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The New Mighty 77th – Part 1 – A plan, a repaint and new recruits. 

I am Imperial Rebel Ork aka IRO aka Luke. 

The “imperial” part of my name is because my first love (as far as factions go) is the Imperial Guard aka the Astra Militarum. Althooouuuugghhhhh I’ve come to realise that Orks are actually my first love now but that’s besides the point. 

One of the first armies I set about collecting and painting was the imperial guard. Cadians to be exact. If you type in “mighty 77th” you’ll see some of my first blog posts all the way back in 2016. 

Since then I haven’t done much with the 77th. Sure I’ve done a fair bit with my favourite guard army, The 31st Stouthearted Praetorian Guard, but the Cadians have sort of been left alone, despite the fact they often make it to the gaming table. 

Now with all the sexy new Guard releases from GW I figured it was time to dust off my old guard army and give them a fresh lick of paint. My paint job back in 2016 (as seen in the pic above) wasn’t the worse thing I’ve ever seen but my skills have slowly developed in the last six years so I really want to do a repaint. 

I’ll also be getting some new recruits. As mentioned, new Cadians have landed at GW and I’ve been lucky enough to get my dirty little hands on some. Therefore I’m super excited to get stuck in. 

I did consider converting the models but they’re actually so nice looking that I think I’ll just build them as they’re meant to be. 

Also, I think I’ll stick to the standard khaki fatigues and dark green army. It’s basic but I like it. I did toy with the idea of painting them like Starship Troopers but nahhh. 

The scale is slightly different as I think the new ones are more in proportion. This doesn’t bother me though.

So with repainting and all the new recruits it’s going to be a big job ahead of me but one I’m looking forward to. 

My army will end up looking something like this: 

  1. Command squad 
  2. Six 10 man squads including 20 new recruits
  3. Two 10 man squads of conscripts (Catachans) 
  4. One 10 man squad of veterans
  5. X 2 armoured sentinels 
  6. X 2 Ordnance teams 
  7. X 3 Leman Russ tanks 
  8. X 1 Basilisk tank 
  9. X1 HOPEFULLY/EVENTUALLY New Rogal Dorn Tank 
  10. Sniper 
  11. Karskin Squad 

Cheers

IRO 

36 thoughts on “The New Mighty 77th – Part 1 – A plan, a repaint and new recruits. ”

  3. This sounds like a good project and plenty of tanks to boot! 🙂 Seeing your comment above on stripping plastic models, one of my mates from years ago used to get something called Modelstrip I think – it was like a thick paste, you put it on the models, put ’em in a plastic bag or tub, left them overnight and then scrubbed it off with a toothbrush (it was messy)! Worked well, although some small bits glued onto models could come off. I think your older troops look fine though, you could maybe just add some embellishments to them if you wanted to do something, but I’d be happy enough with them. I still use a lot of my Russian and German WW2 tanks painted in the ’80s that are not up to scratch but I did the best I could with them then and I still like them!

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    1. Actually mate you know what, I think you’re right. I think the older ones aren’t too bad and maybe, as you say, I could just make some embellishments. Hmmm, I’m rethinking now. It’s gonna save me a ton of time too really. Thanks John.

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  4. Another big project Luke, where will you find the time ! LOL As for stripping the models, there is a product called simple green, that doesn’t destroy the plastic, and for the most part doesn’t break down the glue, but I think John’s idea has merit, the paint you’ve shown doesn’t look too thick, so use this as a basis and repaint over the top. The flesh areas I’d just give a quick wash and then highlight, and the rest just paint over with the desired colours. Why not do a test one and see how it works, if you don’t like it you were planning to strip them anyrate.

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  5. 2016, man that was a long time ago when I joined 😨 (with my old blog). Tbh, I’d forgot you collected the Cadian Imperial Guard, though I remembered that you collected the Valhallans and Praetorians.

    Wait wheres the Comissar? You cant discipline your men without a good lecture or two about our glorious Emperor of Mankind! 😁

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  8. Oh yeah… Imperial is in the title of your user name and website, isn’t it? I nearly forgot! 😉 This project sounds promising and suitably ambitious to me. I’ve always liked the Guard though I don’t think I ever bought or painted any of the old sculpts so this is more my speed than something green. I’m excited to see more!

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  9. Excited to see the updates on this project! I think the new sculpts GW are releasing across all their ranges look fantastic, but part of me is a little sad to see the cartoonish dimensions of their older models going by the wayside. Oh well, progress is progress. I’m sure I’ll get some new Cadians myself soon.

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  10. Really looking forward to seeing this project progressing. 🙂 My love of the Guard has grown a lot over the last few years and I’ve got a bunch of kits I want to work on myself (resisting the urge to buy any of the new stuff for now but it’s a struggle…) – hopefully seeing what you do will inspire me into action!

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    1. Your willpower is stronger than mine my friend haha. I had a game last night with my original gangster Mighty 77th and I think I’ll definitely touch them up a bit but won’t completely repaint. I’ve also got some older bits and pieces under the house I’m gonna dig out and add to the new stuff coming

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      1. Yeah well, I dunno about that, I may have cracked this afternoon and made some purchases… Damn it, I was supposed to be saving my pennies for Warcry and World Eaters (and food…). Aye, speaking from experience, I strongly recommend not trying to repaint the whole army – touching up models on a case by case basis is the way to go. I repainted all my Orks about a decade ago and it damn near broke me – and kind of put me off painting Orks for a couple of years which is a terrible thing to happen to a man.

        How did the game go anyway? Will you be doing a battle report?

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      2. Oh wow! I’m glad you didn’t get out of painting Orks completely. I’m even thinking that the older IG models could be conscripts or something and the newer ones could be the Vets. I’m thinking of doing lightning camo pattern on them. Like what is on the Karskin models. Ooohhhh what did you get mate?

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  12. IG were my very first 40k army. Catachans to be exact. I added a bunch of tanks and APCs when I realized how sucky acatachand were alone. I later had 200+, heavy converted Cadians (unpainted) that I traded a few back for a huge Lizardman army.

    I shoukd probably NOT read this set of posts since it’s fonda make me want more Cadians, even though I don’t play 40k anymore….

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  13. Looking forward to your progress on this front -BUT add me to the list of folks saying NOT to repaint. Get new models, but the painted ones are a snapshot of your painting back in 2016. Don’t wipe that out – just build on it with new stuff. If they look slightly different, they just came out of depot with newer uniforms. Best of luck my friend!

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