Wreck Restoration

I was watching this video on YouTube about these guys who restored a totally destroyed Sherman tank.

I was inspired. On a few occasions, I’ve had the chance to restore some jacked up models to fully painted glory. My Space Marine Drop Pods were the first – I have three of them and all were trashed when I got them. I stripped the paint, added some new parts where needed and voila, they look like they were assembled right off the sprue.

I actually enjoy the process of taking some poor model that has been ruined with a heavy coat of house paint (or somesuch), with broken and missing parts, and restoring them. I’ve recently come into a couple new acquisitions and I have plans for them – or at least one of them.

Once I have my Daemon army done, I mean to add an allied force of Chaos Space Marines, specifically, Kharn and a squad of Berzerkers deploying out of a Chaos Land Raider. I’ll eventually get the Kharn and ‘Zerker models, but I need a Land Raider. Well, at the swap meet we had at the store a couple months ago, I bought a trashed Land Raider hull for 5 bucks..

All this bad boy needs is side sponsons, a turret and hatches. If I strip it and repaint it in glorious Khorne blood red, add a few spikey bits and I will have a suitable mount for my ‘Zerkers. The warsmiths of the Fallen pulled this out of a shellhole somewhere and commenced to twist whatever is left of its machine spirit to their own dark aims.

And there is this.Some of you kids may never have seen one of these or even know what this is.  This is an Old School Land Raider from the old Rogue Trader days of the late 1980’s. They were one of the first plastic kits GW produced, and they actually came 3 to a box! I don’t remember the price but they were maybe $35 or thereabouts. I know, outrageous! 😛

Anyway, this came into my hands via a woman who came into the store a couple weeks back with a box full of old minis stuff that belonged to her departed husband. She wanted to give it to us and we accepted. I opened the box and there it was. I didn’t hesitate to scurry of with it – I haven’t seen an old Land Raider like this for 20+ years!

Now, I could use this old warhorse for my ‘Zerker’s ride – say it was an old holdover from the Heresy or something. I think I can strip the paint off, though it looks like it might be Testor’s plastic model enamel. I could add some new bits – maybe update the lascannons?

What do you guys think?

The Legion walks again!

Had a game of Epic yesterday for the first time in a long long time (this one was for you, Bruce, you old warhorse)! Looking at my old models, I can see how far my painting has come over the last 20 years! But the old minis still hold up well and it all looks awesome set out on the table. I was very rusty with the rules. but as we played, it all started coming back to me. I absolutely love the grand scale – it’s like playing Apocalypse in 40K, only a lot more manageable! Infantry die like flies, whole tank squadrons get wiped out in one go… fantastic!

The Rising Sun Chapter of the Space Marines and the Legio Tempestus face off against the Death Guard led by Mortarion and the World Eaters near an Imperial city on the edge of the badlands.

Marines of the Assault company get to grips with a squadron of Chaos Land Raiders and are counter-charged by Bloodletters! In Epic, Assault Marines can actually kick ass!

Grey Knights take it to Mortarion! The demon Primarch’s plaguewind killed one stand before it burned itself out. In the ensuing combat, the Grey Knights almost took him down, but Mortarion destroyed the Emperor’s finest!

The Chaos Banelord Titan skulks behind a building. Good thing too, because when it finally emerged into the crosshairs of the Loyalist Warlord Titan…

ENGINE KILL! The resulting explosion destroyed a nearby building and entirely wiped out the World Eaters swarming at the traitor machine’s feet! AWESOME!

Ah, what a game! Many thanks to my friend Stephen for playing – it was fun to introduce him (he was 3 years old when I first started playing Epic) to an old game that laid the foundations for much of what 40K is today. Certainly Epic Space Marine was one of GW’s best designs. Too bad they’ve killed it off. But, as long as a game is being played it is never dead. In the far reaches of the galaxy, the armies still clash and the Legions still walk!

ENGINE KILL!!!

