Another Weird Speeder

 I wanted to make a vehicle in the Rogue Trader spirit, perhaps with a nod to Rick Priestley's famous Deodorant Grav Tank, but which would be useable in a casual modern game. This is what I've made. It counts as a Space Marine Storm Speeder Thunderstrike. I made the hull from a travel soap dish, with the canopy and cupola being made from the same double ended medicine spoon. The las cannon is made from a plastic paint brush handle, and the missile launcher is made from lego.

Giant Cacti

 There are no shortage of tutorials for making these classic giant cacti for your oldhammer 40k board. Mine are pretty rough and ready, and were very quick to make. I cut a little flat spot on each of these of polystyrene balls (cheap from the craft shop after Christmas). Then I speared them liberally with cocktail sticks, sometimes using the sticks to join a small one to a big one. Then I sprayed them with Army Painter Army Green spray. The spray ate into the polystyrene a little, but I think this is OK and it's given the cacti some texture. Then I sponged them with a little Averland Sunset paint, with scraps from a washing up sponge. Lastly, I painted the spines with Wild Rider Red. Done!

A 1000pt force for next weekend

 I'll be playing some 40k in the current edition next weekend, and I've selected quite a varied little 1000pt force.

Stormwatch, 47th Deep Range Suppression Maniple:

Space Marines

Incursion (1000 points)

Gladius Task Force

CHARACTERS

Captain Jet Hamesfield

Captain (80 points)

  • Warlord

  • 1x Heavy bolt pistol

    1x Power fist

Brother Clavio Belcampion

Librarian in Terminator Armour (75 points)

  • 1x Force weapon

    1x Smite

    1x Storm bolter

OTHER DATASHEETS

Devastator Squad Bad Omen (120 points)

  • 1x Devastator Sergeant Sharrouk Khan

    • 1x Bolt pistol

      1x Close combat weapon

      1x Power weapon

  • 4x Devastator

    • 4x Bolt pistol

      4x Close combat weapon

      2x Lascannon

      2x Missile launcher

Brother Pyrium Vale

Dreadnought (135 points)

  • 1x Assault cannon

    1x Dreadnought combat weapon

    1x Storm bolter

Scout Squad Misericord (70 points)

  • 1x Scout Sergeant Jonus Polk

    • 1x Astartes chainsword

      1x Bolt pistol

      1x Close combat weapon

  • 4x Scout

    • 4x Bolt pistol

      3x Boltgun

      4x Close combat weapon

      1x Heavy bolter

Storm Speeder Thunderstrike, 'Salmon of Knowledge' (135 points)

  • 1x Close combat weapon

    1x Stormfury missiles

    1x Thunderstrike las-talon

    1x Twin Icarus rocket pod

Vanguard Veteran Squad Gilgamesh,

with Jump Packs (100 points)

  • 1x Vanguard Veteran Sergeant Timion Selleck, with Jump Pack

    • 1x Storm Shield

      1x Vanguard Veteran weapon

  • 4x Vanguard Veteran with Jump Pack

    • 4x Storm Shield

      4x Vanguard Veteran weapon

Vanguard Veteran Squad Gogmagog, with Jump Packs (100 points)

  • 1x Vanguard Veteran Sergeant Verwin Samp, with Jump Pack

    • 1x Storm Shield

      1x Vanguard Veteran weapon

  • 4x Vanguard Veteran with Jump Pack

    • 4x Storm Shield

      4x Vanguard Veteran weapon

Vindicator, 'Bad Neighbour' (185 points)

  • 1x Armoured tracks

    1x Demolisher cannon

    1x Hunter-killer missile

    1x Storm bolter

I've included some quite odd minis here, and I'll talk about them in more depth in another post.

Vanguard Veterans

Here are two units of Vanguard Veterans- one made from RTB01 marines and one from 2nd edition plastics, both with some Rogue Trader metal figures. The RTB01 unit are on 32mm hex bases, which I think match the Rogue Trader era minis well. 

The other unit are still on 25mm rounds. I'm undecided whether or not to put these on 32mm bases or use converters when playing later editions.

 

 

The jetpacks for the RTB01 unit are made by removing the vents from the existing backpacks and gluing on two of these grooved wooden beads.

 

Weird Speeder

Another new addition. This strange contraption will be used in my games of 10th edition 40k to count as a Storm Speeder Thunderstrike. I've no idea what the base model is- I got in a mixed lot several years ago. It's resin, a slightly rough cast, and someone has told me they recognise parts of the engines as coming from a Star Wars toy. I added the lastalon on the front from an old Bronekorpus russian tank kit, with a muzzle made from a kids' plastic paintbrush ferrule. The missile launcher is a part from a plastic terminator- sourced from another mixed lot. I added a hatch and pilot by sawing a 2nd ed plastic marine at about nipple level and sticking him to a round base.

The result is the sort of gloriously demented thing that used to be a more common sight on 40k tables before plastic vehicle kits and 3D printing. It's an odd shape for a marine vehicle, but I quite like it for that reason- it has a Rogue Trader feel to me.

 

Attack Bike

 After showing you the first unit I painted for my army, here's the latest: Another attack bike. This is the slightly later plastic version from 2004, which makes it possibly the most modern model in my force. I've used two heads from the 1987 RTB01 marine kit to give it some interest and some old school appeal. I've also given it a tiger stripe flag, which fits in with some other models I've painted recently.

Origin Story

 This blog is about an army that I have sort of painted badly on purpose. 

That's not quite the whole story. Really, it's painted as a child might have painted an army in the early 1990s: quickly, in block colours, without shading or highlights, with gloss varnish and a green base. 

The child in question is me, 33 years ago. When I was 11 or so, my older brother and his pals played Warhammer and I was able to paint a few of the minis they didn't need; namely, these ones-

I painted lots of these and sometimes I painted them in the colours of a chapter I invented myself with a blue and grey colour scheme with some yellow bits, like this: 

The chapter symbol was a yellow lightning bolt. I don't remember what I called them, or how many I painted, but it certainly wasn't enough to call an army.

About 25 years later, I was looking for an army project and found a set of those old plastic marines cheap on eBay. I decided to paint them more or less as I had done in the early 90s, but aided by modern paint tech- yellow paint that actually covered other colours and blue spray paint in a can! This was the result:

I was really pleased with them! They looked pleasingly toylike, and the process of painting them was so quick and easy- it felt like painting did back in the 90s. I gave the chapter a name from a Jethro Tull album- the Stormwatch.

That was the start of this project, and it's grown from there. I think I have about 150 minis in the army now, with more on the painting table. The minis range from the '80s to late '90s, and the collection includes conversions, proxies and toybashes. I'll post some of them shortly.