+ inload: Blood Angels progress +

+ A return to blood +

+ The Alien Wars, a setting based around the actions of armies during the Nova Terra Interregnum, has been ticking over in the background. You can read about the broad scope of the project in the tab at the top of the blog (and check out the awesome aliens people have made!). Part of this is my Blood Angels army [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+]. +

+ They've been a bit neglected this year, but I dug them out last night to assess where I'd got to with them. +

+ The first tactical squad is completed. The army was intended to be an exercise in painting a neater, cleaner style, and I found it very slow going. Neverthless, pulling these lads out of mothballs was very rewarding; and a reminder of why I decided I was going to really try my hardest with this force. I don't think they've quite got the visual impact and 'pop' of my Gatebreakers [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+], but they scratch that retrohammer itch and have a lovely warmth to them. After playing around with oils, it's also nice to see what I could – and hopefully can still – achieve with acrylics. +

+ The second Tactical squad is more than half complete. I think I must have got fed up with the remaining four; and this is likely where I'll start again. Small goals, in my experience, are much more sensible to set! +

+ I keep spotting little details like the banners and flamer, and wondering how I did them; or whether all four of the remaining figures have been taken to the same painting standard. This is a problem with breaking off a project halfway through! +

+ If you'll excuse a little self-congratulation, I think the Devastators look awesome together. Painting this Mark VI-themed squad – like the rest of the army, an homage to the RTB-01 models used in the GW studio army detailed in WD139 – should be fun. +

+ I've finally decided how I'll tackle the blue helms, and that's to take a leaf from the Swedish artist Anders Zorn, who used a very restricted palette of just four colours: yellow ochre, vermilion, titanium white and ivory black. Lacking any blue, it's a palette that still allows for a wonderful variety of hues. +

+ Now, I'm not going to be quite so restrictive as to remove all blues from my palette – not only am I no master artist, but my aim is to have tight control over the notoriously variable colour red, not make things harder for myself. I will, however, be using a muted, desaturated grey-blue (typical of the Zorn palette) to stand in for the vibrant primary blues of the inspiration. +

+ I used to really dislike the style of these models – the combination of ruffles and earrings and mohawk/ponytail combos just seemed weird – but now they've got a real retro appeal for me. While I like the 'tacticool' design of the modern sculpts, sculpts like these Renaissance-flavoured scouts really capture the outré, ritualistic feel of 40k's semi-barabaric dark age much better. I'm looking forward to painting these the most, so I might skip ahead to tackle them and get my hand back in for painting in this style. +

+ Having mentioned using acrylics above, I'm wondering if I might get away with using oils for this army, too. The red seems like it'd be ideal to enrich with burnt umber [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+], and it'd go a long way to making this project more enjoyable. (You can read about my thoughts on changing style, here [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+]) +

+ If I decide to do so – and it's a big if; consistency here is important, and I want to persevere with the approach – then these scouts seem an ideal place to try it. By their nature, they'll look different to the rest of the army, and an all-over burnt umber oil wash will help to tie together different areas. +

+ Ah, the Terminators of Squad Redemptor. Back in 2018 I wrote a tutorial for converting Terminators large enough to sit alongside Primaris, and then they lurked, victims of imposter syndrome as I thought I'd never be able to do them justice in paint. The tutorial [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+] has long been the most-viewed inload on the site, so I really ought to pull my finger out and get them done. Apart from anything else, it'd let me play Space Hulk again! +

+ The characters. I said I'd reward myself by painting one every time I completed a squad, which rather shows how slowly this army has been progressing... Rather like the look of them all gathered together – I'm glad that I decided to go 'all-banner all the time'. +

+ Bases on tanks? Yes, I thought this was a neat way to give the Rhino a bit more presence. Long-time inloaders will know how much I dread painting vehicles, but this might be another excuse to try out using oils, since it doesn't need to exactly match the infantry. Perhaps I'll find a method of painting tanks that I enjoy? +

+ Rather ugly lower legs there. I think I'll need to return and fix that before progressing with the speeder. Half tempted to paint the speeder yellow – it'd make the marines stand out, and I always rather liked the idea that the heraldic colours were reserved for the Astartes themselves, rather than their equipment. What do you reckon?+

