Rogue Trader - Mercenaries

Hello, with the good wife still away in NYC I am making the most of the painting and blogging time, you will not see this much activity a week from now so lap it up my friends.

As you know I completed my first major project sometime ago, I have still got finish it off some proper photography on this project but it is done, it's sister project was the RT502 - Mercenaries and although I cherry picked and painted 'Old World Jack' and 'Inquisitor Augustus' some time ago, this small code has been nagging me for some paint for a long time, so I am currently 10 miniatures in to a 16 miniature code, easy eh? funnily enough I do have most of these painted already as Catachan jungle fighters for Warhammer 40K 2nd Edition but I couldn't bothered to strip them as they are half decent may need just a spruce up.

All the RT502 Mercenaries were sculpted by Bob Naismith except 'Shorty' and 'Iron Bonce the squat' (not sure when?) and released in White dwarf 95 in 1987 , thanks to Axiom's blog post which confirms these are Bob's sculpts, I have used plenty of greys on these guy's to make them look like Imperial Army deserters and added some variations like Desert uniforms. 

Many of these characters appeared in illustrations in the Rogue Trader Warhammer 40,000 rulebook so where possible I have took a snippet shot of them.

The characters like 'Sarge' Rockhard remind me of the cool characters from films like The Dirty Dozen and Cross of Iron, along with the comics the designers would may have grown up with like Warlord, Battle with their Rat Pack story drawn by Carlos Ezquerra of 2000Ad Judge Dredd fame who appears to often base his main character on James Coburn. I think Colonel Schaeffer's last Chancers are direct descendants of these influences.  

Anyway onto the miniatures, enjoy!


First up we have a much loved miniature 'WorldBurner' illustrated in the Rogue Trader Warhammer 40,000 rulebook (and somewhere else I think), appears to have some sort of assault uniform and weapon.

Worldburner - front

Worldburner - back

Worldburner - RT Rulebook page 172

Worldburner - RT Rulebook page 126

Next up we have 'Plundering Pete', same uniform as Worldburner, maybe some sort of ranking on the shoulder of his bandolier, I painted him up as a renegade Tallarn guardsman.

Plundering Pete - front

Plundering Pete - back

Is this Pete - RT Rulebook page 109

More Pete from the RT Rulebook

'Abbadon' is a repurposed miniature and first appeared on 1st Flyer March 1987 as a 'Ground Combat Trooper' but it as this miniature is tagged IPC and dated 1985 so it fairly obvious from appearance that this miniature is a Rogue trooper Souther that never made into the '8' miniature JD10 & 11 code. It's not the best sculpt so I don't know if that was the problem or that the code could not be an odd number for packing purposes, JD10 & 11 are both 4 distinct characters.

Abbadon/Souther - front

Abbadon/Souther - back

Next we have 'Mad Morris' storming ahead with his Lasgun, I had to do this one in Imperial Army colours, dynamic pose, his outfit quite typical of the Imperial Army so definitely a deserter.

Mad Morris - front

Mad Morris - back

'Hacker Harris' really reminds me of Philthy Animal from the heavy metal band Motorhead, with his wild hair and cut off jacket, he appears to have the same head as the Space Marine Captain Huron Grimm the face of this miniature was tough to paint you really need a bendy brush and a dentist mirror to get into the eyes due to the positioning of the head.

Hacker Harris - front

Mad Morris - back

'Space-dout Sam' is a 1st Flyer March 1987 miniature 'Imperial Heavy Infantry' that like the others didn't fit with the direction the Imperial Army was going in so found it's way into the Mercenary code, he has heavy battle armour with side deflector shields and a really great sculpted on flight pack which was a joy to paint.

Space-Dout Sam/Imperial Heavy Infantry - front

Space-Dout Sam/Imperial Heavy Infantry - back

'Sarge Rockhard', who appears to have the same head as 'Plundering Pete', uniform reminds me of the Chainsaw Warrior so I went for a similar colour scheme, I really had to fight the temptation to paint him with a cheesey 'The Sweeney' Robbers mask.

'Sarge' Rockhard - front

'Sarge' Rockhard - back

'Sarge' Rockhard - RT Rulebook page 221

'Iron Bonce' the squat, another 1st Flyer March 1987 miniature first labelled as 'Space Dwarf' encased in a full battle armour together with flight or power pack (whichever you prefer), what's not to love about this miniature, although the first wave of squats are cute, I wish more of these were made, maybe it is proto exo-armour he is wearing?, it's much nicer than the horrid fantasy squat exo-armour of later years. Note he has the 'M' insignia that appears on several Rogue Trader miniatures and may have it roots in 2000AD's Rogue Trooper.

Iron Bonce the Squat - front

Iron Bonce the Squat - back

Iron Bonce - RT Rulebook page 59

Pirate is another 1st Flyer March 1987 miniature but this time the sculptor has removed the sword and scabbard of the C Series Fighter 'Cedric' and replaced it with one of the weapons used on the citadel Judge Dredd ranges, this miniature never got reproduced anywhere else. I went for the glam look of the 1980 Flash Gordon movie, reds and golds complement his camp outfit.

1st Flyer Pirate - side

1st Flyer Pirate - other side

1st Flyer Pirate - front

Thanks for looking I hope you enjoyed, all comments mean a lot to me
J

Rogue Trader - Fishmen

Hi Folks, I am having a bit of a 2000Ad renaissance at the moment but while painting up my throng of Judge Dredd miniatures I managed to fit in two legendary Fishmen, these miniatures originally appeared on the Rogue Trader RT2 Flyer March 1988 along with the legendary Wolfen, it would be interesting to know if the Wolfen was another repurposed Fiend Factory miniature.

