The Bishkek 2nd Penal Squad, part 1

Ever since the Imperial Guard codex came out, I have been inspired by that drawing of the penal squad soldier, looking underfed, poorly equipped and with a bleak future ahead. I love that drawing and have always wanted to emulate it in a squad. After John finished his penal squad, using gas masks and jump suits, I decided to give it a shot. Here's the squad that I built:

The leader is Col Schaeffer from the Last Chancers as a tribute to that awesome penal squad from back in the day. I have that set painted but am using it as normal troopers.

On to the troopers: the torsos and arms are from the Empire Flagellants (a great set!), the legs are Catachan, the guns and hands Cadian and the heads come from everywhere, as long as they had no hair. It's not easy finding ten different bald heads. The Flagellant set has a few excellent ones. John also dug up some good OOP ones.

Here are the troopers.

I green stuffed their vests a little longer to create a good transition between torso and legs.

I had to replace all the hands and fit Cadian ones which was hard and took a while.

I was going for an emaciated and aggressive look in their posture. These men have no choice but to fight. John built the right one below using Zombie head and legs, but I felt they were a little too thin. It does look very much like a Gulag type prisoner, but I wanted mine to look a little more able to survive at least in prison.

In earlier codexes the troopers wore explosive neckbands that would blow up once in a while to improve moral. I liked that idea and the Flagellant models actually have a neckband which looks perfect

the guy on the left is grabbing a grenade...

Here's the 1st painted one, a test.

A couple of thoughts about this guy:

-I went for really somber and bleak skintones

-grey and blue clothing: muted and probably been used for a very long time.

-tattoos on head, torso and arms

-trench base, which kind of symbolizes the tragedy of the war effort.

The base is from Dragon Forge

Mike