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Miniatures Adventure => Future Wars => Topic started by: Daeothar on 17 September 2025, 01:08:41 PM
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I recently came across a lot of RTB01 sprues for sale in a grey plastic.
The colour seems a bit lighter than the current plastic, but seems to sort of match the grey used during early 2nd edition.
Now my first boxed set of them, back in the late eighties, was a dark blue (now long lost to the Warp), and I have an almost complete box of them stashed away in a sandy/beige colour, plus some marines and bits I got in a lot buy that are a medium green.
But those are all the colours I've ever seen or heard of.
Collecting Citadel Miniatures also makes no mention of other colours, but I got the feeling Citadel tended to go with the cheapest polystyrene lots they could find at the time, so they might well have used a plethora of other colours.
Looking at the picture, I cannot escape the feeling that this might in fact be a recast of the full sprues, as some details appear too shallow and others way too sharp. But that could well be the light and/or my fading memory.
So; can anyone confirm that RTB01 sprues were ever released in, the now so common, grey?
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I’ve got some loose bits bought a few years ago that are this sort of grey mixed with the usual green, beige and blue.
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Interesting. So they were produced in grey then...
Cheers James, thanks for the confirmation :)
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Not seen the grey before - I had some of the blue and green sprues originally, then some of the cream ones, which were the same colour as the Mk.1 Land Raider, Rhino and Ork Battlewagon sprues. The sprues look about right and it wouldn't be much of a surprise to find that GW had released (or rereleased) them in grey, can't see a recaster going to the trouble of making a mould for the sprues though - far too much bother for the return.
A nice find, lot of nostalgia for the old RTB01 beakies!
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I remember them being a very light tan/yellow sort of colour, but this was in the days when Dinosaurs still roamed the Earth lol
This was also true for Citadels plastic Dalek and Cybermen sprues, but I am sure that some of the slightly older hands on the LAF will either confirm or deny my memories ;) :D
However that said I don't see why later runs would not have been in the now much more common grey.
The original Space Rangers box-set of 30 "Not-Space Marine" miniatures was originally supplied in this hard-as-fuck purple/red polymer that had to be superglued together and then a silver plastic as they are available from EM4 last time I ordered some. I still like them :D
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I remember them being a very light tan/yellow sort of colour, but this was in the days when Dinosaurs still roamed the Earth lol
This was also true for Citadels plastic Dalek and Cybermen sprues, but I am sure that some of the slightly older hands on the LAF will either confirm or deny my memories ;) :D
However that said I don't see why later runs would not have been in the now much more common grey.
The original Space Rangers box-set of 30 "Not-Space Marine" miniatures was originally supplied in this hard-as-fuck purple/red polymer that had to be superglued together and then a silver plastic as they are available from EM4 last time I ordered some. I still like them :D
Now that IS interesting - as I recall, the Dalek/Cyberman sprues were in a light grey plastic as well, which may imply a crossover between the cream and grey colours?
I had some of those red Space Rangers a while ago but the ones I got from em4 recently were black plastic - whatever they can get I suppose.
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The first one I have are blue, I got some more in the '90s that were the same colour as the Skeletons.
(https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0xP4FrvQ-7Y5l7CT58yxpRcY3mqQgQEj-dtxN4YuQqcMgtMA1ldF2Us1yo7ZwNK_eZ1O5WX3-im9HIKG2Q11VBe3J0byf9bBiDdiyBmoA6YyQHZRw-JrIyAlkNVgbdSgfpRlqIVw3P8to/s1600/rtb01.png)
These are mainly from the blue sprues
(https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmCtI3veKen4DRkk8E-f91XeIiJBYzhwavL5iy5e9bvfdZpEm_odpyBUIzMyhyphenhyphen6MOLv97bZzSsB_FzgXFaOKEhOOpf2PcVsMCeVsHnZQBPBbDNlHIMtVsw6rFeVSdx_vwdWhv8eEC_sP-R/s1000/rtb01-2.png)
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Now that IS interesting - as I recall, the Dalek/Cyberman sprues were in a light grey plastic as well, which may imply a crossover between the cream and grey colours?
I had some of those red Space Rangers a while ago but the ones I got from em4 recently were black plastic - whatever they can get I suppose.
Well that EM4 bit sorta proves that some manufacturers just use what they can, early GW was probably similar.
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I have some of the original imperial guard sprues in the familiar grey colour, so they were certainly using it around that time. I've also got mk1 rhinos in the same standard grey as the sprues were kept in production right through to the early 2000's. I do have occasion to buy the occasional bag of HIPS pellets for work, and if we don't specify a colour we will just get whatever they happen to have most of at the factory - I imagine early citadel probably had a few set colours and just used what they had when they had it.
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The White Dwarf Red Compendium shows Nick Bibby with a hammer and a sprue of Grey Space Marine (RTB01) plastic, so maybe my early ones (which admittedly would have been later than this) were slightly unusual? Oh I wish I had them now :'(
A quick internet dive has shown the usual grey, blue and even green :o. I also think from some of the pictures that some look a little a yellow/tan shade of grey maybe especially when shown next to current grey plastic kits.
Basically your mileage may vary methinks ;)
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As well as the IG a lot of the accessories were grey at the same time (eg shield sprues, chaos backpacks, etc)
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Now that IS interesting - as I recall, the Dalek/Cyberman sprues were in a light grey plastic as well, which may imply a crossover between the cream and grey colours?
I had some of those red Space Rangers a while ago but the ones I got from em4 recently were black plastic - whatever they can get I suppose.
I found a Dalek/cyberpunk sprue in my first RTB-01 box. It was grey.
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From all this I guess mine were actually probably a light grey but with a slight tan shade to them, I distinctly recall them to be a different colour to such things as Airfix aircraft kits of a similar vintage.
But it could also be down to variations in the extrusion and moulding processes or even in the formulations. I used to compound polymers in the past so simple batch to batch variations are more than possible.
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Now that it was mentioned; I should have known that Citadel already used grey plastic back in RT days, considering that I have the Imperial Army and Ork plastics in the box (granted, acquired much later) which are both moulded in the same grey.
I just had never seen any grey RTB01 sprues before that one picture...
Oh, and @ Rick: just to put it out there: because of the old-hammer/nostalgia/internetcraze regarding RT era miniatures, I've seen quite a few 3D (resin) printed RT era miniatures on the original sprue. I've been told they're 3D scans of said sprues with manual cleanup. Same with metal miniatures btw; I've seen one or two late 40K miniatures with arms/weapons/heads originally moulded seperately but attached to the tab, offered in printed resin.
Apparently there is a market for the increasingly harder to get and more expensive original miniatures in resin. And complete printed sprues obviously have their own market niche and that was the reason for my original question regarding the grey plastic.
For the record: I like mine in the original metal or polystyrene, but I do admit being tempted by offerings of resin printed arms/backpacks/weapons, as those are often even harder to find than the metals themselves and often even more expensive too. Haven't pulled that trigger yet though...
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Wow, I had no idea there was such a thriving market in oldhammer nostalgia - I can see that my comment was made in well-intentioned ignorance.
As to the plastic colours, GW used to produce slottabases in black (mainly) but also grey, yellow, red and (I think) green and white so it should probably come as no surprise that the sprues were also available in different colours.
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I remember reading somewhere that GW at the time still outsourced their plastic production. Apperently they where cast by a company that made the plastic interiors of Matchbox toy cars. So the colours where those you'd find inside 1980's toy cars.
Resin 3d printing is the way to go. I had some oldhammer stuff printed and the details are really good. No need to pay £20,00 for one vintage renegade marine if you can print them.