From DavidB - 40K Cadian 7th Cav, Blue Platoon (140 Points)

So, my third and last post this week. I finished up a command squad with extras and a tactical squad I began in December. I tried to find the rest of Blue Platoon, but I could only find a squad plus that didn't have any paint applied. I'm not certain where the rest of the lads are lurking, but they are probably up to no good!

Blue Platoon features a lot of the Rogue Trader models with some of the Perry and Morley models mixed in as well as a few bits and whole troopers of the current edition.

The command squad is entirely metal and all Old School sculpts. The Lt lost his jump pack, but I found some old las pistols and Imperial Guard arms in my reclamation box of useful stuff( which my wife refers to as plastic junk) I decided to paint his armor in the trusty battle green like his troopers and not in the NMM like the Capt of Red Platoon. I did paint his decorations in yellow to signify he is a proper gentleman though! he has a commlink trooper, two meltagun troopers, a vet sgt with bolt pistol and power fist, and another vet sgt with a boltgun. he also has an old RT medic he can add. He can only take four, so he better pick wisely!

1st squad has a sgt with chainsword and las pistol,(I really, REALLY like that model) an ancient grenade launcher and a trooper with a shoulder carried lascannon. I still have several of those ugly misshapen lumps of lascannon and heavy bolter, but this fellow is the only one who never surrendered his kit. He was very lucky as he was still in white primer from the 80's and slightly yellowed. I just had to leave him armed with his toy. In games it's range is halved now as is it's strength, but it still has the armor penetration to wreck tanks!The barehead trooper in the front rank has an autogun arm from the Necromunda plastic Orlock set and a robotic arm which used to be an Eldar power fist.

Although a little washed out, you can see I can occasionally get the NMM technique right!

Another favorite is the bareheaded trooper above. His ancient lasgun suffered a barrel break.I found a broken current edition barrel in my' useful box of reclamation' and simply cut the muzzle from it and glued it in place. his snub nosed carbine looks really nice now!( I may dive in the useful box and see how many of these carbines I can make!)

The sgt model above has another orlock plastic arm with a current space marine plasma pistol. I also replaced his chainsword with an elder powersword to make him look like a true swashbuckler!

2nd Squad does not have a heavy weapon, but they do have a plasma gunner! Some of the lads needed parts from the newer models and a few of the newer models had to step in as fresh meat to fill squad vacancies.

Like the commlink trooper above. Back in the day, a commlink was used by officers to call in artillery strikes. Now you can do that, but only with the army commander's master of ordinance. Commlink troopers only let you reroll leadership checks and allows for some of the officer special orders.

My Cadians are primered in white, black, and a few are in grey or terracotta. The different primers really affect the model color, and I am finding that I really like the effect as the hue does vary much like it does in a real unit.

Blue squad has most of my oldest models representing the 7th.(I'm really wondering where the heck I placed the rest of the lads...)Some of the old plastic troopers still have licks of blue paint on the bottom of the bases from when I initially began to lay out my squads in order of battle. Although I use colors and not numbers for the platoons, Blue Platoon is my 1st platoon. It is an understood order of pride that anyone not in the designated 1st Platoon is really in the TRUE 1st Platoon as those in 1st really are unworthy of the perceived place of pride. This keeps everyone in a constant state of friendly rivalry as each platoon tries to one-up the other(s). I choose Blue Platoon to be my 1st Platoon as Blue is the color of the infantry and blue is the cord I wear on my shoulder. The 7th are Cav but they are a mounted Cav Inf. Although an outlandish cartoon caricature of a SciFi host, I found by accident that my perceived superiority of Infantry has infested the Cadian 7th. Red is Artillery so of course they are support! ;) Black platoon is huge and is 99% new plastic troops. They are Cav though, so they have to wear the yellow! I betcha in 40k they still sing Fiddler's Green! ;)

So, twenty-eight 28mm troopers and Blue Platoon is completed....at least until I find the stragglers!;)