Sardaukar

Sardaukar, the emperor's finest.

Blue Moon Miniatures 'Space Men' mercenaries. Sold by Old Glory and sculpted by the mighty Bob Naismith.

This range seems a bit of a continuation of the earlier Cobalt-1 range. I bought these in 2016 for my Rogue Trader Redux project. I only painted them this week, after watching Dune of course.

The Zeon Heresy

 It's been a while since I posted here. I didn't paint any miniatures until last week.
Since january though I have a sperate Instagram account (@ferenczminis) where I post stuff. Old stuff mostly, reposting pictures from the last fifteen years on this blog. I quite enjoy it especially because there's a direct connection with people I know from Frothers', Lead Adventure and Blogspot.

On to the miniatures!

Here are the Zaku power armoured suits of the separatist Zeon Marines.

Of course these are ancient Space Crusade marines. I suppose I traded them with my mate in middle school about 35 years ago. they're weird sculpts. I remember I didn't like them at all when the game was released. I much preferred the beakies and I didn't get this new design. months or a year later GW released the mark 6 marines by Jes Goodwin, concept art by John Blanche and after 2nd Ed 40K had the monopose marines based on the same idea.

The idea of using these colours of the bad guys from Gundam I only got some months ago. Being slightly taller, with helmets and shoulder pads quite different than the 2nd ed ones, these could easily be the troopers of a small separatist empire. Using the same STC designs but slightly modified. I already had painted some of the mark 6 ones in Goldrake colours and they could by perfect enemies. Man against Man, Marine against Marine. The Horus Heresy with Manga colours.

I also finished painting their enemies the Grendizer Marines. Boring as hell paint-by-numbers but strangely relaxing. With contrast paint it was quick enough.

I also rebased some old conversions tu use shocktroops with the Grendizers. West Wind german falschirmjager heads I painted many years ago. Space nazis like the Zeon baddies but from the other side.

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Complete Renegade Army

 Yesterday I completed my second 40K army this year.
Apparently on the 35th anniversary of the release of Rogue Trader.

A Chaos Renegade army from before the Realm of Chaos release.

All miniatures from before RoC. Even though I don't think there was any mention of the Night Lords until Epic Space Marine and RoC.

Overall this looks like an ordinary Imperial army: Space Marines, Imperial Army/Guard, mercenaries, a Navigator and even an Astropath.
We all know though the Night Lords are Chaos Renegades. Vile traitors. The allied ordinary humans probably don't have any clue of the mess they're in.

Some close ups of units I don't think I showed before.

A Navigator with bodyguard of elite Stormtroopers:
 

Two renegade marine psycho's.
Starting out as non-chaos renegades a few years ago I decided to re-paint them as Night Lords loonies. One is waving the original 'Lords banner from the Epic box art. Strong Batman and Hordak vibes.

 

Traitor Guard

 I repainted some of my old Imperial Army guys.
Rogue Trader miniatures before they were called Imperial Guard.

Five of them were already painted in 2016, after 25 years. I initially painted them as Starwars rebel pilots but I got bored with that. I decided to do the armour in black, to make them appear more menacing and generic.

The main reason to paint them like this is because I wanted an allied squad of renegade army men for my Night Lords. 
As with the marines I don't want them over the top chaotic with mutations but more first stage heretics instead. Rebels, insurgents, convinced they're doing the right thing. The mark of Chaos isn't clearly present yet.

At the same time I could use this squad with any other army or faction. Loyal, renegade or even alien.

Rogue Trader Night Lords Armoured Support

I made some progress on my Night Lords platoon.

Here are three dreadnoughts. Bob Naismith sculpts for Mongoose's Starship Troopers game. Grizzly Suits, obviously based on the book's description of powered armour which inspired the whole idea of powered armour ànd dreadnoughts to begin with. One painted in Night Lords colours, the others generic. This way the team or singles can be used for different armies.

 
A converted toy tank. An old Starwars mini-rig from Kenner I got cheap on ebay. Inspired by an old photo in White Dwarf of the same toy converted into an Imperial tank. Again, no specific army markings.

 

A Siege Dreadnought. A straight repaint of a vinyl toy I bought years ago.
The legs and torso seem inspired by 2nd/3rd edition dreadnougts. So I had to get it when I saw it. A recent GW release of their Horus Heresy siege dread inspired me to paint it. More or less the right proportions to the old plastic marines.

 The toyline was Invizimals and the robot is called Vortex.

 

Marauder Platoon completed

 The basic Marauder platoon is more or less finished for now. 

First the second command group, Queen Selma and entourage.
In good pulpy 70's anime style, the queen is a blonde human woman commanding the blue aliens. 
An android bodyguard, a protocol droid and two minions.
The queens head is from a frostgrave kit while the alien grey head is from an old resin Fenryll miniature.

