"Platoon - Platoon, March!"

On Saturday, I finished the platoon command squad for Red Platoon, Yellow Company, of my Darendaran force. I also re-wrote the army list, to make it an actually legally fieldable force. Previously, back in 4th Edition 40K, Heavy Weapon Squads and Special Weapon Squads could, in Mechanised forces, take Chimera transports. I'd carried on doing this, assuming it was still the case.

It hasn't been since the change to the 5th edition Codex. Woops. So now Red and Blue Platoons have lost their Mortar Squad and Melta Squad, respectively, but on the plus side Blue Platoon's squads have gained heavy weapon teams, the Mortars are now embedded in the three command groups, and the melta squad has expanded to a veteran squad. I need to find my damaged casting of a Valhallan sergeant and convert him to be the Acting Lieutenant of the remnant squad that is White Platoon...

Anyway, here are the pictures for Red Platoon, Command:

L-R: Corporal with M37 40mm grenade launcher with smart rounds, vox-specialist with vox-caster, Lieutenant Dzevat Memedelija wearing his dress greatcoat with platoon sash, and weapons specialists 1st and 2nd class with 50mm rapid-fire autocannon loaded with high-density armour-piercing shells.

And here is how they will look when deployed on the tabletop:

Able to take the fight to the Emperor's foes from a distance and behind something big and robust!

I'm umming and ahhing about adding the correct battalion/company/platoon/squad recognition discs to them. I think I'd have to put it on the right shoulder. Black circle, with a bi-colour disc in it, and a black numeral (or 'C' in the case of command groups). This denotes firstly the battalion (colour of numeral and circle's edge), then the company (left-hand colour), then platoon (right-hand colour), then the squad number. I think I'll have to. It just looks cool. I'll also be adding rank stripes to L/CPL, CPL, and SGTs. CSM will get three stripes in gold rather than three stripes in white.

Also, I got paid today, and me and JY have taken a leap of faith and bought into Star Wars: X-Wing, The Miniatures Game. We each bought a starter box, and then some extras - I'm taking the Imperials (GLORY TO THE EMPIRE) and he's taking the Rebel scum (booo! Hisss!). So by the end of this week I should have Darth Vader in his prototype TIE X1 Advanced, and four TIE L/N fighters from Lord Vader's personal squadron, Black Squadron. For those of you who've seen Star Wars: A New Hope, they're the poor chaps who take off from the Death Star to try and fight off the Rebel attack.

All 12 of them, well, and Lord Vader, against the whole Rebel fighter/bomber fleet. They did pretty well, considering.

Meanwhile, JY has gone a bit mad, and bought the Millenium Falcon and an extra X-Wing, because hey, three X-Wings and the Millenium Falcon!

We've been using the very useful and very fun X-Wing Squadron Creator to come up with lists. I'm not sure I'll get much more than a couple of TIE bombers (a flight element) and a Lambda-class shuttle, but the lure of TIE Interceptors and Baron Soontir Fel is strong...

A quick note. Both Rebel and Imperial squadrons are organised into squadrons of twelve craft, split into three flights of four craft, broken further into flight elements of two. The similarity in doctrine is because the Rebels took their organisation and initial tactics whole cloth from the Imperial Pilot Academy, where most of the Rebel pilots learnt to fly!

Painting Points:
This Week: 5 (from last week)
2014 Total: 17