Reinforcements for the Cult of the Crimson Robe

Sorry about the hiatus here, folks... sometimes I neglect this blog when I'm writing for Dropship Horizon.  :)  Still, I've managed to work on a few of my own forces.  I painted these 15mm.Co.Uk HOF Cultists back in October.

These were pretty much demo pieces when I painted them.  I wanted to see how they would look alongside this Kremlin Miniatures Commander Vortan figure.

I had originally painted Vortan to use in a 15mm Inquisitorial Retinue for In the Emperor's Name... this was a way to get some additional mileage out of the same figure.  Obviously the figures work great together, as the basis for some kind of fanatical cult force.  Also, 15mm.Co.Uk added some heavy weapon figures to their Cultists range.  There was no longer any doubt in my mind that this cult could become a full army.

I still had seven Cultists from my first pack.  I painted four more of them this week. Bear with me on the pictures - I'm trying out a new photo box and haven't worked out all the kinks.

These figures are nice and quick to paint.  I'll have to pick up another pack of the troopers, a pack of heavy weapons, and then I should be good to go for cult infantry.  But what about vehicles?  I don't have much left unused in my collection outside of a couple of Old Crow Gecko pickups and a Goanna transport.  The Gecko would be a great technical truck... I even have some GZG freestanding autocannons to mount in the back of the truck.

And the gunner?  Well, there's a reason I didn't paint those last three Cultist troopers.  Inspired by Matt's conversion article on Dropship Horizon, I'm going to try to turn a couple of these Cultist troopers into standing gunners.  It should be as simple as cutting and filing out the arms and gun, filing down the thick cast base on the figure, and making a couple of new arms out of grey stuff.  I don't have much experience with sculpting putty, and this looks like a very forgiving project to get my feet wet.  

On the other hand... is this the direction I want to take my cultists?  The end result would be pretty similar to the Desert Radicals that I've already been playing with.

And, because wealth seems to flow to people of questionable sanity, many of the fanatical cults we see in the real world have pretty substantial funding.  Maybe something along the lines of the Combat Wombat Pitbull, GZG Bulldog, or the Khurasan Atlas would better serve this cult.  Either way, I now have enough figures to run them in a small game of ItEN or Blasters & Bulkheads.  I'll figure out the vehicles after I finish some more infantry.

Cheers,
Chris