Monday 26 September 2016

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

Ngaaranh Spawn of Chaos - Compendium One, Now that's Oldhammer 1983

Hi, today a post I have had sitting in my drafts for a while now, 'Ngaaranh Spawn of Chaos' is a classic but hideous Oldhammer miniature, this one got a lick of paint for preservation reasons, the lead was getting darker and darker over the years due to oxidation and I was worried that if I let this continue unchecked the miniature would eventually suffer lead rot and go brittle so I cleaned it up and gave it a quick paint job and a dip in Army Painter Quickshade which has completely sealed the miniature in a heavy gloss varnish, an additional highlight and matt varnish et voila a preserved miniature. (in my opinion anyway :D)

This is an early Citadel miniature limited edition from 1983 way before the not so limited edition 'LE' code range appeared in 1988.

Know as the Compendium One Chaos Specials, Ngaaranh Spawn of Chaos shared the article with infamous Leaping Slomm Two Face and Zygor Snake Arms (the links painted examples are from Roebeast's wonderful blog I suggest you visit). 

Ngaaranh Spawn of Chaos - front
Ngaaranh Spawn of Chaos - back
Ngaaranh Spawn of Chaos - side

A snippet from the article that featured in Compendium One.




Another miniature that was sat on my painting table for a year is this Greater Daemon of Slaanesh, I felt this post would make a good home for this miniature, it was a nightmare to assemble and required a lot of filling, I am not overly enamoured with the paint job but it'll do for a battlefield.


Greater Daemon of Slaanesh - side
Greater Daemon of Slaanesh - side
Greater Daemon of Slaanesh - back

Thanks for popping by,
J


Saturday 6 August 2016

RT601 Adventurers Complete - Space Pirate, Imperial Scout, Ships Officer, Old Pirate, Official


Hello Friends and Followers, today is a great day as I pleased to announce that my Rogue Trader Adventurers project is complete, all 32 miniatures in the range are now painted to a decent standard and displayed on this blog for collector reference. I originally painted most of these back in the late 1980's and after stripping all that dreadful enamel paint off them I started again, I managed to track down the missing miniatures and that was really good fun, I mean everyone loves an Eldar Trader for a dollar right?  The project took 3 years to complete but having a baby and getting distracted by other Oldhammer miniatures really does throw your painting schedule out.  I will be adding them to my Rogue Trader Gallery asap.

It has been a delightful project to work on the miniatures are so characterful and hark back to a bygone age when the world was a lot simpler and designers still had an imagination, the miniatures were sculpted by Bob Naismith, Trish & Aly Morrison and Mark Copplestone. I was a child of the 2000 AD comic and I bet the sculptors were too as they scream 2000 AD at me and you can see the comics influence in the Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader rulebook and miniature ranges. 

I can now move onto to completed my Rogue Trader Mercenary project which you may have already noticed that I have completed Old World Jack and Inquisitor Augustus for.

Anyway enough waffling on lets move onto the miniatures.

Space Pirate, this one should have been called Space Trapper in my opinion, the character is covered in fur pelts and tails, maybe Jokaero or Gyrinx who knows, although a meltagun may be a bit overkill for a Space fur trapping but then again good for dealing with hostile indigenies, watch The Revenant an you will see what I mean. You can see that he was either the base miniature or influence for the Talisman Timescape Space Pirate miniature, I am not sure which you decide.


Space Pirate - front

Space Pirate - back

Imperial Scout, now I like to imagine him a pseudo muslim Freman from Dune (the film being another major influence on the Warhammer 40,000 universe, you know God Emperor and all thator from The Chronicles Of Riddick, he may even be from the planet Tallarn, he wears an arab type scarf which JB over on Leadplague has talked about and he is armed a Hand Flamer and Shuriken Pistol. I have to mention Axiom's version is really nice too.

Imperial Scout - front


Imperial Scout - back


Ships Officer, I love this miniature and for a universe set in the 41st Millennium since it’s conception has largely lacked Sci-Fi minatures for space ship crew, space battles, space/void suits for Imperial Guard, this guy could even pass as a Star Wars rebel ships security from the opening scenes of Star Wars IV - A New Hope.  I can't find any other painted example of this miniature so unfortunately I can't share anyone elses goodness.


