Rogue Trader Anniversary Figure - Finally Painted!

Rogue Trader 25th Anniversary figure...painted two years later (ahem)

As I mentioned with this recent submission to Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, time sure flies!. The 25th Anniversary of "Warhammer 40,000 - Rogue Trader" seems relatively recent to me, but it was actually in 2012, just about two years ago.  In keeping with GW's sure-fire tin ear and clueless lack of self-awareness, the company celebrated this significant anniversary with a special White Dwarf featuring Gandalf on the cover. But they also released a special figure to commemorate the occasion - a figure inspired by the Crimson First leading a doomed last stand from the cover of the rulebook.  These were limited edition models issued at the time and I picked a couple up because I am a shameless fanboy, and I love Rogue Trader.

Will always love this cover!

He's pretty close to that dude in the middle...

This has been sitting primed since February 2012…thank goodness for Curt's painting challenges that encourage to get these kind of projects finished!  For whatever reason I have been on a Rogue Trader kick during this painting challenge, and this figure was the latest.

The scenic base has...you guessed it..skulls! Three of them!

You have the option of mounting it directly on the scenic base beside the standard, or mounting the officer on a smaller base separately.  I went with a separate base for the Commander, leaving the banner to be a piece of scenery, and objective or terrain. 

Why use that plasma pistol, when you can chuck an Ork head at the enemies of the Emperor?

It's a really, really nice figure and a nice souvenir. GW, though, it can't take two steps forward without taking one-and-a-half (or three) back.  The problem in this case? The figure was made of "Finecast" instead of proper metal. Finecast is not new anymore, but this is the first Finecast figure I have worked with. "Finecast" combines the issues of resin with the floppiness of soft plastic - all of the price of gold, a combo only GW could master. I was pretty concerned based on what I was reading about Finecast online, but fortunately I was spared many of the more serious problems (holes, deformed casting etc) this crap medium seems to present to many other gamers.  

The banner literally flopped around while painting it, but you can't fault the detail

Although I was lucky, I can see why people think Finecast sucks.  The detail on the figure is really something, but the banner in particular was tricky to paint as Finecast has all of the tensile strength of a wet noodle - even my 8/0 brush caused it to bend! The experience did not pump me up to seek out other Finecast figures, although GW seems to be out of the metal business so more and more of its products are cast in this medium. Let's hope the rumours I have seen online are true, and that Finecast is truly toast.  Resin figures are bad enough - Finecast can just rot.

Bring on the Red Star Orks!

Anyway, for all that nerd rage, the figure was still fun to paint and I'm glad to have it done.  The sculpt is very loyal to the inspiration of the image on the Rogue Trader book cover, right down to the ominous Ork head being waved around in his right hand. As I continue to build up my little collection of Crimson Fist troops this fellow will fit right in.  Dallas and I have been pondering a Rogue Trader game for a while, so who knows? This guy could get capped very soon on the table.  Would be fitting if he went down in style, as the fellows on the old Rogue Trader cover do.

A Few More "Beakies"

Reinforcements for Pedro Cantor

Well, work has been very, very busy lately, so I have hardly accomplished any painting, and thus, a lot less blogging.  But I actually have managed to paint some stuff recently - small number of reinforcments for my Rogue Trader Crimson Fist marines. This crew mostly consists of special/heavy weapon troopers, but there are few more good-old-RTB-01-bog-standard fellows to join the ranks.

The RTB-01 Flame-Trooper

Some of the free-hand symbols turned out better than others...

Since I am out of the fancy shoulder pads, and the decals don't work on the old marine models, I have been  painting the Crimson Fist symbols on the shoulders by free-hand.  The results haven't been too bad - a few have turned out quite nice, while others look more like they are flipping a crimson bird as opposed to clenching a crimson fist.  I was really concerned about this after the first couple of models - but now I'm just "meh" about it.  They seem close enough when they are in a group together.

