Topic: Praetorians anyone?

[Gladewalker]

Let's see if this works:

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/ninjapiratekris/album?.dir=mail&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/ninjapiratekris/my_photos

[The GrimSqueaker]

Nope, url broken.

[Gladewalker]

Any suggestions on where to post pics? This is getting ridiculous. =-/ The pictures are a lil blurry (crappy camera) but you can get the idea of the battle line for a game vs a friend's Tau/SM force a few months back.... if I can ever get these pics up!

[Gladewalker]

So what Praetorian units are represented here, and how big are the said armies?
=-)

Also, Rum ol' boy I took a look at your square. How do you form yours? Mine consists of a platoon of 2 squads and HQ. One squad forms two ranks of five men in front (with Vet Sgt) The HQ takes the third rank of five. The second squad forms the rear two ranks of five. I've also toyed with the idea of putting the officers at the first or rear ranks, but haven't play tested that as much to see how effective it is. It all depends on your idea of officers... to the front or back. The middle give them protection from all sides (the LT/1st Sgt winds up surrounded on all sides by 2 men) It's a bit of a compromise. For 40K, the front might be good if you have a tooled up commander but in most cases, I find their leadership more useful than their cc skills and don't want the officers getting killed in the first assault.

[Polonius]

Well, I got snookered into this off of Dakka.  I've got a Praetorian army, but I'm not as extensivly converted as some of you guys.  What I can field:
Two Command platoons (Valhallan Lts painted as captains, one w/ Fist, one with Power Weapon)
Anti-tank Squad (LCx3)
Mortar Squad
Fire-Support Squad (HBx3)

Lt w/ power Weapon, FlamerX4
3XSquad w/ Autocannon GL

Lt, Missile, PlasmaX2
3Xsquad w/ Missile, Plasma

Lt, Missile, PlasmaX2
3Xsquad w/ Missile, Plasma

Lt, Lascannon
3X squad w/ Lascannon, flamer

13 Tallarn Roughriders (they go with 2 small tallarn platoons)
I use Catachan conscripts
My tanks are all a khaki, washed brown/black/brown, with large red/yellow/red stripes on the sides of the tanks like British WWI tanks
I cut the tips off of meltaguns and use plasma pistol bits to make plasma guns
I use Mordians for Veterans and the occaisional fill in troop.

My troops are painted with Red Coats, Yellow piping, Khaki pants & Helmts, black belts, dark brown rifle stocks and a range of flesh tones from elven flesh to african.

My usual Doctrines are Iron Discipline, Close Order, Sharpshooting (For anti-tank squad), Rough Riders, Drop Troops

I've been playing the Praetorians for about 2 years now, and took them to the Detroit GT, where I finished middle of the pack, but IIRC I had the best record of IG.  They've also taken Best Army and Overall at local RTTs.

[Sr. Commissar Gribb]

Ah yes. Just 1 Squad of ten. But I am seeing my dealer shorty, and we can see what sort of metal, redcoated narcotics he can dig up for me.

Don't do drugs, play IG.

metal IG at that- the real man's imperial guard! HOOAH!~

[Gladewalker]

Ah I see yours is a more standardized IG version of the Praetorians, but fear not, not all Praetorians are as tradition-bound as the glorious 42nd!

And yes, metal minis are THE way to go! Where's the joy if your models case doesn't weight at least 10 kilos? ;-) Plastics are for pussies!

[The GrimSqueaker]

Also, Rum ol' boy I took a look at your square. How do you form yours?

I also found that keeping the platoons together helped a great deal. My square was more open in the middle with the platoon covering a larger area. With the advent of COD the ranks would close up to receive a charge or open up to prepare for bombardment.  Depending on the opponent army I often used a single rank with a square corner on the the enemy line with officer in the center to offer support where needed. The command squad was the to reinforce failure of the lines where necessary as well as to provide leadership cover when everything went tear shaped. Other times a double rank was used to conserve table space in large games and to increase the lad-per-square-inch factor. More often than not my command squad returned/remained in the centre of the square as long as possible. I don't tool up my command squads as others may do as I see them there for leadership rather than combat. If the officer is getting blood on his sleave my plan has already taken a tumble.

[Grimzag]

  Man, all this talk about massed infantry and squares makes me want to make my Meji Era Japan army try to imitate Imperial Era Imperial Gaurd tactics... ironic, if you think about it...