Ships Officer - front

Ships Officer - back


When I was cleaning up this miniature I noticed some lead oxidation or dodgy moulding/sculpting and one of the eyes had a box type structure, there were no examples available to get a closer look so i carved the eye out and painted it as a bionic eye, it works for me and reminds me of Commander Makara from the superb 1980's TV show Star Fleet.

Ships Officer - dodgy eye?

Old Pirate, Punk Bondage trousers, this miniature must have shared the same sculpting dolly as the Ships officer, the pose is the same so is his weapon, armed with an early hand flamer (I read in a citadel catalogue somewhere).  Again I can't find any other painted example of this miniature out on the web so I can't point you to the any of the other superb Oldhammer blogs out there.

Old Pirate - side

Old Pirate - front (I really like this profile)

Old Pirate - back

Next up is the Official, some sort of Imperial civil servant maybe? I originally paint this one back in 1987 in military green humbrol enamels and stuck a RTB01 Space Marine back pack on him, it looked pretty good but I stripped it for this project.

Official - front

Official - back





Hope you enjoyed this post, now get following if your not, lots of good stuff to come
thanks
J

Thursday 23 June 2016

RT601 Rogue Trader Adventurers and more

Hi Folks,
Today's post has my latest work four Rogue Trader Adventurers, Tech-Priest Zon, Hive Worlder, Astropath Korm, Pilot Rav, a Space Slann 'Llamas' and a dog!!.

The end is in sight for my Rogue Trader Adventurers project I have last four miniatures prepped and ready for painting, these are Imperial Scout, Old Bandit, Ships Officer and Space Pirate.

First we have 'Pilot Rav', this guy sports biggles attire,  flying jacket and white scarf.

Pilot Rav - front
Pilot Rav - back

Next up we have 'Hive Worlder', this guy's chainsword reminds me of the crude and brutal weapons of the Dark Heresy art work, I wish the weapons were still like this and not the standard designs of today.
Hive Worlder - front

Hive Worlder - back

Here we have 'Astropath Korm', a nice sculpt, if you look carefully you can see he no longer has the use of his eyes they appear scared and fused shut, he must use his psionic powers to see.

Astropath Korm - front

Astropath Korm - back

And the last adventurer today  'Tech-Priest Zon', the bald head and technology mounted on his head are reminiscent of Lobot from Star Wars The Empire Strikes back.

Tech-Priest Zon - front

Tech-Priest Zon - back


Finally I painted an Rogue Trader Space Slann 'Llamas', I really need to get more of these guys and their larger cousins the Space Zoats out of storage and painted. What ever happened to Slann in the Warhammer 40,000 universe? I have read a few articles on this but it's mostly speculation.

Space Slann 'Llamas' - side

Space Slann 'Llamas' - back

Space Slann 'Llamas' - front

An extra treat for all you Oldhammerer's, I have painted the dog the came in the Warrior Maiden's pack from the Citadel Collector Series, it's been on my workbench for about two years, Also found listed as the 'Toy Dog' in the Judge Dredd 'Slaughter Margin' scenario set and 'Barney' in the 'Blood on the Streets' scenario set
Judge Dredd Toy Dog - side

Judge Dredd Toy Dog - side

I hope you enjoyed this post.
thanks
J

Wednesday 25 May 2016

Fighting Fantasy 3D Polystyrene Dungeon - Oldhammer artefact found

Hi Folks,

We were recently discussing our first ever gaming stores over on the Oldhammer forum, the topic was "Imperium Approved" and I mentioned  I had two Fighting Fantasy 3D Polystyrene Dungeons in the loft and Zhu of Realm of Zhu fame requested a photo and informed me that these were the stuff of mythology. 

So I was transporting more baby stuff to the loft for the missus and happened to find one secreted between the roof rafters, I think the other is buried deep, it's a low ceiling loft and junk it stacked rafters to roof tiles, I have to carefully balance on the rafters when looking for stuff, it's a dangerous task but hopefully we are going to clear the whole thing out in a year or two so hopefully the other one will surface.

After a bit of research and talking to the community I found out that the Fighting Fantasy 3D Polystyrene Dungeon is quite sought after which saddened me as I was helping my late friends wife clear out her loft and we found one which I declined as I already had two so we smashed it up and put it in the skip :(

The Dungeon was meant to be part of a Fighting Fantasy Battle Set as written about here You are the Hero - page 64 and here the Fighting Fantasy Wiki, I did own plenty of the large (54mm?) plastic miniatures and the battle ruleset but sadly I don't recall ever playing the rules I was too obsessed with AD&D and Warhammer. 

