Rogue Trader - Gyrinx

Hello, today we have another one of the more uncommon Rogue Trader miniatures out there the Gyrinx, the Gyrinx along with the Jokaero and Death Ferret were most definitely the quirkiest miniatures of the Rogue Trader era, if only Citadel miniatures had produced more of the fauna that appeared in the rulebook I am sure the game would look very different today. I am sure all you cat lovers out there will certainly have tracked one down to paint.

Not much I can say about the miniature, I don't know who sculpted it, it appeared on the 1989 Easter Sale Flyer.

As for the paint job the miniature is so small you can't do much with it that hasn't already been done, ginger tom, Bagpus, Blue, green, etc so I put the vote out to the Twitter Oldhammer community on what colours I should with and purple won outright so I went with that, I think original ginger came in second. I went with a stack of purple shades and washes on a white undercoat trying to get a dark to light gradient you often see in cats from the paws up then finished it off with a bit of a highlighting, one hour later I was done.

Gyrinx

Gyrinx - front

Gyrinx - back

The Gyrinx appeared in the Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader rulebook on page 213 and here is the illustration and rules.

Gyrinx illustration

Gyrinx rules

Almost 30 years on and Games Workshop revisited the Gyrinx back in 2017 with Yvraine from the Triumvirate of Ynnead (£50!!!), I fondly remember the rumour mill up to this release it was incredible, nice miniatures but they are way too busy miniatures for simple old me.

Gyrinx 2017

 

Now my Eldar Trader has a pet or is it the other way round, they choose you don't they?

Awww! don't they look sweet together!

There's quite a few blogs out there featuring Gyrinx's so I have couple of plugs, get over to sho3box plenty of cat/gryinx action over there, Goblin Lee has knocked out a great one here, there are others so apologies if I've forgot you I've not seen any Gyrinx fun posted up in ages.

Thanks for visiting

J

@fuljason on Twitter, get following for Work in Progress and other stuff... no politics!

Rogue Trader - RT01 Space Marine Field Police

Welcome back, I am currently working my way through last RT601 Space Pirate range of the Rogue Trader era and with 10 of 24 miniatures complete so far it's going well but it's hard work batch painting so I'm having a quick break from them to play with a few single pieces and some revisit old ideas while waiting for the enthusiaum for them to come back.  

One of these old ideas that really got me stoked was the Adeptus Astartes Space Marine Field Police and after a bit of a conversation on Twitter I popped up into the loft and dug out my first attempt to show the Oldhammer crowd, after rooting through the myriad of boxes I finally found him. This 1987 RTB01 plastic Space Marine was converted to hold 2 bolt pistols and painted in Humbrol black enamel gloss with the helmet painted in the first Citadel Colour blood red, you remember the one? it was more like light carmine or pink, I have included pictures of him below for a laugh.

Weeks after I was thinking surely I could do this bygone concept more justice so I went through my collection of RT01 Space Marines miniatures looking for what I thought would make the best Field Police Marine, there were several candidates but in the end I settled for Brother Leanman (also listed as Brother Lestrade later on).

The Field Police rank appeared on the beautifully illustrated page 168 of the Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader rulebook but was forgotten in the background descriptions and rules which was a shame but it didn't stop us painting them.  There has been modern revisits to the concepts including by Forgeworld but that's all too new for me.

During my paint job I tried best to capture the feel of the Rogue Trader illustration, I always find black extremely hard to get right but I think it works, he carries an interesting style of carbine bolter which seems well suited to his rank, the helmet came out a bit cartoony which I like and I tied him to my Flesh Tearers with the chapters icon on his shoulder pads badge plate.

Space Marine Field Police Brother Leanman - front

Space Marine Field Police Brother Leanman - side

Space Marine Field Police Brother Leanman - back

The original Adeptus Astartes Field Police illustrations from page 168 of the Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader rulebook, this style of drawing went on to define how the different Space Marine chapters would be displayed in future codices to come.

Field Police carries a bolt pistol unlike his brethren

 

Field Police rank marking

The things you did back in 1987 that Humbol black gloss will ensure that this miniature survives into the 41st Millennium

1987 RTB01 Field Police - side

1987 RTB01 Field Police - front

I hope you enjoyed my trip down memory lane, thanks for dropping in.

J

IC301 - Iron Claw Pirates Part 7

Hello again, today I proud to announce another of my Oldhammer projects has been completed, if you are a follower you will know this one has been a slow burner, it probably didn't help that I recently traded the Iron Claw Space Pirate 'Venk' away as I thought I had a double so had to track that miniature down again. This post features the last two pirates of the IC301 Space Pirates 'Vaal the Asharian' and 'Venk'.

