Archive for ‘Rogue Trader’
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I’m continuing my focus on the Thousand Sons with the classic 1990 Jes Goodwin Thousand Son.
I’ve got ten of them! It’s taken months and months of trawling through eBay, buying one here and one there and now I finally got enough for a complete squad without paying more than a couple of quid each. They’ve stripped back beautifully too. In fact, I have one too many (the last auction I won was for a group of four) so I can test a second scheme out before deciding how the squad’ll be done.
As I’ve just started reading A Thousand Sons, I thought I’d try implementing the colour scheme on the excellent Neil Roberts cover artwork.
As you can see, Neil’s interpretation of the Heresy-era Thousand Sons features quite understated headpieces, leaving plenty of scope for them to get corrupted by the time the Battle of Terra comes.
This is an awesome model. The early 1980s Chaos Renegades were sculpted by the Michael and Alan Perry and Kev Adams. This was at a time when Chaos had a yet undeveloped visual identity, and so most models were unique mindfracks with crazy bespoke armour. They involved a lot of cross-over from the design of the 1980s Chaos Warrior, with elements or H. R. Giger thrown in. Though the sculpting quality was a tad primitive, they were full of a vibrant creativity. Here are two. (Hell, I’ve been whining about doing red without it looking Khornate too long now so I just went and painted a World Eater.)
Then, in 1990 a young Jes Goodwin came along and produced a renegade model for each major Chaos God. At about the same time Jes was working on the then-new mk7 Space Marine armour (which endures through to this day), and he took a lot of the design elements through into these Renegades. So much so they’d not look out of place in modern 40K armies, despite being 20 years old.
Interestingly, this is the first type the Egyptian motif appears for Tzeentch. Prior to this, Thousand Sons were just gribbly fungus bird marines.
And finally, I’m not sure if I’m cheating the terms of Project Change here (i.e. no conversions), but rather than model the first of the Marines with the Chaos Renegade backpack, I chose the mk7 Imperial backpack. Neil Robert’s illustration doesn’t feature the debased stabilser jets of Chaos backpacks (which I’ve written about at length here). Ah well, I’ve got another nine to paint with the correct backpacks.
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I’ve been struggling to work out how to use Weathering Powders lately. I want to learn how to use them to push forward my painting ability, so I thought the best way was to get in and experiment. And rather than paint something fresh and then weather it, I found an old squad of Rogue Trader Space Marines in my cabinet to dabble with.
Each of these guys represents a different approach. Dabbing dried powder into the recesses, making a thick paste to cover boots, blending different powders to get multi-hued dirt – but by far the best approach I found was watering the powder down into a thin wash and letting it dry. It doesn’t overpower the paintjob, and when it dries it dries opaque in the recesses, making it look entirely different from an ink wash or dip.
Interestingly, you can use this washing approach with colours lighter than those the models are painted in.
Here’s a comparison shot of a weathered Marine with an unweathered one.
These are done with the Forge World set weathering set. Their three-page quick guide is absolutely no use whatsoever. Unless of course, you find big blank spaces highly educational.
Anyone got any tips on how they do their weathering? I’m eager to learn.
Periodically I get rid of old armies wholesale. People get very attached to armies, and vow never to sell them, but I’ve found there comes a time where years of gaming takes it toll and the army needs either a complete overhaul or selling.
So, back in 2002 I found I was amassing a growing collection of Rogue Trader era Orks. Here are some pictures from back in the day I took for CoolMiniOrNot.
So, I was painting all these old old Orks, and wanting to get them onto the tabletop. But how? Using the then-current Ork Codex obviously. But all my Orks had Boltguns, and with a Ballistic Skill of 2 and Shootas being a Rapid Fire weapon under the 3rd edition rules Ork Shoota boys weren’t a viable infantry choice. And what to do with my Madboyz and Weirdboyz?
Well, I found a solution. The army was fielded under the White Dwarf Feral Ork list where Orks had BS3. Shoota Boyz were now much more viable. The army was taken to the WPS Club Challenge back in 2002 and did, well, averagely. But it felt great to take them to the battlefield in all their lurid-coloured glory. Waaaagh Robobeard shook the world.
Fast forward six years and my 1,500 point Ork/Genestealer Hybridz army is looking at going to some 2,000 point tournaments. But where to get those extra 500 points? I dug out my Rogue Trader Orks and bolted them on the end. I justified it to myself background-wise by saying Kaptin Robobeard was now a Freebooter who Genestealer Patriarch Xerxes had hired to bolster his forces. Old and new Orks fought alongside each other as one. They were no longer Feral Orks as the new Ork Codex was out (making the White Dwarf list obsolete), and Shootas changed to Assault 2 weapons. Huzzah.
