01-27-2010 - Hessler's Command Chimera

As promised, I bring you photos of Colonel Hessler's "ride" - his MP3-toting Command Chimera! I thought that, since the vast majority of the Troops in my army will be comprised of Regular Infantry Platoons, with their distinctive WWI German "Trench Warfare"-style uniforms (Chaos Black Flak Armor, "Pickelhaube" helmet/respirator & weapons, Adeptus Battlegrey uniform & backback), I should try and create a paint scheme for my armored vehicles that would match well with them and bring a strong sense of uniformity to my army.

I still haven't added any "weathering", "dirt", or "battle-damage" to my vehicles - I plan to do so in the future, but right now I'm just trying to concentrate on completing a basic, tabletop-ready force.

I used Boltgun Metal for the majority of the highlighting (rivets, weapons, surface features, treads, etc.).

The hatch on the back of the tank is JUST wide enough to allow an extremely tiny MP3 Player (with earphone speakers) to fit inside. Granted, it doesn't sound particularly loud on the tabletop (even when turned all the way up)...but then again, you wouldn't want it to be too distracting, anyway, as it would "take away" somewhat from the fun of the game. However, it is pretty damn cool to hear great military marches like "Panzerlied" (from the movie "Battle of the Bulge"), or the "Aces High March" (from the movie Battle of Britain), or other awesome themes emanating from my Command Chimera as my army is deploying for battle or advancing on the enemy during my Movement Phase. It also has a pretty cool side effect - it tends to "unnerve" my opponents a bit...

The "Fur Den Kaiser!" and "VI Krieg" logos on the side armor were added by printing a tiny banner via my computer, trimming it to fit, and simply gluing it into place (there is NO WAY I could ever have painted any text in that size myself and expected it to be in any way legible). The Maltese Crosses mounted on the sides of the tank (which I think helps a great deal to give the model a distinctively "German" look) came straight off of a Black Templars Space Marine Upgrade Sprue. Expect to see more of these (in the near future) on ALL of my armored vehicles.

I know that it says "VI Krieg" on the side (whereas Colonel Hessler's own "personal" Tank Regiment is supposed to be from the 5th Krieg Panzer Division). However, as he would normally command the 5th Krieg from a Leman Russ or Baneblade tank cupola (instead of a Chimera), I decided to put "VI Krieg" on his Command Chimera (as it would most likely be drawn from an Panzergrenadier Regiment within the 6th Krieg ("VI Krieg") Panzergrenadier Division) to differentiate when he is exercising command over the Kampfgruppe as a whole.

I think that the choice of a predominantly Adeptus Battlegrey tank hull (with a limited amount of Chaos Black on the turret, weapons and side armor) combined with some Boltgun Metal highlighting helps to give the tank a distinctively "WWI/WWII German Army" look.

This predominantly two-tone (and non-camoflaged) paint scheme may seem a little "dull" to some, but I think that it blends very well with the overall army theme.

Here's a shot of Colonel Hessler and his Company Command Squad of Plasma Gun-toting Carapace-Armored Veterans together with their ride. Though their own uniform color scheme doesn't match exactly with that of their vehicle, this is all right - remember, Veteran Troops are supposed to be more "elite" than their Regular counterparts, and their distinctive Chaos Black Carapace Armor and headgear (with Mithril Silver highlights) helps to set the Veterans apart from the more numerous Regulars.

Lastly, here is a photo of one of my Regular Infantry Troopers (wearing the army's predominant Adeptus Battlegrey/Chaos Black color scheme) standing in front of the Command Chimera. You can see in the picture how well the Infantry's color scheme and the Armor's color scheme combine together to convey a strong sense of uniformity throughout the army.

Next up: TBA (I have several projects I'm working on at the moment, in various stages of completion). But, to give you an idea of what to look forward to, these projects include:

More Carapace-Armored Veteran Squads (painting)

Regular Infantry Squads (painting)

Ogryn Squad (painting)

Imperial Heavy Mortar (painting)

Leman Russ Demolisher (assembling and painting)

Deathstrike Missile Launcher - transporting a German V-2 Rocket! (assembling and painting)

- Colonel Hessler

6th Kriegs Panzergrenadier Division - Hessler's Company Command Squad

Colonel Hessler with his Veteran Company Command Squad.

Like all other Veterans in Kampfgruppe Hessler, they are

protected by Carapace Armor.

Colonel Hessler, the Commanding Officer of Kampfgruppe

Hessler. He normally goes into battle bearing a Plasma Pistol

and a Power Fist (though he occasionally uses a Power Weapon).

Veteran Panzergrenadier Schmidt with Plasma Gun.