I had asked for two for Christmas 1983/84, most of my gaming friends had one or two and we used to join them all up and stack them on top of each other when playing role playing games.
We used my dungeons for Bloodbowl, Warhammer Fantasy Battle, Rogue Trader and lots of other games, sadly not for Fighting Fantasy Battle game we had long moved on from those plastic figures although the Fighting Fantasy Paint Set was still in use and was the gateway for us moving from enamel to acrylic paints until Citadel Colour come along,  like Citadel Colour the tiny little pots of paint lasted ages, the gold had a dodgy green tinge.

The Dungeons were probably manufactured in 1982 or 1983 and the Fighting Fantasy Collectors Guide by Jamie Fry - page 20 lists the dungeon with a guide price of £200 which was a surprise to me, although it states that this was never sold to the public which is not correct, Games Workshop Birmingham had a pallet of these stacked up in a tower and was selling them off for £10 each which was quite a high price back then, the Fighting Fantasy Wiki mentions these also being seen in the Hammersmith and Sheffield stores and sold thorough out all Games Workshop stores. To my knowledge this was the first ever polystyrene product made for and sold by Games Workshop, later polystyrene products came along like the 1988 Adeptus Titanicus buildings and the 1988 Blood bowl Astrogranite pitch

The Fighting Fantasy 3D Polystyrene Dungeon came in 9 pieces, 

1 x base with surrounding outer walls. 
6 x small wall sections with arched doors. 
2 x  thick sections with rectangular door frames.

3 x small wall sections and 1 thick section made a whole wall insert so where the Dungeon is mentioned to have 3 parts is sort of correct depending on how you look at it.


A wall insert consisting of 3 x small wall sections and 1 thick section

The Dungeon base floor was very well detailed for it's time, most people were still using graph paper or dungeon floor plans for RPG's.


Nice floor detail
More floor detail

It had 12 Doors you could cut out, 6 per wall insert (2 per section), these doors were large compared to a 25mm miniature but were great for Trolls and Ogres to moving around the dungeon.


Rectangular doorway
The doors were only tagged in with a thin seam of polystyrene for easy removal.


The other side of doorway
Arched doorway
A cut out arched doorway
It has arched 2 entrances


An entrance arched doorway
Other details include this ambush spot which may have be a result of the moulding process but it worked for us kids

Hidey-hole

With a bit of imagination you could make many configurations, when you first owned the dungeon the fitting was tight but with the constant reconfiguration it rapidly became loose fitting and I had to glue the sections in with PVA for storage.


My final configuration

You could stack them on top of each other as it had a central stair case and open door way

Stairs leading up

I need to remove some pieces of card covering the opening for the stairs as part of my restoration.

Doorway leading down
Underneath where doorway leads to, useful when stacking the dungeons on top of each other

It had a manufacturers mark 'TRONDEX' who I think still existed until 2007 look here, a Google search yielded "They are manufacturers of expanded polystyrene mouldings for packaging", If only the company were still trading we could of contacted them to discuss digging the mould plans out of their archive.

Here are the manufacturers marks.


TRONDEX 0604 65331
Serial Number 8734 or 18734

You can see it's pretty battered and the gloss black was my effort to toughen and preserve it back in the early 1990's. I started to paint the inside with black matt acrylic paint with plans to dry brush matt grey.


Left unfinished since the early 1990's

For added protection the outer shell was painted in black gloss paint.
The bottom of the base

I aim to clean it and paint the inside matt black base and grey dry brush with wood coloured doors. 

After a wipe down last night I managed to repaint half of the inside with matt black acrylic paint.

Here are my efforts so far.






Next post I will add some miniatures to the photos for scale.
I will update you on this nostalgic restoration project asap.  I hope this post will be an asset to those Fighting Fantasy historians out there

Some of you may debate whether this is an Oldhammer artefact or a Fighting Fantasy artefact, my experience is that it was used with everything but Fighting Fantasy, I am guessing the only time this Dungeon was used with Fighting Fantasy battle game and miniatures was when it was play tested by Games Workshop staff but then again like the Bloodbowl polystyrene pitch this may of happened with a wooden dungeon now would that be a glorious sight to see.

thanks for visiting
J