Rogue Trader Lizardmen!

Recently I've been thinking about these guys:

The Ancient Slann!

Yes, the Slann! I love unusual Rogue Trader aliens, and these are possibly some of the most unusual. There are not only no modern models for them, but (after extensive googling) no real alternatives from any other manufacturer either. The old RT minis are difficult and expensive to get hold of and, if I'm honest, they're rather ropey looking figures anyway:

Ropey Slann models

As such, I starting thinking about what I could do as some sort of alternative. Then I realised I had a part built Lizardman Saurus regiment on the shelf, and the creative juices started bubbling! Then, I got even luckier and found an unopened box of saurus warriors in the cupboard! Even better! These were the leftovers from my aborted lizardman warhammer army that never really got started.

So, after about two weeks of cutting, chopping, shaving, test fitting, gluing and green stuffing, I have these:

Lizardmen with plasma gun, random basic weapon and some sort of exotic sniper weapon system.

The plasma gun is an old Ork variant, the battle rifle is a 'pulse rifle' from Hasslefree Miniatures, and the big gun is a Necron 'Synaptic Disruptor' normally used by the Deathmarks (that one needed a LOT of modification and test-fitting!). Since lizardmen are basically naked, and because I wanted to think of these guys as a much more sophisticated space faring race, like the Slann are (rather than savage beasts, like Saurus usually are) I also decided to green stuff on a sort of harness onto each of them. This they could use to attach their shoulder armour, combat knives and various other items of equipment.

Because the saurus kit doesn't contain any open hands, I also had to cut the closed fingers off the left fist, drill and glue in some wire 'fingerbones' and green stuff some new fingers to the hand, so they could hold their guns properly. This was one of the most difficult things to do, as greenstuff doesn't stick to tiny bits of wire very well!

Since I took this photo, I've made two more of these, another one with a battle rifle and a leader model with a pistol and close combat weapon. Now, to the painting!

Silver Skulls!

Since painting the retro Blood Angels space marines, I wanted to make the single Silver Skull marine I'd painted into a full squad. I've now got five of them done, including a sergeant and a special weapon.

Silver Skull space marine squad.

Sergeant with bolt pistol and power axe.

Special weapon marine with plasma gun.

Marines with bolters.

Although I'm pleased with how they turned out, the photos make the paintwork (especially the drybrushing) on them look a bit grainy. They do look much better in reality!

While the beaky marines never cease to be fun to build and paint, I think I'll have to take a break from them for a while, and perhaps concentrate on building them some more enemies to fight! I've still got a box of Mantic Marauders that I want to finish converting into some more Space Ork raiders.

80s Combat Cards!

Inspired by Orlygg's recent article about Citadel Combat Cards, I decided to add my own thoughts about these great little GW products. For a long time I only owned the Chaos, Goblinoids and Dwarfs decks, but this year I decided to acquire the rest. So after some months of Evilbay scouring, I managed to buy the Warriors, Monsters and Space War decks for reasonable to moderate prices.

My original three decks at the top, with my recent acquisitions below.

I've spent many long moments looking over the beautiful images on these cards, and since I started buying some of the old school miniatures, I've also painted some to match the ones on the cards. I know some people might wonder, what's the point of copying them? Why not just paint them your own way? Well personally, I really like the way most of these models have been painted, and it's just my homage to these legendary miniatures. But also, while my painting standard is reasonably good, I quite often struggle to think up colour schemes for some models. So rather than just leaving a model on the painting desk for months (or years!) I just paint my own version of the scheme that's already been created. Two of these are shown below:

Jakun of the Claw

Ulrich Elfeater

But there is one other thing I'd like to cover while on the topic of Combat Cards. I also have a pack of some later cards released, I think, in about 1999...

I think they made decks for several races, but I only picked up the Chaos Warriors set. Incidentally, I never had to buy these, I got them for free! Many years ago, my local GW was having a clear-out and they had a whole box of these decks that they were giving away. Obviously they hadn't really sold many, and from the look of the actual cards, it's not hard to see why:

Unlike the unique models and multiple stats on the 80s cards, these look, well, relatively bland by comparison. The models are just some of the generic chaos models from the period where all creativity and colour was removed, and there's only one stat that doesn't even have a name! The "Top Trumps" rules were abandoned and some rules involving creating "warbands" consisting of several cards of the same border colour were introduced. All in all, much less exciting. I don't think there were any other attempts to make combat cards after these, probably owing to the failure of these ones to sell.

