Slow painting, quick update...

Sorry but a very quick update this weekend as I have been very busy all week, hence not getting around to an update during the week :(

I am still painting the Woods Elves. I have not made as much progress as hoped, but this week I have still managed to paint one complete unit of 15 Wood Elf archers, a leader for one of the others, and a re-paint of the Giant Eagle.

 The weeks painting.

 Unit leader and Musican. 

The unit leader is a EC01 Range Melnibonean Infantry archer from the Citadel Eternal Champion range. 

I only bought him this week. I popped along the coast to Worthing, and whilst idly browsing in a flea market found him and another archer while rummaging in a box. £4 for the two of them.

One-eyed archer from Skarloc's Wood Elves. 

Also a standard bearer from the Elven Command range.

 Two archers, both female.

 Two more archers, this time male.

 Unit leader for the regiment I painted last week. 

He is an old C08 High Elf named 'Orc Slayer', and designed by Aly Morrison. 

His Elves have a slighlty differing look to the Jes Goodwin ones. They seem softer faced, and slightly shorter in height compared to Jes Goodwins more leaner, sharper faced ones. I prefer Jes Goodwins Elves, but I like ths Elf and wanted to add him to the army. Especially as there a drwaing looking like him in the Wood Elf Lord's Bowmen entry in Warhammer armies. :)

 Giant Eagle. 

I am not sure of the code or origin of this Giant Eagle, but I am sure it's an old citadel one.

 The painted army so far. 

60 Archers from the Skarloc's Wood Elf box sets (including a couple of extra odds and ends), 2 Treemen, 10 Warhounds with 2 Handlers, Giant Eagles, and Zoat.

Sorry about the rubbish photo.

What's left to do. 

30 Scouts, mounted Army General, and mounted Wizard. 

I have a continuing busy week, but I plan to put as much time aside as possible to get as much painted as I can, and even do an update during the week if possible. 

Afterall, I am starting to run out of Autumn for the Autumnal Elves!   :)

Rogue Trader: Space Pirates and Mercenaries.

Following on from last weekends Rogue Trader based post, this weekend I am doing a short post on the Rogue Trader era Space Pirates and Mercenaries.
There are a few Wood Elves too!

Space Pirates and Mercenaries were released early in Rogue Trader,  Mercenaries in 1987, the Space Pirates in two Ranges in 1988. As early Rogue Trader was a game that had a more skirmish, almost roleplay feel to start with, these miniatures were desigined to complment that. You could if you wanted have your very own Abdul Goldberg!  ;)

Also the miniatures fitted in well with the Imperial Army/Guard forces and provided some characterful models and added extra varitations. In addition there was a specific Space Pirate Army list, Cragnor's Buccaneers, in the Book of the Astronimican. All of this, plus the fun of collecting and painting up unusual miniatures, meant that the ranges were released in the first place, and were availible for some time, as was the similar Adventurers range (which I will will do a blog update about later).

There were three parts the the ranges:
The RT502 Mercenaries; the RT601 Space Pirates; and the Iron Claw IC301 Space Pirates range. I have all of the RT502 Mercenaries range, most of the RT601 Space Pirates ( I need two more), and some of the Iron Claw ones, so the photographs only show the ones I have, but I have added the release photographs for reference. I always liked them as a series of ranges, but never specifically set out to collect them at the time as I was'nt collecting ranges, just what was needed for gaming (hmm, if only I had had the benefit of hindsight!) .

Here are the three ranges, starting first with the Mercenaries:

 RT502 Mercenaries (also list as RT7), sculpted by Bob Naismith, and the Perry Twins.

On the left Kylla Condotti, who was part of the first Rogue Trader releases as the 'Imperial Garrison Trooper'. On the right Hacker Harris.

 'Sarge' Rockhard, and Worldburner. Both miniatures are variants of each other. 

An illustration of 'Sarge' can be found on p109 of the rulebook, and Worldburner is hiding from Space Marines on page 172.

 Shorty, a Ratling mercenary with a bolt pistol, and Mad Morris.

