Hello! I'm back with another Oldhammer Space Marine post, I am still managing to keep this Flesh Tearer project ticking over in between all the other paint jobs I have going on. My Flesh Tearers are starting to look like a proper Rogue Trader era chapter now with 60+ marines finished now, I have plenty of tactical marines and a growing number of support but I had to start addressing the lack of assault marines, here's my latest work and mumblings.
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| Assault Marines with jump packs |
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| Space Marines |
We'll start with the Assault Squad Marines, all of these came in the late 1980's Assault Squad clamshell blister which contained:
1 x Brother Kitt
1 x Captain Crabb
4 x Captain Romero
3 x Brother Dimshade
1 x Capt. Huron Grimm
10 x metal standard backpacks
These clamshell blisters were aligned to the new space marine army list at the time, where acquiring 8 marines with chainswords from standard blister packs to meet the list requirements would of been a challenge.
If you have never seen a clamshell blister they looked like this:
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| (not mine, image off eBay) |
There were a couple of Space Marine armies that featured this assault squad in White Dwarf magazines (I can't remember all), although in this image the painters have slipped Brother Basehart in their squad and later plastic backpacks which never appeared in any of my clamshells.
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| White Dwarf 142 Ultramarine Assault Squad |
I purchased 3 of these sets back in the day and as a result have a lot of duplicate marines, not sure if I have the appetite to recreate the squad as packaged. For the first 4 assault Marines I have added a Rogue Trader era Jump Pack (the cool one).
First up we have Space Marine Brother Kitt armed with a Power Axe and Bolter, featured in the 1988 White Dwarf 99 advert and design attributed to Aly Morrison and Mark Copplestone.
As usual I added a 3d printed Flesh Tear icon to the shoulder pad. I love this design of Power Axe it really feels like a sci-fi polearm or halberd rather than an axe, inspired by chaosthug I had a go at electrical energy on the axe, still working on the technique, each attempt gets better.  |
| Space Marine Brother Kitt - front |
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| Space Marine Brother Kitt - back |
Next we have Space Marine Captain Romero armed with Chainsword and Bolter (1988 White Dwarf 99). This marine has loads of character and really looks like a grizzled veteran with his bionic eye and tough features, the giant skull on his shoulder pad. I painted in a gauge and some graffiti on his chainsword .  |
| Space Marine Captain Romero - front |
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| Space Marine Captain Romero - side |
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| Space Marine Captain Romero - back |
Next we have Space Marine Captain Crabb armed with Bolt Pistol and Hand Flamer (1988 White Dwarf 99), One of my all time favourite Space Marine miniatures, I think its the dynamic pose and the nicely sculpted imperial eagle of the shoulder pad that does it for me, I have painted this miniature loads of times, I recall as Crimson Fists, Mentors and Iron Hands, the latter one is still lying around in a box in my loft.  |
| Space Marine Captain Crabb - front |
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| Space Marine Captain Crabb - side |
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| Space Marine Captain Crabb - back |
Following on we have Space Marine Capt. Huron Grimm armed with Chainsword and Bolter design by Bob Naismith and released in 1987, Capt. Huron appears to have the same head as RT502 Mercenaries Hacker Harris, Bob's done one of his head swaps and added the goatie beard, I had some fun with this one as the chainsword reminded me of an 80's electric carving knife and received a paint job to reflect this, I hope this was in bob's mind when he sculpted it.
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| 1980's electric carving knife |
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| Space Marine Capt. Huron Grimm - front |
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| Space Marine Capt. Huron Grimm - side |
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| Space Marine Capt. Huron Grimm - back |
Moving on from the start of my assault marine squad we have a Space Marine Officer, advertised in White Dwarf 120 (December 1989) as Space Marine Officers 070145/3 - Lieutenant with Power Sword and Bolt Pistol although its clearly a Bolter. Mark Copplestone has nicely sculpted on rank markings, terminator honours and detail on the power sword, this miniature fits in with the space marine look and feel of the 1989 Space Marine paint set where personal heraldry, ranking markings and bespoke weaponry came to the fore. I finished him off with a metal backpack with banner pole.  |
| Space Marine Brother Basehart - front |
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| Space Marine Brother Basehart - back |
Time for a heavy hitter, Space Marine Brother Angst carrying a Multi-Melta, 1988 sculpted by Bob Naismith, interesting big gauntlets on this guy and the unwieldy forward hand grip on the multi-melta, not much more to say really. |
| Space Marine Brother Angst - front |
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| Space Marine Brother Angst - side |
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| Space Marine Brother Angst - back |
And lastly we have Space Marine Librarians 070145/2 - Librarian with Force Sword and Book, again advertised in White Dwarf 120 (December 1989), a interesting sculpt, he has the Librarian icon on his shoulder pad (not to be confused with the female Warriors icon) and a scroll with arcane scripts on the other, a demonic looking belt buckle, force sword, scrolls, a book and purity seals, not sure what is going on with his enlarged forehead, all that psychic power ready to burst out? I have seen people paint this like a metal augmentation but I went with flesh as he has service studs embedded in his head.
I used the metal backpack with dual banner pole, initially I added fuse wire coming off the banner poles and painted it like psychic lightening but it looked a bit rubbish. I finally went and added some blue holographic glitter for a psychic energy effect, it looks a lot better in person as true effect of the glitter can be seen making it look very otherworldly. I will see how the glitter holds in the long run and if it drops I'll have rethink.
I also add that the librarian and the officer came with the grey plastic 3x backpack and 1x banner sprue which I stay away from the backpacks as I feel never really fit well or looked good, I find the banner pole excellent though.
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| Space Marine Librarian - front |
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| Space Marine Librarian - side |
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| Space Marine Librarian - side |
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| Space Marine Librarian - back |
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| The back of the Librarian before the backpack went on |
If you want to read previous posts on this project follow the links below:
Thanks for dropping in, I think I may finish off a fantasy draft for the next post, stay tuned.
cheers
J