So anyone else got any of these later cards? Were there any other attempts by GW to make combat cards that I don't know of? Anyone else managed to complete their sets of 80s cards? Or did you have them all when they were sold in GW shops?

Blood Angels!

Having completed quite a number of models for my retro RT Crimson Fists marines, I've decided to also build a squad of Blood Angels and later, a unit of Silver Skulls as well. So far I've completed five Blood Angels, with a goal of having ten each of the Blood Angels and Silver Skulls.

This is the squad so far:

Sergeant with the traditional bolt pistol and chainsword:

Brother marine with Bolter and chainblade attachment:

Brother marine with Bolter and combat attachment:

Finally, two more marines with Bolters:

I've got four Silver Skulls currently in the works, and then I can think about putting together the rest of the Blood Angel squad, including special and heavy weapons!

Oldhammer Day - Realms of Chaos picture report

Better late than never! Real Life managed to get in the way of doing this earlier, but finally, I'd like to share some of the photos I took of the Realm of Chaos battle that raged during most of saturday. I'm not going to comment on all of them, just the ones where I can remember what was happening!

The warband of Herzog Spinecleaver prepares for battle!

The battlefield as the warbands line up.

Herzog's warband advances.

Jason's warband meanders across some nice fields!

Gorox the minotaur bravely charged the troll, but sadly it was tougher than expected.

Herzog's beastmen hold out surprisingly well against a pair of ogres.

The troll joins the fight against Herzog and his men.

Charged in the rear by some cowardly Slaaneshi git riding a scary horse, the beastmen leg it! This was effectively the end of my warband, as everyone else was dead and the beastmen were herded off the table by the enemy beastmen. :(

Khorne and Slaanesh troops fight on the left flank.

Khorne forces advance.

I think these Orcs were on the Slannesh side, but not sure.

Warlord Paul of The Black Hole blog moves his troops.

The RoC battle in full swing!

What looks like a huge brawl is in fact Slaaneshi troops who have been entranced and drawn in by the magic axe of the Chaos Dwarf in the middle!

The battle draws to a close, with the Slaaneshi deviants in control of the field. (Boo!)

And that was that! The Khorne side was entirely wiped out by the end (we wuz outnumbered!), but hopefully we might get some revenge next year! Also, note to self; bring fire to kill that f****ng troll!!

Completed Realms of Chaos Warband!

With only two more days to go before the greatest event of old skool gaming, 'Oldhammer: Bring Out Your Lead!', I've finally completed my Realms of Chaos warband for the open participation event.

The final warband roster:

It'll be interesting to see what property his chaos weapon ends up being!

The Beastmen:

Herzog Spinecleaver and his armoured Human fighters:

Gorox, the minotaur:

The entire warband:

Finally, a closeup of the two shields with the face designs that are present in the two units of my warband:

Couldn't be more pleased with them!

Herzog and I are very much looking forward to Oldhammer day!

Realm of Chaos Oldhammer Day Warband

I've been busy putting together a warband for the Realm of Chaos game at this year's very first Oldhammer 'Bring out your Lead!' event at Wargames Foundry in Nottingham.

My warband is a Khorne one, simply because I can't bring myself to fight for Slaanesh!

I've followed Orlygg's "Warband Creation Kit" as closely as I can, but I haven't rolled for anything. Now this might seem like I'm going against everything that Realm of Chaos is about, but my selection of models is limited. Because of this, I'm taking the 'visual' approach to assembling my warband. 'What models do I have?' and 'which of them would make a good looking warband?'

To that end, I've selected this model as my champion:

I got him painted up months ago, in anticipation of this event, before I even knew if I could actually go or not! He is yet to be named, although I think I might use the random name generator in Slaves to Darkness to come up with some inspiration. :)
Being a champion of Khorne, he has the chaos armour reward and is armed with a halberd. He has no steed, so his halberd will also be a chaos weapon. Because he will be a level 10 human hero, he gets three "rolls" on the retinue table. Since I don't have models of everything on that table (especially painted ones!) this is what he'll be getting!

