Back at the turn of the millennium, there was a hyper-rare Space Marine that was only available in England if you spent £500 in a Games Workshop during the Skulz programme. On a pocket money budget, it took the co-ordinated efforts of all my friends to get one. And over two decades later, here he is painted.

He’s a stellar miniature that was really ahead of his time for a number of reasons. First, he came with a solid metal base (40mm no less, when nothing larger than 25mm for infantry had ever been seen) depicting a fallen Chaos standard – at a time when scenic bases were incredibly rare. Second, he clutches a standard of Ultramar – a sculpted banner at a time when banners were paper affairs you photocopied from White Dwarf or came supplied as self-adhesive labels. Third, he was sculpted by Shane Hoyle, one of my favourite sculptors – and notable as he’s one of the first Imperial Space Marines since 1990 not sculpted by Jes Goodwin.

I wondered back in 1999 if he was Ancient Helveticus – the Ultramarines special character. But Helveticus’ defining feature is the Banner of Macragge, and this sculpted banner didn’t match the design from White Dwarf 195. Plus his wargear didn’t match the 2nd edition Warhammer 40,000 Ultramarines Codex (or the 3rd edition Chapter Approved incarnation). And critically, as you can just about see in the photo above, his left shoulder has a skull marking inside an Ultramarines’ inverted omega sculpted on – meaning his rank is more likely Sergeant than Chapter Ancient.

On the subject of shoulder marking – his right pad features a sculpted-on Tactical Squad arrow. This is a source of irritation to me, as I’ve copied the white trims of the original ‘Eavy Metal paintjob. If you’re strict about the Codex Astartes – and Ultramarines are strict – the only two Companies identified with white shoulder pad trims are First and Tenth, and neither has any Tactical Squads. I will conceptualise my version not as a Chapter Ancient (or Company Ancient for that matter), but as a Third Company Sergeant with non-standard trim markings denoting Veteran status (and will back this up by pointing to the Crux Terminatus on his left calf as further proof of Veteran-ness), holding a sacred Ultramarines standard (but not a Company or Chapter banner).

HIs release through the tertiary channel of exclusive Skulz retail incentives makes him one of the rarest Ultramarines miniatures, except for perhaps the 2004 Black Library Uriel Ventris diorama. So here he is alongside my other limited editions, marching for Macragge.

Ninjabread out!

This March I am proud to present an Ultramarines combat squad deliberately contrived to conjure up a very particular point in time – November 1990. It’s March for Macragge.

Tactical Squad Rhenus. Their presence remakes the past.

In November 1990 Space Marine design saw a step change with the release of the RTB15 Strike Force boxed set. The new age of Warhammer 40,000 was ushered in with these brand new metal-plastic hybrid Marines.

It was the transition point from mk6 power armour to mk7 power armour. It was the transition from one-piece metal castings to metal torsos with plastic arms and accessories. It was the transition from Bob Naismith, Aly Morrison and Mark Copplestone designing Space Marines to Jes Goodwin.

There are two versions of each of the Strike Force torsos – the earlier verion had rounded shoulders which made them backwards compatible with the RTB01 plastic arms, and the later version had the shoulders flattened off to fit with the 1991 redesigned arm sprue. The 1990 arm sprue from the Strike Force box was curiously discontinued – if you know why, please enlighten me in the comments.

The 1990s would go on to see the mk7 range fully rounded out with more torso designs, special and heavy weapons, jump packs, and all new accessory sprues. But in November 1990 if you wanted any of that for your mk7 marines you had to use the old mk6 pieces – which is what I’ve done on this squad. The Sergeant’s powerfist and weeny bolt pistol, the rocket launcher, various ammo packs and binox are all pilfered from the RTB01 kit.

The RTB01 rocket launcher (below left) requires a bit of fiddly modelling to get it to work on a Strike Force torso – the arm toting it is a combination of the original RTB01 arm with a Strike Force shoulder pad, and some putty for the wrist armour.

The Ultramarines project means I’m painting three blue Space Marine armies concurrently. I’d be nice to have the three projects more visually distinct, but I’ve got strong emotional reasons for each scheme individually so I will just have to live with a big jumble of blue in the display cabinet. It’s like that Eiffel 65 song. Da Ba Dee. Da Ba Daa.

I’m bursting with ideas for other Ultramarines squads, and while I’m not going to collect the entire Chapter there are 99 other squads to explore with 1990s-themed collecting and modelling ideas.

This squad makes me feel as nostalgically 1990s my other hobby – standing outside derelict Global Video stores.

I’m putting together a full tutorial for Ultramarines power armour which will publish soon. If you head over to the Patreon, there’s already a wealth of tutorials for how to paint Blood Angels, Crimson Fists, Nemesis Chapter, an Apothecary, Deathwatch, gold power armour and battered yellow armour, as well as lots of skin recipes and special freehand walkthroughs.

