Iron Claw Squats 40K Special Weapon Squad

Another month, another post, my typing fingers are getting blisters. Such is the price of a spine full of wires. But whinging is for pointy-eared cookie makers. So on to the Chaos Squats.

Here is the second Special Weapons Squad for The Rotted Hearth Infantry Platoon. The name "Iron Claw" is just too good to pass on, so I have named the squadron the Iron Claws. Our band of Squats contains a bunch of odd-looking weaponry, making them most suitable for a Special Weapons Squadron. This is also typical of the Iron Claw Squats IC301 series that Bob Olley sculpted for Citadel in 1987, the year the first Warhammer 40K rule book was released, Rogue Trader.

Here we can see the first advertisement for the Iron Claw Squats, from the Rogue Trader Part Two flyer. Back then, each mini had its own name. That didn't last long, as that path leads to silly names, sci-fi author puns, and general madness once enough minis are out there.

We start our Iron Claws squad with Squad Leader Elgard Bugien. As with other Iron Claws, I've resisted the urge to convert these minis in a way that involves cutting bits off of them, due to their rarity. But their compact form leaves some nice space on their bases for relatively large bits, and I also could not resist some small converting by adding bits to the Squats.

Squad Leader Bugien doubles as the Iron Claws unit flag-bearer. It is the two-tailed comet staff-top from the plastic WFB Empire Wizards bits. Those Wizards have great bits for many an army. Bugien is traversing the battlefield near an empty Imperial Guard fuel canister. His dragon-headed gun counts as a Meltagun for game purposes.

Bugien from the back, displaying his battle-gear with the Comet-Flag fitting snugly betwixt his Melta-fuel pack and his canteen. What does a Zombie Chaos Squat keep in his canteen? A question best left unanswered. Sgt Bugien is also known as Iron Claw Squat 9.

The next Iron Claw is Trooper Zor Szlezen. Szlezen is wielding an Eldar Shuriken Catapult. In the Rogue Trader era, access to weapons was much less restricted. In our new model armies, we count the less weird and threatening looking weapons as Lasguns. Nonetheless, the viewer may notice some clowns in the background interested in where Tpr Szlezen obtained his shuri-pult.

Also known as Iron Claw Squat 3, we see Zor nonchalantly ambling by the remains of a RTB01 Mark 6 Beekie Space Marine. There will be no prizes given to readers who notice that the Skeletal Horse has made yet another appearance.

But Szlezen's uniform colors provide an opportunity to lay to rest a false linguistic nugget, namely the "Nothing Rhymes with Orange" claim. "Orange" rhymes with "Whore's Minge". Done and dirty.

One last picture for today, our Iron Claws surrounded by Eldar, ready to fight til the end. You would think that causing the collapse of your civilization, cataclysmic convulsions throughout the cosmos, creating a new and most useless Chaos Power, would lead to a bit more humility, but you would be wrong.