His first group of followers, a mob of eight Beastmen of Khorne:

Had a lot of beastmen cluttering up the place so I saw those as ideal minions for my champion. As per the retinue table in Slaves to Darkness, they have light armour, shields (when I get them finished!) and hand weapons.

Next is his second group of minions, six humans:

My champion is stood there in the middle of them (and two are at the back), because I intend for him to lead this unit. They are probably be his underlings from his past life, whatever that might have been, so it seems right that he should lead them into battle.
Even though they're actually chaos warrior models (which might alarm some players on the day! As actual chaos warriors in Oldhammer are double hard bastards! Each one in effect a champion themselves.) these are basic humans, but the retinue table allows them to be equipped with heavy armour, shields and hand weapons, so that's what they are. I had a lot of chaos warrior models, but very few thugs!

Finally, we have his monstrous beast, a single minotaur, which follows the warband around:

Armed with a double-handed weapon (none of this 'great weapon' nonsense in Oldhammer!), I'm hoping he'll do some damage against those soft-bodied Slaaneshi deviants! And with any luck, not get shot or blasted by some cowardly archers or wizards!

I was thinking of calling him Gorox. Obviously the paintwork isn't quite finished yet, but I couldn't wait to get started on painting him, so he's part done for now.

I've also started on some shields, following Orlygg's superb 'retro shield painting guide'! I've never attempted anything like these before, but they seem to be turning out ok.

Just got teeth and eyes to add. I don't think I'll have time to paint all 14 shields I need like this in time for the event! So most of the models might just have somewhat more basic shield designs!

I'll post again once I've developed a bit of backstory to my warband, and hopefully got a bit further with the painting.

Rogue Trader: Random Eldar Mercenary Squad!

While reading through my copy of Rogue Trader, I happened to rediscover the random unit generation rules for squads of various troops. Despite owning the book for nearly twenty years, I'd never once used these systems for generating any units! So I gave it a go.

I'm not going to copy and paste the various charts from the book, so if you want to follow along, it's time to break out your own copy of RT or find a pdf of it online! One other thing to point out, RT random generation uses many different types of dice rolls, depending on what chart or table you're rolling on. Many of these are percentage chance of something, or otherwise a D100 roll on a chart. Where this is the case, I've included the numbers I rolled (in brackets) next to the items I generated. I've also tried to explain briefly what else I might not have got, but this is where following along with your own copy of RT helps.

Anyway, I chose a unit of Eldar Mercenaries to generate (RT: pg 183!), and this is what I got:

Eldar Mercenary Squad - 5 Warriors

Firstly, whether they are pirates or mercs, Eldar warriors get a number of special weapon warriors, a D6 roll for either 0, 1 or 2 special weapons. I rolled a 5, which meant my squad gets 1 special weapon.

Basic weapons:
All weapons are generated randomly. It says you can assume all other troops are armed identically if you want, but I decided to generate weapons separately for each, mainly to see what they might get!
All have knives automatically, and there's a 50% chance of a laspistol too. I managed to get laspistols for all. After knives and laspistols, they all get one basic weapon as well, a selection of autoguns, bolt guns (yes, Eldar can get boltguns!), lasguns or shuriken catapults. The greatest chance is of a shuriken catapult though (60% likelihood).

Trooper 1; laspistol(57), shuriken catapult(59)
Trooper 2; laspistol(90), lasgun(36)
Trooper 3; laspistol(71), shuriken catapult(66)
Trooper 4; laspistol(66), +special weapon

The leader gets the same chances of weapons as his troops, plus some other
bonus stuff:
Leader; laspistol(91), Autogun(9)
I managed to roll up an autogun for him! Oh well, at least they have a 32"
range in RT! Leaders also have a special table full of pistols and close
combat weapons, of which Merc leaders get one extra pistol and one close
combat weapon.
Leader additional gear: Bolt pistol(28), Power sword(77). Not bad!

The squad also gets a chance of carrying a random grenade type (25% chance),
but mine didn't get anything.
Grenades (25% chance), rolled a 37 (no grenades).

You also have to determine whether the special weapon trooper will be carrying a heavy or special weapon, and what that weapon will be. It's a D6 roll, with a 50/50 split between the two; he ends up with a special weapon. The special weapon table has five weapons on it; flamer, graviton, melta, needler and plasma guns.
I get a... plasma gun(78).