 Mad Morris turns up in the RT501 Imperial Army range as Assualt Trooper Hardy.

 Irn-Bonce the Squat, Old World Jack, and Catachan Luke. 

Irn-Bonce ended up in the Squat range as a squat with a grenade launcher. 

Old World Jack, and Catachan Luke both seem to have been scultped from the same basic miniature and share the same head.

 No-Face Fargo on the left, and on the right East-Star John, were both orginally released in the first 40k releases as 'Imperial Light Trooper' and 'Imperial Heavy Trooper'. 

Centre is Inquisitor Augustus, a strange choice for a Mercenary range!

 Plunderuno Pete, and Space-Dout Sam (also a first 40k release, 'Imperial Heavy Infantry').

 On the left is Breakout Con. He is a variant of Hacker Harris. 

On the right is the last Mercenary, that is listed without a name, but is also a first 40k release, 'Ground Combat Trooper'.

 Rear view of Old World Jack with metal Space Marine backpack, and Inquisitor Augustus with a plastic backpack. Both miniatures were designed to have backpacks on them and have the same little tab as Space marines from this era.

 Kylla Condotti, Shorty, and the intergral backpack of Space-Doubt Sam.

 RT601 Space Pirates, sculpted by Bob Naismith and Michael Perry.

This range does not have any names for the indiviual miniatures.

 On the left is fat Pirate with cyber attached missle launcher, centre one with autogun and knife, and right with chainsword and las-pistol.

 On the right is a miniature who I am sure turns up in somewhere labelled 'Sensi'. 

The centre one is armed with a hybrid  looking lasgun/autogun. Strangley, the one on the right is dressed in a similar uniform to the RTO5 Imperial Army range that was designed by Aly Morrison.

 Two autogun Pirates, both from a similar basic sculpt, and one on the right similar to the Pirate two photograhps above.

 Three autogun armed Pirates.

 On the left another Pirate in a simlar uniform to the Imperial Army. Centre and right two more Pirates which are simliar to sculpts above.

 Three more autogun armed Pirates.

 Another two autogunners.

 Finally a Pirate with an unknown gun, possibly lasgun, amd leader with Powerfist.

 Back view of three of the Pirates.

Iron Claw IC301 Space Pirates by Bob Olley.

 Nixan, and Col. Vlad.

 Banzai Jones and Ooglorg the Cruel.

 Nightwing, and Dambo Kweltz.

 Verrington Khosht and Venk.

 'Attitude' Gorman, and Psycho.

 The only female Space Pirate from the ranges (assuming the aliens are male!) Loritta. 

Incidentally, her slotta tab reads 'Cybergirl'.

 Wood Elf Treeman!

 Close up of the base.

 I managed to get 15 Wood Elves done this week.

 Need to do a unit leader.

 Musician and standard bearer.

 Two archers. I decide to do a fewof the archers with some green clothing as well as the Autumnal Oranges and browns, to give a variety of colours, and becuase there is still an amount of greenery left in Autumn.

 Two more Autumnal Wood Elves, with duller greens.

 More brown/orange painted Wood Elves.

My next blog update will proably be on Rogue Trader Adventurers, and also should include more Wood Elves. :)

20,000 Views!!!

Just a quick update to say that my blog has received 20,000 views since I started in April this year! 

Thank you to everyone for your interest in my blog. :)

In the near future I plan to keep working on my Warhammer Armies project, that is having a completely painted 3,000 point army finished for each of the army entries in the 3rd Edition Warhammer Armies book.

The Wood Elf army is over half completed. I still have the High Elves, Empire, and Skaven left to do (and maybe a Norse/Barbarian army from the White Dwarf list). Apart from the odd one of two Empire and Skaven miniautres I require they are complete and only need an army list write up and painting.

The Warhmmer Armies project should be finished off by the Spring of next year. After that I will probably make some more inroads into the Slann and Goblins. I am also sure I'll end up painting Squats or some other project as diversions too (maybe the Confederate Cadians).

