Rogue Trader Robots and Critters!

Depite not blogging much recently, I have still been painting and whatnot. Some sci-fi, some fantasy, some terrain building (such as in my last post). I've been trying to build up a selection of minatures so that I have a greater variety of things to use when thinking up scenarios.

To that end, may I present the following!


Dinosaurs!

I've currently painted up four dinosaur models, they're all plastic toys sourced from various shops and museums. Although I've put a space marine in each picture for scale, the size of dinosaurs is largely irrelevent (as long as they're bigger than the average humanoid, it'll do!).

A large Triceratops.

A slightly smaller Triceratops.

I'm pretty sure this one's fictional...

A Pachycephalosaurus.

Next I've put together a couple of Robots. Now I'm very fussy when it comes to Rogue Trader robots. I don't actually like the original RT robot miniatures that much, but then I discovered some old Battletech: Dark Age clix miniatures in the back of an old cupboard at my mum's house. And immediately I saw an opportunity to convert some Imperial Robots out of them. The painting is complete, but I'm intending to add some transfers to the flat areas to add some visual detail.

Fire support robot with heavy bolter and missile launcher.

Assault robot with twin bolters, flamer and jump pack.

 

Although they're already a good scale, I rebased them and removed most of the original weapons from these Battletech mechs, then added some more familiar 40k weaponry. I think this helps to put them into the correct setting, rather than just looking like Battletech miniatures 'proxying' as RT robots.


Some months ago (and I swear this is true) I arrived at work to find a bag of genestealers on my desk, left there by one of my colleagues who knew I collected miniatures. Inside was a mix of classic genestealers (from Space Crusade and original Space Hulk) and some of the newer 'stealer designs from the current Tyranid range. So I've painted up a few of the classics as adversaries for my RT Imperial forces.

"Grrrr! Arrrrgh!"

Brown trousers time...

Finally, a Space Ork Raider.

Nothing much else to say about him, other than he is the first painted one of many more to come.
:)

Fantasy Terrain

Terrain. Something often neglected in wargaming. True, not everyone has the skill, time or desire to make it, and yes, you can buy some phenominally good (albeit expensive) tabletop terrain these days. That said, I do still believe that the best terrain is stuff you've made yourself.

Regardless of your budget and skill level, you can make some useable terrain for your battlefields. Even the example terrain in the original Rogue Trader rulebook was little more than cork tile, some garden rocks and a few blobs of plasticine!

But I'm not here to instruct you on how to make wargames terrain (I'll leave that to the professionals!), I'm just going to show you some of the terrain I've built recently for fantasy era games.

First up, a village well and some boulders;

Village well and boulders.

The well was simply made from some 'bricks' of modelling clay formed into a circle, the frame is just wooden dowel and the tiles are bits of cardboard trimmed into shape. Plus a bit of chain.
The boulders are, well, rocks. These were 'liberated' from the carpark at work, glue-gunned to a piece of mdf and painted.

Next is two Empire style houses I made, which now form part of my local club's terrain collection. They were experiments really, and I intend to build some new ones for myself using the experience I gained from making these. They're just made from shapes of cardboard (glue-gunned together), with lengths of wood (coffee stirrers, looted from various coffee shops) glued on. The walls were then covered in a layer of all purpose filler. Like for the well, the tiles are squares of cardboard with 'chips' cut into them.

Town house.

Barn.

Then we have a more complex piece, which is the town blacksmith's. Because of its open plan design, I couldn't make it from cardboard, so I had to build a wooden frame with wooden flooring, onto which I added a roof. The forge, bellows and anvil were made separately and then glued in.

Early stages of construction.

The forge.

Closeup of the forge, showing the hot coals.

The bellows and anvil.

The (mostly) complete Blacksmith's.

The interior.

I'm thinking of adding more detailing, such as finished weapons and armour lying around, some work benches and some signs hanging outside.

Finally, I have this.

This was formerly a resin dragon figurine of some description (of the kind you'd find in random gift shops), which my girlfriend had kept on a shelf for years gathering dust, and was throwing out. So I glued it to a piece of mdf and added some modelling clay and textured paint around the edge to blend it into the base. Then I painted it, added static grass and glued in some additional foliage to try and give it that overgrown look. I think of it as being some sort of ancient monument or shrine, deep in the wilderness and long forgotten.

