ISOAR - Elysians/Cadians/Raven Guard

This is going to be my long time building army (due to the expensive nature). Fluff wise it is part of a Imperial Intelligence strikeforce (think ordos with out hunting, more based on specific tactics), called ISOAR - Imperial Strike Operatives Airborne Regiment led my Imperial Tactician Waylon Strafe. It is comprised of the former Elysian 46th veteran regiment, former Cadian 66th veteran regiment and members of the Raven Guard 1st company. The army focuses on urban targets that are strategic enough that they need to be taken with the least amount of collateral damage. They are trained to take targets quickly and defend them until an occupying force arrives. Well anyway here are some pics of my first squad WIP and a test Cadian Sgt. Let me know what you think and will post more pics upon request.

Sgt




FW GD Exclusive Thunderbolt Pilot (will use as a regimental adviser)


Cadian Sgt and a RT Marine

This is looking totally AWESOME!

Keep sending more pics, please!

Like those bases. Keep up the good work.

Couple more pics. Nothing to extravagant. I am realizing how bland these are going to look, going through a internal struggle about it. They are visual unappealing and lack color, but in a sense they are actually perfect because they are meant to be real world and wear urban camo to blend into their enviroment. I think they pull that off well. Let me know what you think.

The only thing I could possibly suggest is to outline the dark part of the armor (shoulder patches, elbow patches) in a black wash. Just to give it a little more contrast.

Only a possible suggestion. Photos most usually don't convey a miniature very well. These guys may look even more perfect in person.

Oh yeah, it definetly needs a wash and a highlight. This is just the base coat on the Elysian. I washed and highlighted the base though. I will keep you updated on the progress.

By a "wash" I meant using Badab Black or some other wash to outline the armor patches, not just a blanket wash.

Maybe even using Chaos Black and a fine line brush to outline the armor patches and tops of the boots where they meet the pants.

You might check out the sooiehammer site. A few years ago a named Jeff (last name escapes me a the moment) had a VERY well painted urban camo marine army. I'm pretty sure some of his minis made it into a White Dwarf as well since he got an honorable mention for painting at a Grand Tournament. It may inspire you to come up with a paint scheme your happy with.

I like how in-depth your fluff for this army is.
If you want to mix some Marines in with the regular IG guys while still staying within the IG codex, you could try adding Colonal Straken to your command squad. With a 3+ armor save and his added strength his stats could pass off pretty well as a marine.
Of course I guess you could always just use some Grey Knights allies from the Deamonhunters codex to stand in for the Marines. They're 1st company vets, right? It's believable for them to have WS 5.
Oh, and if you decide you really want them to have some color, you could just paint a colored unit insignia on their shoulder pads. That would add some color to the paint scheme without making them stand out to much.

Received my shields today and here are some examples of what I am going to do with them. First off are 3 Cadians with suppression shields. I am going to have 3 in a vet squad to represent carapace armor. They still need FW shotgun bits from the Cadian Vet squad, which will be placed in side the shield for easy access. The squad will be 1 Sgt, 3 Shield guys, 3 FW shotgun guys and 3 FW meltagun guys.





Next is a Raven Guard guy for the marine division of my ISOAR (Imperial Strike Operatives Airborne Regiment (Elysian/Cadian/Raven Guard)). He is equiped with a power maul and suppression shield (thunder hammer and storm shield). He is just missing the jump pack, which is in the mail, with enough bits to make second guy. The Raven Guard are taking a big back seat for now, to wait and see what FW comes out with for them with IA8.







What do you think?

Here are a few more updates:











Off work the next few days for my bday, so planning on having a few more updates.

These are just getting better and better!