Sunday 12 December 2021

Rogue Trader - RT01 Space Marines - Flesh Tearers Part 2

Hello! welcome back, in todays Oldhammer post I've gone back to my slow burning Flesh Tearers project which I aim to build the chapter totally out of Rogue Trader era miniatures, you might remember my first post here. The first post featured some of the more pretty Space Marines armed with more exotic close combat weaponry but if I am to ever game with these guys I would have a serious lack of standard Bolter armed marines so with this in mind I went diving into my loft to dig some out and am strictly now painting marines with standard bolters until I have a good number.  

Not the greatest photos the winter daylight is tough here in the UK but I had a go anyway.

Another 6 Flesh Tearer Space Marines finished

First up we have Brother Sheer, a nice standard bolter marine and check out the greaves pattern it's the one thing I love most about the Rogue Trader era marines that ther doesn't seem to be a standard sculpt everyone is in artificer armour, the miniature is a variant of Brother Froth who was in the first wave of RT01 marines, did Brother Froth cause mould issues? maybe, it appears an addition gun light and slightly wider pauldron was added to fill a void I think this was this due to original tearing moulds post casting? not simply Citadel Miniatures appetite for more miniatures. During prepping I added a 3D printed chapter icon decal from Mars_Forges on ebay which I really like the curved print sits quite well on RT marines. Painting I added some checkers and battle damage to my tried and tested Flesh Tearers colour scheme.
Rogue Trader Space Marine Brother Sheers - side

Rogue Trader Space Marine Brother Sheers - front

Rogue Trader Space Marine Brother Sheers - back


Brother Sheer vs Brother Froth comparison

2021 Brother Sheer vs 1988 Brother Froth paint jobs, Froth was soon stripped after
Brother Sheer and Brother Froth - front

Brother Sheer and Brother froth - side

Next we have Brother McCarthy or just Marine No 8 in the White Dwarf 100 advert, this marine is really dynamically posed, is he wearing a breathing mask and visor or has he just taken the back/top of his helmet off you decide.  He is also carrying a pair of severed heads, one human and one eldar, victims of his latest venture. I added the new Necron paint to his visor Tesseract Glow which produced a nice effect which I don't think is reflected in the photos.

Rogue Trader Space Marine Brother McCarthy - front

Rogue Trader Space Marine Brother McCarthy - side

Rogue Trader Space Marine Brother McCarthy - back

Brother McCarthy Work in Progress, eyes look better here

Brother McCarthy appears in this Epic 40k artwork


Following on we have Brother Hamilton, advancing forward with his bolter poised for action, he has those cool little air intakes sculpted onto the back on his greaves, it details like these that make RT marines the ones for me.

Rogue Trader Space Marine Brother Hamilton - side

Rogue Trader Space Marine Brother Hamilton - back


Next we have Space Marine Brother Reeves, a great firing pose with his helmet stowed on his armour, bolter fitted with a sight or light.

Rogue Trader Space Marine Brother Reeves - side

Rogue Trader Space Marine Brother Reeves - back

Rogue Trader Space Marine Brother Reeves - front

Stepping away from the RT01 Space Marines and to add some more variety I fished out the 1988 Talisman Timescape Marine, a great sculpt by Trish Morrison (Carden) but an awful casting and have not seen a good example and I have owned 3 of these over the years, plenty of green stuff was required on the studless pauldron, like a lot of miniatures of this era their are some really nice details which I painted in on the back only to be obscured by backpack, on the original advert the marine had no backpack but the game counter below did.  A little tip with this one dry fit the backpack first, I super glued it on only to find a 3mm gap which looked odd and really bugged me so off it came ruining the paint job, I had to then file the pack mount down, repaint and was done.

Talisman Marine game counter
Talisman Space Marine - side

Talisman Space Marine - back

Next up is Death Squad a 1986 C100 Space Marine, sculpted by Bob Naismith, armed with a Judge Dredd weapon which were later used on the C100's and terrifying chainsword like the innards of a garbage grinder unit, the C100's with all their little quirky computers, vents and the gorgeous backpacks still make these a joy to paint. Not long after Rogue Trader was released the C100 marines were absorbed into the RT01 range.
C100 Space Marine Death Squad - front

C100 Space Marine Death Squad - back

Next we have the Captain another 1986 C100 Space Marine and again sculpted by Bob Naismith, he has the classic marine commander look with his bionic eye, festooned in imperial skulls, eagle and armed with a power glove and the mysterious weapon from cover of the Warhammer 40,000 Rogue trader rulebook which fans have speculated for years on its name and purpose.

I think he got a bit of a refresh with Brother Sawyer in 1988 here it states Brother Sawyer is armed with a PowerFist and Hand Flamer although not the hand flamer of others or depicted in the rule book, Captain Crabb carries a proper one.

