Creating a Kill Team for the 2021 version of the game

 

A while back I told my son about an idea I had for an Imperial Guard regiment based on the British Natal Native Contingent from the Zulu Wars using Praetorian officers and Tallarn troops. I used to have the Praetorian boxed set as a start to making this force, but circumstances forced me to sell it many, many years ago.

Limited edition Praetorian XXIV boxed set from Games Workshop.

My son, Lucas, remembered that and for Christmas this year got me some figures from Victoria Miniatures to make a Kill Team based on that concept. (I cannot tell you how moved I was by his gift - that he would remember something like that and act on it was very thoughtful!) Victoria Miniatures is an Australian company, but they now have a US-based distributor and they make “not” GW Imperial Guard units. Lucas got me a squad of the “Desert Scorpions” (not-Tallarn), and one of their character figures  - a Praetorian officer based on Michael Caine's character from the movie "Zulu."

Since the release of the Octarius boxed set for Kill Team included rules for a Veteran Guardsman team, with more options and detail than a standard Imperial Guard team, I decided to build them as a Veteran Guardsman squad. This meant digging into my bits box and planning out exactly how I was going to assemble the figures, since many of them would need to be non-standard infantrymen.

In the end, I ordered a few more figures from Victoria Miniatures to fill out the roster and have a complete Veteran Guardsman Kill Team with all the options. I ordered the Desert Scorpions Heavy Weapon Crew, as well as the Colonel Ash Ironside character figure.

The Victoria figures are great quality, consisting of resin castings and 3d printed components. Once I had planned out my builds, I was able to assemble them without any issues at all.

My Kill Team consists of:

• Sgt. Mika Bromhead (Sergeant Veteran)

• Cpl. Heydar (Confidant Veteran)

• Lahab (Veteran Gunner with a meltagun)

• Harun (Veteran Gunner with a plasma gun)

• Kanballah (Veteran Gunner with a grenade launcher)

• Nureddin (Veteran Gunner with a flamer)

• Dhamar (Sniper Veteran)

• Asim (Medic Veteran)

• Raja (Comms Veteran)

• Atallah (Spotter Veteran)
  

• Haddim (Demolition Veteran)

• Fathi (Hardened Veteran)

• Al-Qadir (Bruiser Veteran)

• Mustahim (Zealot Veteran)

• Ameen (Trooper Veteran)

• Boutros (Trooper Veteran)

• Zahir (Trooper Veteran)

• Farid (Trooper Veteran)

Sgt. Bromhead was assembled as per the instructions, as were the four trooper veterans and the four gunners.

When looking at the stats for the Confidant Veteran, I could not make up my mind whether to arm him with a pistol and chainsword, or with a boltgun. Fortunately, I did not need to choose. The Desert Scorpions set comes with 10 sets of legs, but 12 torsos. This let me build two torsos for Cpl. Heydar, and magnetize them so I can easily swap him out between both weapons options.

This still left one extra torso, which was very handy since the Heavy Weapons crew set has six torsos and seven sets of legs. Between both sets this let me build an extra figure (in this case, the sniper Dhamar).

I did not use the backpacks that came with the Desert Scorpions, since in my opinion the canteens and daggers are plenty. This left me with many left over, which I used to build my specialists. Since they have a small antenna, I felt the backpack could easily represent a vox-unit, so I used one on Raja (the comms veteran). By removing the antenna, the packs can easily work as medikits, especially if I paint them white and put a red cross on them. This took care of Asim, the medic.

The Heavy Weapons crew comes with a hand holding a detonator, and a hand holding binoculars. This made easy work of the spotter and demolition veterans.

The last three were the most fun, and the required the most thought. I was able to find a hand, and an open book, among my bits and used them to build an arm for Mustahim, the zealot, quoting from holy scripture as he wades into battle. I took the bionic arm from the Ash Ironside figure and gave it to Fathi, the hardened veteran. I used a brutal club that looked like it would work to clear trenches in hand-to-hand combat forAl-Qadir, the bruiser. I also gave him the shotgun arm from Ash Ironside (even though it does not have specific rules in the game, I felt it would be another likely weapon for clearing trenches and made the figure look even more brutal).

I have written up a bit of background for them which I will share in a future post. All that is left to do now is paint them, which for me is always a challenge...

'Til next time!