The Emperor's Feth Astra Militarum Army Part 1 - The beginning & thelist

The Emperor’s Feth

I enjoy hearing about how people started in this hobby, chatting about armies, lists and I absolutely love looking at painted models. With this in mind I thought I would blog about my history with 40k, what I’ve been up to, and introduce my 1^st army The Emperor’s Feth. I hope that you enjoy what I’ve been up to and would love to hear your story and what you think of my army and list. Over this post and more over the next few weeks I’ll showcase this army with my thoughts and how I painted each unit so please read on, enjoy and comment by all means…

The Beginning…

So as The Emperor’s Champion (Rich) says 2009 rolls around and out of curiosity I walk into a Games Workshop in Stockport, Manchester. As it happened, that week 5^th edition was due to be released and 40k was being pushed in the store. I got chatting with the manager and had a good look around before my eyes finally came to rest on an Ogryn model. It looked ace – bigger than the others and full of character. I had no idea of the rules or army, all I wanted was to paint this beast and so I bought it with a few paints and a brush and there was the start of my love affair with the Imperial Guard or as it is now known the Astra Militarum.

Above: The first model!

Tournaments

Over the next few weeks 5^th Edition Imperial Guard was released with a bunch of new models which nicely relieved me of any spare cash I had at the time. As I was building my army Rich had also been getting into Ultramarines which prompted lots of games and new models as were constantly trying to beat each other. Each week would see a new addition that one of us would have to counter with a purchase or a list change of our own – we were having a mini arms-race!! At this time Games Workshop began their 40k Doubles tournaments and Rich and myself decided to enter with Ultramarines and Astra Militarum at our first tournament and then with a Double Astra Militarum force at subsequent tournaments. We had to choose a name for our army and so The Emperor’s Feth was born. The doubles tournaments were amazing, we got to meet loads of people (Dad Dave is one), see Warhammer World, do fairly well in the tournaments and most importantly get nominated 4 times for best painted armies.

Above: The Emperor’s Feth at a tournament at Warhammer World

Above: Under pressure at a tournament at Warhammer World. Not quite sure how we got ourselves into this situation!!

Above: Dad Rich looking a bit geeky at our first trip to Warhammer World back in the day

Hobbying

It was during these tournaments where I saw some beautifully painted models that I decided that I wanted to create not just an army but an army with a theme. At this point I was considering painting a Tyranid army as I love Aliens (who doesn’t) and love the idea of Genestealers and a swarm. I started but after putting together and painting a handful of Genestealers decided it was a bad idea that would take far too long – especially as I still wanted to add to The Emperor’s Feth. So I came about the idea that The Feth would be specialists at fighting Tyranids and began to model Tyranids onto my existing Astra Miltarum figures. I also built the army list to this theme. In order to fight the swarm I have lots of bullets, flamers and some snipers and lascannons for the bigger creatures. This hobby idea is still taking shape so you will see some ideas completed and some more develop as I complete projects this year.

Above: One of The Emperor’s Feth Chimeras

At the current time I am also halfway through painting a 40k Flesh Tearers army – more to come on that in a future post – but I still have lots of Feth to continue with yet. Anyway enough chat, let’s get to it with my current list of all the models that are completely painted:

Company Command Squad

Company Commander

2 Veterans with Meltaguns

1 Lascannon Heavy Weapon Team

1 Astropath

Chimera – Multilaser & Heavy Flamer

Platoon Command Squad

Platoon Commander

4 Troops with Flamers

Chimera – Multilaser & Heavy Flamer

Combined Troop Squad

2 x Troop squads

2 x Flamers

2 x Lascannon Heavy Weapon Teams

Commissar

Heavy Weapon Team

3 x Autocannons

Heavy Weapon Team

3 x Missile Launchers

Veteran Squad

3 Plasma Guns

Camo cloaks and snare mines

Chimera – Multilaser & Heavy Flamer

Ratling Squad

6 x Ratlings

Vendetta

10 man troop squad

Vendetta

Manticore

Heavy Flamer

Leman Russ Punisher

Heavy Bolter Sponsons

Heavy Bolter

Leman Russ Executioner

Plasma Sponsons

Heavy Flamer

Leman Russ Demolisher

Plasma Sponsons

Lascannon

Grand Total – 2000 points

Above: The current 2000pt army in all its glory.

As I said earlier, keep looking out for posts on ‘The Feth’ over the next few weeks where I will post more photos, discuss each unit and include how I painted it in detail.

Let me know what you think in the comments below.

James