Three new missile launchers - one for a second tactical squad, and two for the devestator squad

Heavy bolter-equipped troopers - part of the devestator squad

I am still looking to boost the original 15-man complement to a 30-man detachment - two tactical squads and one devestator squad.  I only have about five marines left to paint, and I'll be at that goal, and on to some other crazy project.

Thrugg 2.0

I'm sure everyone remembers that lovable fellow, Thrugg Bullneck, chief criminalist in his band of Space Ork Raiders? Unfortunately Thrugg didn't fare so well in the initial game in our 25th Anniversary Rogue Trader campaign, the Battle at the Farm, ending up a casualty at the hands of Captain Cantor's Crimson Fist Marines.

Fortunately, Rogue Trader being what it is, Thrugg was merely seriously injured in the skirmish. Of course, with enough Teef, any self-respecting Ork warlord can consult a Doc and get himself cybork-ized. So while some of Snagrod's other forces were fighting Space Marines and Guardsmen on the outskirts of New Rynn City, Thrugg was "otherwise occupied" being augmented with a chainsaw arm and 'ard 'ead (among other, erm, "enhancements").

I obtained this model by a happy accident - it was a throw-in with a bunch of Fantasy orcs I bought in a job lot on eBay. I really couldn't have picked a better model for Thrugg 2.0 - the original Thrugg was a chainsword-wielding maniac as well, so I figured that the Doc would just weld the sword on in place of Thrugg's original arm - whether it had been injured or not! I'm looking forward to seeing Thrugg 2.0 test his "metal" against Pedro and Co. in the next campaign game!

Rogue Trader Marines - Reinforcements

Reinforcements for Pedro Cantor.

Quick post with a couple of reinforcing models for my small collection of Rogue Trader-era Crimson Fists.  Pedro Cantor's detachment of survivors is a small one, but I think in the fluff it says they ultimately encountered some other Marines who had been previously detached to the New Rynn City area before disaster enveloped the Crimson Fist's fortress-monastery.  With this, I am hoping to expand the current small troop of 15 marines to about 30 (three squads) with perhaps a dreadnought and one or two vehicles.

Two different styles of old-school Marine back packs.

The all-metal beakie marines are great figures, but I boxed myself into a bit of a corner with my initial project by using fancy metal shoulder pads.  I can't keep that up - not only because the metal bits are bit expensive, but because the metal figures are not very easy to convert to use with the current generation of shoulder pads.  That meant trying to paint the Crimson First logo on the shoulder pads free-hand....I suck at free-hand logos, but I thought I would give it a try on these two models.

This classic figure sure makes the bolt gun look heavy...

One marine is carrying a basic bolt gun, and the other fellow is carrying a heavy bolter.  The marine carrying the heavy bolter is an old-time favourite of mine - it was fun to work on this model.  The defenders of New Rynn City will have a bit more firepower.


Inspirational photo of Heavy Bolter Marine from the GW Compendium.

Of all the various heavy bolter models in GW's time, this is my favourite - makes the weapon look more like a SAW-style support weapon.

Finally, a big thank you to the blog readers and followers - thanks to your helpful tips and links, I was able to puzzle out how to assemble the Army Land Speeder. 

This looks pretty close...

Now I just need to figure out how to mount it...it's pretty heavy.  I think magnets may be called for - I suck with those, so we'll see how this goes...

Rogue Trader Tarantula Gun and Servitor

"Welcome to our checkpoint!"

A couple of small Rogue Trader projects finished.  Up first is a Tarantula weapon system, with crewman.  The Tarantula mounted pairs of heavy weapons - usually lascannons, but could be all sorts of different weapon systems.  This was before you got screwed by things like "twin-linked", so it actually counted as two lascannon shots.

Back in the Rogue Trader time, you could mount a large variety of weapons - from grenade launchers and heavy bolters to multi-meltas.  You could even mount pairs of conversion beamers on to the system.  Can you imagine how long it would take to resolve the volleys of beamer shots as they ate up terrain as well as troops, and figuring out where each beam finally petered out?