So, that's a brief look at some of the terrain I've been building in recent times. Hopefully more soon.

Back from a Break and Completed Space Lizards Unit!!

So, having had 6 months of not blogging (the causes of which include, but are not limited to; family crises, moving house, laziness, etc), I've decided that it's been long enough. Must share what I've been doing in the hobby, to those few who care!

Anyway, to start things off, I completed painting the Space Lizards unit I converted (which is the previous post from February!).

As a recap, here's the first five I did:

And here's the new guys:

Space Lizard with carbine and bio/energy scanner.

Space Lizard trooper with carbine.

Space Lizard trooper with Graviton Gun.

Space Lizard specialist with heavy weapon (probably a multi-laser or lascannon).

Space Skink with carbine.

Space Skink with carbine.

And finally, here's a shot of the whole gang:

Space Lizard squad!

I have some more Rogue Trader type stuff I've been doing (robots and dinosaurs!), as well as some Fantasy miniatures, including Knights, men-at-arms, archers, goblins, and Chaos!. And I also thought I'd show some of the terrain I've been making.

Stay tuned!

Moar Space Lizards!

So, having completed the first group of space lizards, I decided I might as well use up the rest of the lizardman parts and make some more. Also, I had lots more weapons I thought might look cool in the hands of a lizard from spaaaace!

Here then , is the second group of space lizards;

Space lizard trooper with carbine and scanner.

This lizard has a hasslefree pulse carbine and a bio/energy scanner from a Tau firewarrior. Quite conveniently, it turns out that both saurus and tau hands have three fingers and a thumb, so I didn't even have to cut the scanner out of the tau's hand. The tau hands are slightly smaller, but I dont think its too noticeable.

Space lizard trooper with carbine.

Space lizard trooper with Graviton Gun.

This lizard is toting a "matter displacement gun" from Max Mini.

Space lizard specialist with heavy weapon.

This big gun is a plasma rifle from a Tau battlesuit. This lizard required a ridiculous amount of cutting and repositioning!

Space Skink troopers with carbine weapons.

These little guys came about because I also discovered a box of skinks in the same cupboard and thought my space lizard force could do with some light scout types. The one on the left holds a heavily modified Tau pulse carbine and the one on the right has a hasslefree plasma rifle.


Right then, better get painting them!

Space Lizards! Completed!

Over the Christmas period, I've had a chance to do quite a bit of painting and modeling, and the my Space Lizard alternatives I was working on have been painted!

Here we have the entire squad of five Space Lizards:

When painting them, I initially thought about throwing in loads of gold, bronze and other bright colours, along with green or blue skin. But I thought that would look too cartoony, or at least just look like Saurus warriors that had been handed guns. Then I saw a picture of one of these little critters:

It's a Desert Horned Lizard (or something) and I decided that's the kind of lizard I want mine to be!. I also avoided lots of golds and went for a much more militaristic iron with practical red harnesses. The only rich metal colours they got are the copper bands that they have around their wrists and legs.

These are the two troopers with carbines:

The guns are pulse rifles from Hasslefree miniatures

This next lizard is armed with a Plasma Gun, an old Ork variant, possibly picked up by the lizard after a battle somewhere:

Then we have the squad sniper, armed with a rather exotic looking sniper system. I've also thought that this could serve as a either a anti-tank gun or even a rapid firing squad-support weapon:

This of course, is the leader. He's wielding a pistol (of similar origins to the carbines) and a rather dangerous looking close combat weapon. I'd probably give this the same profile as a chainsword, as it looks like it could easily deal the same kind of damage:

Lastly, here's a shot of their backs, showing the harnesses I sculpted on and the equipment attached to it:

 
They all have knives as a backup weapon, and some of them have ammo clips too. The lizard on the far left also carries what might be a communicator or scanner of some kind.

So, that's my Space Lizards! They've been a lot of fun to build and paint, so I'll probably do some more to round out the force. But in the meantime, I'm also dabbling with making my own Space Zoats...

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.