Space Hulk re-paint begins

I finished my “proof of concept” paint job on my old 1st edition Space Hulk Terminators. Well, on one of them anyway. I usually paint one figure in the colors I’ve decided on to see if it all comes together, before I go and do a whole unit.

For these Terminators, I painted them in the colors of my old WH40K Space Marine chapter, the Rising Suns. Obviously, there is a Japanese motif. The base color is grey, which reminds me of the color of old warships. The helmet is white, which symbolizes death. The left shoulder has the rising sun emblem. The various kanji characters are hi/fire (right shoulder), shi/death (storm bolter), and shi/four (left knee). The texture on the base is just painted on, and I added a thin strip of paper to give it a little relief and resemble the decking printed on the Space Hulk tiles.

It’s not the best job I ever did, and the camera reveals lots of flaws up close, but I think these Terminators will look good on the table! At least I think my technique has improved over the first paint job I did on them 20 years ago!

Ready to paint

I finally got all the old paint of my old Space Hulk Terminators. Took a couple of weeks in the Green Stuf to soften up that paint, and I scrubbed it off with an old toothbrush. Back to that beautiful bare blue plastic! Got some new primer today, and while I was at the store, managed to get in a couple of games of the new Space Hulk as well (Endgame was having a “Space Hulk Day” – woohoo!)

On that note, I have to say, my old instincts for that game are a little rusty but a couple turns in, I’d knocked it off and I was bringing the pain! I played the good ol’ “Suicide Mission” as the Marines and got ripped up (of course – that mission is usually death on a stick for the Marines), then I played the Stealers in a different scenario and ate the Marines’ faces.

The rules are basically the same as 1st edition with a few new wrinkles. For example, any Marines on overwatch that jammed during the turn automatically clear jams at the end of the turn w/out paying an AP or CP for it; as long as your Sgt. is alive, you can redraw a CP marker you don’t like (OK, fine, but hardly as hardcore as before); Marines can go “On Guard” which allows a forced reroll of one of the Stealer dice in CC.

Without more play and some analysis I can’t yet say if I like the changes or not. But my brain is pretty hardwired for the old game. But, I’m very happy the timer is still used. I was offered the chance to not use the timer (which I of course scoffed at – no self-respecting Old School Space Hulk player would ever consider not using the timer!).

And I like how the new game incorporated the old Deathwing and Genestealer expansions into it. Sigh – I still won’t buy it but it does look lovely. If I can paint my old Space Hulk models to my current standard, I think it might help alleviate my cravings for the new game!