Here they are fighting against Jonathan Last’s Deathwing. This was very apt and cinematic as at some point Robobeard had swapped the dead Squat on his base for a dead Dark Angel (made using one of the Limited Edition Christmas Marines).
Here they are in lines, striking fear into their foes with their warpaint. (Hey, I got bored doing all that green flesh. And they were Feral Orks anyhow.)
And here they are fighting Amanda Rutter’s mish-mash Tyranid army. So many different colour schemes on display they make my army look cohesive.
What for them next? Well – France. Some guy in France bought most of them. What he intends, we may never know.
With the help of the Collecting Citadel Miniatures Group (I love how the prevailing mentality matches my own) I’ve discovered that the Rogue Trader Chaos backpacks are not at all jump packs. On top of Ian’s comment on the original post saharduin had this to say:
I’m afraid Ian Wood is correct in his comments at your blog. There was also at least one illustration of marines using regular backpacks as jump packs (Chapter Approved – the Book of the Astronomican) possibly also drawn by Ian Miller (I can’t recall for sure offhand and don’t have the book here to double-check).
There was also, to my immediate recollection, an illustration of squats holding their weapons upside down, and one of a marine holding his heavy weapon back to front. The point is, illustrators sometimes got things wrong.
There’s nothing to suggest that early Chaos backpacks were intended to be jump packs. They’re smaller than jump packs, they don’t look like jump packs, and they were catalogued as backpacks on every occasion. It’s weird that they had what looked like additional extended jets, but it seems to just have been a way to add stuff onto the existing imperial backpack designs to make them look more Chaos-y.
Greg
So I looked through the Book of the Astronomicon and found the illustration.
Nerd crisis over.
I’m having a little nerd crisis at the moment over Chaos Marine backpacks, brought about by Lost and the Damned, and the oldskool models I love to surround myself with.
Let’s start in the current day.
Current Imperial backpacks:
Current Chaos backpacks:
The main difference is the stabiliser jets at the top are on stalks on the Chaos ones. This is one of the main design features of Chaos models that give them a distinct visual identity.
Now, let’s travel back to the 1990s, Citadel’s Silver Age.
1990s Imperial backpacks:
1990s Chaos backpacks:
Again, the Chaos ones are characterised by the stabilser jets protuding from the backpack’s body. It’s nice seeing this design detail has endured through the ages.
But let’s go further back, into the 1980s when this all began.
1980s Imperial backpacks:
1980s Chaos backpacks:
Ahh! Again, we have the stalked stabiliser jets. An original design quirk going back to 40k’s fledling days.
But no! No! Look closer! The stabiliser jets are the things beneath the stalks.
So, what’s going on? What are the stalks if they’re not stabiliser jets? The mystery deepens with this picture from Lost and the Damned. (Fans of Squats please look away now.)
They’re flying?! Is this illustration intended to illustrate some of the options on the Special Equipment Charts? Perhaps the Equipment and Bionics chart?
Woah! Jump Packs upgraded to flight packs?! What’s the difference? Well, look it up in Rogue Trader and you get:
Flight pack. A flight pack is worn on the back. It can be either controlled by a manual control (which requires a free hand) or b direct mind-impulse link. The pack enables the wearer to fly, using a small thrust jet combined with suspensors.
Jump pack. A jump pack permits its wearer to make a long, powerful jump instead of a normal move. Unlike a flight pack, a model using a jump pack does not remain airborne, but takes off, jumps and lands as part of its movement.
Okay, so there were Jump Packs and Flight Packs. So, who had what? Well, most Chaos Marine Squads in the army lists had access to them.
Which leads me to the conclusion that back in the 1980s the Renegade Marine models were equipped with Jump Packs as standard, while their Imperial counterparts had standard backpacks.
Weird really, as page 72 of 2nd edition’s Chaos Codex says: Though both jump packs and skimmers were available to the Space Marine Legions in limited quantities prior to the Heresy they were proportionally far rarer than in the later Imperial Space Marine Chapters. The complex fabrication and maintenance rituals required for jump packs and skimmers has eliminated their use by the Traitor Legions since their banishment to the Eye of Terror.
Weird how things change, no?