[Col.Gravis]

Gah! An to think I could of missed this one! (Having spent an unhealthy amount of time (just finished) playing the War f the Worlds PC Game), as Sigur mentioned I'm a bit of Praet fanantic (Ive got the Pith Hetmet which accompanies me to tournaments etc to prove it! - see my avatar )

I field largely the 1/57th Praetorian 'The Diehards' losely based on the British 57th Regiment, Im currently in the process of reconstructing my force to a more accurate Victorian feel with propper carriage mounted Weaponry including Gatlings Guns (replacing Heavy Bolters) with Autocannon and Lascannon representing 7Pdr and 9Pdr Cannon respectively, its quite a long job though! In various cases split currently between two armies (one my 'old' army, one unpainted/work in progress 'new' army - the old will be organised an repainted to match the new one in due course), the total of this force come to around 300 Praetorian Guardsmen, 15 Roughriders, 16 Tanks (less then half assembled much to my shame) and a Baneblade (equaly unassembled ) still I'm gettin there!

A few examples of old and new stuff can be found in my gallery

http://photobucket.com/albums/v628/colgravis/

Docturines wise Iron Discipline (Inspiring/Couragous Officers) is my first choice, followed by Close Order Drill (Bayonet Drill), I'm currently looking at a switch between Sharpshooters (used previously to represent Volley Fire) to Diehards (to better represent the nature of the solidery), depending on what I'm intending on using I make use of Roughriders (but then who would'nt? ), Special Weapons Squads (Royal Engineers/Sappers) and Light Infantry (previously to represent Skirmishers though I'm stepping away from this now). I've other ideas in mind, for example Hardend Fighters for 'Highland' Praetorians, and Carapace Armour to represent Life Guards (though Grenadiers or even Storm Troopers is possible here youlose out on the 'Praetorian' Docturine set options).

[ThePraetorian]

Okay, I set up a yahoo group at PIGAS@Yahoogroups.com.  PIGAS is Praetorian Imperial Guard Appreciation Society.  So if anyone likes we can use that as a central location to not lose track of our dwindling number.

[Col.Gravis]

It's tricky but worth a go, there is an existing Yahoo Group I set up late last year with around 15 Praetorian Players mostly from Portent, it never really took off though, converation is very dead

http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/praetorian-IG/

Hence a new group may not be such a bad idea lol

[Cateran Idir]

Hello

I'm currently in the process of starting a Praetorian army. Nearly finished the Command HQ.

Doctrines will be: COD, Iron Discipline, Heavy Weapon Platoons, Hardened Fighters and Sharpshooters.

[ThePraetorian]

Similiar discussion going on over at Dakka with some real nice pics


http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakka/Default.aspx?tabid=27&g=posts&t=4958

[Colonel Bagshot]

Ah I see yours is a more standardized IG version of the Praetorians, but fear not, not all Praetorians are as tradition-bound as the glorious 42nd!

And yes, metal minis are THE way to go! Where's the joy if your models case doesn't weight at least 10 kilos? ;-) Plastics are for pussies!

At last!! I've found people who have heard of the praetorian models!! They're brill, but £2.50 each?! And one of you had, what, 200 hundred of them?  And I thought it was expensive to collect a savlar chem-dog army (check out http://photobucket.com/albums/y75/ColonelBagshot/ for some pics of my work if you have time)! I might have a praetorian musician to accompany my other IG army's command squad though.

[Gladewalker]

So let me get this right... you want us to be known as "Pigs?" Hrmm....

I'd much prefer the Prae-Mordian Joint Military Command (at least that's how my Armies operate heh)
;-)

[Gladewalker]

Hmm... no dice in a search of yahoo groups for "pigas".. quite a few historical Roman Praetorian groups though...
*shrugs*

Rum, that sounds like a fine square ya got there, but it's not as rock solid as my phalanx type square. More blades per inch ;-)

[The GrimSqueaker]

Rum, that sounds like a fine square ya got there, but it's not as rock solid as my phalanx type square. More blades per inch ;-)

Where I come from mate, men don't stand that close to other men 'till the shells start to fall. If we wanted that sort of carry on we'd have joined the navy. 

[ThePraetorian]

Now that's funny Rum...

Here is the link for the group.  I am getting married this Sat. and with subsequent honeymoon, probably won't have much content from me for a couple of weeks but hang in there.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PIGAS/

[Gladewalker]

Why would you be forming up if you weren't about to enter a battle? *scratches his head*

Errr... so is that PIGAS group not supposed to have any messages in it? Well, I'll have to fix that...