Coming soon, more blue Space Marines. Ninjabread out!

I painted my first Primaris Space Marine!  He’s Nemesis Chapter – an Ultramarines successor chapter with origins in the dark days of the Horus Heresy.

Sergeant Glaucon, 2nd Battle Company, 3rd Squad, Nemesis Chapter.  His banner reads ΝΕΜΕΣΙΣ – “nemesis” in Greek capitals.

This Intercessor Sergeant, from Games Workshop’s Dark Imperium starter set, is largely indistinguishable from the squad he leads.  Traditionally, Space Marine sergeants have a different weapon configuration (something Napoleonic like pistol and swords), bare heads and big banners to mark them out.  I originally finished painting the mini, but was uneasy with how he looked alongside the rest of the squad.  Only thing to distinguish him was the helmet being red.

The eagle-eyed amongst you will also spot the checks added to his right pauldron since this photo was taken.

So I added a dirty great banner.  This one is from the Space Marine Ironclad Dreadnought, which matches the swollen proportions of the 2017 Space Marine iteration.  Here’s Glaucon next to some classic Space Marines with flags to show the scale creep over the last 30 years.

Left to right: 1987 Blood Angel; 2013 Ultramarine; 2017 Nemesis Marine.

Yeah yeah, I know you’re gonna say “Marines got swole cos of Guilliman’s super-seed”, but I reject your fluff-led view of Games Workshop’s miniatures and state flatly that Primaris is the new de facto Space Marine and is directly comparable to the other two Marines above.  Nurrr.

Glaucon leading his little brothers from Ultramarines Squad Varenus.

The Dark Imperium box is overwhelming with the amount of Marines in it, and I’m going to trick myself into thinking it’s one of the smaller starter sets so I’m making better progress through the purchased model pile.  Next off – the rest of the Intercessor squad!

The day school broke up for Christmas when I was thirteen was also the day I got my teenage nerd-mitts on two legends of the Warhammer 40,000 mythos – Marneus Calgar and Leman Russ.  As an adult, both vignette pieces still give me such an intense festive tingle that I want to repaint them and have them in my cabinet.  First up, Imperial Commander Marneus Calgar.

Marneus’ components stripped and based up individually for ease of painting.

There are two sources for colour schemes – the first is the original studio paintjob, now in the collection of Bryan Ansell.  It stood out from the rest of the 40K range at the time because the figure was not in a battlefield setting – Marneus is sat on a throne with the Ultramarines motto “Our presence remakes the past”, ceremonial cloak and honour guard behind him.  (Not that that stopped teenage Curis using him in a battlefield setting – there were lots of games with increasingly desperate conceits why the Ultramarines had brought furniture to war.)

Thanks to Steve Casey for permission to use his photo.

The second source is the Dave Gallagher painting used as a frontispiece in the 1988 Warhammer 40,000 Compendium.  Sadly Dave’s choice of black-and-white floor tiles make it look like Marneus is on the toilet, which is further reinforced by the sheet of toilet paper he’s holding.

“Lord Macragge?  More like Lord Macrapping!”

Tantalisingly White Dwarf announced Marneus “…is the first in a planned series of specially sculpted vignette releases for WARHAMMER 40,000…”.  Tantalising as there could have been dozens of these figures to collect and love.  The second and final was Leman Russ.  I reckon there was also a Imperial Commander Nisk Ranthawll being dressed in experimental armour planned.  That’s an idea for a future modelling project.

So, anyway, drawing on both I blocked out the base colours.  I went for quite a tight rendition of the Dave Gallagher piece, with blue chest cabling and Mordian Blue plate.  I started with the bolter and the cloak so I could reward myself at the end with the actual character model.  I added a Mk 6 plastic backpack as, although the studio example doesn’t have one, there is an attachment nub.

Calgar’s base took a little thought.  I made a set of stone flags, using the tops of 25mm square bases (who needs them now we’ve got Age of Sigmar). Then the first thing I tried was painting them cold grey stone.

It didn’t work. The blue armour blends in with the grey base.  Then, I remembered the Forge World Roboute Guilliman and his polished marble base.  It screamed quasi-classical.  How very Ultramarine.  I got the marble recipe from a helpful peep at the Forge World store.

I hammed up the veins more than I would if I were painting the modern Roboute – it felt more in keeping with the pudginess of the 1980s sculpt.  Everything about the older models is a bit more cartoony than their 21st century descendents.

Additionally, he made it into the 30th Anniversary of Space Marines issue of White Dwarf! Sadly I wasn’t credited with the paintjob, but I’m happy with readers assuming it’s a ‘Eavy Metal paintjob like the other two Marneuses/Marneuī on the page.

Now, let’s see if I can give Leman Russ the same treatment this Christmas.