Re: All things Rogue Trader and Warhammer 40K (May 2022: SPACE DWARFS!)

[Daeothar]

Yeah  the rhino was GW first plastic vehicle kit and I simply remember them being 3 to a box for £9.99 🤤 and it was originally known as the RH1NO I think.

proper RT is the Rhino

happy times

Glen

I still have that box, with contents, stashed for when I finally get to do my RT army... 

[chromedog]

@Daeothar

Oh; and Rhino's were an established part of Rogue Trader, weren't they? I can't quite recall if they were in the Rogue Trader book, but they were certainly in the Compendium and/or Compilation books...

They actually came in WD103 I think about 9 - 10 months after RT Launched with WD93. Old WD Calendar
You got 3 in one box for a tenner...

The first vehicle I think, was the Bullock Jet bike closely followed by Dreadnoughts and Robots, with the Eldar and Orks getting Dreadnoughts pretty fast too. Sentinals came in midway in RTs life.

Back then a Rhino on the table caused as much fear for an opponent as a Tiger tank in a WW2 game.

Land Speeders were the other metal vehicle that came out AFTER the jetbikes but before sentinels in (mk1, aka "eggs on legs").  Army also got rough riders (the ones I had all had slouch hats, too).

[Storm Wolf]

I still have that box, with contents, stashed for when I finally get to do my RT army... 

Huzzah Sir bravo! 👍

[Curis]

Thanks area23!  I like me a good biblical reference.

Cheers tom!

Andym – the secret to crispness is picking a dark colour to hide the blemishes of the casting and highlighting with a severely lighter colour.

Daeothar – Rhino’s were an early introduction to the universe, but not there from the start.  Admiral Andy has that right.  Though Dreadnoughts were introduced with photographs of models before jet bikes for Marines 

Thanks everyone!

*********

At BOYL (Bring out Your Lead) it’s become a community tradition to create one-off figures to celebrate the three-day extravaganza of Oldhammery painting and gaming.  Here are three from 2017 painted up just in time to pick up 2018’s without any leadguilt.

Left to right: Helsreach Mayor, Grox Egg and Olivia Neutronbomb.

I really like event-exclusive miniatures as they’re tethered to a set of memories of friends, games, meals out, heavy drinking, stupid decisions and hangovers.  Lemme explain why these three minis came to be.

Olivia Neutronbomb

Olivia was the 2017 event’s commemorative figure, sculpted by John Pickford.  She’s a 28mm metal incarnation of the classic 1987 Rogue Trader illustration by Martin McKenna.

I painted Olivia to slot into my Rogue Trader Godbreak 84th Imperial Army.  Her animal-print trousers were repainted a few times as I wrestled with various animals’ colours clashing with the Godbreak’s grey-green and black.  Then I realised I needn’t be constrained by real animals in the distant alien future of Warhammer 40,000!  Hence the “Greyscale Giraffe” was born in my imagination.  (Geeez Curis, all that creative potential and possibility and all you come up with is a desaturated giraffe.)

Olivia leading the Godbreak 84th, showing her head for strategy.

Grox

Grox are the cattle of 41st Millennium.  They appeared as an illustration in the 1987 Rogue Trader rulebook, though they’ve never had a miniature incarnation.

That was until axiom commissioned John Pickford to sculpt this cheeky little hatching Grox.  Why?  Cos axiom was running a Grox-herding participation game and going several egg-stra miles to realise the world of grimdark ranching.

Mungo Beefhead lassoing a hatching Grox.  Find out more about this Space Cowboy here.

I painted the egg with green spots – obviously channelling Yoshi from Super Mario.  The shell fragments are cut-up plastic carton lid glued onto the base after drybrushing.  I planned on making a small nest diorama with several unhatched eggs (my sculpting ability just able to cope with unhatched eggs), but I ended up doing something more ambitious…

Mayor of Helsreach

Curtis at Ramshackle Games sculpted this miniature to celebrate his massive participation game at BOYL 2017, set in Helsreach – the iconic Rogue Trader townscape.  This miniature is really characterful and fun to paint, and on finishing it I immediately went and jumped some other Ramshackle bits to the front of the painting queue.  The game is running again at BOYL 2018, and I recommend stopping by to drink in all those square feet of his miniatures and terrain Curtis, Aidan and Danny have put together.

