Warlord Games Beyond the Gates of Antares Ghar Assault Trooper

IMTel Report //005634 - Reflections Upon The Ghar Empire 

The Ghar appear to live only for battle and conquest, seemingly content to expend  their entire energies upon war and enslaving other human species they defeat. An incredibly savage race, analysis indicates that they are descended from genetically adapted slave soldiers,  though when or why they were created is a mystery: their creators have long since disappeared from the Antares Nexus and the Ghar themselves have very little interest in such matters.

Individual Ghar are repulsive creatures with hunched torsos, bulging guts and what look to be spindly arms and bow legs – but they are rarely seen out of their huge, armoured battle suits. Though bulky and lacking the clean or organic aesthetic the IMTel nations might consider attractive, the battlesuit’s appearance reflects its brutish strength and a tremendous resilience to damage. Despite their rugged construction, these suits are powered by relatively primitive plasma reactors and it is not unknown for them to experience catastrophic containment failure as result of damage in combat...

Introduction 

Shortly after I finished the C3 Strike Squad, I thought it would be cool to try painting some miniatures from the other Antares factions as well as then I'd have some antagonists for Squad Haar to face upon Py'dræn. My first thought was that a squad of Algoryn Armoured Infantry would be quite fun, but while roaming around the Antares Nexus I came across Andy Singleton's Ghar Battlesuit and I knew I wanted to give something like that a try first.

Assembly and Prep

The Ghar have two basic patterns of armoured battlesuits - Battle Troopers and Assault Troopers so after a little more research I settled on an Assault variant as the one I wanted to have a go at. The kit comes on a single sprue and much like the Concord squad was incredibly easy to clean up and assemble - in fact the only slightly tricky part was posing the legs, and choosing which of the three head options to use, everything else took mere minutes!

With the model assembled, I based it in the same way as Squad Haar, including replacing the stock base with a 'Citadel' style one, though the larger base meant I could use some slightly larger rocks to add detail before applying the Vallejo Earth Texture.

The assembled Ghar Assault Trooper with gouger gun, disruptor discharger, plasma claw

Painting

While I wasn't following Andy's painting guide exactly, I did draw heavily upon it for inspiration when I was painting the battlesuit. I started by priming the model black before spraying it Citadel Mechanicus Standard Grey from about a 45° angle so that the black was still visible in the recesses and lower areas.

Once this was dry, I carefully drybrushed the raised areas and edges of the miniature with Dawnstone and then Karak Stone before applying an all over shade of Nuln Oil. The next step was to use some sponge to add battle damage with Rhinox Hide and then use Karak Stone to highlight the hard edges of the suit and add definition to the battle damage. With this done I set about painting up the various details.

To try and convey the both the raw power and instability of the suit's plasma reactor and fresh from painting the glowing Tesla Cannon on the M9A3E8 I thought I'd have a go at glowing red and orange on the various details across the carapace as well as on the reactor and cables at the back. These gave a nice contrast to the cables under the eye lenses and on the weapons which I painted up to look glossy as though made from vulcanised rubber (or some exotic future material with similar properties).

Finally I painted the base up to match those of Squad Haar and to 'bed' the suit into the base more used some Vallejo weathering washes to dirty up the lower areas of the legs. In my mind, this Ghar has been planetside for some time so his suit has accumulated dirt and grime as it's scuttled about Highlands of Py'dræn.

 Back to Beyond Gate 2022

"...as we came in on the coordinates indicated by the D1, a terrible keening cry cut through the tranquility of the plateau. Rifles up, we advanced more warily now, having heard nothing similar on the trek up from the lowlands.
Spotting a bowl shaped depression in the ground ahead, Atredyes to swept wide left to cover us with the Lance as Haar signaled the rest of us to fan out with curt gestures of battlesign. 
As we moved into overwatch positions at the lip of the depression I caught sight of it for the first time and my heart sank. Any examination of Builder relics would have to wait until the very immediate threat before us was dealt with..."

[Py'dræn, Nychthemeron 14.2]

It was great fun tackling another Antares project but taking an entirely different approach to the painting with a view to conveying both narrative elements of the setting of Py'dræn as well as the differences between the factions and cultures of Antarean space and I plan on picking up some Algoryn to do something similar with soon...