Codex Imperial Guard +
So says the venerable first ever Codex the Imperial Guard got – unwittingly making basing and rebasing a source of low-level psychic angst for Guard players the subsequent decades.
These new weapon teams stood aside from the older Imperial Army models, where individual soldiers had their own (generally shoulder-mounted) gun. The new models were more akin to the field artillery pieces from Rogue Trader, like ork Hop-Splat guns and Squat Mole Mortars, with separate models for the gun and the crew. At the time of release, this was a fun way to let you play with the cool 'gun team' models the GW were releasing for the metal Regiments then being rolled out.
The lascannon and mortar were unbased models, with the crew on separate 25mm bases; while the autocannon and heavy bolters had seats for the gunners and the loaders separate. The Catachan and Cadian missile launcher gunners were on cavalry bases of all things, while the other Regiments had both team members on 25mm. Quite a mix, and typical of the 'model first' approach of the period. Lots of players opted to put the guns on bases of various sizes, or otherwise adapt to what looked best to them. The Codex went on to give a few suggestions of how this all worked in practice, and we all happily bumped along.
Spool on a few more years, and new heavy teams were released in plastic. Whatever the weapon, all the teams were now consolidated/abstracted into a single 60mm base (flat rather than raised and bevelled, for some reason) containing the gun and two crew members. As tournament-style competitive gaming became more important, this was codified, so lots of players moved their old weapon teams onto 60mm bases for a few more editions 'til now, when the current 40k rules call for 50mm bases... I've got a certain recalcitrance to rebase purely to suit a new edition. Part of that's laziness, part of it's a sense that I don't want to mess around with models I'm happy with, and part of it's that I tend to edition hop, so it's all a bit academic: I'd be robbing Peter to pay Paul.
In all truth I've never been particularly fussed about sticking to the letter of the rules on basing anyway – the look of the models has usually driven any decisions I make on things like this. My Lamb's World Guard heavy weapons, for example, have been on 50mm bases for years because they're particularly delicate models and so looked lost on bigger bases. Likewise when I originally built these Steel Legion for the Aldebaran 18th [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+], I only had one heavy bolter, which I wanted to include in an infantry squad and so popped them team on an oval to fit with the squad better.
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| That's not a standard issue base! |
However, blast markers, movement, range... all these things can (in theory) be affected by the shape and size of the base, so at gaming events where I've been playing pick-up games against new people, I've always made clear what's 'correct' and what's a change for the sake of visuals. Happily, in twenty-odd years of such gaming, I've never met anyone who's voiced any complaints, but there's part of me that does feel a little conflicted when models aren't on 'current, official' bases – I know I'd feel like a plum complaining about something so minor, so perhaps everyone's been keeping quiet out of politeness!
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+ Basing the Steel Legion +
All of which is really a long preamble into the topic of today's inload, in which I agonise about which bases to use for my heavy weapons teams.
Pictured here are some Steel Legion heavy weapon teams; some old, some new, and hopefully you can sympathise with my dilemma. From left to right we have a heavy bolter team on a 120 x 92mm oval; a heavy bolter team (just about balancing!) on a 50mm base; a lascannon team on a 60mm base and a lascannon mounted on a 40mm base together with two crew members.
Steel Legion missile launchers are much smaller models and so, unlike the other weapon teams, were provided with 25mm bases:
+ Consistency versus pragmatism +
To me, the oval works best for the heavy bolter: the 50mm is too small to support the gun and gunner together, while they'd be lost on a 60mm base. Conversely, the lascannon fits quite nicely on a 60mm base; and is substantial enough to sit on its own 40mm base, with the crew separate. That's much more convenient for storage and transport, but leaves the heavy bolter crew as the only ones on a combined base.
So let's try some other options for the lascannons. Here's one on a similar oval to the heavy bolter (though set at a different angle). Cool, but only possible because I've converted the crew...
However, it'd definitely agitate the brain worms to have one team on an oval and one on a 60mm round... argh!
After consulting my (very patient and indulgent) friends in the PCRC, I think I've decided on keeping the missiles on individual 25mm bases; the heavy bolters on ovals; and have lascannons on 50mm bases. But what are your thoughts – and how do you base your heavy weapon teams?
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One big batch later – as noted in this inload [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+], I'm aiming for a balance between effect and speed rather than a highly-polished display result – I've got the coats of all of the original figures in the army completed, so the next stage will be revisiting the guns and greys.
After that, I'll turn my attention to the goggles, faces and leathers; leaving just the Army Group symbol (white lightning bolt on green field) to finish.
... but to finish today's inload, here's the hero of the hour, our currently nameless Primaris Psyker, who's taken on quite a character and become a favourite after the few 2nd edition games we've had.
First thought is to borrow an idea from Fantasy and individually base the crew, but then have them slot into a larger "scenic" base when required.
ReplyDeleteArmy is looking good! With the Guard I think you can get away with a quick, undetailed pass, because they are supposed to be a mass of anonymous infantry. The necessity of painting such a quantity of models in a sane way actually fits the fiction in this case.