+ ...and last but not least, the casualties – including one interred safely in a Dreadnought. Safely for him, that is; not the enemies of the Emperor! Looking more closely at this, you can see that this must have been the last thing I painted before packing the army away – the upper half is the Mephiston Red spray, while the lower part has received two coats of the Mephiston Red and Vallejo vermillion mix I use, as detailed in my painting red tutorial here [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+]. +

+++

+ It's nice to have everything collected together again for a once-over. The imminent release of the Primaris Techmarine means I'll have a figure available to plug the last gap in the WD139 force; the techmarine manning the Thudd Gun. That seems a good enough motivation for me to get chugging along with the army once more. What would you like to see me tackle first? Finish off Tactical squad II, paint the scouts or polish off the Dreadnought? +

+ inload: Space Marine Dreadnought +

+ Monstrous Servant + 

'Send them then, into the dark places. Into the thorns and hard places, send them; there to bring light to my lost children. Send them to the frontiers of my Imperium. Send them, and suffer them no impediment to progress.' 

– Dictate of Imperium (trad.); attributed during Inculcation of Chapter 333 M32 (disp.)

+++

It was cold, there in the dock. She had stoically endured the cold for half an hour, standing ramrod straight as an occasional Chapter thrall looked at her quizzically, but at last she had started shuffling from one foot to the other, then taken to walking up and down to get the blood moving. Two hours later, she was past blowing into her cupped hands in an attempt to breathe some life into them, and seriously wondering if she was going to lose her fingers. She looked up at the suit, glittering with frost. She had never seen a dreadnought before, and had leapt at Kills' suggestion that she attend the awakening. 

She wasn't going to leave because of the cold. You don't make interrogator by backing down from hardship.

After another quarter of an hour, a treacherous thought crept through her icy mind. You don't make Inquisitor through dumb endurance, either.

She never found out whether she was going to break from her self-imposed torment, as the techmarine Cicinnatus arrived. The Chapter thralls looked up distinterestedly, then got back to work. One waved a hand, half-heartedly, to Cincinnatus as he marched forward. The casual sense of indifference struck Haim as odd, but she had already noted the Gatebreakers' thralls seemed to treat the Astartes with simple respect, rather than the awe most of Rogue Trader Taiwo's crew had done. 

Haim had spoken with the Primaris techmarine cadre during the long voyage to the Edge. She had bonded well with them – indeed, she and Cincinnatus had struck up a rapport of sorts. 

It had not survived the melding of Chapter 333 and the incumbent Chapter. The two had not spoken for months. The details and reasons were not clear to Haim, but she had been privy – thanks to Kills delegating the incept-analysis task to her – to a flurry of missives during the formal induction process, ending with a statement from the collected Gnostics that 'followers of the machine god are not counted amongst the members of the Chapter'.

The techmarines had not taken the rejection well.

She hailed the techmarine, hesitantly, as he closed the distance. His head snapped up. 

'Cincinnatus. Thank you for meeting me.' Her voice trembled, not entirely due to the cold. Helmed, he had looked surly, even aggressive, but she was reassured by the guarded smile revealed as he took his helmet off. Cincinnatus' gleaming bionics were peculiarly reassuring. Haim had grown up on a bonded hiveworld, and augmentation always reminded her of home. 

'It has been a long time.' He began. He looked thoughtful as he began work on awakening the ironform. Haim noticed his pauldron was still etched with the 'Chapter 333' temporary heraldry, rather than the mace of the Gatebreakers proper. 

They talked for some time, the initial awkwardness gradually giving way to something approaching warmth. She told Cincinnatus of her time away from Andocrine, diplomatically bypassing her interactions with the Gatebreakers. She need not have worried. As he worked, Cincinnatus explained how the techmarines had been sidelined, bypassed and, at last, baldly and directly refused entry to the Chapter's ceremonies. His voice was flat, and clear, unmarred by emotion; but Haim wondered how much was genuine, and how much was self-control. The Astartes, even after months of sharing ship-space, still sometimes felt very alien to her.

As she hesitated, wondering whether Kills would want her to probe further, the techmarine straightened up and stepped backwards, rubbing his hands clear of unguent with an oily rag. He turned to her and opened his mouth to speak.

+ I remember you. +

The words were so deep, so loud, so startling, they made her torso resonate. All at once, Haim quite forgot the cold.

Cincinnatus looked as surprised as her. The pair looked to the Dreadnought, tracking their gaze up to the war machine's face – or at least where the head would have sat on a human. It spoke again, as it tilted slowly backwards, joints flexing slightly with soft whirring noises, as though testing its limbs.