Iron Claw Space Pirates - Complete

First up is 'Vaal the Asharian', a fierce looking alien miniature, I really enjoyed painting this guy with is ugly features augmented with cybernetics, wires and a bionic eye, it was a fun.

Vaal the Asharian - side

Vaal the Asharian - back

Vaal the Asharian - side

Vaal the Asharian - front

And finally we have the elusive 'Venk', this miniature like others looking like soldiers is tagged as 'Trooper' which got me thinking were they proof of concept candidate for the Imperial Army range which didn't fit, well he is very militaristic in a paratrooper jumpsuit, I have always thought Citadel just crowbarred some of Bob Olley's sculpts into other ranges, the IC2003 Jump Troops tagged as Astronaut spring to mind.  With all that in mind I went for a  military colour scheme

Venk - front

Venk - back

If you missed my previous posts you can read each post by clicking on the links below.

Banzai Jones	Loritta	Ooglorg the Cruel	Col. Vlad
Star Raven	Dambo Kweltz	Little Rico	Attitude Gorman
Nightwing	Captain Dunbar	Zandar	Verrington Khosht

Thanks for dropping in.

J

Citadel Judge Dredd Perps Part 14

 Borag Thungg Earthlets, today we have two more scrotnig miniatures from the 1985 citadel Judge Dredd miniatures range, as usual these miniatures are from the JD3 Perps and Muties code. I really enjoyed restoring and painting these two.

Jaxon Prince and Shojan

First up is 'Jaxon Prince' a character who appeared in 2000AD Prog 513 (14/03/1987) in the Judge Dredd story 'The Comeback', obviously you can tell from the name and the miniature who is it supposed to be a parody of, in the story they revive Jaxon from his cryogenic tank where he is little more than a mindless zombie and that's all I am going to tell you, you can read the full story here, if you are like me and got rid of all your ancient 2000AD comics you can pick the story in the Judge Dredd Complete Case Files 10. 

I got this miniature from a solid seller and believed it to be mint condition until I had undercoated it and was well into the basecoat there I discovered a massive hole in his face and body after a close inspection and looking at someone else's copy I came to the conclusion that the mold for this miniature must of had problems, it's not the first or last time I'll come across this type of thing anyway the miniature required some restoration on the face and body, using greenstuff I was able to rebuild the face, tongue, cheek and fill the body adding new buttons to his tunic now I am no sculptor but I think the results are pretty good take a closer look. As for paint job I went for full on Thriller zombie skin tones. Also this miniature does have a variant in the 1985 Citadel Miniatures Dr Who range DW9 Time Lord 5, there are a few crossovers between these ranges that I have previously discussed here.

Jaxon prince - front

Jaxon Prince - back

The Comeback 2000AD Prog 513

Lastly we have a fan favourite 'Shojan' from the story 'The Warlord' 2000ad Prog 451-455, this miniature also appeared as 'Aritomo'  a Slaughter Margin campaign miniature, Shojan lets his magic giant samurai wreak havoc on Mega City 1 until the Mega City Judges deal with him, I was going to get some 54mm Del Prado samurai figures and recreate the scene with Shojan leading against some Judges but the painting queue is building up so this idea is on the back burner.  Paint job Shojan appeared in several colours depending on who coloured the covers, etc I went for red and yellow as he appeared in the centrespread of the comic.

Shojan - front

Shojan - back

Shojan the Warlord of Ji

Shojan in his red and yellow garb which influenced my choice of colours

I'll probably do the last of the perps in a couple of months time so stay tuned

Shamone!

J

Citadel Judge Dredd Perps Part 13 or Once Upon a Time in the Oldworld

Howdy, today I bring you Oldhammer Cowboy and Indians, this post started off as lets paint some more Judge Dredd perps and developed into a look into some of the early Citadel Miniatures influenced by the western film genre.

Cowboy and Indians

First up we have 'Running Sore' this miniature was tagged as Medicine Man and is a 1987 Slaughter Margin Judge Dredd RPG campaign miniature, a variant or revisit of the C Series 1985 C07 Ranger 'Scout', this miniature confused me as the slotta tag looked original and not your usual Citadel recycle, revisited miniatures tags tended to have a small lead plate on top of the old name, this had me thinking was it resculpted as a potential 1986 C03 Cleric a year later, Scout was released in 1985 and the later 'Medicine Man' now has loads of feathers about his person, has lost his bow, tomahawk axe and now carries a big mace the weapon of a cleric but not a weapon of a plains indians that I know of, I thought I would chuck that out there as I do.