This will come in handy for the Imperial Guard garrison in New Rynn City as they await the next move of Trhugg Bullneck and the Orks in our mini-campaign.

Surely a Black and Decker wrench?

The Servitor is quite a bit larger than a regular RT-era human trooper.

I also added a servitor model (or at least what I believe to be a servitor model).  Servitors accompany the Imperial Guard vehicles and heavy equipment on the table, and can fix vehicles and damaged weapons.  My impression of the Servitor models from the Rogue Trader era was of a small figure, but as you can see the model is pretty hefty - larger than the Imperial Army gun crewman.  I guess they toughened them up before converting them to walking mechanical garages...at least he looks strong enough to fix a Predator with that wrench.

Penance for the Emperor...

So what's next? How about a squad of Penal Battalion troopers?  Remember the, er, "motivational collars"?

Sadly the castings have a mono-pose look (after all, I think they only ever did one real variant of this type of figure) but they will make for an interesting addition to my Imperial Guard collection.  These are up next on the painting line.

WTF is this??? Not sure what to do next...

Finally, I was excited to acquire an old Imperial Army Land Speeder from E-bay. Only problem is....how the ###k does this thing go together?????  Will be a while before I figure this one out...I may try and convert one of the current plastic ones to a Guard crew instead...

So that's all for now - watch for some more finished work pictures soon.

"Eggs On Legs" - RT-Era Sentinels from GW

"So, which low bidder submitted this design to the Imperium?"

Our Rynn's World mini-campaign to mark the the 25th anniversary of Rogue Trader has been a good prod to add some more Rogue Trader-era elements to my Imperial Guard force.  Last week I finished an Imperial Guard Assault Squad - and just in time for last week's game I also added a couple of Imperial Guard Sentinels.



The graphics from the stat-sheet make the Sentinel look tough!

 I cannot precisely remember the year these things were released, but I remember I was pretty jazzed to have some mobile, walking firepower for my plastic Guardsmen. Then I got one of the models - it was certainly and adventure to put together! Each leg is four different parts, all designed so you can articulate them any way you like.  The trouble is that they are so slight, and the body of the vehicle so heavy, that you are severely tempting fate to attempt anything more than a slight forward step (unless you are prepared to devote significant time whittling away at pinning etc.).

Roomy cabin for the pilot - NOT.

Laspistol hangs on the outside for backup shooting purposes.

The adventure continued this time - it was touch and go to get these things built in any sort of fashion that would allow them to hold up on the game table. The easily available large round plastic bases give these models a much better platform to work with (the large square bases with the original models were not actually that large).

The model has ladder rungs on the back, to maintain the illusion that the pilot could actually leave the cockpit voluntarily.

As with nearly all of the early GW models, the lack of skulls on everything is refreshing.

The multi-laser was a pretty good weapon back in the Rogue Trader era, with high strength (6), a negative on the save modifier (-1), a long range (60 inches!) and the ability for "following fire".  And of course the pilot had a trusty laspistol for backup.  As the Orc players discovered last week, the laspistol was actually a decent weapon back in "the day" as well ("what do you mean minus one save modifier - are you sure?!?").

The fact that the pilot needs to hang something like that on the outside of the hull says something about how crammed that thing is - in fact, short of assembling the thing around the pilot, I don't know how they actually sat in those things!

Sentinels ready to move out against the Ork boyz.

The Sentinel has gone through a couple of rounds of changes since this original model was released.  Today's plastic Sentinel is a very fine kit, and I quite like the look of it.  But it was fun to put a couple of these old things together for Rogue Trader, and see them out on the table last week (extra bonus that they models survived the game without breaking...way to go super-glue!).

Up next on the nostalgia train is a Tarantula gun unit, and an Imperial Army Landspeeder! Stay tuned for pics as those projects move along...