Veteran Panzergrenadier Eiger with Plasma Gun.

Veteran Panzergrenadier Baumann with Plasma Gun.

Veteran Medic Joachim with Lasgun and Medi-Pack. The combination of the unit's Carapace Armor (4+ Armor Save) and the Medi-Pack (Feel No Pain Universal Special Rule) makes the unit much more survivable (particularly when Rapid-Firing their Plasma Guns)!

Next up: Colonel Hessler's Command Chimera (complete with

an internally-mounted MP3 player and speakers)!

- Colonel Hessler

HW Team Gun Carriages - 01-17-2010

Kudos once again to "Dreadpirate", fellow member of the Imperial Guard Message Board, whose excellent, highly-detailed work on his Imperial Guard Army's Heavy Weapon Teams (using converted Heavy Weapon carriages for their Autocannons) has inspired me to try my hand at building my own version.
Here are some pictures of the original Forge World Death Korps of Krieg Autocannon Heavy Weapons Teams, interspaced with pictures of my OWN version mounted on a gun carriage (for comparison):

Now, mine are still unpainted (and, OBVIOUSLY) nowhere NEAR as finely detailed as the ones "Dreadpirate" has built - the frames that my gun carriages use are made from toy cannons. However, I do think they convey pretty much the same general "look" (I wanted mine to resemble (roughly) German WWII Pak 37 (37 mm) or Pak 38 (50 mm) Anti-Tank Guns, since those appearance and style of those weapons fit the "German" theme of my Death Korps of Krieg army so well). Because of the way I am constructing and painting them (I'm keeping the Heavy Weapon barrel pieces SEPARATE from the carriages; i.e., I'm NOT gluing them to the carriage frame), they will have one very significant advantage over other similar models seen in other Imperial Guard armies. THESE Heavy Weapon Teams will have INTERCHANGEABLE WEAPON MOUNTS.

If I expect to need be able to pop Rhinos, Trukks and lots of other lightly-armored transport vehicles during a particular game, I'll mount Autocannons on them.

If I expect to face lots of heavy tanks or Monstrous Creatures, I'll switch them out with Lascannons.

If I'm facing a (mostly) horde army with lots of (fairly) lightly-armored troops, then the Missile Launchers (and, eventually, Heavy Bolters) come out to play.

If I'm going to be fighting in urban terrain or have limited line-of-sight (like in a Cities of Death game, for example), I'll switch to Mortars.

In effect, this will give EACH of the Heavy Weapons Teams in my army access to ALL FIVE different types of Heavy Weapons, as dictated by the tactical situation in a given game. This way, I don't have to build FIVE DIFFERENT SETS of Heavy Weapons Teams with FIVE DIFFERENT WEAPONS glued to each of them, in order to achieve the same level of firepower and tactical flexibility - and it will cost me a HELL of a lot less!

"What's that? You're using a 'Nidzilla army? OK, hold on a second..." (grabs the Army List, jots town a couple changes, switches out all of the Autocannons for Lascannons) "OK, bring it on...let's see your Carnifex Broods shrug off EIGHTEEN Lascannon shots! Can you say, BRING IT DOWN? I knew you could..."

"So you and your Orks wanna play Cities of Death, huh? Hmmm...LOTS of Ork Mobs...limited LOS...less Vehicles...lots of Cover Saves...low Armor Saves...yeah, no problem..." (switches out Autocannons for Mortars) "Yeah, you'll be sayin' 'WAAAAAAAGH!' in a minute, all right...as you run screaming for cover from about EIGHTEEN Mortar barrages!" (looks for the biggest Ork Mob his Company Commander can see) "Can you say, FIRE ON MY TARGET? Heh, Heh, Heh..."

Next up: Painted Pics of the Company Command Squad (Veterans with Plasmaguns in Carapace Armor, with a Medic and the Company Commander, Colonel Hessler himself)! Maybe I'll even be able to put up pics of his MP3-player-carrying Command Chimera (IF I can manage to get it painted as well by the next time I Post, that is)...

- Colonel Hessler

NEW Heavy Mortar Design - 01-17-2010

Guten Tagge! I know the my initial Post indicated that the next Post would include more "painted" Veteran Squads & my Command Squad, but I had to put them on a short hiatius. They will be coming very soon!

There are two reasons for this delay. One: I have found an even less expensive (and more swiftly mass-produced) way to construct Imperial Heavy Mortars using gun carriages that look even more realistic (in my opinion) than the (nearly) all-wood design I've already produced (see photo in the previous Post). Two: Borrowing heavily from a very well-thought-out and detailed "infantry-towed light anti-tank gun carriage" idea from another member of the Imperial Guard Message Board ("Dreadpirate" to be precise), I decided to try my hand at making some of my own Autocannon Heavy Weapon Teams using scratchbuilt/converted gun carriages intended to make the weapons appear as reasonable facsimiles of German WWII Pak 37 (37 mm) or Pak 38 (50 mm) Light Anti-Tank Guns.

