Tuesday 26 May 2020

Rogue Trader - Wolfen

Hello, special post today featuring an unknown miniature to many and a highly sought after Oldhammer miniature to the few, the miniature might as well be made out of unobtainium it's so rare. This miniature has fascinated me for many years, what miniature I hear you cry? The miniature in question is the mysterious 'Wolfen' or my take on the Wolfen, please join me on this journey and you decide.

Rogue Heresy Wolfen
Wolfen or Faux Wolfen?

Rogue Heresy Wolfen
Wolfen

Rgoue Heresy Wolfen
Wolfen - front



Little information is known about this mysterious miniature and for the most part all is internet speculation, I have read that it was made as a prototype alien race for Laserburn or Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader.  The miniature appeared on the 2nd Rogue Trader flyer March 1988 that you received for free when buying miniatures from Games Workshop via mail order.

Rogue Heresy 2nd RT Flyer



These are the only reference pictures I have of this miniature.

Rogue Heresy Wolfen

Rogue Herest RT 2nd Flyer Trio
Wolfen joins his solid-based alien brothers


Well where do I start... I badly wanted this miniature and have never seen one for sale or painted and many serious citadel miniature collectors were on the hunt for this miniature, when Wargames Foundry discovered the moulds for the Sci-Fi Fishmen from the 2nd RT flyer and cast them up I had to have them but alas no Wolfen.

Once I had the Fishmen in my possession it got me thinking did the Wolfen come from the same Citadel Fiend Factory range like the Fishmen did and guess what it did, the FF19 Werewolf so it was a no brainer to me to acquire the werewolf and one of the Judge Dredd sculptors aid JD3 Rifle 1 and voila I would have myself a Wolfen.

The JD3 Rifle 1 proved too difficult to source, the project stalled and ended up in the loft until recently when I was having a chat to Curis on twitter about said gun and was inspired to pick this top secret project back up, I channelled the powers of the great miniature convertors out there like Curis, Axiom and other great modellers, I committed a personal act of sacrilege chopping up a perfectly good miniature. Spitgun Suzi was clearly the best candidate for the chop to relieve her of her 'JD3 Rifle 1', I went for it with the snippers and it felt good I may have to do it again sometime.

What you need to build a Wolfen

Now armed with the gun and the werewolf I was in prime position to create the wolfen, I used snippers and bottle nosed pliers to carefully cut and bent the werewolf arms into what I think is the proper position, the werewolf was so old the one arm cracked and white powder spilt out, oxidation? possibly

Build stage 1

Poor Spitgun Suzi, painted up Suzi will be appearing on next blog post

Then I used superglue to tack the rifle in again what I thought is the correct position.  While working on this project the nozzle of the gun broke off, a common problem for the Judge Dredd minatures, some went in the blisters and some disappear altogether on later versions so I had the fiddly task of reattaching it.  I used green stuff to fill the cracked arm, cover up the hacked chest with fur and nozzle join.

Rifle and Nozzle tacked on




A bit of Das Promo to blend in the preslotta base and I had myself a Wolfen, or as close as I could get to one.

Green stuffed and Das Promo based


Paint job was simple, it pretty flat and early sculpt so I had to paint in most detail.



I was that desperate to start I undercoated by hand!!!



Base coat

Nuln Oil wash

A bit more painting and we are done

The Wolfen Complete

Rogue Trader Stats? well you could go for a Abhuman  Beastmen - Homo Sapiens Variatus (page174 RT Rulebook) that might work.
In true Rogue Heresy fashion I will be working on the copy of the original flyer very soon.
Well I hope you enjoyed this post.
Come back more Judge Dredd perps soon.
J

5 comments:

  1. I was about to say how envious I was that you had a copy of the Wolfen as I'd love one myself. But then you floored me by saying you'd converted the figure! It's utterly convincing, perfectly done and as close as you could possibly get without having an original! Fantastic!!

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    1. thanks Jon, wonderful feedback it makes me happy, I was well out of my comfort zone but it was really good fun, the post was clumsily put together gramma is not my thing :D I was actually looking at your and a couple of others work and working out how you would tackle this and I think it is down to simplicity, not going overboard, painting hides some crimes and those quirky early miniatures
      J

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    2. Totally agree. Keep it simple, try and hide the seams. That's about the trick of it!!

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  2. Poor Suzi! That lass has such a torubled history with guns.

    Didn't know this even existed until you told me about it last week! Must be the obscurest miniature from Rogue Trader as his two Solid-Based release mates have both had Foundry re-releases in modern times.

    Nice choice of green for the trousers, they look like military fatigues that help keep the figure out of "medieval fantasy with guns" territory. Your painting has really brought the old lump to life.


    I find the preslotta stuff is particularly susceptible to lead oxidation. I was trying to clip an SS6 Ogbash Facesplitter off his cast-on base this week and his leg just crumbled through.

    Sooo, you got Space Crusade Ultras on the go too?

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  3. I got one of these werewolves some time ago, intending to do the same conversion, but I was at a loss as to where to source the gun. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction! Your conversion looks great!

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