Catachan XVIII... that's right... Catachan

[pluch87]

***UPDATE ON PAGE 3***

Being a long time lurker, I finally built up the courage to post a log! I need some inspiration to help me finish my IG so I can finally move on, and hopefully this will give me some motivation!

I have noticed a lack of Catachan posted here and understand that they are not the most popular models. That being said, I had half my unnaturally muscular manly men lying around unfinished for years, and I am determined to see them through (finally).

For those of you without an IG Codex - Obligatory fluff.

The Catachan XVIII 'Swamp Rats', led by Colonel Gator, fought for seven years against a Tyranid infestation on the world of Koralkal VIII. During this time the Swamp Rats were forced to develop many unorthodox tactics to combat the Tyranid menace. Teams of highly experienced 'nid hunters covered their bodies in the ichor of the aliens they had slain, to build up an immunity to the toxins and mask their sent from the Lictors which hunted them. After successfully wiping out the Tyranid swarm, the surviving Swamp Rats spent 2 years on a decontamination ship. Recently released from decontamination, and with the unfortunate passing of Colonel Gator from a fatal head severing at the hands... or talons of a Trygon, the Swamp Rats are now sent to whichever war zone requires their 'expertise' led by their new commander, Major Claymore

Of course, the last bit about the decapitation of Colonel Gator was my little twist... derived upon the Warhammer intellectual property owned by Games Workshop Ltd.

To start things off right, a group shot. "Smile for the camera everyone."


Majority is still a WIP, but I'm slowly getting there!
And yes, that is an air hockey table.


Command squad with WIP Nork, Master of the fleet, and Master of Ordanace. I like flexibility in my army lists!


The 4 vet squads with a close up of the camo cloaks (only two are complete.)




More pics to come! My eyes are getting quite heavy.

Comments and Critiques are MORE than welcome. I'm trying to improve my painting skills so the latter of the two is needed .

[pluch87]

A few more pics. Hopefully I can figure this picture thing out!

Some armour

Pask in a Vanquisher (WIP)



Some heavy weapon teams



And a quick shot of the 3 Sentinels. The one in the middle is still a WIP. I'll have single shots of them sometime in the near future seeing as they are some of my favourite models!



What do you guys think?! C&C welcomed.

[pluch87]

Small update.

Won a bid on eBay for a large bag of IG bits, which included these sweet shotguns I was in desperate need of:


BUT, more importantly, I found THESE!


I'm in love with the AK-47 Lasguns, but don't know what to use them for.

Anyone have any suggestions?!

More pics to come, including some armour fun and Sentinels!

[gimboid364]

That second picture especially looks really nice, your painting is obviously very good. Get them finished, they will look fantastic!

Whats with the guys with green skin? Are they unfinished or is that supposed to be cam cream or what?

I am one of those guys who doesn't like the Catachan models, they are all just ridiculously huge! I've always thought that being on the slim side would be more of an advantage if you lived on a jungle world but nvm.

[Contemno Mortis]

Woo! I have been thinking about regenerating my ancient Catachans for a while, now you have inspired me to go for it! Keep up the good work!

[khaosBlizzard]

Awesome stuff. I love the camo cloaks, very cool.

[CommanderSamirus]

I'd somehow never thought of using gihhilie suits as camo cloaks. I really like it I'm probably going to use that idea now.

-Samirus

[7150]

Catachans on an air hockey table... Bad ass. Great stuff. They were my first army twelve years ago. Keep up the good work.

[pluch87]

gimboid364 - Thanks for the comment. The green skin is camo cream, saw a ghillied sniper wearing it on his hands and face once, thought it was a good idea. And I get where you're coming from not liking the models in general, I read about it all the time :P. Though coming from a high gravity planet with Catachan Devils and plants that try to eat you, I would expect the survivors to be pretty ripped. That being said, they are quite 'over the top', perhaps that's why forgeworld hasn't touched them *sigh*.

Contemno Mortis - Never thought I'd be able to insipre anyone! :P Thanks for the comment, and good luck with your manly men.

khaosBlizzard - Glad the camo cloaks are getting the response I was hoping for. Thanks!

CommanderSamirus - The ghillie suits turned out better than I had thought they would to be honest. I can create some kind of tutorial eventually if I get a big enough request for it!

7150 - Techinically this is my first army from around 12 years ago aswell (well, more like 10)! Atleast 20+ troops and the russ, now a vanquisher, were purchased and painted when I first started. Eventually fell out of the hobby until recently, and they have since been stripped of a poor paint job. Thanks for the comments

[pluch87]

As promised, picks of the sentinels.

Sentinel 1 & 2


Sentinel 2


Sentinel 3 (still need some touch ups/proper base)


I'm really happy with the way the feet turned out from bending the toes (if you can call them that) on the walkers.

And something else I've been working on:




I wish Forgeworld made jungle fighters, but since they don't I tried my best at making something similar to their poses. I know I know... how is he carrying that huge autocannon... but do you see his face! He's crying out in pain

C&C welcomed!

[Emilio101]

Nice start to the log mate. Keep it up!

Emilio

[pluch87]

Thanks for the comment Emilio101! Much appreciated

Now, to finish the pics of what I have painted... to some extent

1st Platoon - Lead by Second Lieutenant Burrow and Commissar Kroll.