+ Not you, Warrior. I remember the red-armoured ones. Tech... Tech... Technicals. + It seemed to be testing the word out.  + I had not seen your sort for a long time. It has been the robed ones. They usually have more... incense. +

There was a pause, during which Cincinnatus rallied somewhat.

'Honoured Ancient, I had been anticipating considerable delay in your awakening.'

The dreadnought seemingly failed to register that he had spoken. It turned its paralyzing gaze on Haim. The cold rushed back as lenses and reticules shifted and focussed behind the great smoked-glass panels that made up its strange, totemic face.

+ I am full of surprises. Have they returned? +

'I... I'm...' she started, then got a grip of herself. This is not how an Interrogator acts. 'Who do you mean?' She stole a glance at Cincinnatus, whose flushed face and posture indicated some sort of badly-hidden hyper-aggression. Again, the Dreadnought utterly ignored her question. 

+ That is why I am awoken. That is why I am always awoken. +

Oddly, this stole away the shock. The resignation in the words seemed almost petulant. She straightened, looked up at the Dreadnought, jawline set.

'I am Haim, Ordo Propter. Who do you mean?'

It remained looking down at her, and as the moment stretched, she suddenly saw how very different this was to a robot. It moved, almost imperceptibly, like a living being; as though some ichorous blood was flowing just beneath the hard carapace. All of a sudden, it had changed: no longer a statue, but invested with a strange vitality. She felt she understood, then, all of a sudden, the curious reticence the Astartes had with utilising Dreadnoughts. It felt like necromancy.

She remained, feet set, eyes fixed on the Dreadnought's. Those eyes; those black, sightless, artificial eyes. Cincinnatus fell away. The bay fell away. Only those eyes remained, set in sun yellow and grass green. 

+ Designation Samaritan. Designation Ghagga-Hakra. The Satraps. Designation Uridimmu. The rest. Has the Master been informed? They have returned. I know it. I don't know why I ask every time. +

Haim swallowed. She thought she had better send for Kills. She would want to hear this. The Dreadnought straightened, and swung its arms out. It paused, as though considering, or consulting. As Haim turned, she saw the Chapter serfs had all prostrated themselves in place.

+ Every time. +

It reached out to Cincinnatus, who stepped back to let the Dreadnought pass. It wasn't that, though. The Dreadnought touched his shoulder, as though confirming things. 

+ Hm. Interesting to see you. Technical. +

The techmarine nodded, as though stunned. The dreadnought began to walk, slowly, haltingly. It continued to talk all the while, as though limbering up. Perhaps it was.

+ And not just me, Haim of the Ordo Propter. It's as this ironform remembers it; back to when it was emblazoned with silver stars, bedecked in the coral pink and turquoise of lost oceans. They've always been here. I trust you have brought a weapon. +

Haim changed her mind. She thought she had better go and get Kills. 

You don't make Interrogator by keeping things from Inquisitors, after all.

+++

+ Painting the Dreadnought +

+ The approach I used for the dreadnought was all-but identical to that for the infantry: lay in the flat colours (Flash Gitz Yellow and Warpstone Glow), then lay a burnt sienna oil wash over them before developing the highlights. +

+ The freehand is fairly stripped-back; simple black and white icons and text. I used some Sanskrit – and apologies for dubious translation – to get in some tongue-in-cheek puns; reading 'Dead' and 'Lost/Missing' +

+ I didn't want to overload the freehand, despite the inviting large flat surfaces, as the quartered scheme already makes him busier than he otherwise would be. I might return to add a banner. +

+ I painted the eyes gloss black. I wanted them to look deep, soulful – and dead. The ghoulish use of crippled marines is horrifying, if you take a moment to think about it, and I didn't want the Dreadnought to be too closely aligned to the infantry, instead acting as a midway point between human and warmachine. Dead black eyes seemed a nice way of doing that, making it appear almost cadavorous. +

+ The back received a hint of the orange accent colour used elsewhere, and I hinted at some discoloration of the exhaust's heat shield. +

+ The bulbous oval blisters on the front of the shoulders seemed a good place for a nameplate. I sat this in a little cartouche, to give a slight Ancient Egyptian hint. +

+++

+ inload: Mud and grime – oil washes +

+ Developing Gatebreakers with oils +

The existing marines look forward to some additional support.

