The Big Reveal: My first project for 2021

 As I have been hinting, I have a new 15mm project for 2021 and I can now reveal what it is all about. It is something I have been thinking about for a couple of years and it is to recreate Warhammer 40k in 15mm, but using the old 2nd edition rules, which I was able to buy on eBay before Christmas. I bought a complete set of the books; the Rulebook , the Wargear manual, the Codex Imperialis, the Codex Army Lists and the Armageddon scenarios, plus the quick reference card. A bargain at £13, I think.

The reason I chose this early version of the rules is basically because they are what I used to play with my son back in the mid-1990s when he got the 40k bug. He was an acolyte of the Chaos Gods, and built up forces for the Orks and the heretical rebel Chaos Space Marines, whereas I ended up with a Dark Angels army and an Imperial Guard one.

My project is initially to recreate the latter two forces and then create an opposing army of Space Orks.

My chosen supplier of 15mm figures for this project is Vanguard Miniatures, whose 15mm Defeat In Detail range is ideal for my purposes, although they are not listed as anything whatsoever to do with 40k on their website.

Anyway, I have bought enough Tusculum Nova Elites to build a reasonably-sized Dark Angels force, and I have been slowly working on them since just before New Year. 

So here are my first completed figures.

First, a Commander, a Chaplain and a Librarian;

These figures come with separate arms and heads, which gives you the option of putting them together in a few different ways. My Chaplain has a Storm Shield and a Crozius Arcanum, the Commander has a power sword and a storm bolter and the Librarian has a plasma pistol and a force staff.

I have a fourth character figure, but he will be appearing later on, when I get round to the troops he will be leading.

Now, here is a squad of not-quite space marines, armed with boltguns.

As you can see, they are led by a sergeant with a bolt pistol and a chainsword and the squad contains a trooper with a missile launcher and a weapon that I have decided is a meltagun, although it is described as a flamethrower on the Vanguard website.

I wanted to give these troops some heavy support, so I knocked up a couple of Dreadnoughts, using two Ground Zero Games Cyclops Heavy Battlesuits, one of which I modified by replacing the supplied right arm with a spare gun from a GZG tank model.

Of course, they look nothing at all like the 40k dreadnoughts we can see on sale today, but neither did the early GW ones that you can see in the 2nd edition books.

The one on the left is equipped with a Heavy Plasma Gun and the one on the  right with an Autocannon. Both of them are also equipped with Powerfists.

Here they are with the Librarian, to show how imposing they look alongside their regular battle brothers;

Now, I am not going to stick 100% to GW-approved heraldry or colour schemes on this project, mainly because I have no intention of trying to paint all the symbols etc that would be required, but also because I really like the early approach to the space marine chapters and how they looked in the early days of the life of 40k.