Starting to rev up the assembly line

Finally made myself prep the actual Praetorian Foot and Horse Units for my army. Primed and base coated them last weekend and I'm starting the assembly painting line, after setting up 2 rough color palette figures.

Here's the basic color palette I set up for the ground pounders, detail colors will be worked out later

Here's the 2 squads, there's also a lascannon team not in the picture

Here's the basic palette for the Rough Riders.

I'm hoping with a few hours to dedicate to it I can get these guys close to done.

Comparing Dust Tactics Models to WH40K Models

I was looking for alternatives for my Imperial Guard since that's kind of what I'm doing with this force as an experiment in frugality. I had come across a Fantasy Flight tank model that looked like it could be a good substitute for a Hydra, (infamously tough to get outside of kit bashing or overpriced Forge World purchase). I found the IS-5 Heavy Tank on Amazon for about $20. Not too steep a price I figured I would take a chance and if I didn't like the look. quality or scale I would use it for conversion or scrap.
It came this weekend just 2 days after I ordered it (thanks Prime) and I was blown away by what I found in the box. A decent sized tank, ready to use with just a couple of pieces of plastic to snap on. Decals already applies, but easy enough to paint yourself if you wanted to.

Here's some photos of the size comparison between a Chimera based Basilisk and Hell Hound.

So the IS-5 is more of a Colossus Siege Mortar in look, environmentally sealed.

The little detals blew me away, the hand holds. The antenna is for the anti-aircraft version, I forgot to take it off. 

Every wargamers dream, buy one model and to be able to easily swap out the main weapon.

So the body of the IS-5 is a little bit longer than the Basilisk, but they are the same width, so the Fantasy Flight pice does have a bit more of a side profile.

I think it would make an acceptable Hydra.

Against the Chimera base that the Hydra would use though the IS-5 is a quite a bit longer, almost 1.5 times the length.

I'm just impressed with the accessibility Fantasy Flight is giving to new players, some would argue that this is a dumbing down of the hobby, the equivalent of snap-together models compared to "real" models. But the price is less and you're ready to play as soon as you open the box.