Bits Box Diving

On a whim, I rummaged around one of my old bits boxes (I think I have three or four buried in different places in my home). I had opened up one of my oldest and discovered a few things that hadn’t seen the light of day since university.

Some real buried treasure in there too. Here we go!

First is an old Space Marine Captain from the Rogue Trader days. This guy’s pretty cool as he has a bionic leg – obviously a replacement for the one he lost in battle. I could use him as a squad sergeant or captain.

Next we have a Zulu warrior and a Napoleonic French Grenadier. Don’t recall where I got these from or why. Seems I had a mind to paint the Grenadier, since I primed him and painted his face, then apparently lost interest.

Now here is a selection of 40K snotlings from around 1989 – 90 or so. I’ve always liked the wacky character of the Orks in 40K and used to have a sizeable number of them, including a few bases of snotlings. Check out all the plastic Mekboy tools! And I’ve got the top and bottom halves of a Boss there too.

This next one is a knight that I used in a Pendragon RPG campaign about 17 or 18 years ago. Not sure who made it – maybe Grenadier?

This fun-lovin’ greenskin is from the old Rogue Trader Ork Raiders set I think. I thought I’d painted them all but this guy apparently only got halfway basecoated. I also note that I used to prime white, and did it by simply painting on white paint! Urgh! Not anymore!

Now these are interesting. They’re character miniatures for the Shadowrun RPG, which I’m pretty sure were made by Grenadier. They look pretty good too – very crisp details and clean sculpts. Love the troll bouncer and the street shaman with the dreadlocks.

These are some old arm and weapon sprues for Orks and Marines (which is stamped 1992). I can certainly use those Marine weapons now.

Here’s an interesting one – the Yamato from the Star Blazers miniatures game. Unfortunately a couple of the metal fins broke off the stern and are gone. It’s otherwise in good shape.

There were some other interesting odds and ends in there – for some reason I have a number of plastic Warhammer skeletons. There are also some 30mm fantasy warriors that I have no idea where they came from. I also found a Crimson Skies fighter plane that was half-painted and some very old Battlefleet Gothic ships from the 1st edition of that game. Certainly the Marine captain was a good find. I’ll have to go through those other bits boxes too!

Five Epic Armies

Looking at my blog stats, the consistently most popular post is the one I did last year about my old Epic Space Marine collection. It shows up in the weekly top post stats every week. Over 2,300 views. Impressive.

I love that old game and though I haven’t played in years I would at the drop of hat.

But there is one secret about that post I haven’t let on – those seven pictures were only the tip of the iceberg, part of a set of 44. If you want to see all of the pictures I took of my Epic Space Marine forces, click this link! Enjoy!

Something old, something new

My longtime gaming rival and good buddy Bruce (aka Weevil, aka Scum Being, aka Frothing Loon) sent me an ancient Metal Magic Spacelords miniature he’s had knocking around some old box in his closet. This is awesome and very cool of Bruce (we often used to just give each other curious minis from the bottom of the forgotten minis box).

Anyway, this particular mini is, according to The Stuff of Legends, a Phagon Walker “Sunburst” Mk III (the linked image is not the exact same model though – I have C3291c).

It’s hard to tell but it may have been made in Germany circa 1989 (?). It found its way to Games of Berkeley where it sat for who-knows-how-long until Bruce bought it, 10 years ago he says. Finally Bruce sent it to me from Japan last week, so this thing has gotten around! And it’s made of lead! Awesome! Thanks Bruce!

In the blister pack

All parts. I have an urge to do some crazy red or orange color scheme on this!

And something new. The Lab Technician from Hasselfree, which I plan to use in our Stargrunt bug hunt game.

I love this guy's droopy look. How long will he last before the bugs eat him I wonder?

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!

Space Hulk 1st Edition – Operation Re-paint!

So, with the utterly lovely new Space Hulk out, and my not buying a copy since I still have all my old 1st Edition stuff, I’ve decided that re-painting the old 1E Marines and Stealers from the original game is going to be my next project (now that I have finished my Space Lords).