I repainted some of my old scratch build eldar grav tanks. The camo pattern was made using masking tape and dark grey and dark brown spraypaint. Afterwards I used red contrast paint over the original  pale green for a dirty, rusty effect.
Colours loosely inspired by Firefly Reavers of course.

Chaos and space-wolf decals and acrylic pens for the details. 
I only had satin/semi-gloss varnish so the are a bit too shiny at the moment.

So here's the entire army for now.
Note the queen's retinue is variable. Here she's accompanied by a hunter-alien and a renegade space marine officer.

Space Marauders Platoon

 My Space Marauders warbands have grown into a platoon.

In the end I couldn't stop adding other characters either.
I have two full 10 men squads as posted before and two command groups of leaders with alien and android bodyguards. The second of which is still to be painted.
I included a Guyver from Em4 Miniatures and a Rogue Stars/Stargrave assassin.
I thought the old Chaos Marine had the right biomech look to join this band of pirate raiders.

The second command group will include a queen. I'm experimenting with different heads but I'm not convinced yet. I tried a new Dark Eldar helmet but it doesn't work. Ideally it would be a human head for a more 1970's Anime feel. Maybe Frostgrave or Stargrave plastics.

They'll be allied with the squad of Night Lords renegade marines.

I'd like to build airships like in Miyazaki's Laputa, Steampunk aeronefs, Starwars Skiffs. floating safari boats like in Jack Vance's Tschai. Thinks like that. Manga meets Space Romance

More Space Marauders

I made some more alien Space Marauders.
Old 3rd edition dark eldar with Oathmark elf heads.

They look a bit silly really but menacing all the same. I tried to make them like evil minions from 1940's pulp science fiction book covers, with bit of 1970's and '80's Japanese cartoons.
Cannon fodder, massing up in airship corridors like a Miyazaki film.

Alien Marauders

 Many years ago I converted some of the 3rd edition 40K Dark Eldar.
I disliked the original designs but they came in the box so I had quite a few.

This was several years before the new versions by Jes Goodwin were released. Before facebook in fact, thinking of it. I remember I had a gallery on Displaced Miniatures where a crappy picture of these conversions unexpectedly reached several thousand visualisations. 

The idea was to make them look more menacing. A mix between Predator and Giger's Sil design from Species. Rogue Trader-esque Space elf raiders, or vampires, in chitinous carapace armour.  

This week I did them a little makeover. First I swapped some of the heads with Oathmark elven heads. Then all of them were roughly drybrushed with Wraithbone Contrast base colour. Then a dark brown mix of contrast paint resulting in a muted, slightly translucent effect.
Two guys have oddly coloured hair, blue and green for a bit of a Manga effect.

Renegade Space Marines

 It's been almost a year I posted something and two years anything Rogue Trader related.

Several years ago I got a box of used and assembled RTB01 Imperial Space Marines.
Most were more or less assembled as I would've done it. For a long time I wasn't sure how to paint them. I didn't care much about the classic chapters.

In the end though I decided to make them the renegade Night Lords.
Not in spiky Chaos style but old school Epic Space Marine Horus Heresy.

Psychopath fanatic Renegade Marines in standard imperial equipment.

I love the early Night Lords artwork on the Epic box. At the time their symbol looked suspiciously like a Batman sign. Obviously changed for I.P. issues...

The APC is a really crappy plastic tank. Made in China from the 1970's or '80's it looks. Got it in a bag with a jeep and loads of cops many years ago.

Grendizers

After keeping them in a box for 26 years (I think that's how long ago 40k 2nd ed. was released) I managed to paint these monopose space marines. 

These were painted with the new GW contrast paints. It's the first time in many years I bought more than the occassional paint pot from GW. I really recommend them. They give an immediate acceptable effect. Certainly not the same as the usual painting but it's so easy and fast to work with it creates a great opportunity to paint tons of unpainted lead I've hoarded over the years.
I designed this chapter over a decade ago. Some of you for sure will recognise the colors of Goldrake/Mazinger/Grendizer, a Japanese animated series extremely popular in late seventies Italy.
The great iron giants from the Dark Age of Technology.

I only discovered Goldrake when I first came to Italy, as Dutch television I grew up with was extremely child friendly. For us no Galaxy Express, Dem or Goldrake with their violence, creepy villains and dystopic backgrounds. Sometimes even nudity! 
Heidi, Remì and the Robinson family we had. Not even Kenshiro, the Fist of the Northstar, introduced to us only in the early 90s through expensive Japanese VHS imports.

Demogorgon!

