Stalkers

"I don't need numbers to throw into the meatgrinder. I need a precision blow, a... a stilleto. You understand?"

"Yes, Lord General."

"The issue is that we can't outflank through the wastes outside the main Hive. Nothing can survive out there and no troops can operate in a landscape that has been so twisted by chenicals, atomics and the warp-furies of the arch-enemy. So... dammit. I will not launch another full-frontal attack."

"Lord General." The rasping breath of the respirator - a respirator, here? Though the Lord General for a moment - accompanied by the coarse scrape of a cammo cloak against armour announced that the figure from the back of the briefing had stepped forward. "I think, perhaps, we can help."



Tarkov was once an Agriworld, bounteous and fertile. But the 13th Black Crusade turned it into a chemical wasteland of drifting ash, slagheaps of ruined warmachines and fields of bone and metal. The Imperial Tacticians assumed the world would be lost and drew their plans accordingly.

Astonishingly, Tarkov held out. Their PDF and Guard regiments were decimated. The 1st Tarkov Foot were wiped out in the Fall of Hive Volga; the 2nd Tarkov died gasping in the Plague Rain of the Zhukov River Valley. But the 3rd Tarkov Foot adapted to the new conditions. Working in small detachments, wrapped in ABC Protective gear, they melted into the acid rains and appeared from the wastes to carry out devastating precision strikes. After the Relief of Tarkov in 499.M41 the 3rd Tarkov Foot - now better known as the Stalkers - became the force of choice for any theatre which required small kill teams, stealthy insertion or guerrilla disruption.

These are designed for the SW:A campaign at work. I love the idea of the Death Korps but I'm not paying forge world prices so I wondered if I could play around with the aesthetic. Feeding into this was Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker, an SF masterpiece from the old USSR. taking the palette from that film and a Soviet-inflected colour scheme as opposed to Prussian have them enough of a different feel to the DKoK .

All of them were converted; they had head swaps using some resin pieces from Kromlech and then cloaks made of greenstuff. Leftover bits of the cloak were used for bandages and wrapping on the guns.

The most substantial conversion was the kneeling sniper who used the lower torso and legs from a Warlord British Line Infantry to get the kneeling position.

Overall I'm really happy with the ragged, Rogue Trooper-esque feel to these guys. Now just to see how they play...

The Rot Walker

Clanking and hissing, surrounded by the stench of rotting flesh, it stalked out of the dust of the Drift....

This was built out of the legs of the Sentinel I had left over from the Green Baron and a shell we picked up on a family holiday to Scotland a couple of years ago. The face was sculpted as was the innards out of sculpy. The rest was constructed of odds and ends.

The painting was all done with a brush, lots of wet blending for a sufficiently organic finish. 

The rigging was set up in such a way as to suggest that the whole thing is being puppeteered by the Nurgling because who doesn't love Nurglings? 

This is another one I am quite happy with. 

The Green Baron

Of all the smugglers plying their trade in the Outer Rim of the Arcadia system, there is one who stands head and shoulders above the rest. Not literally, of course. But ib terms of his sheer determination to get the cargo through no matter what there is no one who can touch the Green Baron.

How a Gretchin managed to slip away from his ork masters is a mystery. Why he would go into business for himself is an enigma. What he spends the money he makes on is a question no-one wants to think about for long. But if you need contraband and no one else can help you - and if you can find him - maybe you can hire Grotfred von Waaaaghoffen.

This was inspired by two things; I had an idea for a build using the legs of a sentinel but would be left with the cab, and a shot in a White Dwarf about a revolutionary gretchin army.

And so the Green Baron was born.

The build was pretty easy, just the cab of the sentinel with some plasticard wings and beat up panels.

The baron himself was selected from the Gretchin box; in terms of conversion I added the goggles and control yokes.

Painting was a doddle. Red wunz go fasta, after all.

A fun little build. It just needs some cotton wool smoke to finish it off.