There's an objective marker in their as well for kicks. The angle is bad, but I'll post the squads in full once I start working on them again.

I was too lazy to pull out the 4 squads (all a wip) so I decided to bring the four squad leaders infront the of camera instead.


Chimera is next




And finally, what is an Imperial Guard force without a Inquisitor kicking around to keep an eye on things?

Obviously a WIP, he's armed with a Psycannon and Daemonhammer. My future plan for him will be a huge retinue and an inquis. chimera for him to ride around in. A few friends have some Chaos Daemon lists so I'll sned him in to run around and hit them in the face for a little bit of fun but I'll save that for another log in the future.


I just finished priming the last autocannon squad along with a few more melta and plasma guns. I'll post those once they have some colour on them! And then I really need to finish those camo cloaks... I know, I'm all over the place with progress, I'm sporadic like that. I hate it, but I can't help it.


C&C appreciated!

[muggs]

You can make AK las guns from the normal catachan ones. If you cut off the power cell and add the mag from a bolter. You can leave it there or you can cut the flash supressor and barrel off, turn the barrel upside down and then reattach it all. I did have some pics but they got deleted.

It's quite time consuming but looks quite good.

Muggs

[primarch16]

Good looking catachans, my only critique is that I think more camo on the actual skin of the catachans would look great. It also helps to break up the amount of skin they have showing (honestly cant see that gear being flak armour) But its just personal preference really. What kind of list do you use on the field?

[pluch87]

muggs - Never thought of using bolter clips to turn the lasgun into an AK. Interesting idea! If I ever end up making a squad equiped with them (Penal Legion?!) then I'll give that a shot! Thanks.

primarch16 - Thanks for the comments. I do prefer the look of camo on the troops, however I planned to put camo on only the Vet's in order to distinguish between them and regular platoon troopers. Although an entire army of camo would be pretty sweet... I need to give that some thought. And about the flak, haven't you heard the rumours? Catachan muscle is able to deflect lasgun blasts

As for the list, in an ideal world I would run a mech list, but alas my fluffy heart won't allow me to run mech for a jungle army. So it's a footslogger with some armour for support.

My current goal is to finish 2000pts completely painted that can be fun yet somewhat competitive (I'm not a very competitive player). This is just so I remain motivated. The list is (green is complete, red is PIP, white has yet to be built):

-- As of Mar. 10/10 --

C.C.S
Major Claymore w. bolter & PF, Medic, Standard, Vox, Hvy Flamer, x2 bodyguards, Officer of the fleet. All in a comfy chimera.

Marbo (what's a catachan force without him, honestly?)

Troops:
1st Platoon
Platoon commander w bolter. Platoon standard, vox, 2 gren. launchers, commissar
Infantry squad 1 w vox, autocannon
Infantry squad 2 w vox, autocannon
Infantry squad 3 w vox, autocannon
Infantry squad 4 w vox, autocannon
Heavy weapon squad - motars
Heavy weapon squad - lascannons (got them for $1 on eBay)
Combat engineers 1 - 2 flamers, demo charge
Combat engineers 2 - 2 flamers, demo charge
Vet squad 1 - Harker, 6 shotguns, 2 flamers, hvy flamer, demolitions
Vet squad 2 - bolt pistol/PF, 3 melta, demolitions
Vet squad 3 - 3 plasmas, vox, camo cloaks

Fast attack:
Scout Sentinel 1 - autocannon, searchlight
Scout Sentinel 2 - autocannon, searchlight
Scout Sentinel 3 - autocannon, searchlight

Heavy:
BT w lascannon and sponson HB
Vanq. w Pask, Lascannon

looks like christmas I have around 3000pts of IG, but this is what I want to complete A.S.A.P.

The Sentinel's are magnetized so i can swap the autocannon for missile launcher, multilaser or heavy flamer

[gimboid364]

Where did you get the different lagun variants!? they are awesome!

[pluch87]

Got them in a big bitz bag from eBay. I was in it for the shotguns and 10 models, but found the autoguns/lasguns in the mix! It was a nice surprise.

Almost done the final autocannon team, update soon!

[Colonel Jacka]

Looking good, don't know about the white singlets though! Did like the white Commissar! Tanks and Sentinels are great!

[SDKFZ]

Thats some army youve goten yourself here. Nice. Keep those pictures coming.

/ SDKFZ

[pluch87]

Colonel Jacka - Thanks for the comments. Much appreciated! White singlet's aren't for everyone I supposed, but I thought giving them wife beaters would be a unique change to the army.

SDKFZ - It's taken a while to get the army with some kind of paint on them, but it's finally coming together. Thanks!

Update time!!

Before I move on to finishing the vet squads and eventually the Platoon, I figured I needed a few more special weapons, since I'm lacking melta's, as well as some sergeants with las pistols, including a cheap version of my company commander.

BUT, before I begin. I almost forgot my workspace photo!


So, now that that's out of the way, this is what I've been working on for the last little while:

The autocannon crew in transit, now with some skin (still in need of extreme highlight)



A sergeant with las pistol (cheap platoon commander)


Cheap version of the company commander (eventually holding a pair of binoculars)


And finally, the special weapons. 1 grenade launcher, 4 melta's and 2 plasma's (the guns are pinned and almost finished)


What do you guys think?! C&C welcome. Hope to be working on finishing up the vets before the week is out!