Praetorian Sailors? Yes, I think there is such a thing!

The thing is however, all Imperial guard regiments leave their home world and travel with a fleet finding war where war is needed. On realising this (and the massively frustrating point that Praetoria doesn’t exist on 40k star charts) I renamed them so they weren’t from Praetoria.  

Now I do want them to be from Praetoria once again, at least for a while, so they can take part in the Montar campaign – provided I can get to the other side of the galaxy in time. Also I do still like the original feel of a non ‘army’ regiment from the Navy or Airforce, like our Ausy Airfield defence guard (equivalent to UK’s Air Force regiment) or navy marine style forces.

Praetoria has a huge population, a large merchant fleet and is situated near the Segmentum Tempestus Naval Base at Bakka. These three points makes it likely that the Imperial Navy in the sector would recruit from Praetoria, and it’s possible there would be wholly Praetorian ships and fleets.

The next point to consider is that in real life all ‘non army’ services need solders to fill force protection roles. The same would be true of the Imperial Navy, especially considering that all aviation capability and air support in the Imperial armed forces is assigned to the Imperial Navy. In some cases this could be filled by sailors with guns and security teams (like boarding teams) or there could be a Navy regiment of soldiers. These soldiers could be assigned to protect surface bases, airfields, fleet ground assets and equipment. Rather than being a ‘security force’ they could engage in ‘Aggressive Defence’ actively seeking out and destroying threats. In some cases this would put them on the frontline fighting next to the Guard.

The Imperial Guard has different style regiments from different planets, so it is likely that the Imperial Navy has different style crews from different segments.  Taking all this into consideration I’m proposing that there may be a navy fleet regiment from Praetoria. And well, cue my boys in blue...

As for names I was thinking:
The Praetorian Expeditionary Fleet Defence Guard (of the Imperial Navy) ?
1^st Praetorian Fleet Regiment of foot ?

– it’s a mouth full so I’ll just refer to them as the Fleet Regiment. 

While I was considering all of this I also pulled out some old converted sailors. I made these years ago (long before the officer of the fleet model was around) by filing down a Mordian's cap and taking off the visor. I also green stuffed a white collar/scarf. I painted them the same blue as my Praetorians but altered the rest of their colour scheme.  At this point I’m being very careful not to write things like ‘because they are seamen I thought they should have white on them”.

Here is the first touches of paint on my sailors that will accompany the fleet regiment.

 

Obviously they need loads more work, this was just a first peek at what I had in mind. The character in the bottom left photo was a royal navy officer from Black Scorpion miniatures with a head swap. The armour, which will be a gold-bronze, was inspired by this pic from Drathmere's- 40k hobby blog. Also I will probably 'tan' the white a little.

As for style I was thinking along the lines of sci-fi-sailor. I wanted to keep the square rig sailor hat and scarf to keep the feel of  'Cloudships of Mars'-which is Victorian’s in space, essentially what Praetorians are!

Modern (Ausy) sailors

Cloudships of Mars

Space sailors from 'The 5th Element'

NOT the sailors in space that I was thinking of!

This has a completely different feel to the Navy storm troopers/boarding teams that are about (notably those of Colonel Scipio's Palladian Guard) so I'm interested in people thoughts on my take of them.

Also what are peoples thoughts on the concept of a 'fleet regiment'?
Is the background sufficient to field my 'blue coats' next the 'red coats' as Praetorians?
Any other general comments related to this will be wholly welcome too because its a left field idea!

I cant finish this post without a big shout out to Headologist's compilation on imperial navy art on 'Do you have a flag?'and lastly for those interested here is a fan Codex Imperial Navy that I came across by Keats and Bobk.

cheers all, 'anchors aweigh'!