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.

OK, so what exactly have I been doing since my last post back in December?

Well, we did have the Christmas festivities, so I will own up to eating and drinking too much 😋 and watching a lot of stuff on Netflix, Prime and the actual telly channels.

I got some wargaming-related presents too; the second edition of the Frostgrave rules, some Artizan 28mm Wild West gunslingers, some Copplestone Back of Beyond Chinese bandits, a couple of Copplestone Future Wars figures in power armour (which I intend to use as combat droids for my ROTOR sci fi skirmish rules) and a couple of the Bad Squiddo Ghosts of Gaia that I didn't already have. I now have most of the range, which is one of my favourite sci fi ones around.

I also bought some 15mm figures for my first project of 2021. I expect that you are asking yourselves what did I buy?

Well, the figures are to go with a set of rules which I found on eBay together with the accompanying source and reference books, as I referred to in my previous post, which were originally published back in 1993 by a rather well-known gaming company.

I have now undercoated and started painting the figures, making reasonable progress with them. I am hoping to have at least a few of them finished by the end of the week, at which point I will reveal all regarding the project.

All Quiet On The Blogging Front

I haven't really been doing much wargaming related stuff for the last couple of weeks or so, although I have started prepping up figures for some early 2021 projects, including my Bad Squiddo Onna Bugeisha minis which I have had sitting around for ages and ages. I felt guilty every time I saw them in the box where I keep my (supposed) priority To Do stuff. Anyway, they are now glued onto 2.5cm round MDF bases and primed in Halford's matt grey undercoat spray.

I have also started to prep up another project, this time in 15mm, which I shall keep secret for a while, because it is something of a personal trip down memory lane, in many ways, but it did require me to get onto eBay and buy some old rulebooks from more than two decades ago.

I also took advantage of the Foundry Christmas price reduction offer and bought some minis from their Seadogs and Swashbucklers range. A few of us from the club put in a single order, to maximise the discount, which was nice. The plan is for these to make up bands for Osprey's En Garde rules, or anything else that seems suitable, for that matter.

I also bought a couple of Geek Villain wargaming mats in the Black Friday sale, the first time I've ever done such a thing. I got a grassy one, which is useful for everything, pretty much, and a cobblestone one, which will be good for all manner of urban settings. I am primarily thinking of In Her Majesty's Name here, but Frostgrave seems another possibility too. I have the Frostgrave 2nd edition book on my Christmas list too, so I am looking forward to that.

Anyway, it is the run-in to Christmas now, so I am going to be pretty busy with getting the food and wine ready, getting out the Christmas tablecloth and table mats and other festive bits 'n' pieces. Tomorrow, I'll be off to the butcher for the meat , which means boning, stuffing and tying up the chicken, poaching a bacon joint (for glazing on Boxing Day), making stock from the chicken carcass and making a chocolate and lime baked cheesecake ready for Christmas dessert. and then it will be Christmas eve. when I must go to the baker to get our bread order collected, and also get whatever I have forgotten about until now.

A few Bad Squiddo odds 'n' ends

 I've been trying to paint up a few odds and ends of things I've had in my "To Do" box for a while.

These are all from Bad Squiddo and have been patiently awaiting the brush for a long time now.

First are two violent little girls with swords. They were part of the Freyja's Wrath Kickstarter that I somehow forgot to paint at the time. I suppose that they ought to be wooden practice swords, really, but I went for real ones.

I am not sure what I will use them for, but there is bound to be something in the future.

Next are three figures who were associated with the Amazons and Dwarves Kickstarter. I think that they will work nicely in mediaeval and fantasy settings, perhaps as non-player characters or as special figures in suitable scenarios.

First, a woman trying to get her basket of fresh fish past the local cats;

And finally, two women who look so alike to my eyes that I think of them as sisters;

This figure is HUGE

This figure was a freebie that came with  the latest copy of Miniature Wargames magazine. It is for a game called "Conquest: The Last Argument of Kings", which I'd never actually heard of before. Anyway, it is in 38mm scale, which seems pretty unique.

Here is the finished item, next to a 28mm Victrix Roman auxiliary cavalryman;

That is ridiculously big. Here are two more pictures of the Big Guy.

I only made him up and painted him for something to do. I've no intention of buying into a game system that uses such large minis as standard. The thing is this, though; I could see a point to him once I'd glued him together and undercoated him in black.

I think that he would be fine as a gigantic Daemonic Knight, probably as a Warlord for a Saga; Age of Magic warband, such as my Otherworld one, or for a Dragon Rampant force, which is why I used a fairly classic Chaos colour palette of black, bronze, brass, steel and red. His helmet has a weird flaming-looking crest, which I decided would look pretty good as actual flames, so that is how I tried to paint it. 

He was actually pretty easy to paint, because of the size of the model. I liked the idea of his daemonic steed having brass hooves, and they seem to have worked quite well. I left the slight amount of visible face black, to give the impression that whatever is inside the armour is Not Of This World.

Annoyingly, after I'd taken the photos, I noticed a few grains of ballast clinging to his horse barding, which I have now removed with a paintbrush.