Armour:
This is a roll for the whole squad, it could be flak, mesh, carapace or even
power armour. The greatest chance though is of mesh (60%):
Mesh(48)
Then there's a 90% chance of Refractor fields, which unsurprisingly, I got:
Refractor Fields(19)

Additional Equipment:
This is a short list of random extra equipment that the squad might get. There's a separate chance of each item, so you could get everything or nothing:
Bio-scanner x1, 90% chance (11) - yes
Cameleoline 20% chance (65) - no
Energy-scanner 90% chance (93) - no
Flight pack 10% chance (5) - yes!
Power board (pirate squads only) - no
Rad Counter x1 75% chance (42) - yes
Targeters (only with heavy weapon) - no
Teleport homer- '1 per squad if teleported down'. I think this is one of those instances where the squad only gets it if the mission narrative calls for it.

Finally, the squad can have a transport if you want. This could be a hoverer, a road-wheeler, tracked or a walker. The greatest chance of course, being a hoverer (75%).
Transport: Hoverer(51).

So, that's it! Random Eldar Merc squad generated! Here's a summary of the squad as it stands after generation:
Leader; Knife, Power sword, laspistol, bolt pistol, autogun.
Trooper 1; Knife, laspistol, shuriken catapult
Trooper 2; Knife, laspistol, lasgun
Trooper 3; Knife, laspistol, shuriken catapult
Trooper 4; Knife, laspistol, Plasma gun

Squad; Mesh Armour, Refractor Fields.
Squad; Bio-scanner, Flight packs, Rad counter.

Transport; Hoverer

The only real oddities there are the bolt pistol and autogun on the leader. Otherwise it looks like a fairly typical Eldar unit. Although of course, this is Rogue Trader, and there's not really any such thing as 'typical'!

Only thing left to do now, find some retro Eldar models at a sensible price...lol!

Necromunda - 'Tannen's Mad Dogs'

My Necromunda gang has changed somewhat since the beginning of our campaign, and I've painted up some new models, as well as repainted some old ones.
It's come on quite a bit since the first time I posted photos of the gang here.

First up, is 'Mad Dog' Tannen himself and his biggest henchman, 'Bear Strangler' McGee.
Tannen is a new model, as this one better represents his weapons; currently a Bolter and a chainsword.
McGee is also a new model, as I upgraded his stubber to a heavy bolter. I wanted the model of the Orlock heavy with heavy bolter. But as always, ebay vultures meant I couldn't get a look in on any of the few available. :( So I bought the Imperial Guard model Gunnery Sergeant Harker instead, a perfect Necromunda heavy!

Next, is two of my best shooters, the 'Riviera Kid' on the left and 'Dangerous' Dan McGrew on the right.
Riviera has graduated to a boltgun, because he's got both the Marksman skill and a BS of 4. Dan is also a Marksman, but doesn't have a BS of 4 yet, so he sticks with his lasgun.

My gunfighter is 'Bloodbath' McGrath, toting his pistols. He's actually got two bolt pistols now, just need to get around to swapping out his last autopistol. The second model is 'Doc' Brown, an effective all round fighter (despite his arm and chest injuries) with his shotgun and chainsword.

Here we have two of the gang's three ladies (equal opportunities Orlock gang!). Lola (pink hair) is a Markswoman, reaching out to 36" with her lasgun, 'Lawless' Lucy (blue hair) is also a Markswoman, but has retained her shotgun (which now has a 27" range!). She's also an effective close combat fighter, hence her chainsword.

These next three are former juves, Wayne, Marty and Clint, who have graduated to ganger status. Only Clint has actually improved from WS/BS 2, which is why he now has an Autogun, to benefit from his BS3. Despite some skills and other stat advancements, the Wayne and Marty are still effectively just juves that can work territories, so they retain their pistols and close combat weapons.

Finally, we have the actual juves of the gang, Biff, Callisto and 'Crash' McLarson. They try their best, but usually get beaten up a lot. Callisto and 'Crash' were free juves that I recruited from my Settlement territory!

So far, they've all done me proud, and fought valiantly in our battles with the rival gangs of our underhive sector. They've also been a blast to convert and paint. :)