Meanwhile, there will be a brief pause in our Rynn's World Campaign owing to the travel plans of key Fawcett Avenue members - but not for long.  Watch for hostilities resume later this spring! Someone on TMP mentioned a Battle At The Farm follow-up scenario of some sort from WD 94 (or 96?) - if anyone has any specific info on that, we would love to hear from you! In the meantime, we are plotting the next encounter on Rynn's World, and adding new models.  I'm hoping Thrugg - thought lost during our Battle At The Farm - may have in fact made it back for some, er, "medikal treatment" from a Mad Doc...

Battle for Rynn's World - Game 2 Battle Report

Rynn's World Planetary Defence Force Company 6 

On Thursday evening we played the second game in our "Battle for Rynn's World" mini-campaign commemorating the 25th anniversary of the publication of Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader. In the first game, the "Battle at the Farm", Thrugg Bullneck's Space Ork Raiders were repulsed by Captain Pedro Cantor's Crimson Fist Space Marines. The victory was not without cost, however - among the Space Marine casualties was Captain Cantor himself!

The second episode of the campaign involves a seriously wounded Captain Cantor and some surviving Marines attempting a link-up with local militia and elements of an Imperial Guard force, on the outskirts of New Rynn City.

Cantor's surviving Space Marines and Imperial Guard Assault Squad

Space Ork force

Cantor and his Marines move on to the table from the south edge, their objective being for Cantor to leave the table from the north edge by the end of turn 8. Some Orks start on-table, as well as the militia squad; the rest of the forces arrive in escalating fashion.

Orks deployed in the cover of some craters

Keeping a careful watch for Cantor...

PDF militia deployed in the outskirts of the city

Cantor and his men move on-table...

As Cantor and his men moved onto the table, the IG Assault Squad arrived from reserve to challenge the Orks, already whittled down a bit from shooting by the militia.

Very impressive Assault Squad - note plasma guns!

IG Sentinels - the infamous "eggs on legs" - also arrived from the northern table edge...

...accompanied by a massive Predator tank!

The Guardsmen boldly deployed surrounding the Ork-held crater, peppering its occupants with surprising deadly laspistol fire...

Ork Super-Attack Onslaughter Dreadnoughts arrived from reserve, one deploying from the middle of the eastern table edge, the other at the northern part of it to challenge the Marines.

Predator and militia moved out to meet Cantor and friends, who had made it about halfway across the table before being shot up by the Orks. As they sheltered, hidden, in a wood, the Assault Squad moved towards their position...

"Waaaagh"

...only to be confronted by the Dreadnought and some surviving Boyz who caused a few casualties.

The second Ork Dreadnought roasted the remnants of the Marine squad to the south

Mention must be made of IG Lieutenant "Mad Phil" McMadd, who single-handedly killed or routed the entire Ork command squad. First he charged the Ork carrying a flamer - Ork missed, was killed with a chainsword. rest of the squad failed morale and fled. Then he charged the Ork with the missile launcher - was hit with a krak missile but his copy of the "Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer" he kept in his breast pocket evidently deflected the missile - no wound. Command squad fled again... and kept running... put that man in for a promotion!

Meantime the Ork Dread scuffled in the woods with the Eggs.

Cantor running as fast as his tri-bladder can carry him... but time is running out...

"Die, ork scum!!!"

The sweet smell of barbecuing Grot...

End of the line for Pedro - "missed it by that much"... The Pedro-philes in the crowd are disappointed by the Captain missing his escape by mere millimeters... I think we would have called the game an Ork win...

"OK, so boxcars on a Ld check is good, right?"

...save for the horrifying incompetence of the Ork commander, [name redacted]. After seeing the rest of his squad carved up by a chainsword-wielding maniac, he decided that wild-eyed panic was the better part of valour and fled, never to be heard from again.

Another great game of RT from the mind of Conscript Greg B.! Thanks to Greg for running the charts and bringing out his stunning marines and Guard, and to Conscripts Mike A., Mike F., Kevin, Dave V., and Brian for coming out! We'll pick up the thread again in a couple of weeks... after Thrugg Bullneck's visit to the local Bad Doc for some cybernetic augmentation...?