C100 Space Marine Captain - front

C100 Space Marine Captain - back

Finally another miniature I recently completed is a lesser known miniature from around November 1990 a helmetless variant of the Jes Goodwin sculpted RTB15 Space Marine Strike Force miniatures, since I first purchased this miniature at GW Brum I have revisited this miniature every 10 years until finally finishing it now, what gave me the final push on the miniature was Curis's post here last year and I was bloody hell I have this guy and keep abandoning him.  So I again found him battered, bruised with plenty of lead on display and thought now I know you are a bit special I'll give you justice. 

He was assembled and hair sculpted with fine milliput back in the day, he was going to be a new chapter marine and had a coat of elf grey unused aircraft decals but resembled a Space Wolf so I went back to that. I designed my own pattern bolter for maximum close assault, named by @Leaky_cheese on Twitter as the Fulfordius pattern :D

Helmetless Strike Force Space Marine - front

Helmetless Strike Force Space Marine - side

Helmetless Strike Force Space Marine - back

Helmetless Strike Force Space Marine - side

Helmetless Strike Force Space Marine - side

Helmetless Strike Force Space Marine - front

Thanks again for dropping by, plenty more coming soon

J

Sunday 28 November 2021

Rogue Trader - 'The One Big One' Human Renegade

Hello, something a bit goofy for todays blog post, a project I started back in 2014 and lost during our house move only for it to resurface when I was bored of my current paint jobs and was in the loft looking for an interesting distraction, let me introduce you to my take of the Rogue Trader 'Human Renegade'. This character is pictured in the (1st Edition) Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader rulebook on page 172 in an image labelled 'Human Renegades'. 

This image has always been a favourite of mine with the 'The One Big One' character sitting there in what could be described as a space adventurers tavern looking all menacing with his flash mate and a pair of pints and some documents on the table, hit contracts, bounty instructions, who knows? The image has always been popular Oldhammer circles and I know of at least two other paint jobs out there of this character on RT01 metal marines, fans on various forums have asked questions like "who are these guys", "what's their story" and "are these still a thing", myself they have always reminded of the kicked out penitent marine character in one of the early 40K novels, out adventuring on some distant planet without any care for the grimdark, I am sure the creative writers out there could knock up a great story.

The build was simple enough, chop up and reposition a RTB01 plastic Space Marine, fill with green stuff, the end product a pretty rough looking sitting down miniature, I built him a seat out of plasti-card and das promo modelling clay. There's a cool looking rifle is depicted in the image which I attempted to copy by chopping up a variety of early plastic weapons, sticking them together and filing the gaps with plastic putty, I enjoyed giving the rifle a wooden stock, for the backpack I used an RTB01 one and shaved down the grill bits to get a smooth top.

Paint job was the fun part as the character doesn't follow Space Marine Codex schemes so I was forced to come out of my comfort zone and get creative with my paints, plenty of dark washes and weathering was required to try and achieve desired outcome, armour graffiti is a bit rough and I really struggled gettting the 'KISS THIS' on the end of the gun barrel.

Back in 2014 I started to build up the pieces to make a whole diorama of this image and have a rough build started on the other character using the first plastic Space Ork shoulder pads, for the table I have an old lead piece from Citadel Miniatures early days which sizes up nicely and for the room I have an even older resin dungeon room made by a company that probably doesn't exist anymore, you'll see more details on all of this when I pick the project back up, happy to here any ideas that might influence build.

On to the photos... and there's quite a few as I was struggling to get that golden angle, enjoy!

'The One Big One' Human Renegade

Human Renegades on page 172 of the Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader rulebook.
Rogue Trader Human Renegade - side


Rogue Trader Human Renegade - front

Rogue Trader Human Renegade - another attempt of trying to get the golden angle

Rogue Trader Human Renegade - other side

Rogue Trader Human Renegade - backpack

The finished miniature has gone down quite well Twitter so I thought it deserved an immediate blog post.

Thanks for joining me on this fun project, more to come soon

J

Wednesday 10 November 2021

Rogue Trader - Death Ferret

Hello, quick post today, my Oldhammer blog drafts are piling up and I have very little time to finish them off but here's a nice short one, in this post we have another one of the more uncommon Rogue Trader miniatures out there the oddly named Death Ferret, this miniature was available back in 1989 along side other odd bods the Gyrinx and a Jokaero, unfortunately no background was written for this 'alien' creature which is a shame as I am sure it would of been a right laugh.

How this miniature ended up in the Rogue Trader range is open to speculation, maybe another drawer 101 thing, I guess with the desperate need for alien miniatures in the Rogue Trader universe everything was game and I am surprised there's were not more critter like oddities out there, I, for one, would of loved to have owned a Pterasquirrel miniature. The Death Ferret is reminiscent of the C Series C22 Creatures range and may have roots there although the range was defunct by the time by the time Death Ferret was available.

