The old guard has gone merc!

o/

So along with the thunderhawk & stormlord hulls (the latter of which has been passed onto the Bink, who is rather fond of building stuff) rogue.trader.voril passed to me some old, OOP IG storm troopers. Actually I paid for these unlike the others. Several were missing backpacks, however due to the number of IG & IG-like armies I've had over the years, I had a large pile of spares handy. Here are the first few:

Two are as yet unflocked as you can see. I ran out of clear coat which helps in keeping that stuff on the base, so I figured I'd just wait (I'm outta glue too, but 50+ miles round trip to the FLGS for just those 2 things makes little sense). Anyways, i went for a desert scheme instead of my perennial favorite: all green. I intend to use these as Marauders (mercenaries) in my Tyrant's Legion army. As all of my other IG are in varying shades of brown, these guys won't stand out too terribly. I think I might give them My SWM Rapid Assault vehicle to use as a Chimera as well.

Marauders are essentially IG veterans with a few exceptions. First of all they're elite choices (I think FW saw Cruddances's mistake there), and rather than BS:4, they're WS:4. Which is kinda odd given that you can't give them 2 CCWs with the exception of the Marauder Chief (sgt.). However once engaged in HTH, that does make them far more survivable than reg. IG vs. the ubiquitous SMs who will be expecting to hit on 3's. They also get one of three vet abilities for free rather than paying for it as the IG Vets do. Murder Cultists (something HTH related, but these guys look too civilized for that), Hereteks (carapace armor), or the one I think I'll use: Stalkers. Stalkers have acute senses, stealth & move thru cover. Given that these guys are supposed to look like old SAS troops, I think that fits them perfectly.

However unlike the SAS, Marauders are just 'in it for the money'. That means, as soon as the fail a leadership test, they can never rally as that would likely reduce their chances of collecting that paycheck (and nicely off sets the free vet upgrades). They may also take up to 2 special weapons (no heavy weapons even though I got an autocannon team with this bunch) and up to 2 'brutes' which are essentially ogryn with rending. FW left it kinda open ended though so you can convert whatever you want so long as its on a 40mm base. I was thinking of maybe converting one or two from some ogre kingdom bulls...if I get around to it. The Chief also gets some nice upgrades, blurring the lines between sergeant & officer.

I have a Sgt, 1 meltagunner, the AC team, and about 8 of the grunts above. I also picked up another half dozen grunts on ebay for $10 (which is surprising as these tend to go for ridiculous prices on ebay). So all I need is another Sgt. model & a special weapon (beyond that it'll just be too expensive) and I'll have 2 good sized Merc. units. I was thinking of maybe seeing if I could remove the AC team's autocannon barrel & replace it with an IG's heavy stubber from one of the pintle mounts, if so then that would work for a special weapon even though it might look kinda funky when mounted in the old style IG gun carriage.