From GregB: Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader Space Marines, Command Team and Rhino (100 points)

From Greg:

Well this challenge has kicked me into sci-fi gear! Building on my recent submissions here are a group of Games Workshop Space Marines (and one non-Marine flunky) from the Rogue Trader era - late 80s, early 90s.  There is one tactical squad of ten Marines, and a collection of Marine characters, specialty functions found in each company of Marines.  They are enjoyable, and really reflect the grim setting of the Warhammer 40,000 future. 

The Chaplain - back in the time when GW was much more selective with skulls (now found on every surface), the Chaplain was the exception.  In theory a Chaplain is meant to bring spiritual comfort and guidance to the soldiers, but a Marine chaplain is a grim spectre of death, with skull everything - helmet, shoulder plates, etc. If this is what gives comfort to Space Marines, no wonder they are stuck in so many pointless last stands.  And of course the Chaplain is a kick-ass fighter, hammering the Emperor's enemies with his arcane weapons and motivating the battle brothers around him.

The Medic - yet another theoretically relatable role tortured into something grim 40,000 years from now.  Although the Marine Medic can sometimes treat wounded battle brothers, mostly he goes around the battlefield putting the wounded ones out of their misery with an "Emperor's Mercy" bolt to the head.  He then recovers genetic material so a new Marine can be created.  Ah - the Emperor's circle of life…

The Librarian - very telling that in the Warhammer 40,000 setting, the gathering, storing and organizing of knowledge (something we take much too for granted these days) is an activity that is regarded as mystic, arcane, dangerous and even grounds for suspicion.  Only the rare trusted psychics - who weren't fed to the Emperor, and were tough enough to become Space Marines - carry out these duties in the Space Marine Chapter.  And, as with the Chaplain, it's no staff function - this fellow can kick ass with his funky "force sword", psychic powers, and guns. 

The Techmarine - I personally find mechanics today to be suspicious and somewhat arcane; in the Warhammer 40,000 setting, who knows how weird they would be? This fellow mends the vehicles of his Company with a mix of prayer and a huge wrench-spanner thingy…

The Astropath - this figure, "Yerl" from the old Citadel range, is based on an image from the Rogue Trader rulebook.  Astropaths are the 4G-LTE wireless communication devices of the 41st millennium, passing messages back and forth through the warp and allowing the Imperium of Man to (mostly) stay in touch across the vast distances of the galaxy.  The Astropath lives a crummy, weird-genes-and-odd-looks, who-said-you-could-leave-your-chamber life in Warhammer 40,000, so I painted his skin tone to match. This figure will be a good objective marker or model for Rogue Trader games.

There are two command-type models, one with a communicator and the other with some kind of data slate.  I put an antenna in the one fellow, and see these two guys as either crew for an emplaced weapon, or maybe an artillery spotting team. 

The tactical squad is a 10-man unit, led by a hero with "Terminator Honours".  There is a multi-melta and a melt gun in the unit, and the rest have blotters.  There are five metal figures and five classic RTB01 plastics in the group.  They are my last old plastic marines from the eBay score I made two years ago…

Painting these old figures is a lot of fun, and highly addictive.  I'm hoping I can find a few more of these old figures on eBay, although it's getting a little harder every day. 

Being a big fan of Rogue Trader-era figures and models from GW doesn't mean all of the newer GW models are bad, and I'm a particular fan of newer line of Space Marine vehicles, particularly the Rhino APC and its variants. 

Space Marines may be genetically enhanced warrior nut cases, but like anyone else they still prefer a ride if they can get one. The Rhino APC is the workhorse of the Space Marine forces, ready to take a squad of 10 Marines into nearly any trouble. The storm bolter provides a little bit of covering fire for them.

One thing I like about using the newer model with the older GW figures is that the vehicle looks much more in scale.  I remember laughing about how the original Rhinos somehow held 10 Marines - the models were laughably tiny.  The Rhinos are a lot bigger now, but of course, thanks to scale creep, so are the Marines :) But combining Rogue Trader-era Marines with the newer Rhino gives the right look. 

