So before the Big Game 5, Lexington (of aurorachapter.com) went to a con (I forget which one) and came back with pictures and stories.  Lexington, myself, and our friend Lia were sitting around the living room in Lia’s house.  Lexington lived in her house at the time.

Lexington tells us a story that he saw a Guard army made of female models.  They were apparently all shock pink.  The Ogryn had Marge Simpson beehive hairdos.  They also apparently had other “girly” things like hearts and bunnies everywhere.  The army was made by a guy.  I thought that was cool from a conversion standpoint, because it would be really hard to do.

Lia disagreed.  She explained that making a “girl” armed force all pink and frilly is saying that women serving in an armed force is silly.  She said it was a joke, and the punchline is that women can’t serve in the military.  She was right, that’s exactly what that army said under the surface.  Later on that day, I tried to imagine: “What would a Guard army that WASN’T sexist look like?

The next thing that popped into my head was the motto of the Saratogan 58th: “If you can hold a lasrifle, you can die for the Emperor.”

It would be an integrated force, even more so than the United States army today.  Women and men would fight side-by-side.  Now, how to do this?  There are no female models made by GW, except those that are either not human or ass-ugly.  Here’s how I did it.

First, I found female faces from Privateer and Reaper minis that were not hell of ugly.  I cut off these mini’s heads and filed the head down until it fit in the empty Cadian helmet.

Then I took five female Eldar Guardian torsos, and modified them to look Cadian.

I moulded these objects and made resin copies.  I then used Green Stuff to fill in bubbles.  I used normal Cadian arms and legs, but slightly filed to fit the new waist.  About 50% of the models in the army will be female, for an integrated fighting force.  The color scheme (seen on the painted model) is very ordinary.  Female soldiers don’t wear pink.  They wear standard Cadian drab green.

The backstory will be posted later.  It is based on the 90’s science fiction show Space: Above and Beyond that apparently only I liked.  Notice that on the painted mini (my Ursakar Creed stand in) that there are custom decals.  These were expensive but WORTH IT.