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:
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. :)
The sensei is called this way in the 91' blue catalogue I think... He is going to be the leader of the foirst of a long series of rogue trader warbands soon...
ReplyDeleteThe Iron claw pirates aliens are really funny. Some have so much wrinkles that I'm not even sure to understand where the eyes are...
As always with Bob Olley's models, Everything will settle itself while painting. He always sculpted textures one didn't know how to paint and details to fine to be understood...untils you painted it and it became obvious.
All these ranges you've shown here are ones I'm really interested about right now. Definitely waiting for any updates on them.
Sounds like a good use for the 'Sensei'.
DeleteYou're right, some of the Iron Claw aliens do have a lot of wrinkles, it is like they are wearing cheap Doctor WHO masks!
They are unusual, and like a lot of Bob Olley ranges you are never 100% sure how they will look until they are painted, something I found with the Goblins.
Some of the weapons are odd too, and could be used to represent almost any of the basic weapon types. I will enjoy painting them when I get around to it.
Glad you liked the update, hope it was useful. I will try to do an update on the Adventurers range later in the week. I don't have them all, but about 20 of them.
I finished painting some of these today, there was a blister of four, three of them I've seen online in various places either painted in a catalogue or unpainted, but one I did I can't seem to find. Odd it would be rare as these models were literally given to me for being too ugly to be worth painting. They were won in a Man-o-War painting competition at GW Gastown.
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting. I have found that with some of the miniatures, especially the Iron Claw range, they can look odd and awful until you paint them and then the sculpting and details really work well.
Deletei have a version of old world jack with more hair
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting, I thought there was only one version. It might be the pale blonde hair on mine which makes him look like he has less hair?
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