The Mayor touring the Cullentown Grox Incubation Facility.  His Techpriest tour guide is regarded as the Helsreach’s leading "egghead".

The Grox incubation chamber is a cut-down cryo-stasis piece from Games Workshop’s Sector Imperialis Objectives. The transparent “glass” component needed great care to resize – the plastic is so brittle any stress on it will cause massive white cracks to shoot through the whole thing.  There were a few near-misses and lots of eggs-pletives.

More of my miniatures at http://www.ninjabread.co.uk

[OSHIROmodels]

Great stuff 

[Suber]

So damn beautiful!

[Andym]

Fantastic! Great painting as usual!

[tomrommel1]

fantastic additions!

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Nice models.

[Inso]

Fine paint on some cool miniatures .

[airbornegrove26]

Those are great Curis!  I really love what you did with the Mayor.

[Exiledadmiral]

Beautiful painting and presentation!

[Curis]

The Crimson Fists are getting reinforcements, hand over fist.  My 1980s Rogue Trader Space Marine grows with the addition of another 5-man Tactical Squad composed of vintage metal and plastic Citadel Miniatures from another era.

Squad Huerta, ready to put the huert on.

To my amazement and envy, in the time taken to finish this second squad of Battle at the Farm Crimson Fists, Nico has painted every Crimson Fist for the scenario, plus he’s modelled an evocative scenic base, plus he’s painted all the Orks and – if that wasn’t enough – some Ork reinforcements.  I feel like Falcon running round the park and being lapped repeatedly in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Freehand & Crimson Fist Icons

Again I had some fun adding freehand chapter icons and armour graffitti to the squad.  “THE TRUTH HUERTS” is just punning off the Sergeant’s name.  “INFINITE PLASMA” is a reference to the Battle at the Farm scenario, which Zhu points out gives the Space Marines unlimited Plasma Missiles (as they normally cost 1 point each, it technically means the Marines outclass the Orks by INFINITY POINTS).

I now need to paint a second Missile Launcher so I can reference Elton John’s Rocket Man.

“FOR NOW WE SEE BUT THRU A SCANNER DARKLY” on the Marine with scanner is a 1 Corinthians 13:12 / Philip K. Dick reference simply because he’s holding a scanner.  “FIST OR FAMINE” is from my handy stockpile of fist-based puns.  It’s a treat at the end of the painting process to choose some scrawly handwriting to give the battle-brothers an additional touch of the Rogue Trader era

Crimson Fists Grand Plan

To fit in to my planned 1,000 points (using the Whitescars army list from the Book of the Astronomican) the five Space Marines come out as:

    SQUAD HUERTA

    1 Marine Champion [9], Power Glove [15], Bolt Hun [2]
    26 POINTS

    3 Marines [3*8], 3 Bolt Guns [3*2] and 3 Frag Grenades [3*1]
    33 POINTS

    1 Marine [8], Missile Launcher [30], 12 Plasma Missiles [12] Targeter [5], 2 Suspensors [2*2]
    59POINTS

    Basic Equipment (all models): Bolt Pistol [1.5], Knife [0], Powered Armour [6] (with Communicator [0.5], Respirator [0.5], Auto-senses[0.5])
    45 POINTS

    TOTAL: 163 POINTS

Here are the two squads in action alongside each other, with a sneaky eleventh Citadel Miniature tucked away somewhere … can you spot it?

Squads Huerta and Onan fighting in the ruins of Blas in the Gallego system.

Crimson Fists Painting Tutorial

I’ve been getting a lot of questions about how I paint Crimson Fists, so I photographed a Marine inbetween each step of the blue power armour process.

If you want to see these steps broken down, with the techniques and theory behind them spelt out the tutorial is available on Patreon.  The skills you’ll learn are transferable to all colours of power armour.

Coming soon – more vintage Crimson Fists to creep the army closer to game legal.

More of my miniatures at: http://www.ninjabread.co.uk/
Tutorials at: https://www.patreon.com/ninjabread/

[Sgt. Scream]

The old Space Crusade Missile Launcher goes well with the RT Beakies. I am in love. 

[Vanvlak]

These are just so cool. Love the colours, and thanks for the step by step.