Here is a photo of the actual Forge World Imperial Heavy Mortar:And now, here's MY new design (to replace the wooden one):

I think it's pretty close to the original in overall appearance (certainly close enough for gaming purposes, anyway...). Once it's painted, I think it will look much better than my previous "wooden" design...it's certainly less difficult to build than that one was. It is also much less expensive. Using a single piece of PVC piping, two wooden dowels, two plastic toys (a cannon and a mortar) ten pennies (weights, placed inside the barrel of the toy mortar to balance the gun) and a little bit of Green Stuff, I can build my own Imperial Heavy Mortars for only about two bucks a model!

I'm going to build three batteries of three Heavy Mortars each (they're "Elites" choices for a Death Korps of Krieg Imperial Guard Army), which will end up running me less than twenty bucks! Granted, we're not talking anywhere NEAR the level of detail you'd find in ANY Forge World model...that's obvious. But if Forge World would charge you $180.00 for nine (albeit highly-detailed) Heavy Mortars, when you could put the same volume of artillery fire on the tabletop (using less-detailed models) for only $18.00 - a TENTH of the Forge World price - then I ask you...what would YOU do?

Next up: Heavy Weapon Team Gun Carriages!

- Colonel Hessler

Site Author's Initial Post - 01-09-2010

Welcome to Kampfgruppe Hessler, valiant soldaten of our glorious Kaiser! I sincerely appreciate your taking the time to visit my Imperial Guard Death Korps of Krieg Army Blog site, and hope you like what you see! Any critiques, comments, or suggestions from you Veteran Imperial Guardsmen (about my army, the site, or anything else 40K-related, for that matter) would be greatly appreciated!

I created this blog to be an ongoing, Work-In-Progress record of the assembly and painting of my own personal Warhammer 40K Imperial Guard army, "Kampfgruppe Hessler", based loosely in the background of one particular Imperial Guard force; the Death Korps of Krieg. I became interested in the idea of making a Death Korps-themed IG army as far back as Codex: Armageddon (if I recall correctly, an entry in this book was the first mention of the Death Korps of Krieg in the game).

I had invested somewhat heavily (some years before Codex: Armageddon was released) in the Warzone 2nd Edition miniatures game, set in the "Mutant Chronicles" game universe (not in any way related to Games W0rkshop or 40K), and I especially liked the look and style of the Bauhaus army - very "World-War-One-German-looking" troops, right down to the "Pickelhaube" spiked helmets with gas masks. This got me thinking about building a German-styled IG army for 40K (though it would be quite a few years later before I would be able to do this in earnest)...

After Forge World started producing its impressive Death Korps of Krieg line of resin-cast miniatures, I became even more inspired to build a Death Korps army - until I saw the incredibly high prices they were charging for their (albeit extremely well-detailed) figures. The cost of a fully-outfitted Forge World Death Korps army, amazing-looking though it might be, was just too exorbitant for my budget to ever realistically handle. So, I put the idea aside once again...though I DID manage to assemble and paint a few squads of Cadian Kasrkin (which I now plan to use as my Valkyrie-mounted Storm Troopers)...

Then, GW released the new Imperial Guard Codex in 2009, and I became inspired once again - for real this time. I wanted to make a more-or-less "tourney-legal" Death Korps force; that is, one composed of figures that had mostly (i.e., 75 to 90 percent or more) Games Workshop (or Forge World) parts on all of the miniatures. The trouble was, how was I to go about making a Death Korps-looking army without using those pricey Forge World parts?

Then it hit me - HEAD SWITCHES! I could use the plastic bodies of Cadian Imperial Guardsmen (with an appropriate "Feldgrau" (German "Field Gray") paint scheme), and the pointy-helmet ("Pickelhaube") gas-masked heads and backpacks (with "Stielgranates" - German hand grenades!) of all those Bauhaus Hussars I still had! Together, they would make a pretty good facsimile of a Death Korps Trooper. Even so, IG forces need a LOT of Troops for their Platoons - a lot more than I had heads for. So, I prowled around on Ebay for about a month, snagging up any out-of-print Warzone 2nd Edition box that I could lay my hands on (each box came with 40 Bauhaus troops in it - 4 Sergeants and 36 Hussars). By the time I had managed to collect a total of six of 'em, I knew I was FINALLY in business. So, the soldiers with the World-War-One Pickelhaube helmets (enough for 150+!) would become the backbone of my Infantry Platoons, Heavy Weapons Platoons, and Artillery Crews.