The slow build-up of the Crimson Fists continues…

Fabulous work Greg. I especially love seeing those old Rogue Trader command figures again. I never understood GWs insistence on 'Librarians' in their command units when everyone knows it's the Archivists that do all the heavy lifting. Librarians, pfft, tres amateurs...

I also really like the mixture of the newer Rhino model with the older figures. The scale between the them seems to work way better than with the newer figures. Hey, didn't Forge World make a up-scaled version of the old Rhino? Or was that a Land Raider? I thought I remember Dallas selling a kidney and picking one up at Salute a few years ago...

This squad, its command team and Rhino will give Greg 100 points. Great stuff buddy!

From GregB: Rogue Trader 25th Anniversary Commemorative Figure (10 points)

From Greg:

Time sure flies - the 25th Anniversary of "Warhammer 40,000 - Rogue Trader" seems like a relatively recent thing to me, but it was actually in 2012, just about two years ago.  

In keeping with GW's sure-fire tin ear and clueless lack of self-awareness, the company celebrated this significant anniversary with a special White Dwarf featuring Gandalf on the cover. But they also released a special figure to commemorate the occasion - a figure inspired by the Crimson First leading a doomed last stand from the cover of the rulebook.  These were limited edition models issued at the time and I picked a couple up because I am a shameless fanboy, and I love Rogue Trader.

This has been sitting primed since February 2012…thank goodness for Curt's painting challenges that encourage to get these kind of projects finished!

You have the option of mounting it directly on the scenic base beside the standard, or mounting the officer on a smaller base separately.  I went with a separate base for the Commander, leaving the banner to be a piece of scenery, and objective or terrain. 

It's a really, really nice figure, and was a nice souvenir of sorts. This being GW, though, it can't take two steps forward without taking one-and-a-half back, so unfortunately the figure was made of "Finecast" instead of proper metal. This is the first Finecast figure I have worked with (even though it has been around for a couple of years now). "Finecast" combines the issues of resin with the floppiness of plastic - all at the price of gold. Fortunately I was spared many of the more serious problems (holes, deformed casting etc) this crap medium seems to present to many other gamers.  

Finecast truly does suck, however.  The detail on the figure is really something, but the banner in particular was tricky to paint as Finecast has all of the tensile strength of a wet noodle - even my 8/0 brush caused it to bend! The experience did not pump me up to seek out other Finecast figures, although GW seems to be out of the metal business so more and more of its products are cast in this medium.

Anyway, the figure was still fun to paint and I'm glad to have it done.  The sculpt is very loyal to the inspiration of the image on the Rogue Trader book cover, right down to the ominous Ork head being waved around in his right hand. As I continue to build up my little collection of Crimson Fist troops this fellow will fit right in, and the standard will make a fine rally point for them to make some kind of pointless last stand on the gaming table.

Whoa, wonderful work Greg!  I clearly remember my buddy and I receiving the first copies of 'Rogue Trader' at our store, flipping through its pages and then looking at each other,  saying almost in unison, 'F*ck, this is going to be huge.'  And it was. 

I really like the over-saturated blue and red you've used for this figure and banner Greg - they do a great job in making the figure 'pop'. As you mention, it's weird how GW either misses the plot completely or can't leave well enough alone. The original art had this guy blazing away with this righteous big-ass, fist-cannon thing, but of course for the commemorative figure GW decides to make it a measly plasma pistol. Buncha ijits, I tell ya.

This Space Marine of the Crimson Fist Chapter along with his banner will give Greg 10 points.  Thanks for the memories buddy!

From GregB: 28mm 40K Rogue Trader Imperial Guard Roughriders (110 points)

Greg finishes a wonderful nostalgia project which takes us back to the heady, simpler days of 1980s era Games Workshop.

