Bad Photography and the Imperial Guard Through the Ages

First of all, an apology. I have been taking all my photographs with my mobile phone's camera (a technological marvel in and of itself!) but they are not particularly high quality (now there's a First World Problem for you).

At any rate, here are the two figures and the tanks that I have completed and the remaining tank that I am still working on:

A sergeant and Forward Observer (Master of Ordnance) from the Karaboudjani XV Kataphraktoi. The sergeant is wearing a dress uniform coat with red arm of service piping, and a Catachan web set, while carrying a revolver taken from a metal Escher figure from the Necromunda range. The Forward Observer is a standing tank commander figure with pink waffenfarb - after all, a regiment like this gets its artillery support from organic self-propelled guns. And it's an excuse to get a Basilisk, eventually.

'Charlie' Squadron, Valachian 1011th Armoured. L-R: Captain Count Geranium of Littlebush and Bigtree's Vanquisher, C1, with three kill rings, C2, awaiting tracks and initial weathering, and C3 with searchlight and hunter-killer missile. The blue square with red 'A' on the sides of C1 and C3 is the Crusade Badge of the Amalthean Crusade.

A note on the provenance of the machines. The turret of C1 and body of C3 came from a kit that I bought from GW Slough in the early 2000s, while the body of C1 and turret of C3 came from a fully-built model that I bought aged 10 from a schoolfriend at West Kidlington Primary almost two decades ago. I paid the princely sum of £5 for a model that had no turret stowage, badly applied detailing, and no fronts on the sponsons! C2 is a kit I bought in GW Leamington Spa in 2003, I think. The new Leman Russ kit has a completely different turret structure... but it's still too small for the crew and gun breech!

And finally, something that you may find interesting:

The Imperial Guard (well, the Cadians) through the ages! L-R: Rogue Trader Imperial Army sergeant from the 1980s, 2nd Edition Cadian Shock Troop Lieutenant from the mid 1990s, and a 3rd Edition Cadian sergeant from the early 2000s. Scale has proved remarkably consistent, although I do still prefer the look of the 2nd Edition Cadians to the modern figures.

For my fellow loons, they represent Sergeants of the Syrtis 72nd, the Rigellian 59th, and the Karaboudjani 15th. I am going to do a post soon comparing the Imperial Guard in each edition of 40K using a standard infantry squad as a baseline. Look forwards to it!