Some figures I painted back in the 1990s

I was looking through some old PC backups on DVDs last week and I found a file of photos I took in 2005 with my first digital camera. They were of some Warhammer 40K figures from the 1990s. So, here they are. There are some more of my comments at the bottom.

There were a few more pictures in the file that were either out of focus or simply not very good in terms of painting quality. These were definitely the pick of the bunch, although I can see a lot of mistakes with them. There are also plenty of places where they really needed tidying up and splashes etc being removed. Some of the shading is pretty terrible and I can see lots of things I'd do differently now.

My next project

I don't often post WIP pictures, but I thought I'd make an exception for this lot, which are all intended to be primarily for Xenos Rampant.

Above I have 30 figures based on Frostgrave plastic  Cultists and Ghost Archipelago plastic crew figures. The crewmen have the same kind of baggy trousers as the cultists and once they have been given suitable headgear they blend in rather well. All of the figures have been equipped with weapons from the various Stargrave plastic sets, plus the occasional Cultist knife, sword or spear. These will work as cult members, pirates, post apocalyptic reavers or ragged mercenaries.

Next, here are 40 figures made up from the Stargrave Troopers and Mercenaries I box sets. I intend these to be Heavy Infantry.

Finally, a mixed bag made up from a mixture of the Mercenaries II and Crew II Stargrave boxes, who will be Light and Recon Infantry (the latter equipped with sniper rifles), five Wargames Atlantic giant spiders with sci fi weaponry and finally 10 Games Workshop plastic Space Marines that I bought from someone at the club ages ago for a tenner and which I intended to paint up and sell, but never got round to it. These will be two units of Elite Infantry. Obviously, I won't be bothering with any Chapter heraldry or other 40K gubbins.

I still have a box of Crew I figures, 15 Crew II figures and 15 Ghost Archipelago figures, plus 12 small spiders and seven giant ones to use. I am sure they'll end up as something useful.

I have to admit that I will leave it a while before I make any more giant spiders. They are pretty tricky and time-consuming to put together and I don't think I'd have done it yet without Guy Bowers' really useful guide on the WSS blog HERE. Having said that, they are worth the effort because they look pretty impressive, even without an undercoat.

Mixing Frostgrave, Ghost Archipelago and Stargrave figures together is really easy and generally everything goes together without any hassle or swearing.

I now have a total of 100 individual figures to get painted over the next couple of months. I am planning to do them in groups of 10 at the most.

The final part of my 15mm Space Marine project is completed

I was waiting for a dry day to get the last lot of 15mm Vanguard Miniatures not-quite space marines finished, and here they are;

As you can see, there are two squads of assault marines with jump packs. and each squad can be split into a five-man team consisting on one marine with a meltagun, three equipped with bolt pistols and chainswords and a leader with a plasma pistol and a powerfist. I have given the senior leader a red helmet to indicate that he is the overall squad leader.

In addition, I have created a small team consisting of the four marines left over from the two squads above, plus the final model from the "Characters" set I talked about in an earlier post. I have painted him as a second Librarian, equipped with a jump pack and armed with a Force Weapon (in the shape of a Power Hammer) and a powerfist. The assault marines can act as a kind of bodyguard for the Librarian but the whole team makes a pretty formidable attacking force.

You will notice a sixth figure here. He or she is a GZG Japanese Tech Ninja Special Forces figure who I have painted up as an assassin of the Officio Assassinorum, equipped with a needle pistol and a power sword, plus a few grenades. This is in line with the 2nd Edition rules and Codex Imperialis, which predates GW's invention of the different Assassin Temples.

So, that is the end of the first part of my project.

The next part will be all about the Imperial Guard. I have bought the figures but I need to base them and get them primed before I can start painting. These will also be using Vanguard Miniatures figures.

After that, I will start planning some opponents and also look at vehicle options. There are some nice ones on the Vanguard website which will be ideal.

Part Two of the 15mm not-space marines project

 I thought that I'd run out of spray varnish, but I found a can in the box where I'd put it so I wouldn't lose track  of it, after forgetting I'd put it there in the first place!

This meant that I could varnish some more figures.

First, my second squad of not-quite space marines;

These are equipped identically to the first squad that I posted in my previous post. I did consider giving them contrasting colour edges to their shoulder armour but decided against it.

I now have two squads of the basic troop type, which should be fine for gaming purposes.

I have also painted up two five-man squads of Tusculum Nova Elites in Heavy Armour, who bear a slight passing resemblance to Space Marines in Terminator armour;

As my project is all about the Dark Angels, these are obviously the Deathwing. Each squad of five marines has a leader with a storm bolter and a power sword, a marine with an assault cannon and a powerfist and three marines with storm bolters and powerfists.

I really like these minis, they are significantly bigger than the standard power-armoured marines, as befits their status and their tactical dreadnought armour.

My remaining figures for this project should be finished later this week.

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.