From Greg:

I have already done one Rogue Trader project during the challenge, and I am more pumped for this one.  I am very excited to submit ten 28mm Imperial Guard Roughriders from the Rogue Trader era.  Many of us have projects or collections that go on and on for many years, but for me this one is special - I've been working to get this squad together since 2007!

It was in 2007 when I first started to acquire some surplus boxes of plastic Rogue Trader-era Imperial Guardsmen - a major nostalgia interest for me.  There were some really great eBay scores for me that year - whole boxes of 36 plastic guardsmen, some unpainted officer figures etc. In the midst of these was a set of three Roughrider torsos. As I worked to assemble and paint my other troops (see here for an example of them in action), I resolved back in 2007 that I would keep my eyes peeled to eBay to try and assemble enough spare parts to put together a Roughrider squad! 

Little did I suspect just how long that would take…

The roughriders were a Rogue Trader-era creation, basically an option to mount an Imperial Guard tactical squad on horses.  After all, the horse would surely still be part of many worlds and cultures among the numberless, teeming masses of the Imperium of Man. Some of these horses would be used in the Imperial military.  

The Roughriders were armed identically to a tactical squad - lasguns, one grenade launcher, one lascannon - but with a twist.  They carried lances equipped with exploding tips.  I think an actual exploding lance tip would be daft for a real cavalryman, but it fits well in the 40k dystopia.  In game terms, it gives these troops quite a punch when they charge - for one turn, at least :) 

The Roughriders have carried on in the GW fluff over time, and I think they are still an option for Guard players today, although the models are now OOP. The Roughriders became space huns - the "Roughriders of Atilla".  The Tallarn-style guardsmen (desert themed troops) also got Roughrider models.  Ultimately Forge World took the baton - the grim Death Riders of Krieg are quite marvellous figures (if you can afford them), while the Tallarn troops got alternate Roughriders who essentially rode space camels called "Mukaali".  I don't think many current GW players bother with Roughriders as a selection for the table.

When I set out to get a squad of Rogue Trader Roughriders together in 2007, I didn't think it would take too long.  I was wrong! The Roughrider bits - special legs and torsos, including a special dude with a Grenade Launcher, and some guys wearing bush-cap style headgear - did not pop up very often on eBay.  It would be a torso here, a few legs there…and sometime I ended up with the wrong part.  Did you know GW had two separate types of "rider" legs - one for horses, and one for motorcycles? Me neither…anyway it was not until 2013 that I got enough bits together to do the proper squad! 

The lance arms are courtesy of Victoria Lamb - thank goodness for her awesome work, as the GW originals did not actually have proper lances (much less cool ones with exploding tips) and I wasn't sure how I was going to swing that, but Victoria Lamb's stuff is amazing. Consistent with my other Rogue Trader guardsmen, I slapped a "current" lasgun into the back stowage of the riders.  It would have been cooler to sculpt a strap for the guns - but I'm no sculptor…

Even getting the horses together was a challenge, as GW's horse sprues have changed over time. The current plastic horses are too large (and a bit too silly). Again, I had to watch and wait on eBay for the parts to come up.

Once I had all the bits together, it took a little while to assemble them. I started building them in November last year, and finally painted them for the Challenge. Even with the excellent Victoria Lamb bits, these are not particularly glorious figures - they sit awkwardly on the horses, no natural riders among them, that's for sure. A cavalry enthusiast will find these to be just awful!

But it is a genuine nostalgia thrill to have these fellows finished.  Hopefully they will pop off some of Dallas' Rogue Trader Orks the next time we play some old school 40k.  

Awesome post Greg! Now, these lads spark a bit of 40K nostalgia to be sure. I clearly remember their lances with exploding tips - brutally fun. As you say, it smacks of that dystopian vision of the 40K universe. No Operational Health and Safety issues here, nope, now move along before someone sets their lance down wrong and blows us all into next week.

This squad of IG horsemen will give Greg 110 points, which includes a little extra for the mods, bits & bobs. Well done!