Update wise I still have the 'to do' Warhammer Armies things to post.  I also still have several other armies  as well as odds and ends to post as well. As I did recently with the Imperial Army and Wood Elves I might also focus on one range or aspect of a miniatures range, and/or painting guides. Please let me know if you think it's a good idea? :)

Still more to paint and photograph!

 I finally managed to get back to re/painting Wood Elves this week. I will base them up and do a proper update on Sunday.

Ooglorg the Cruel.

 Random Iron Claw IC301 Space Pirate I painted up the other day.

Rogue Trader Imperial Army.

I have not had chance to do a lot of painting this week, just five Squat troopers and an Iron Claw Space Pirate, and don't even ask about the Wood Elves!

So, I was wondering what to post on the blog this week and thought that as I have been distracted recently on Rogue Trader things, I would do a post on the Rogue Trader era Imperial Army.

For those of you unaware, when Rogue Trader was initially released, instead of the Imperial Guard, there was the Imperial Army. The Imperial Army was essentally the same concept, a massive Galaxy-spanning low tech force of normal humans, but there was less background. There was an army list, Hylgar's Hellraisers, in the 1988 Book of the Astronimican, which included Squats and Ogyrns in it too.

This lasted until January 1989, when the new idea of the Imperial Guard was introduced in White Dwarf #109. Before then there were several releases of miniatures, many of which continued to be used in the later Imperial Guard range, and some that were not.

Personally I liked the ad-hoc early style of the Imperial Army. I started re-painting the miniatures from that time to a better standard a couple of years ago. Some of the miniatures that follow are finished, and some are an old colour scheme awaiting re-painting.

This is not an army I plan to complete painting in the near future. Despite the era of the army, I will probably field it from the later Imperial Guard list in 1989 (although I never liked the list due to the 200 point basic squads made expensive by the inclusion to me of an unnecessary 100 point las-cannon!) as Hylgar's Hellraisers army list is a litle odd. I also have an additional plastic/metal Imperial Guard army to this from the 1989 range of miniatures, but they require paint stripping.

I have presented the minatures from tjis part of my collection in conjuction with release adverts from the White Dwarf's at the time, and then added other complementary odds and ends I include in the army afterwards with descriptions.

Enjoy :)

The First 40K releases.

 Imperial Light Trooper, and Imperial Garrison Trooper.

The Green and Khaki Brown paint scheme is the new paint scheme I am doing (or was doing couple of years ago when I was re-painted them).

 Imperial Heavy Trooper and Imperial Heavy Infantry. The grey was my old paint scheme.

Ground Combat Trooper (looking very like a 'South-er' from Rogue Trooper), and a Telepath.

The Imperial Army release from White Dwarf #96, sculpted by Aly Morrison.

Sgt. Hikks, and Casualty

 Trooper Cottrell, Sgt Howard, and Point Trooper Hulme.

 Captain Henzell, Captain Armstrong, Female Trooper Vaskez.

 Trooper Morris with a bolt gun, Trooper Jones with and Ork head!, and Trooper Brough.

 Assualt Trooper Moss, Trooper Harrison, Comm. Officer Schimt.

 Trooper Black, Lt. Olsen, Fwd Observer Smith.

Trooper Chow, and Reconaisance Trooper Kai.

Scout Trooper Pank, and Sniper Lang.

This first release of miniatures (except Sniper Lang) were characterised by the tighter fitting clothes, biker boots, and across the chest motorbiker style jackets. 

Also, all the miniatures in this release (except Lang) are based on the same body type, Trooper Kai's, and are variation conversion sculpts from him.

 The next release was in White Dwarf #98, and they are listed as designed by Aly Morrison (probably just Trooper Jones from the last release?), and the Perry Twins.

This is the first half of the Imperial Army release that month.

 B-Tpr Gaxt, an awesome sculpted Beastman Trooper. Also, Medic Pointer, and Tpr Rothery.

 Tpr Kelly with a Plasma Gun, Tpr Trewevas another female Trooper, and Tpr Caidan.