I have all the original minis from the set I first bought in 1989 (none missing), including the Genestealer Hybrids. I also have some lead to go along with all that – two squads of metal Terminators, a Genestealer Magus and even a Patriarch!

But I’ll keep my goals reasonable to start with and re-paint the original Terminator minis that came with the game. I recall painting them 20 years ago, and I think my technique has improved a little since then. This time, I’m really going to try and do them justice. I played dozens and dozens of games of Space Hulk with these minis and these battle scarred veterans have won more than their share of glory.

Here’s what these guys look like, 20 years on.

The original Terminator miniatures; two 5-man squads

Sergeant in the lead

Flamer

These battle-scarred Marines have served proudly for 20 years! Time for a re-fit!

The first thing I have to do is strip the paint off of them, so into the Simple Green they go!

Obviously some sort of Adeptus Mechanus rejuvenation fluid.

I’ll talk about my new color scheme once I have them stripped and re-primed!

20 years of Space Hulk!

The most fun I’ve ever had playing a boardgame has been playing GW’s classic Space Hulk, quite possibly the best game GW has ever made. I’m serious about that. I’ve played lots of GW games from the era before they went totally over to 40K and WFB, and along with Fury Of Dracula, Space Hulk is the best.

My first few years in J-land, I played the game a lot. Dozens and dozens of times. I learned the best strategies for both the ‘Stealers and the Marines. I loved the tension of the timer running down, the dice deciding your fate moment to moment, the raw savagery of the Genestealer assault. I really love this game!

I had a look at the extremely good looking new (limited) edition of Space Hulk. Oh my god is it beautiful! The components are quite simply perfect. Fantastically sculpted minis, beautiful board pieces and components. I also had a look through the rules and it appears they’ve simply used the 1st edition rules, rather than the 2nd edition. That means use of the timer, and flamers taking out whole board sections, which is as it should be!

Am I going to but a copy? Believe me I went back and forth about it. But I still have my old set, all the expansions and the extremely rare campaign book. It’s all worn but perfectly playable. The minis aren’t as plush as the new ones, but hey, they were pretty damned good 20 years ago! I took it out last night and had a look through.

If I want to play this game, I can. The new game would be nice, but I don’t really need it. Of course in a year or two, when copies of the new game are going for $300 on eBay I’ll be regretting it but, oh well.

Anyone want to play a game of Space Hulk?

Wavering

My first minis game, not just single figures mind you but first full-on miniatures game, was Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader. I started with it in 1987, with a box of plastic Space Marines and box of Ork Raiders. Got a lot of mileage out of that old game. My enthusiasm never carried over into the later editions.

But, from time to time I find myself looking at the new stuff and sometimes, like now, I think about maybe getting some minis and just painting them up. I’m entertaining the thought of picking up a Space Marine Battleforce and doing them in my Rising Sun Chapter colors.

Then I remember one of the big reasons I stopped buying GW stuff; the prices.

New Project Concept – Olympica

“The Webbies want your mind”

So says the back cover blurb of Olympica, an old sci-fi wargame (of the Metagaming variety) from back in the mists of time. You old dogs may remember this one, having saved up your pennies to buy these little games that came in plastic bags (hey, c’mon, it was 1978 – I was 11). Anyway, inspired by some of the fan-made upgrades that you can see in the BGG entry I linked to, I’m considering doing one myself, with miniatures – sculpted board with terrain, and 15mm minis.

And thinking about those, I’d like to try to heave close to the original look and feel. Here’s the cover of the old game.

For the UN Marines, I’ve already decided I’d like to use Rebel Miniatures Earth Force Marines. For the UN vehicles, Rebel’s grav tanks should do nicely. The UN also has these funky drilling machines (because their enemy lives in tunnels) and I think I could convert Rebel’s combat flatbed into one.

But, I’m stuck on the Webbies. That’s a Webby on the back cover up there. They’re kinda like group-mind space communists I think (on close reading of the rules fluff). So, I’m taking recommendations for good 15mm troops to use for these guys. Suggestions?