Running Sore or Medicine Man

Running Sore - front

Running Sore or Medicine Man - back

Next we have 'Snake in the Grass' another 1987 Slaughter Margin miniature, a cool looking Indian chieftain wearing a headdress and with what I can only describe as a tomahawk on steroids, I did a lot of searching on this one as I did not believe he was an original sculpt, I think the base miniatures were either F3 Barbarian 'Blood' or F3 Barbarian ' Freca Foulbreath'.

Snake in the Grass - front

Snake in the Grass - back

Snake in the Grass - side

Next is 'Brave' also another 1987 Slaughter Margin miniature and the last Judge Dredd perp of this post, you got 6 of this miniature on the original offer sheet, a simple miniature, the jury is out on whether I think it is a resculpt or not.  **Update** Mystery solved, thanks to Axiom of the illustrious magpieandoldlead blog who pointed out on the comments below that the Brave is a resculpt of Zuggy Spotz/Crazy Joseph, he is in my cabinet and starring me in the face so I took a couple of comparison shots and uploaded them below, I have a spare of Zuggy so he may be getting the western treatment very soon. 

Brave - front

Brave - back

Brave and Zuggy Spotz/Crazy Joseph - front comparison

Brave and Zuggy Spotz/Crazy Joseph - back comparison

Following on we have 'Sacred Bull' a C Series 1986 C03 Cleric, while I was painting the Slaughter Margin perp miniatures it got me thinking which other Citadel miniatures might fit this group so I climbed into the loft for a mooch and came out with several western themed miniatures.  He appears to be a medicine man adorned with strange ornamental armour and a big stone club, no pointy weapons for a cleric and all that, he was fun to paint.

Sacred Bull - front

Sacred Bull - back

Next we have 'Hawkeye the Scout' a C Series 1985 C07 Ranger listed and tagged as Scout and appeared as a named character in the Warhammer Fantasy Battle Second Edition campaign pack 'Blood on the Streets' or as know to many 'The Riding', we played this campaign to death over the six weeks school holiday as kids, it was loose and benefited from a Games Master as it was so RPG, the stats say he is skilled in the use of the longbow but the bow on the miniature is clearly a short bow, I still have John the Trapper too, the C07 Ranger range was full of character.

Hawkeye the Scout

Hawkeye the Scout - front

Hawkeye the Scout - side

Hawkeye the Scout - back

C Series Rangers about to be liberated from their HOTT Lurkers base 

Running Sore and Hawkeye Scout - front comparison

Running Sore and Hawkeye Scout - back comparison

Hawkeye the Scout character stats

Finally we come to 'Bounty Hunter' another C Series 1985 C07 Ranger, well this one needs no introduction, the 'Uomo senza nome' or the 'Man with No Name' a homage to Clint Eastward in all those great spaghetti westerns we know and love. I am not the greatest painter but I did do my homework and put the effort into his poncho using references from my favourite appearance of his. The Handbow is a nice touch and I am sure he is quick at drawing it.

Bounty Hunter - front

Bounty Hunter - back

The man with no name

A repo of the original poncho but as you can see from the photo above there is a lot more going on

I have identified a few more 1980's Citadel Miniatures that would fit with this group nicely so in a couple of months I may dig them out and add them to the group.

I do recall seeing other America Indian influenced Citadel Miniatures made 5-10 years after the miniatures above like the Deathwing, Necromunda Ratskins and Colonel Schaeffer's Last Chancers 'Shiv' so maybe it was a theme that someone on the Games workshop design team enjoyed at the time.

The 1980's and early 90's was a wonderful time for us thrash metaller's, you had the hair rockers with their Bon Jovi 'Wanted', Young Gun's movies and dream catcher tattoos but we had Joey Belladonna's Anthrax to tell us America Indian history, War Dance!!!!! enjoy!

If I have offended anyone by my use of the word Indians instead of 'Native America', it's the Warhammer world peeps I have no idea where America might be in the Oldworld it should be above Lustria but that looks like Outer Mongolia to me, many indigenous people or first nations of the world still refer to themselves as Indians especially the American Indian Peoples, I omitted the word 'Red' before Indians as I now understand it can be seen as derogatory as I would never wish to insult anyone I recognize them.

thanks for visiting hope you enjoyed this post.
J