Sunday, 19 June 2022

Rogue Trader Medics and Casualties - Part 1

Hello and welcome back, todays post is part one of a Oldhammer project I keep coming back to featuring Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader era medics and the casualty miniatures from the various Imperial ranges that I think marry up nicely with these miniatures.  I am lucky enough to still own all these miniatures from back in the day although I did have to source one rare missing part and have a bit of stripping still to do, read on if you want to know more.

First batch - Rogue Trader Medics and a Squat casualty

A couple of medic miniatures appeared in initial 1987 Space Marine, Imperial Army miniature ranges and plenty of casualty miniatures in the above ranges and Squat ranges then in White Dwarf 102 June 1988 we were treated to a brilliant 'Index Astartes' Medics article on page 71 and a beautiful accompanying RT701 Medics range. The Dave Gallagher's art in the article was awe-inspiring and I think you really feel the gravity of the situation the medics are in and this really sealed the deal for me I was sold.

White Dwarf 102 - Dave Gallagher - Medics in action

The article also gave us Dave Andrew's imperial codex colour schemes for imperial forces, giving plenty of ideas of where we could go with our miniatures, back in the day I did Mentors Legion, Crimson Fists, 1st Regiment and Iron Hands. 
Imperial codex schemes

The miniatures I am aiming to paint in this project are pictured below, there are couple more prone miniatures I have that appear uncatalogued but not rare a common thing for the time. I have purposely omitted all the miniatures with bandages, etc as they are walking wounded who still have some fight in them and will be included in other projects so prone wounded only for this project.

Rogue Trader era Medics and Casualties I aim to paint 

First up we have '04 Marine' from the RT701 Medics range, released in 1988's White Dwarf 102 and I think he may have been sculpted by Mark Copplestone.  

Now when I originally bought these medics I checked all the blister packs on the wall in Games Workshop Birmingham and none had the medics banner present but I was so excited to get hold of these I purchased them anyway.  While trying to finish off my Rogue Trader era collection a years ago I thought I would keep an eye out for this very hard to find item, 7 years later I spotted one and snapped it up. The banner required a lot of restoration and I made it more robust with a steel pole and I kept the off centre placing like the adverts marines banner.

I painted the medic up as a Flesh Tearers to fit in with my other Space Marine project, the colour scheme I made up, not sure what the codex scheme is . I have decided for this project to paint what I felt was medical equipment in a light teal to give it a medical identity similar to what is available in todays medical industry and for the supply packs, pockets, pouches, etc I painted white to stand out.  This ranges miniatures all featured an imperial version of the medical symbol 'caduceus' on their shoulder pads, the banner and on their headgear the Laurus nobilis wreath, a symbol of their gained knowledge.

RT701 Space Marine Medic 04 - front

RT701 Space Marine Medic 04 - back

RT701 Space Marine Medic 04 - Imperial Caduceus

RT701 Space Marine Medic 04 - helmet laurus nobilis wreath symbol

Following on we have 2 Squat Medics again from the RT701 Medics range and this time I believe sculpted by the Perry Twins. 

Here we have 'Squat 07', again I made up my own colour scheme, I gave him a red drinkers nose as copious alcohol consumption is required to cope in his battlefield role and I continued the light teal equipment theme on his cute Squat sized chainsword. He is a member of the 2nd Regiment and the badges number from 2nd Edition Imperial Guard decals which I trimmed the surrounding circle off and placed on a blue and yellow background. One of the details I love about these squats is they have medical backpack with screen and a device that might be a defibrillator or just a microphone.

RT701 Squat Medic 07 - front

RT701 Squat Medic 07 - front

RT701 Squat Medic 07 - Imperial caduceus and laurel wreath detail

And Now we have 'Squat 07', again I have gone for the reddened face and the insignia of the 2nd Regiment, this wears a cap and carries a lasgun, I gave this one white body armour and painted up the backpack the same as Squat 06.

RT701 Squat Medic 06 - front

RT701 Squat Medic 06 - back

RT701 Squat Medic 06 - Imperial caduceus

Next we have an Iron Claw squat casualty, if it is indeed Iron Claw it was of course sculpted by Bob Olley it's certainly his style, I couldn't find this one in the catalogues but I have a couple so I am not saying it's a rarity, he has your typical prone casualty back, flat, blank with a Games Workshop date stamp like the majority of the casualty miniatures.  He appears to have been shot in the shoulder pad and is lying there waiting for medical attention grimacing.  I made some little discarded bandages for his base with tissue paper and pva taking inspiration from photos of Vietnam medics I had seen who in the mayhem littered the battlefield with used medical items.

I might retake this photo, prone miniatures can be difficult.