The thing is, I was also planning to build a "World-War-Two German Panzergrenadier"-style element to the Kampfgruppe; an "Armored Cavalry" force of Veteran Squads mounted in Chimera APCs. I found out that I STILL didn't have enough Pickelhaube helmets for the Regular Infantry AND the Veteran Panzergrenadiers together, AND I wanted all the Panzergrenadiers to be Veterans with Carapace Armor anyway, so I had to come up with some other way to represent them; a way that would set them apart from the Regulars (preferably without having to substitute Cadian Kasrkin or Storm Troopers in place of the Veterans), yet keep the "German-looking" Death Korps army theme. Then, two critical things happened. One: I found out about the Kolony Militia heads produced by Pig Iron Productions - PERFECT for representing World-War-Two German-Wehrmacht-style helmets - and they came with gas masks as well! Two: I saw an IG Carparace Armor Conversion (in the 2006-07 Games Workshop Hobby Catalog) using Space Marine Scout bodies (as they wear a variant of Carapace Armor)! I could use the Pig Iron Kolony Militia heads on Space Marine Scout bodies, along with the Bauhaus Hussar backpacks, to make my own variant of Carapace-Armored Veterans - with an awesome WWII Panzergrenadier look!

I love the idea of massed Artillery. To me, nothing says "Death Korps of Krieg" quite like multiple batteries of Heavy Mortars and Thudd Guns dropping pie plates all over the board in a rolling barrage of high-explosive death. What I don't love is the amount of money Forge World makes you have to shell out if you want be able to deliver such a massive onslaught on the tabletop. So, I decided to try and Convert my own scratchbuilt Imperial Heavy Mortar artillery piece. After making a pickup run for parts at Home Depot, Lowe's, Michael's, AND Hobby Lobby, and a whole lot of trial and error, I built a prototype model constructed primarily from wood and PVC piping. This version, to my mind, was "passable" for tabletop use, but was still fairly difficult to construct and expensive to make (Hobby stores DO charge a LOT for their stuff, comparatively speaking) - and I didn't like the look of the "trailer hitch" on the frame, anyway. But then, after hitting upon the idea (perhaps even an ephiphany...!) of using parts from toy cannons and toy mortars to construct the carriage, I managed to build the final design, seen here, at a cost of about two dollars - next-to-nothing, when compared to the price of the actual Forge World field piece. I think it turned out pretty well (better than the wooden version) - Now I've got EIGHT MORE left to build. Granted, it's not as "pretty" as the Forge World model...still, just being able to lob NINE Ordnance pie plates at my opponent EVERY TURN, at a cost of less than twenty bucks (for all nine guns TOGETHER!) easily makes up for any lack of detailing, as far as I'm concerned. I should be able to keep ANYBODY's troops' heads pinned down for most of a given game, while my tanks keep on rollin' forward...

Recently, to add a bit of "comic relief" to the army (and a little extra OOMPH! to Infantry close assaults), I decided to add a "Death Korps Ogryn Auxillia" to the force. I'm planning to run these "Abhuman Ah-nolds" around in a Chimera (IF I can figure how to actually cram six of em' inside one, that is) to support the Chimera-mounted Veteran Squads in taking heavily-contested Objectives. By the way: The thing sticking out of the left side of the Bone 'Ead's face (see image at left) is a bionic eye..."IT'S NOT A TUMOR!" Yeah...bad Arnold Schwarzenegger pun, I know...I've only got one Squad (of six) assembled so far.

Fifteen Strength 5, Assault 3 Ripper Gun shots in your face, coming from the top hatch of a Chimera as it drives by is nothing to sneeze at, and neither is a six-man Squad of Strength 5, Toughness 5, 3-Wound smelly man-apes with bad attitudes charging out of a VERY cramped vehicle to stomp whatever's left. I'd like to give them all gas masks, in keeping with the "Death Korps" theme, but I'm got to improve my Green Stuff skills first. Anyway, Ogryns are so tough they probably don't need 'em ("Just hold 'yer breath, Lads!")...and those little German helmets and field caps do look pretty silly on "Dorf's Dummkopfs", don't you think?

Anyway, that's all for today. More posts to follow soon. Next items on the schedule: Pics of the soon-to-be-finished-painting Company Command Squad (Carapace Armor Vets, Plasmaguns x3), Veteran Squad #1 (Carapace Armor, Meltaguns x3), and Veteran Squad #2 (Carapace Armor, Flamers x3)!

- Colonel Hessler