Anyway time for photos.


Death Ferret - side

Death Ferret - side

Death Ferret - front


thanks for dropping in,

J

Saturday 18 September 2021

Rogue Trader RT601 - Pirates - Part 3

Hello, coming to the end of another Oldhammer project, the Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader RT601 Pirates, my previous blog posts on this odd range can be read here Rogue Trader RT601 Pirates - Part 1 and Rogue Trader RT601 Pirates - Part 2. This post features some of the gems of this range, still odd miniatures but certainly some of the more desirable miniatures of the range like the beloved 'Sensei'.
Rogue Trader Pirates part 3

I have included advert again for reference


 
First up we have we have Pirate 4 aka the famous Sensei and although the miniatures in the advert are unnamed he is the only one who isn't named Pirate on his tag, it clearly states 'sensei'. The Sensei concept first appears in the 1988 Realm of Chaos Slaves to the Darkness book on page 217 and there are some lovely illustrations that show various Sensei's which I included below, now you can see from the advert above the Pirate 4 paint job is something special compared to his counterparts adorned in gold armour and white robe, it makes me think was this odd bod pirate range which was released a month before the Realm of Chaos book hit the shelves was going to be originally part of something that was going to be a Sensei Warband range maybe before all the miniatures got their variants made up to bulk out the pirate range, at the time I believe Citadel were churning out miniatures for Warhammer 40,000 and needed to keep the momentum up but the Realm of Chaos books still needed work so maybe this Pirate range was down to that. The Sensei warband list appeared in Realm of Chaos Lost and the Damned on page 186 and if you look at the equipment for the followers I think this Pirate range could be an easy fit as a Sensei Warband range.

Now I always try and point out variants, well it could be Pirate 19, I tried really hard to pair him up with Pirate 19 because if you follow the pattern they come in two's (and one 3) and you can usually work out the original miniature and then the variant with all his donors, Pirate 19 below has very similar lower leg plates and leg spacing so the only candidate I am putting forward for now.

Paintjob I went for neutral tones pretty much how I like my home interiors done, he's not interested in looking flash like your archetypal pirate as he has a higher purpose so buff, medium grey, stone grey, khaki was the colours of choice.

Pirate 4 Sensei - front 

Pirate 4 Sensei - back
Sensei as illustrated in RoC SoD page 217

I have painted and modified this miniature before the second I got it back in 1988 and here a shot of him with my 2021 version.

Old vs New paint jobs

Following on we have Pirate 24, he is quite a portly fellow in a boiler/space suit unfortunately accentuating his obesity but hopefully he thinks his flash equipment will draw the beholders eye from his poor space diet, the helmet is an amazing sculpt with an eye augmentation, nice blaster and my favourite bit the power glove which is like an industrial machine, I think he is a later modification of Pirate 1 as some of the lovely detail on from Pirate 1 is obscured but still visible if you take a close look.
Pirate 24 - front
Pirate 24 - side
Pirate 24 - back

Next up is Pirate 1, his bloated appearance with roll of fat around his neck, this miniature always made me think of Baron Harkonnen and I'll always wanted to chop up another copy to get my very own 'floating fat man' as he was called in the Dune movie by the original Emperor, this pirate is totally Rogue trader era it's a totally bonkers sculpt, like Pirate 24 he is in his boiler suit and he is has some pretty expensive equipment, consisting of a Chainsword and arm replacement multi missile launcher.  His head also ended up on Pirate 21 but I painted the fatty neck as a scarf on that one.

Pirate 1 - front

Pirate 1 - side

Pirate 1 - back

Following on we have Pirate 8, this is a cool miniature definitely a Pirate leader with his cigar hanging out of his mouth, two guns an Autogun and some sort of taser looking pistol and kitted out with a visor and body armour, I am still looking in the loft for his variant Pirate 2 I may have to trade him in to complete this project.


Pirate 8 - front
Pirate 8 - back

Lastly we have Pirate 19, now this is my long shot for a Sensei variant, it's all about the legs :D I went scruffy biker style with this one with his head scarf, rosy drinkers nose and black leather waist coat, I painted angel wings on the back as a nod to Daryl in The Walking Dead.
Pirate 19 - front

Pirate 19 - back

Only 3 more to do, 2 in the stripping jar and one of them I can't find at the moment but on a plus note I found the original Pirate 20 without the visor the variant was shown in my last post and painted him, he'll be featured in my last post of this range soon Rogue Trader RT601 - Pirates - Part 4.

I have a ridiculous amount of drafts on the go so stay tuned, they will trickle out.
 
thanks for dropping in,