Iron Claw Squat Casualty


I have included in this project a Rogue Trader style fan sculpt Space Marine Terminator Apothecary as it scales perfectly the Space Marine Terminators of the time, these miniatures were available as part of a 5 man set which included a Chaplain, Apothecary, Heavy Plasma gunner and other cool options and could be acquired through a Facebook group but I think no longer available.  I had to paint this miniature as quick as possible it was lovely and I found the concept of a Terminator Medic interesting.

This miniature is a really clean and highly detailed resin cast and underarm part has the Narthecium with Reductor, a combo drill/chainsaw for puncturing power armour and harvesting a fallen marines Progenoid Gland connecting to vials around his waist and a light on the hood of his armour.  I kept with my Flesh Tearers theme so painted him red and black, I sourced a 3d print Terminator shoulder icon from my usual provider mars_forges on eBay and used a 'The Mighty Brush' Not Flesh Tearers Blood drop buzzsaw decal, I highly recommend these, superb quality.

Space Marine Terminator Apothecary medic - front

Space Marine Terminator Apothecary medic - side

Space Marine Terminator Apothecary medic - back

Space Marine Terminator Apothecary medic - side

Fan Sculpt Rogue Trader style Terminator squad

Fan Sculpt size comparisons


Design Art was by @spevna give him a follow on Twitter

Fan sculpt Terminator Chaplain Art

Fan Sculpt Apothecary Art

Thanks for dropping in, part 2 will be in a while, something different next time.
J

Monday, 18 April 2022

Orc Hybrid - Knightmare Miniatures

Hello, quick post from the backlog of drafts, a few months ago I finished this Oldhammer style miniature from Knightmare Miniatures Space Raiders range the Orc Hybrid obviously based on the Freebooterz Ork-Genestealer hybrid, I fell in love with this miniature the moment I saw it and think it's a great improvement on the original Ork hybrid miniature which I was never a fan of.

I went for typical Space Ork colours with traditional purple and blue Genestealer body parts and finished it off with a custom resin base, check out the shoulder pad I love it.

Orc Hybrid - front

Orc Hybrid - side with Genestealer cult shoulder pad




Orc Hybrid - side

Orc Hybrid - back

Orc Hybrid - side


Below is a picture of the Ork-Genestealer hybrid Frebooterz mob, I didn't find this mob inspiring, maybe it was the lack of official Ork hybrid miniatures or the flat paint job, in fact I have never been a big fan of this wave of Space Orks with their plastic arms and weapons, I found them goofy compared to first wave. I don't think GW ever revisited Ork hybrids which is probably for the best.

Zodgog's brood


Thanks for dropping in and get yourself over to Knightmare miniatures and bag yourself some real fun sculpts.
J

Saturday, 19 February 2022

Rogue Trader - Bombots - Fan Sculpt

Hello, quick Oldhammer post today, a few months ago I was pleased to be offered a trio of fan sculpted Rogue Trader homage Bombots by their creator Curis over on Ninjabread and quickly assembled these five piece models and slapped on some paint. (I love saying creator when referring to robots :D)

Imperial Army pioneers - Bombots and Operator

He's done a really fine job from concept to final piece, working with very little source material, a quick description and rules on page 121 of the Warhammer Rogue Trader rulebook and a small snippet of what looks like was once a larger illustration.

Bombot illo from Rogue Trader rulebook p.121

Bombot rules

I went for a simple codex grey colour scheme for these miniatures with the dangerous bits in red, a bit of weathering and shinny 'ardcoated green lense, they were a fun paint job although I am a bit out of touch now when it comes to batch painting.  

Once I had finished the robots I felt they needed an operator, I'd recently seen what Curis had done with his over on his blog with a Space Marine operator and how the colours married them up perfectly, I loved the effect.  I wanted a someone who would compliment the low tech Bombots and fit in with the unit codex grey colour scheme then I thought 
who better than a candidate from the Imperial Army.  Initially I was going to go with the Rapier spotter holding the binoculars but then opted for the Tarantula operator as I think he is a perfect fit with his smaller gun slung over his shoulder and operating a remote control, I guess that was for the Tarantula, it was a simple tie in which works for me.

Now for some more photos.

Imperial Army Bombot Unit out in the field

Bombot 1 - side

Bombot 2 - side

Bombot 3 - side

Bombot 1 - front

Bombot 2 - front

Bombots on the move

Imperial Army Operator - front

Imperial Army Operator - side

Imperial Army Operator - back

Imperial Army Operator - side

Imperial Army Operator - higher angle


The Bombots remind me of the WWII German pioneers Goliath remote mine and I would hope they were in the mind of the author at the time of writing, here's a Goliath model kit below, stick a R2D2 on top and you have a Rogue Trader Bombot.

German Goliath Team


Here's a link to 'the Creator's Blog post here and another super job on these miniatures here.

thanks for dropping in

J

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