+ With the paint blocked in, the Gatebreakers look bright and clean – lovely for parade ground troops, but not so fitting for soldiers in the midst of desperate warfare during the Dark Millennium:

+ As described in the tutorial in an earlier inload [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+], I used a matt spray varnish to protect the acrylics, then slathered burnt umber oils over the figures, as shown below. +

+ Whereas before I had worked either on an individual model basis or in groups of two or three, I experimented here with larger groups. This was a test for leaving the oil in place for slightly longer, something that'll inevitably be necessary when working up the Land Raider, again shown in an earlier inload [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+]. +

+ I used white spirit and a cotton bud (Q-tip) to gently wipe away the oil from surfaces, working in consistent downward strokes where possible. Very relaxing. The Dreadnought is a resin model, so I can cautiously suggest that the technique works for that in just the same way. I'd be particularly careful to ensure that resin is well-primed to avoid contact with the white spirit, but that's not based on anything beyond a hunch. +

+ ...and that's where I left them overnight. The morning light [visref: above] shows the glossiness has begun to disappear as the oils oxidise. They're still slightly tacky to the touch, but once they've had a full day, I think they'll be alright to varnish. It's then onwards to tidying and highlighting. You'll notice that I've left a bit more oil on these ones than the previous batch. I felt I had slightly over-cleaned the earlier marines, and ended up adding in more shading later on. Now I've had a chance to practise, I'm more confident that I can successfully overpaint with acrylics, so I left some more dirt and marks to work up and develop further. +

+ inload: Ork Dreadnought +

+ Clanking Destroyer +

+ When this model came out, I remember thinking that it was about the best thing since sliced bread. And with the super-killy buzzsaw, it could also slice bread! +

+ Okay, so the second part might not strictly be accurate (unless...), but this really was one of those model kits that niggle at the back of your head. Eventually I crumbled and bought one, and it's been a fun build and paint.


+ As part of The Alien Wars project, I took my inspiration from the card dreadnought that came with the second edition boxed set. Just as with my Blood Angels [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+], it's an homage rather than an exact match. I hope enough of the details are present to give retrohammerers a grin. +

+ Lacking a banner, I replicated the glyphs on the front armour plate, for example. Similarly, I've retained some of the red detailing, though not quite so much as the original – it has to fit in with my very muted army, after all. +

+ The kit's absolutely awash with great little details, like the functional-looking pistons, heat-sink plates and pressure dials. When tackling complex metal areas like this, it's easy for them to get lost in a mass of similar tones, so I aimed to break up the shapes by treating each main part separately. Some are oily bare metal, others rusted, and the top plates are painted black. Rather than starting from a black underlayer and weathering with metallics, I painted them all metal, then painted the black on top, using a stippling technique. This is a quick and easy way to get a sense of wear and tear – you've just got to be careful to work the paint into the recesses away from the edges (such as the 'lee' of the spikes). +

+ The concept of heavy wear was extended to the weapons – note the shearing claw has lost its red paint from the working surfaces, and one of the plates near the elbow is particularly old and worn: I used Agrellan Earth to give a heavily textured craquelure effect. +

+ As with the armour plates, some variety on the weapons helps give a sense of scale and realism – the ammo feed on the heavy shoota, for example, is painted with the same green (and regimental number) as my Lamb's World force, suggesting it's looted from a previous battle. +

+ I used the same conceit on the back, with a military drab green used for the petrol tank, and decorated with an Imperialis (the winged skull used as one of the Imperial Guard symbols). The trick to this sort of model, if there is one, is to ensure similar parts are treated differently. Having really rusty, battered exhausts nearer newer-looking ones suggests the model is a working warmachine, with a history. +

 + What's on the blocks? +

+ As in the background, so in real life. Gretchin don't seem to get much of a look-in when it comes to gaming, and so I'm making a concerted effort to get enough of these characterful little creeps painted and based to re-play the 2nd edition introductory games. I think I need thirty... +

+ The finished grots above were tackled in smaller groups, but I really want to get a motor on before I lose impetus. As a result, these are just a simple coat of Gretchin Green (who would have thought?) and washes of either Seraphim Sepia or Leviathan Purple. To get some variety in skintones, I used the washes in different proportions, both alone and mixed wet-in-wet on the model. Just 'cause you're batch-painting, it doesn't mean you can't add some variety, after all. +

+ inload: Anatomy of the enemy V: Goranhuwl's Guttaz +

+ Ork Raiders of M36 +

As described in the general overview [+noospheric inloadlink embedded+] Orks are rarely sedentary. Perfectly capable of constructing vessels of their own, greenskins also frequently 'hitch rides' on passing space hulks – using their precociously advanced field emitter technology both to seal in a habitable atmosphere and to direct the hulk. The main impediment, then, to ork expansion and exploration, is their own nature. Their interstellar capability requires a leader capable of motivating their followers to co-operate – or at least stop fighting – long enough for their technicians to create void-craft.

