Mark's Miniatures & RPG Blog: Imperial Guard Penal Legion (Astra Militarum)

Imperial Guard Penal Legion

In this post I will be painting four penal legion troopers; as well, I will be providing short backstories for these miniatures. My inspiration for these miniatures came from an Imperial Guard army on display at the Games Workshop store in Burnaby, BC, where a squad of penal troopers (Catachan Jungle Fighters with orange combat fatigues) was included in the army.

Catachan Jungle Fighters sprue

Catachan sprue: The miniatures I am using for the penal legion troops are from the Catachan Jungle Fighters sprue. This is an older sprue, designed back in 1999; nearly twenty years ago. The Catachan Jungle Fighters set contains two identical sprues (the sprues are cut in half to fit in the box) with enough components to build a 10-man squad. The Catachan sprue contains the following bits:

5 legs

5 bodies

7 heads

4 sets of arms (used to carry a lasgun or flamer)

A right arm holding a lasgun

A right arm carrying a lasgun

A right arm holding a laspistol

A left arm holding a machete

2 left arms holding a knife

A left arm holding a grenade

4 lasguns

1 flamer

A vox-caster

3 sheathed combat knives and canteens

3 grenades and ammo pouches

Primed Miniatures

Death and Redemption: I am currently reading Gav Thorpe’s 13^th Legion: A Last Chancers Novel; one of the themes in this book is death and redemption. In the book, Colonel Schaeffer has a clerk show Lieutenant Kage a scroll titled ‘Absolvus Imperius Felonium Omna’, which translates into ‘The Emperor absolves all your sins’. Schaeffer explains that the men of the 13^th Penal Legion will receive absolution for their crimes upon their death in the Penal Legion. Absolution will clear the men of their crimes; have their names recorded in the Imperial annuals as dying for the Emperor; have their orphaned children cared for by the Schola Progranium.

Death and redemption are common themes in fiction and in real life; for the convicted criminals of the 13^th Penal Legion, they are given one last chance to find redemption. They could die as criminals or die as soldiers of the Emperor. As Colonel Schaeffer explains to Kage, “everyone dies”. Its not whether one lives or dies; it is how one dies. Are you executed by a firing squad, or do you die on the field of battle, sacrificing your life for the Emperor?

Painting Stage 1

Painting Stage 2

Painting Stage 3

Painting Stage 4

Hacker: While Hacker never served in the military prior to being sent to the Penal Legion, he was a proficient killer and harden fighter upon arriving to the Penal Legion. Kicked out of his home by his parents in his early teenage years, Hacker was forced to the live on the ‘streets’ where he earned a grim reputation as a thief, murderer and lowlife. A combination of poor choices and bad luck landed Hacker in prison; the Prison Warden, dealing with an overcrowded prison population, reassigned Hacker to serve the rest of his sentence in the Penal Legion. There, Hacker earned his cherish nickname by ‘hacking’ an ork apart in hand-to-hand combat with a machete. The ork’s hide and bones were so tough that the machete’s blade was damaged beyond repair.

Hacker, Torch, Preacher and Bulldog

Torch: A serial arsonist and fearless sociopath, Torch’s love for setting things on fire landed him in the Penal Legion. Torch worships fire as a living entity and has named every flamer issued to him. In the heat of battle, Torch has a sadistic smile on his face as he sets heretics, mutants and aliens ablaze.

Preacher: A self-righteous religious zealot, Preacher was convicted of a string of murders; in his defense, Preacher claimed that he was purging the unclean. Preacher believes it is the Emperor’s Divine Will that he was sent to the Penal Legion. “I have been chosen by the Emperor”, Preacher explains, “to cleanse the world of filth and vermin. His divine will is why I am here in the Penal Legion, so I could serve as his vessel to purge the unholy.”

Bulldog: Suffering from dissociative identity disorder, Bulldog is dominated by two personalities: the brilliant narcissist Kyle and the quiet introvert David. In a jealous fit of rage, Kyle brutally murdered his ex-girlfriend and her lover. On the day of his trial, Bulldog’s personality of David pleaded with the judge that he was innocent; that Kyle committed the murders. Not believing Bulldog’s story, the judge sentenced Bulldog to the Penal Legion.