Thorn Moons Crusade: Defenders of the 73rd Moon

For a thousand years I spurned the flesh change
But I had lived as half a being
Until the celestial tides wrought our metagenesis.

Late last year, shortly after Iron Sleet announced their second Invitational, we began work on some Imperial Guard to defend the Thorn Moons, the remnants of the Imperial Army that originally explored the Crataegus Fragmentum during the Great Crusade. For the Guard, we wanted to create soldiers that were a little more grounded in reality than most of Games Workshop’s human warriors, eschewing bulky breastplates, rubberized mining suits, and heavily starched robes. To do this, I started to greatly modify Forge World Elysian Drop Troops. In the last few months, I have not had too much time to work on them, but am pleased to say I am now going to set my full attention on them again! I wanted to use this post to show my recent progress on them.

We wanted some of the Guard to be wearing rebreathers, and were happy to find that the Sicarian Ruststalker heads are a good size! We plan to do a little more sculpting to differentiate the rebreather from the standard Mechanicum ones. 

Their lasguns are based on the Elysian style ones, but have been trimmed down dramatically to be better scaled to the soldiers. Care was taken to add front and rear sights along with a rail for additional modifications.

The beginnings of a grizzled veteran with a tattered bandana.

Special efforts have been taken to design and convert a believably sized pistol with an accompanying holster that it could be housed in.

After discovering that Games Workshop’s Escher models had woefully undersized heads, we had to look to other sources for female heads for the Guard, such as these Statuesque Miniatures ones. 

All of the above models are still very work-in-progress, and will be taken apart so that silicone molds can me made of the pieces. Therefore I would love to hear any comments or suggestions for them! Is there anything that you think should be represented in such an Imperial Guard force?

- Adam Wier