40K Painting Challenge Entry: Traitor Guard Squad

Here's my photo-record of Week One's fully painted Kill Point for the Dark Future Games 2012 Painting Challenge: a squad of Traitor Guardsmen. I used Speed Painting techniques for these, so there not exactly my finest work. Ironically, because I spend 10-12 hours a day painting other people's miniatures, I don't have a great deal of free time to paint for myself (so picking a Guard Army probably wasn't my smartest move). Normally I paint for myself during my lunch-break, but these lads were painted on my day off. Just under three hours total painting time.

Here's the fluff: The 13th Maleguant regiment has only recently been corrupted by Chaos. The ordinary grunts are largely ignorant of the fact they've fallen into worshipping the Dark Powers, in the form of a Word-Bearer sponsored cult. Although you won't see many Aquila's or other symbols of Imperial might, these Guardsmen (local PDF troop's really) don't display overt signs of Corruption. Only a very few miniatures -such as the Army Commander and one or two Vet/Command Squad types- will actually wear any form of Chaos symbol. Essentially, I wanted maximum fluff playability for those these guys. If I'm playing Xenos or Chaos forces, then the battle is taking place either before, or just shortly after, their home ward rejects Imperial rule. If I'm playing against Imps, then the battle happens after the corruption of Maleguant has been discovered. As you've probably gathered, I like my fluff. While there will be some competitive elements in my army - Chimelta vets, Flamer-Demo vets and the like - there's a place for fluffy, bog-standard Imperial Guard Platoons as well.

These guys, for example.

The heads are from Westwind studio's. They're not all going to be blonde. To save time, I'll be painting each Kill Point with a different hair colour. I'll eventually mix the miniatures up into different squads when I have enough of them.