Laserburn/Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader - Fishmen Source

"Sometime in the mid-1980s Bryan Ansell had some Sci-Fi Fishmen made based on Citadel's Fiend Factory FF65 Man-Fish models. See CCM for pictures of the originals. These "Fishmen from Space" were used to playtest Laserburn and then WH40K but were never sold to the public. Fast-forward to 2012 when Wargames Foundry discovered the moulds of these in their back-catalog and created a new production-mould. These figures are sometimes available from Wargames Foundry directly or as giveaways at events." 

Citadel's Fiend Factory FF65 Man-Fish models also found there way into the C22 Creatures range

Try giving Wargames Foundry a ring or email they may be able to sort you out with these miniatures. 


There was talk on the Oldhammer forum and associated Facebook group that Bryan Ansell searching for the third Man-Fish miniature so the he could convert it to a Sci-Fi Fishman thus completing the range."

60p each!!!

Sl'Harsh and Pl'Lodor

Sl'Harsh 

Pl'Lodor

They would make good fishy henchmen for my Space Riders Picsean Warrior.

There are other excellent painted examples out there on the web, here is a superbly painted example by Paul over on his Sho3box blog.

Enjoy
J

Citadel Judge Dredd Perps Part 1

Borag Thungg, Earthlet,
The 2000AD comic has always been close it my heart and most nights I wind down in bed reading one of the collected works books from the likes of Titan or Rebellion books, so this week I went through the myriad of undercoated miniatures I have queued up and dug out some citadel Judge Dredd miniatures. I tried to keep to my  previous cartoony style of painting these miniatures trying to emulate the colour and feel of the comic strips although I did take a little more time on the faces.

Firstly we have Link Angel, a member of the Angel Gang described by Mean as "too dumb to know how bad he is".

Link Angel

Link Angel - front

Link Angel - back

Next up we have his brother crazed cyborg Mean ‘Machine’ Angel, another of the Angel Gang and arch enemy of Judge Dredd, for such a simple character with only one real gimmick the head butt, he has entertained us for years in 2000AD stories. This miniature is based Mean’s first outing in the ‘The Judge Child Quest’ where is left arm is blasted off by Judge Dredd in prog 178.

Mean Machine Angel

Mean Machine Angel - front

Mean Machine Angel - Back

Drew is a NPC from the Judge Dredd RPG adventure supplement ‘Slaughter Margin’, the miniature is a variant of the Perp Rizlo Butty, variant miniatures were a common feature of the Judge Dredd range and many of the miniatures were used as base models for the Rogue Trader Imperial Army range as well as citadel other ranges.

Drew (Slaughter Margin NPC)

Drew - front

Drew - back

Mek, another character from the ‘Slaughter Margin’ adventure, this miniature eventually made it's way into the Rogue Trader Imperial Army blisters and appeared on the second Rogue Trader flyer as an Imperial Assault trooper accompanied by a Robodog another Slaughter Margin NPC.  This one is a real ugly resculpt and it appears to be based on an old C100 Rogue Trader marine which one is still yet to be identified.

Rogue Trader Imperial Assault Trooper (Mek) & Robo-Dog (Mega-Hound)

Mek (Slaughter Margin NPC)

Mek - front

Mek - back

Judge Pike, a variant of the Spit Gun Suzi Perp miniature, She wields a Lawgiver mark 1 which any Dredd fan knows for a Perp that is very unwise so I assume she is a member of the Wally squad, whacky dressed to fit in with the futsies of Mega-city one 

Judge Pike

If anyone has a PDF copy of the Slaughter Margin adventure I would be very happy to hear from you, I don’t fancy tearing the loft apart looking for it.

Florix Grabundae for visiting, enjoy

J

Rogue Trader - Space Dark Elf Trooper

Hello Friends,
My latest painted miniature is the Space Dark Elf Trooper who was released on the Warhammer 40,00 Rogue Trader March 1987 mail order flyer along with other famous rarities like the Piscean (Saharduin) warrior and the Imperial Bodyguard. A good example of the original miniature can be seen here.

It was an enjoyable miniature to paint and I went with a purple/violet scheme as I done with previous Dark Eldar projects, I think it brings out their malevolence, it is certainly an interesting miniature covered in intricate pipes, tubes and bands which required lots of concentration to paint neatly. His weapon resembles a Flamer but could also be some sort of Shuriken Catapult if that's what you like, his armour is mesh (chainmail) and carapace plates and he is equipped with a power pack for his armour/weapon or some sort of flight pack.

I would probably say the detailing on the sculpt was probably the reason the Space Dark Eldar did not get it's own range, all that tubing must have been tough to cast and must off lead to lots of failed miniatures, I think all examples of miniature I have seen the tubing has small breaks and missing bits in random areas.

Space Dark Elf Trooper - sideview

Space Dark Elf Trooper - front

Space Dark Elf Trooper - sideview

Space Dark Elf Trooper - back

More random miniatures in the pipeline so stay tuned

WIP my current projects

I hope you enjoyed this post so get following
thanks
J

Astropath Yerl - RT601 - Adventurers

Hi, my miniature for today is Astropath Yerl another miniature from RT601 Adventurers set, you can see this miniature depicted in one of the illustrations for the Imperial Bodyguard miniature, see post below.  If you look at some of the more modern citadel/gw scupts i.e Imperial Guard Regimental Advisors you will notice that the newer Astropaths haven't really strayed away from the original concept unlike nearly all the other W40K designs.

My painted version .

Astropath Yerl - front

Astropath Yerl - back

Astropath Yerl onboard a mysterious space hulk searching for arcane psychic artifacts.

Hope you like
J