Showing posts with label Mercenaries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mercenaries. Show all posts

Tuesday, 17 April 2018

Rogue Trader - Mercenaries Part 4

Hello, Today's we have the final 2 miniatures from the RT502 - Mercenaries code so I am happy to say that's another Oldhammer project complete.  As you know I completed the Rogue Trader RT601 - Adventurers a while ago and now this code is complete I need to decide whether a do the Bob Olley IC301 'Iron Claw' Space Pirates featured in White dwarf 93 or the RT601 Space Pirates from White Dwarf 103.


My final 2 RT602 Mercenaries


For we have 'Kylla Condotti' another Warhammer 40'000 Rogue Trader 1st Flyer miniature who found his way into the RT07/602 - Mercenaries code and Imperial Army blisters.  Originally listed as an Imperial Garrison Trooper and another of those miniatures with a sculpted on backpack which I know you all love. His tab says 'Low Tek Trooper'.   This miniature ended up in several blister codes over its lifespan.  His name is based on the famous historical mercenaries the Condottieri for anyone interested.
The only variant of this miniature is another Mercenary and 1st Flyer miniature No-Face Fargo/Imperial Light Trooper.


Kylla Condotti/Imperial Garrison Trooper - front
Kylla Condotti/Imperial Garrison Trooper - back

Imperial Garrison Trooper on page 165 of the RT rulebook


Next we have 'Catachan Luke', I have painted this miniature many times as a Catachan Jungle fighter like his name suggests, there are variants of this miniature in the Mercenary range and these are Hacker Harris and Breakout Con.  I went for an Afro-Caribbean race for him as I did this for my Catachan Jungle Fighters in my 2nd Edition Days.


Catachan Luke - front
Catachan Luke - back




One day I will treat you to my 2nd Edition Jungle Fighter units but I currently can't get through the clutter guarding them in the loft.

Thanks for dropping in, another project complete.
J

Rogue Trader - Mercenaries Part 3

Greetings, an end is in sight for one of my current Oldhammer projects the RT502 - Mercenaries featured in White Dwarf 95. (I must confess this project is finished I am just publishing another of the ten drafts queued up 😳)

Not the greatest week for photography it was the 'Beast from the East part 1' here in the UK and I think the pictures reflect that.


Another two done, two more to go

Here are my latest offerings.

First we have Breakout Con a cool dynamic looking miniature, storming forward with his modified Bolter, I like this sculpt especially his heavily augmented head, that appears to have eyes, ears, nose and brain modifications. 

Breakout Con - front 
Breakout Con - back

Breakout Con


This miniatures variants include Hacker Harris and Catachan Luke and his head is also used on RT01 Space Marine Brother Dimshade, all Bob Naismith sculpts, it was common for him to reuse base miniatures and parts, it would be interesting to know if he precast certain parts like they did with weapons or did he simply hack the part of a pre existing cast miniature.


I think you will agree that the image the Necromunda Orlock below bears a striking resemblance to Breakout Con and it's nice to see he was rocking the slotted shade look long before this Orlock (and Lady Gaga).



I also remember that the Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader rulebook featured a squad of these Breakout Con's, is that Communication Officer Orinoco administering Frezon to penal troops? I am sure it is.


Breakout Con unit - Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader rulebook Page 161

East/Fast-Star John another 1987 1st Flyer miniature sculpted by Bob Nasmith, originally he was listed as Imperial Heavy Trooper but like many other seen on previous posted recoded into the RT602 - Mercenaries and as his tab suggests, he eventually turned up in Imperial Army blisters too. 


Fast-Star John - front
Fast-Star John - back


Fast-Star John


A variant of Imperial Heavy Infantry/Space-Dout Sam but this time he has a sculpted on backpack instead of a flightpack.  I own loads of copies of this miniature and have painted him multiple times over the years but this time I went for an Imperial Army appearance, I was tempted to paint the backpack as a medipack but resisted as I have plenty of Imperial Army medics.

Only 2 more Mercenaries to go which are painted now just not photographed and then project complete.

Thanks for reading.
J

Friday, 17 November 2017

Rogue Trader - Mercenaries Part 2

Hello, I hope you enjoyed my last blog post featuring some of the RT502 - Mercenaries, I am trying to keep the momentum going between this project and my quest to paint all of the Citadel miniatures Judge Dredd Perps which is going well but is going to take another 2 years or so with the interruptions I have planned like completing the Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader 1st Flyer March 1987 miniatures and a personal favourite of mine the Slocombes Warbots and SFD Robots which are still sitting in their blisters waiting to be opened for your enjoyment (photos will be taken to upset the collectors, is that a form of trolling?  😆) so bear with me.

You can see how some of the projects are getting on in my Gallery.

Anyway first up today is 'No-Face Fargo' from the RT502 - Mercenaries code who started life as a Imperial Light Trooper on the Warhammer 40,000 (Rogue Trader) 1st Flyer March 1987 and another miniature depicted in the rulebook, a variant of the 'Imperial Garrison Trooper/Kylla Condotti' 1st Flyer/RT502 -Mercenaries miniature who's tab says 'Low Tek Trooper' in the case of 'No-Face Fargo' he has a blank tag label so I reckon he is the later sculpt of the two, the infamous Imperial Assault trooper/Judge Dredd Mek shares the same head.  
The major appeal to a lot of Rogue Trader fans is the sculpted on back pack which was the norm in the first releases and many fans would love to see this done again. I went for a palette of blues for this miniature designing my own Imperial navy uniform and imagine him with his mask in a low gravity/oxygen boarding action.

No-face Fargo - front

No-face Fargo - back

Imperial Garrison Trooper - Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader Rulebook page 67




and it's time for some Abhumans







Secondly we have 'Shorty' the Halfling eventually the nickname Ratling became the norm for these guys, another one of the RT502 - Mercenaries usually for this code not sculpted by Bob Naismith I believe but I don't know who yet.  Complete with Judge Dredd style boots, elbow/knee pads, mithril/mesh shirt and a bolt pistol that is the size of a bolter for this character, his helmet is an excellent sculpt and was a joy to paint, I need to mention the cooking pot and spoon on his backpack too even Space Halflings need breakfast, elevenses, and brunch before tossing 'the one nut to rule them all' into the fire.


Shorty the Halfling - front
Shorty the Halfling - back








Lastly we have the infamous 'Beastman Trooper Gaxt' from the 1987 first Rogue Trader Imperial Army code, semi dressed in army uniform maybe because his beastman side cannot be tamed as he goes topless with studded armbands, carrying an autogun, a really cute chain knife or short sword and has a weirdstone dangling from his belt.  Many W40K gamers have created some really amazing Imperial Guard Beastmen units over the years and it all started with this guy.


Beastman Trooper Gaxt - front

Beastman Trooper Gaxt - back





It appears that the games/miniature designers at Games Workshop know how dear we still hold 'Gaxt' to our hearts and there may be money in it (cynical?) so have churned out a Necromunda Beastman Bounty Hunter for all you fans out there. (p.s. I am loving their new direction, I even purchased Silver Tower, is there a new golden age coming?)





Thanks for looking I hope you enjoyed, now get following 😈
J

Thursday, 21 September 2017

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