One of the armies I'll be focusing on this year are my Squat/Imperialis Militia. I decided once the Kharadron Overlords came out how I was going to work the army (mostly), I'm still mulling over tanks but they'll come later. First up I needed infantry, now, the Survivors of the Dark Age provenance does mean that my compulsory troops have to be Grenadiers, which is fine, but I do intend on having some of the more basic infantry too.
With that said, here are the first 5 (of 20) Infantry.
I'll, eventually, be fielding 4 20 man units with close combat weapons and 2 with Lasrifles(and Advanced Weapons for the extra punch). The Arkanauts themselves don't require a huge amount of converting, since the description of Auxila Pistols is pretty vague you could even get away with leaving them as is, but I wanted to swap out the guns for something a little more recognisable. 
In my hubris I thought the Renegade Militia Las/Auto pistols would be a good choice which, visually at least, they are but by Christ are they hard to get hold of. This is why at the moment there's only 5 guys with guns, and one of them is the sergeant with a Bolt Pistol!
Oh well, I'll get there in the end with them, it might just take some time. with the next batch of guys I may customise them a little more, mix in the vanilla models with some more flashy ones since, in theory at least, each Squat is responsible for his own gear so I imagine there would be a decent amount of custom modding going on.
As for the army list, its not really possible to represent everything the Squats used to have but you can get a good amount of them. For now my 1 to 1 comparison is something like this:
Force Commander - Warlord: Fairly straight forward, he's got a decent range of equipment to allow for a pretty unique Warlord. No way of getting him into Exo-armour unfortunately but its a small gripe. You've already seen my Force Commander in the last update so I wont post him again. Yet.
Platoon Command Cadre - Hearthguard: I backed and forthed for a while whether to make these part of the main Brotherhood troops of the Hearthguard, they are only BS3 so hardly fitting of the Hearthguard but then the way Squat society is set up it didn't make sense that the commanders would be standard Brotherhood. Either way, with Advanced Weapons you can give them Carapace Armour and Laslocks for a 3+ save and Str 5 shots (even if they don't have any AP) and throw them in a Rhino(or a counts as Rhino, we'll come back to that). I'm still not 100% settled on this so it may change.
Rogue Psyker - Living Ancestor: But Amy! Your army is Loyalist! I know, I know, but its the only way of getting a Living Ancestor in. I'm not saying I'm going to use one, but its nice to have the option. As long as you're fluffy with your choices of Psychic Disciplines I don't think most players would have a problem with you taking one.
Militia Infantry Squad/Fire Support Squad/Recon Squad - Brotherhood: The backbone of Squat forces are the Brotherhoods, Between these three squads you've got a decent layout of options, Infantry squads can be melee orientated (as above) or ranged with Lasrifles or Laslocks, Fire support squads give you your heavy weapons, I plan on using the FW shoulder mounted ones as much as possible for a real RT era feel, shame the squad cant take Plasma Cannons but oh well and Recon squads can either be Snipers or close assault Shotgunners (I'll be using the DKOK Engineer Shotguns if I make some of these!). These will all use the Arkanaut Company models as they only have Flak Armour (although with SOTDA its at least a 4+ save).
Inducted Levy Squads - Cyber Slayers: This one is a bit of a stretch, I'll be honest, but again, its the only way I can think of to fit these in. Give them two close combat weapons and Discipline Collars. I'll be using the plastic Slayers an hacking arms/legs/whatever off and giving them a Servitor esque look with lots of bionics.
Grenadier Squads - Hearthguard: Their Carapace Armour gives them 3+ saves(thanks to SOTDA) they're BS4 and with Laslocks they have Str 5 shots. they have a decent amount of options for other gear including Boltguns if you want some AP shots, they can also take up to 2 guys I nthe squad with special weapons from Rotor Cannons(Which with advanced weapons is Str 4 AP 6 Salve, not shabby) to Plasma Guns. There was no way these weren't going to be the Elite Hearthguard, it even says in the description for Grenadiers that they are often the "retainers of the Commander's Houshold".
Ogryn Brute Squad - Exo-armour: Ok so its not a perfect analogy, especially with Ogryns low LD but, it does make them a T6, W2 hard hitting unit. BS2 isn't great but kit them out with Close Combat Weapons, Power Axes and Boarding Shields etc and then it doesn't matter when you slam them into combat. I'll be using my converted Centurions to represent these.
Enginseer Auxillia/Rapier Battery - Engineers Guild/Trikes: I keep seeing people bemoan the like of Bikes/Rough Riders in the Militia list, and Ok, I would like Rough Riders if only so that when I do my Imperial Beastmen somewhere down the line I can use Centigors to represent them, but I digress, the Enginseers are the obvious choice to represent the Engineers Guild, and I've already started changing my old Force Commander into the first of an Enginseer detachment. Trikes we're a little harder to get into the army in a justifiable way, in the end I settled on Rapiers, they'll represent slow moving "Trikes" that rather than being fast transports for Engineers are actually more like heavy mining equipment that the Squats have mounted on a platform with one driving and one manning the gun. its not perfect, but it will do.
So that's my ideas for the Infantry, As I said I'm still torn on Tanks but it will be a while before I get there. I mentioned "Counts As" Rhino's earlier, I'm not going to spoil that one just yet so you will have to wait for the next update on that front. In the meantime, if anyone has any of the Renegade Laspistol or autopistol arms lying around then let me know and we can sort out a trade or something!
Until next time!
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