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Tallarn Genestealer Cults were not on my Ovelist for 2023, but Imperial Guard were, and things… kinda got out of hand.

So I made it a goal to revive my Imperial Guard army in 2023, and what I wanted to do most was to make a Tallarn Desert Raiders army. Tallarn have been my favorite Imperial Guard Regiment since I got my first Imperial Guard model–a metal Tallarn from probably 2nd or 3rd Edition, who had a big plasma gun and a scimitar and sunglasses.

I haven’t gone to the trouble of coming up with a full and complete backstory for these Genestealer Cults Tallarn Desert Raiders, but I’m working on it.

It started with the knowledge that the new Imperial Guard were coming out, so last year I bought a Baneblade and painted it (but didn’t like the paint job). Then the new Cadia Stands box came out, and I resisted buying it one new release day because I was trying to be responsible, but then it showed up on Amazon for a really good price and I couldn’t stop myself. And then, I just happened to have the Genestealer Cults Combat Patrol… I couldn’t NOT make Tallarn Genestealer Cults.

To this point it’s all been head swaps. And, I’m finding out, that although Imperial Guard and Genestealer Cults like to play together, the heads are slightly different scales. If I put a Genestealer Cults head on a Guardsman, and I clip the big bulbous nubbin off the bottom, then the head looks pretty good. If I put a Guardsman’s head on a Genestealer Neophyte, then the head is too small (because it’s missing that bulbous nubbin, and it is dwarfed by the large neck hole. BUT: with a little patience and some fiddling), I was able to make it work.

Now, the stupid thing: I really wanted to make these Imperial Guard to be Tallarn in more than just color scheme but also in headwraps and robes. But, I am notoriously bad at green stuff work. (I’ve only tried it maybe three times and it’s always been a disaster.) On a recent episode of The Painting Phase, Peachy showed how to make Tallarn desert wraps with masking tape and I tried–holy crap did I try–but my masking tape just wasn’t sticky enough, I guess? I also tried with double-sided tape and with packing tape and none of it was sticky enough to work. So I tried green stuff–doing all the things I was supposed to, putting Vaseline on my fingers, the cutting mat and the knife, and it kinda worked? I didn’t like it enough to do it on more than five Guardsmen, and I’ve decided that I’m going to buy some cheap Little Green Army Men and practice on them for next time.

It didn’t really come together until I did the Sentinel, and by then I really felt like I was hitting my stride. (I did the Sentinel before I did the Baneblade.) Then was the heavy weapons team, which I did a very simple extra base on–adding some boards and rocks like a barricade.

Overall, I’m really happy with how it’s coming along so far. I’m no expert painter and most of this was done pretty fast–I used the three-day President’s Day Weekend to my advantage. But I like it, and I think that there are a lot of things I need to add to this, both on the Imperial Guard side and on the Genestealer Cults side. I definitely need some Atalan Jackals (which happen to be among my favorite models in Warhammer 40k) and I’ve been craving a Rogal Dorn to try out.