My next army

So back in June before 6th edition hit and vehicles were still all the rage i got the urge to start a Imperial Guard army. I figured all my Grey Knight army lists lean towards shooting anyway so why not get an army with lots of big guns?

I didn't want a plain ole boring green Imperial Guard army though, i wanted to do something i hadn't seen before... Russian Imperial Guard. Red tanks with the hammer and sickle, Russian looking troops, the whole big thing a i wanted a red thunderous tide of tanks roaring across the battlefield... and then 6th edition hit and added "hull points"

But not all was lost, Imperial Guard in my opinion are going to fair extremely well in 6th edition. Cheap troops will allow me to field a large number of options in an edition that will be all about the ground troops, cheap strong flyer's in the Vendetta, and while my idea of squadrons of Sentinels or Banewolve's cruising across the battlefield doesn't look to be the best idea any more, my Basilisks and Manticores hiding behind my lines should still be able to dish out punishment without getting too many hull points stripped away (especially with indirect fire). Leman Russ's may not have the survivability they used to (which is a shame because i really want to field some Demolisher's against the large number of Terminators i expect to see) but i will just have to do some play testing to see for sure.

Building the Russian front

So over the last month or so I've been assembling my army and this is what I've got to show for it thus far

not to bad of a start, I've still got about 5 sentinels to assemble which I'm not in a huge rush to do with their depleted survivability in 6th edition, another Leman Russ which I'm probably going to make a demolisher (giving me two) as the Plasma Executioner is very expensive points wise (and GW seems to have made the model in such a way as magnetizing the barrel would make it look stupid)

I also have what i have dubbed the Apocalypse backlog to deal with...

A Shadowsword and a Baneblade which again I'm not in a huge rush to do since I'm going to have to wait a year for the next big Apocalypse game around here and i currently have no idea what variant out of the half dozen options or so i want to do. I'll probably need to get one ready for "TANKSgiving" but I've got a few months for that.

The second picture is parts to make about 6 or 7 basic Leman Russ's i scored off Ebay for cheap. Unfortunately they are the MKI or MKII variety and the tracks are a bit of a pain to line up perfectly, the upside is they came with enough armored track guards to outfit my whole army if i wanted to (the new Leman Russ's don't have them)

You by now may have said to yourself  "Jason, tanks are awesome but where are your troops!?" well here they are.

However Cadians which may be the best bang for your buck look about as Russian as Britney Spears, which leaves me with either Valhallans or Vostroyans.

Valhallans

Vostroyans

My Initial plan was to make the Vostroyans my Veterans and get some Valhallans for basic troops, so i ordered 4 sets of Vostroyans and a Vostroyan command squad from my local game store Battlegroundgames.com (shameless plug), Unfortunately 2 days after i ordered them GW changed their availability from 24hrs to 3-4 weeks.

So for the past month I've been keeping my eye on Ebay for Vostroyans and Valhallans but they aren't exactly popular Imperial Guard choices so they tend to pop up rarely. Found a large lot of Valhallans in the UK but they went for almost the same cost as from GW and i didn't want to pay international shipping on a bunch of metal figures. This week i scored however, a guy unloading a HUGE lot of Vostryoans here in the good old U S of A, and i got about 70 of them for a steal. That coupled with the Vostroyans i ordered from Battlegrounds (whenever GW decides to ship them) i should be all set for all the troops i could need.