Banana Republic? No, it's the Emperor's Waterless Marine Banana Soldiers of Future Doom

Why oh why I ever let myself get talked into a game of Games Workshop's Warhammer 40k I just don't know. "C'mon, it'll be fun...we'll have curry and roll dice and it'll be like the good old days" they poisoningly enticed me. Long story short after a short hiatus here is my force ready to terrorize the fields of Melbourne's gaming clubs in 2011 with plentyful supplies of banana peels wrapped around death dealing bolter rounds. Enjoy!

The army arrayed for display

The Force Commander and Veteran Champion

The Librarian psycher and Force Standard bearer

The force's Chaplain, tasked with ensuring everyone says their bedside prayers before going battle.

Veteran and Assault Marines (the ones who stay around the longest by not getting shot at as often perhaps?)

As with all young recruits to the Chapter the Imperial Fist scouts are first wrapped up in weed and sent out to fight for awhile in that. Perhaps the Chaplain and commanders figure if they can hit anything STONED they'll do fine when their shoulder pads go on for good. Nice models, jokes aside!

A Dreadnaught equipped at present for standard fire support role. I might change this in the future to fulfill different battlefield roles in the form of a flamer and rocket launcher respectively for close-up-and-personal and long range support functions. A tin can with legs to be feared indeed!

Four squads of good old Tactical Marines never go astray, truth be told. Particularly with shoulder pads THAT large! Good solid goodie-two-shoes blokes with bright banana armors armed with quick firing explosive shell bolters are a sight to behold indeed!

I'd never seen this weapon before - it's called the Thunderfire Cannon of Doom and apparently it can fire UNDER units to blow things up from the ground out....kind of like an excavating German Goliath in the future perhaps? Anyway, nice model and all metal, which always rocks.

Lastly a bit of long range armored firepower in the form of a pair of Devastator Marine squads armed with all things that go BOOM in the night, a Whirlwind rocket launcher platform and a pretty scary looking bulldozer....no wait I mean a Vindicator tank.
In the end the force comprises a comfortable 1,800pt to get back into sci-fi gaming. In particular I've recently enjoyed several games of Urban Mammooth's "Urban War" and thus the search has commenced for players to play a mod version of 40k implementing Mammoth's skirmish ruleset command system instead of GW's IGOUGO. Keeping the game values from 40k, to be sure, but moving and operating much more tactically than "you do all your stuff, then I'll do all mine" and cheezing lists to achieve the most dice rolls.
Reactionary overwatch, Snap and Lock with initiative rolled alternate bounds are a simple mechanic I think 40k would be greatly improved by, but it takes a certain kind of player to venture from the known. More on that later over a cuppa, perhaps! Also, the ruleset exploded by Disposable Heroes also offers infinite modding opportunities.

In all this is what I'm now a proud owner of (the banana armies being among the most revered in the community because they're so impossible to paint well.)
I found this on ebay for just under half the price of the miniatures unpainted and put a bid in for fun. Little did I know with everyone busy with the holiday season they went almost unnoticed and I actually won the auction. Still a small fortune was spent them everything considered but with plans to sell off part of my pile of lead and a good run at work it was time to reward myself a little. The force then comprises:

HQ
1 x Captain armed with storm bolter and power sword
1 x Librarian armed with bolt pistol and force weapon
1 x Company Standard
1 x Company Champion
1 x Chaplain w/power weapon and power glove

Elites
1 x Sternguard Veteran Combat Squad
(1 x Sergeant armed with bolter and power fist, 1 x Marine armed with a combi-meltagun, 3 x Marines armed with bolters)
1 x Dreadnought
armed with an assault cannon and a dreadnought close combat weapon with storm bolter

Troops
1x Scout squad
 (1x Heavy Bolter, 4x Sniper rifles)
1 x Tactical Squad
 (1 x Sergeant armed with bolt pistol and chainsword, 1 x Marine with a missile launcher, 1 x Marine with a meltagun, 7 x Marines with bolters)
1 x Tactical Squad
 (1 x Sergeant armed with bolt pistol and power fist, 1 x Marine with a missile launcher, 1 x Marine with a flamer, 7 x Marines with bolters)
1 x Tactical Squad
(1 x Sergeant armed with bolter, 1 x Marine with a flamer, 8 x Marines with bolters)
1 x Tactical Squad
(1 x Marine with a flamer, 9 x Marines with bolters) 1 x Marine is missing his backpack

Fast Attack
1 x Vanguard Veteran Assault Squad
(1 x Sergeant armed with a plasma pistol and chainsword, 1 x Marine with a plasma pistol and chainsword, 4 x Marines with bolt pistols and close combat weapons)
1 x Assault Squad
 (1 x Sergeant armed with chainswords, 2 x Marines with plasma pistols and close combat weapons, 7 x Marines with bolt pistols and close combat weapons)

Heavy Support
1 x Whirlwind Tank with a pintle-mounted storm bolter
1 x Vindicator Tank with a pintle-mounted storm bolter and a siege shield
1 x Thunderfire Cannon with a Techmarine armed with a servo harness
1 x Devastator Squad
(1 x Sergeant, 1 x Marine with missile launcher, 1 x Marine with lascannon, 1 x Marine with heavy bolter, 1 x Marine with plasma cannon, 1 x Marine with bolter)
1 x Devastator Squad
 (1 x Sergeant, 1 x Marine with missile launcher, 1 x Marine with lascannon, 1 x Marine with heavy bolter, 1 x Marine with plasma cannon, 1 x Marine with bolter)

So as everyone knows half measures avail us nothing in the League. When we do something....we DO something. So when we play Napoleonics, it's ranks and ranks of 6mm troopers. It takes us three months to get forces together for Disposable Heroes and then a two-day slugfest. In this case, when I thought of going back into 40k for a laugh I was fortunate enough to bump into Alex on ebay who, in support of his wife's new business endeavour, sold me this pearl of a force for a mint. Beautifully painted and based, I hope to do it justice for him in coming years as it cruises the universe in search of the Emperor's laundry thieves of the Apocalypse (no wait....we can't even use THAT anymore as apparently GW's copywritten that, too! Betcha one can't even say Squat safely anymore?!?)
LOL!
Thanks for your esteemed attention if you got this far.
S.