Goranhuwl is one such ork, and typical of the opportunistic commanders that plagued the borders of the Imperium during the Nova Terra Interregnum. Arising on the wartorn worlds of the Galactic Core, Goranhuwl united the forces of the local region during a series of brutal decapitation campaigns he led against his rivals. During the Nova Terra Interregnum, he and his warband, the Guttaz – named after their leader's unpleasant predilection for tortuously disembowelling his enemies – have conducted numerous raiding and reaving assaults on Imperial and non-Imperial shipping and planets alike. 

+ The Guttaz' warleaders +

Goranhuwl (centre), is pictured here with two of his retinue, the one-eyed totem-bearer Skabby, and his able second-in-command Whitetusk. Typical of the Goff clan, decoration is no-nonsense, restricted to black and white. Only looted trophies provide a flash of colour. 

+ Structure and organisation +

Ork raiding tribes are rarely made up of a single clan – such monocultural warbands work against the manner in which orks breed, and rob the broader tribe of the expertise and particular skills of the orks' clan system. Goffs, for example, produce relatively few oddboyz – instead generating a larger proportion of larger nobz – and a cunning warlord will therefore promote from within other clans to fill in specialisms they feel their force is lacking.

The Guttaz have a number of fiefdoms across their small territory near the galactic Core, but draw most of their warriors from the sprawling ork townships on the planet of Breccia – known to the orks as Deepkut. Each urban centre houses hundreds of orks and countless gretchin servants, all under the gimlet eyes of one of Goranhuwl's lieutenants.

+ Goranhuwl's Bigmob +

Orks cluster in clan-based groups called households. Ruled over by an experienced Nob and his cronies, households tend to number between a dozen and three dozen bull orks – beyond this, an ambitious would-be nob will tend to challenge the incumbent. The loser will leave and form a new household, typically from a core of their closest drinking mates. 

The Warboss' household is invariably the best-equipped – and also the largest, as few are able to challenge the Warboss himself. It will also attract the more promising ork juveniles – Wildboyz – as they learn the skills of warfare, swelling its size beyond others. Such household groups are usually referred to as a variation on 'the big mob'. Acting as an adjunct to the warboss' personal retinue (each a Nob or Oddboy with his own household), the Bigmob serves to give steel to the Warboss' word, enforcing his will and leading the charge in battle.

+ Auxiliary Household group +

Orks don't suffer authority well, and mercenaries – known as freebooters – are common. Households will occasionally strike out on their own, the Nob declaring himself a pirate Kaptin (or similar title). During the Nova Terra Interregnum, many orks fought alongside increasingly desperate populations of both sides of the divided Imperium. Demanding ruinous payment – generally in the form of slaves, weapons or equipment – such mercenaries became increasingly common. 

While they were happy to fight for loot, freebooter groups were most frequently used as auxilia by the orks themselves, slotting into the battle line of a paying warboss as another (often particularly flamboyant and exotic) mob of greenskinned warriors.

+ Specialists and slaves + 

+ Ork shock troops +

Regardless of which world you pick from the multifarious cultures of the Twin Imperium, there are certain common traits to all human warfare. The same is true for greenskins, and like humanity, they are infinitely adaptable, developing technologies, strategies and tactics as new challenges arise. 

Ork power armour shares much in common with Imperial power armour. What it lacks in sophistication and reliability, it compensates for in raw protection. Many technologically-advanced ork groups utilise these 'mega-armoured' shock troops as linebreakers; as much reliant on the veteran orks within as the technology. Goranhuwl's Guttaz often field such mobs against Imperial foes, their thunderous tread and seeming invincibility calculated to break the morale of their foes. The Nova Terran stormtrooper-equivalents, the vaunted NVA were particularly badly affected by this, their elite status proving of little consequence against the orks' crude mirror to Astartes. 