 Captain Webb, Tpr Mosley, and Tpr Dick, the wounded Trooper model.

 The second half of the release from White Dwarf #98, again, Aly Morrison and Perry Twins.

 Tpr Lee, Tpr Langton, and Tpr Powell with a Bolter.

 Tpr Laurel, and Field Officer Niven.

 Tpr Rathbone Tpr Bruce. He has a lasgun behind his back.

 Female Trooper Bush, Tpr Davey, Tpr Thomson with a bolter.

 Sgt Lloyd, and Tpr Lifeson.

 Lt Calvert with a power first, Tpr Lake, and Tpr Brock. 

I recall from somewhere that Tpr Brock was a meant to represent Dave Andrews. A similar sketch of him is on page 260 of the Rogue Trader rulebook amongst the sketch of those involved with GW at the time 'Rogue Trader-ed up' .

 Assault Trooper Hardy, Tpr Emerson, Tpr Bainbridge.

Trooper Hardy is a dismounted version of the Trooper on Jetbike later on in the blog update.

Tpr Peart, and Casualty .

The srtyle of the scultps of this release of miniautres is very different from the stylings of the previous release in White Dwarf #96. They have looser combat clothing, different helmets, and puttees over the boots. As these were mixed together with the former release of Imperial Army, it personally led to problems as the troopers seemed to have differing uniforms and so made the infantry feel less coherent. This was further compounded with the switch to the Imperial Guard and the release of a different style again metal and plastic miniatures in 1989.

Imperial Army Heavy Weapons release from White Dwarf #102. Sculpted by Michael Perry.

 1&2, with Conversion Beamer and Heavy Bolter. The heavy weapons were seperate so you can match up differing bodies to different weapons for added variety. They are very much contiguous with the style of the White Dwarf #98 releases. It also allowed greater ease in the Imperial Guard army for the fielding of more exotic weapons.

 3&4 with Conversion Beamers.

  5&6, with Las-Cannon and Heavy Bolter.

 In addition to the regular Imperial Army releases, there are several others that fit in well. 

The figure on the left was listed as an assualt trooper or something similar on a Yellow release sheet from time which I cannot find at present.

Centre is a Merceenary is named 'Old World Jack', and the other is RT601 Adventurer 'Ex-Tech'.

 The Trooper on the left does not appear in the White Dwarf releases, but again I think is on the Yellow Release sheet. He fits perfectly with the others in the range.

On the right is the Ogryn Hero (in need of a litte re-paint).

 Medics. 

In White Dwarf #102 there was also an article on Medics in 40K. These were the two Medics for the Imperial Army.

 In that same issue was released the Medic on a bike. 

The bike was the same one as used by Space marines. I don't think this miniature was widely released.

 Imperial Army Trooper on the TSF16  Jetcycle. 

This miniature is in the Rulebook on page 189.

He is a mounted version of Trooper Hardy, even down to the different looking boots.

 The RT503 Imperial Landspeeder: the Imperial Army version. 

The Army version had Army crew, a Heavy Plasma gun insteasd of the Space Marine Multi Melta, and Heavy Bolter on the front. 

 Imperial Army Rapier with crew member designed to stand on it. There were two variations of the early Rapier. This one is the Mutli-laser version.

 The Multi Melta version with crewman.

 The first version of the Tarantula, with las-cannons, and crew member.

 Imperial Auto-Cannon. 

Again, another limited release miniature. It is quite large, that is a 50mm square base it is mounted on.

 The C100 Chainsaw Miniatures, useful for the early era of Imperial Army.

 Astropaths; the Talisman one, and two Rogue Trader ones.

 Inquisitor, Navigator, and female Psyker.

 Three adventurers and Mercs used as NCO's and Officers.

Scout, Tech Priest, and Merc. 

 Iron Claw IC2003 Jump Troopers, designed by Bob Olley. 

Next blog update should be Wood Elves as I intend finishing off the army over the next couple of weeks. :)