A year and a half ago I got Netflix only because I had heard good things about Stranger Things. As probably many of us I was baffled and amazed by the appearance of an original Grenadier monster used by the kids playing D&D.
The miniature was sculpted in the 1980's by John Dennett for Grenadier Models Inc. It's called a demon for the Fantasy Lords series but it clearly is a two headed, tentacled Demogorgon.
The whole appearance of this miniature in the TV show is actually an anachronism: the first episode of the series is set in November 1983, while the miniature has the year 1984 inscribed on it's base.
Mirliton in Italy has all the old Grenadier figs so I ordered three of them immediately. Two got seized by my daughters though.

Of course this is a vintage Gary Gygax D&D monstrousity, but if Rick Priestly can retrofit an Umberhulk in Rogue Trader and call it an Ambull, I can upside-down a Demogorgon and call it a Warp entity.

Zoat

I got some discounted and rare Reaper miniatures this week. Reaper's distribution was pretty crap in Europe untill recently and I have had some difficulty finding older figures.

Here's a rhino-centaur thing I painted up as a Zoat. The axe is made of an Eldar bone-blade of some sort. Basically because I didn't want to convert it. I suppose it must be a single rebel Zoat that got seperated from the Tyranid fleet.

The Great Bubblegut

A little bit of Rogue Trader renegades and human reinforcements.
Here's the Great Unclean One known as the Great Bubblegut. The real power behind the renegade champion, Bubblegut's aim is to take over Tishtrya IV and destroy everything through corruption, decay and disease.

It's a classic daemon but after leaving it unpainted and trying different horns for years I decided it actually looks good and kind of disturbing with this plastic dark eldar helmet crest/mane. 

 Some generic cultists. This is a mix of humans muties and aliens.

 
Harlequin/Black Tree ghouls, North Star martians, Citadel halforcs (one K.O.-ed) and a Copplestone lady. The half naked african lady I had for ages but I had no use for it. In the end I decided the only plausible explanation for anyone going around naked like that would be adhering to a chaos cult. The daemon is Ral Partha, I think by Tom Meier.

This here is a techpriest. Orignially a space marine armour variant, or artifier armour. It's a Copplestone sculpt and the same height as the Imperial Guard.

I did some vehicles over the year that I didn't show.

Converted mouse, Penal Battalion APC:

Mantic Dropship with crew: 

work in progress Tau devilfish used as a human transport.
I really like the hard sci-fi design. I imagine this crewed by pirates, poachers and smugglers.

Chaos Renegades

My last Rogue Trader post has been November last year!
I started with collecting Copplestone's imperial guard but I have to finish them. I've been sidetracked by many things. Lord of the Rings stuff mostly, a little bit of 15mm. Team Yankee (cold war apocalypse in 1980's Netherlands). And a bit of Neu-hammer. I find this whole thing about Kill Team very inspiring and now with the upcoming Rogue Trader supplement it's just brand new rules for all my old toys.

Because that's how I always collected. I only ever had small teams of miniatures I liked. Some space orks, a couple of eldar, some space pirates, imperial guard and a bunch of Nurgle renegades.
I never had an entire army. Or so I thought, because a couple of weeks ago this happened: a fellow oldhammerer blogged about the Chaos Renegades armylist.
Without me ever knowing, I always had an entire army of Chaos Renegades, but the army list was only ever published in White Dwarf 107, november 1988. Two years before the Lost and the Damned, published only in 1990. Before I bought my first White Dwarf anyway.
This list allows a Chaos warband leading an army of other warbands, renegade marines, space orks and human outcasts. All of them together! 
I have the Lost and the Damned. That book was how I learned English (apart from hip hop)and made me dream about a massive Nurgle army. I wrote down lots of armies, with doodles of miniatures and conversions I would make. But in the end I only had my small collection of different miniatures.

So what else could I do than dig up the entire army:

My warlord with heavy bolter. A very old conversion even though the heavy bolter was added much later and the guy with the autogun used to have a zombie head. The Epic daemon was added later. 

Chaos cultist, now human degenerates apparently. the scavvies are missing their topknots because they used to have pointy hats made of DAS clay, inspired by Lost and the Damned illustrations.

Nurgle renegades with two Space Crusade marines.

Nurgle Pigmies. Blatantly racist miniatures as most of us would agree these days, but at the time I thought they were fun as alternative halflings. I think nobody realised. There were also beautiful Paul Bonner drawings of these Lustrian pigmies.
I have more but I couldn't find them immediately. One double has DAS clay breasts and hair done with sand. The cool thing were the shields that were an early attempt at freehand painting.

a Great Unclean One with more Human Generates behind him.

The Daemon is a much later addition: Games Workshop opened a store in Amsterdam and you could mailorder bits through the store. So I ordered the Epic daemon above but instead they send me this one, and a buch of loose arms, heads and bellies. They send the replacement and let me keep this one.

Renegade psyker with familiar. Ork henchmen in the back.

More ork henchmen. The Renegade in power armour I got this year. the demon is Heartbreaker while the 2nd plastic orks are a Khorne stormboyz project I already was working on this year.