Genswick 33rd Rifles Regiment, 1st Company - The HQ

Back in February I started to post some of the models from my Genswick Imperial Guard army. I've taken a few more photos since then, and thought I'd given you guys some more toy soldiers to look at. Here they are, the HQ choices for my Genswick 33rd Rifles, 1st Company.

The Genswick Rifles were inspired by the troopers of the same name (Genswick at least) from Dan Abnett's Straight Silver, the fifth (I think) novel in the Gaunt's Ghosts series. The Genswick are the first troops the Tanith encounter on the front lines of a tragic trench-war that has lasted for more than four decades. I really got the impression of an army that had been beaten down by not only the relentless grind of 40 years of toil in the mud, but also by an incredibly archaic command structure. When I built my army, I wanted the commanders to be awful stereotypes of incredibly obnoxious aristocratic fops in the best tradition of General Melchett from Black Adder Goes Forth.

Thus, Major Barnabus Collins was born. You can see him in his incredibly clean dress uniform above. He is attended by his personal physician, the regimental Standard Bearer, and 1st Company's only two functioning plasma guns. When such things existed, I had him rated as a "Junior Officer", so that I could not benefit from strong leadership, I also did not give him the Iron Discipline "skill" that I reserved for the NCOs that lead the platoons (but more on them in another post).

Above you can see my second Command HQ squad. I built this squad when we were working on an "Alien Hunter" article for US WD. I can't remember the issue number though, perhaps someone can remind me.

This squad was obviously inspired by the opening scenes from Zulu, as Michael Caine returns to his command after a successful hunt. Amusingly enough, the commander (who I never named) looks a lot like General Melchett.

And finally, I know these guys are part of the Troops section of the army, but I felt they needed to be here. This Conscript Platoon, dressed in their parade uniforms, is the bodyguard of Major Barnabus Collins. Following a bit of a snide remark I made about the static posing of the Baneblade commander model on its release, I was sent quite a few of them by amused co-workers. I was then required to assemble them and paint them up in their dress whites.

Anyway, that's it for today's post. Next time we'll take a look at the Troops that fight under the "Fighting Badgers" banner of the Genswick 33rd Rifles.

Cheers

Dave