Goranhuwl showed a willingness to learn, and demonstrated adaptive tactics against the Chapters Astartes. Having lost a number of battles against the indomitable Star Leopards on their fief world of Odun Stellar, where the Astartes executed layered retreats to funnel the mega-armoured mobs into deadly crossfires, Goranhuwl redeployed his elites, holding them back as counter-chargers.

While the Guttaz were successfully driven off Odun Stellar, the Gatebreakers Chapter later reported the loss with all hands of two of their frigates around Fortis Binary. Boarded by mega-armoured foes held back from warfare on the surface, the Gatebreakers were beset by the bulk of the Guttaz as the Marines struggled to disengage to scramble back to their fleet, resulting in heavy losses.

+ Mine clearance +

Orks are never found without gretchin. This slave species has a commensual relationship with their larger greenskins, and ape their larger masters. Their small stature belies their inventive cruelty. Despite their physical similarities, gretchin are undifferentiated, generating neither individual nor clan specialism. They are however often swift learners, and many become valued and capable (if ultimately disposable) servants to the warband's orks, particularly the Oddboyz. 

While there are no physical differences between Goff or Snakebite or Bad Moon gretchin, their scavenging and creative nature often sees them scraping together patchwork cloth and leftover equipment from the orks with which they associate. As a result, their allegiance is often clear.

+ Ork Dreadnought +

Orks may not demonstrate much in the way of artistic talent – indeed their banners and trophy-poles are almost invariably rendered by gretchin or slaves who are able to successfully translate the boss' gruff instructions in a way that pleases the master – but they are both excellent mimics and inventive engineers. On seeing a particularly impressive war machine, ork bosses will order their Oddboyz to replicate it – a challenge that usually sees results. Ork mekaniaks rarely back-engineer a creation, and instead rely on their abilities to create a functional – and sometimes superior – copy. 

Dreadnoughts of many species, from Eldar Wraithlords to Q'orl Warforms and even including Astartes Dreadnoughts, function in dual roles. They are both warmachine and spiritual demonstration of service beyond death. In all cases, its form is drawn from the physical structure of the biological being: it seems that some from of physical familiarity is a near-universal psychological requirement for the pilots of such engines. Not so with the orks. 

Resilient both in mind and body, orks frequently practise body modification, and seem peculiarly well-suited to adaptation. Being encased in a dreadnought holds no fear or trepidation for an ork – he will quickly regard it not as an external suit, but an integral part of himself. Indeed, he will almost certainly become convinced of his new giant metal body's prowess as a sensible upgrade. For similar reasons, ork dreadnoughts are varied, and nearly always include more than two arms – an ork will quickly adapt.

+++

+ inload: Blood Angels retrohammer Dreadnought +

+ Furibundus-Perfidium Dreadnought +

+ A real blast from the pa... no, wait, a beautifully executed fan-resculpt; an affectionate update of the classic Rogue Trader-era Dreadnought. I'm blocking in a few bits here and there, and thoroughly enjoying it. +

+ Painting is progressing fairly slowly as I feel my way around the sculpt. This is, I hasten to add, no fault of the sculpting (great) or casting (beautifully clean), but simply that it's fun to work on a model that updates a real childhood favourite. +

+ The image above it quite a good example of what layering translucent paint layers (I hesitate to call it glazing, as the layers aren't as dilute) can do. The lower half has a couple of additional layers of Vallejo's Flat Red; the upper part is just Mephiston Red undercoat. +

[+ACT=NOSTALGIAFILE: SPOOLING+]

+ Spot-On Models in Swindon was the only place I could buy models for many years (likely owing to the appearance of GW Swindon, it now specialises as a model train shop), and in amongst the racks of blisters from the likes of Grenadier, Marauder, Citadel and Old Crow was a second-hand area. +

+ Clutching a birthday fiver, I bought a Dreadnought from this stash, beautifully-painted in red. It got used as a robot for my Imperial Guard; turned up in Space Crusade games as a counterpoint to the ED-209 Chaos Dreadnought; and at my dogged insistence* once appeared in my (very indulgent brother's) Advanced Heroquest dungeon. It got boxed-up, uncovered, dropped, repaired, repainted into a quartered scheme – and then I lost it. +

+ A quick scale comparison shot +

+ Even through the mists of nostalgia, I can recognise that the original sculpt was fairly crude, but it's lovely to have a modern version. To modern eyes it may be blocky and unrefined, but it just absolutely radiates the Rogue Trader era to me. I'm delighted to have it in my army! + 


* Whinging.

+++