Refreshing the Lead Drive

It's been a while since I wrote anything here as other shiny things have distracted me: some music, a little poetry. You know, the things that have to do with my usual handle. But I'm back into a more leaded mood. And as I got to sorting through the collection after a recent trip to New Jersey where I pretended I was once again fifteen I found that some of my miniatures really wanted updating. In particular this fellow here:

This guy is an old miniature from the Rogue Trader era "Adventurers" range. He was sold as an "Imperial Scout." It always seemed clear to me that he was a sort of Lawrence of Arabia type, but other possible references escaped me. I was quite late to Dune, for instance, and completely missed the significance of the "ornithopters" in the introduction. So it never occurred to me that there was already a rather solid precedent for Lawrence of Arabia (in Space). But now I know. And that which has been seen cannot be unseen, so I give you an updated scout with some very odd eyes indeed. He's keeping company with a newly arrived veteran who, it is hoped, will help to weld the local Reserve and Guard forces into a potent fighting unit.

But that's not the end of my updating. Oh no. I also had some Marines that needed touching up, others that needed repainting, and three quite lovely gigantic fellows passed into my safe keeping by another fan of old lead. You can see two of them below.

And here's the results of the updates pictured more clearly. The officer and the fellow with the explosive chucker on the left were merely touched up. The two fellows on the right were more complete repaints.

And the two ogres from above can be seen in the company of their friends below. Ogres one and three, from the viewers left, are the newer pair and two and four (in the pinstripes) the older.

The ogres, in fact, already have a place in the family. Seen below are "Little" Milton on the left, whom his friends call "Deedle Boy," Walther or "Shorty," George or "Yoon Doodle," and Rudy or "Rutz." Why yes, there is a story behind that. Why do you ask? The nicknames go with my grandfather and his brothers. (Of whom there were two more and two sisters as well, so there will be more ogres.) Five of the six brothers served in the Second World War and three saw combat in the Pacific, so it's only appropriate that their miniaturized (but still larger than life) selves should all have met in the service. They are a fractious, but generally good lot who enjoy nothing so much as hunting or fishing together. They seem to be on a bug hunt here.

And after a long and pleasant day chasing food there's really nothing quite so nice as a good barbecue and a cold beer.

Thank you for joining me on this short aside. Check back. There are a few things in the pipeline that should follow rather quickly.

Sincerely,

The Composer

Large, Small, and Buggy . . .

I hope you will bear with me as I take a brief detour into the darkness of the far future as envisioned by the likes of Rick Priestly and Jervis Johnson. Today I want to talk about figures new and old, large and small . . .

'Bout that large and small . . . I finally got my hands on one of the classic era Ogryn models. Like all the casts from that period the fit was imperfect, but the style was impeccable. These were dark, lovely models. I love the crooked smile. Next to him is a very early halfling "adventurer", though he's kitted out more or less with standard issue Imperial Army equipment of the day. Obviously these are "old." Now lets take a look at some "new."

I don't generally have much temptation to buy contemporary 40K miniatures, and while these two ladies are both now out of print they're recent enough that they should be off my radar, but they're both quirky and well sculpted. These two in particular seem to hearken back to the pulp roots of Warhammer 40K and fit in well with a Rogue Trader era collection. The Last Chancers seem a clear reference to the likes of the Dirty Dozen and the fine lady in the kilt would fit in fine in Mad Max or Tank Girl. In point of fact, I've painted her up in Clan MacLeod colors. (Approximately the "hunting tartan." The "clan tartan" was too yellow for my taste.) More pulp has been wrought in the name MacLeod than could possibly fit in this blog, and I'd bet more than either you or I realize. (Maybe between us we can come up with a more complete set, but by the Faerie Flag I doubt we'll get them all.)

Gaunt's Ghosts, from whence the lady in khakis and cape originates, also feels like a very nice movie reference. There's a gritty feel to the models from that line that is strangely absent from too much of 40K these days. Since she seems so very competent and we're on a desert world I gave her decent desert garb, though she's stuck with a green autogun she picked up somewhere. (Must be an autogun. Lasguns don't need clips.)

And back tot he old . . .

These three fellows are an interesting mix of Bob Oley pirates failing to follow the lead of a "Confrontation Tech Gang Leader." Confrontation was a predecessor to Necromunda that came out in the pages of White Dwarf. I got this miniature in a mixed batch of pirates and wasn't initially sure what he was. Turns out he was probably the rarest miniature in the box.

Of course as an Old lead fan, I have been slowly attempting to collect the "adventurers." These fellows are all Imperial servants of one sort or another. The angry bossy man in blue was simply called an "official." I take him to be a sort of spoiled planetary governor. The minor nobility of the 40K universe, if you will. Accompanying him are a pair of priests. The gentleman in green was initially billed as an imperial psyker and later became Astropath Yerl. The fellow in white is named Techpriest Schlan. Between the two clergy, suffering the wrath of the rotten tongue, is Pilot Lorgar.

The trouble with the Imperium of Man is that there are so many . . . well . . . not men exactly. Surely not human . . . so many bugs in the system. 

Of course the bugs tend to become more human over time . . .

This fellow was apparently an Imperial Army trooper . . .

But he seems to have gotten lost and joined the cult. (Along with the space eunuch.)

Of course, at that time, where there were Gene Stealers there were often Zoats. I figure they're the brains of the operation. More will follow.

But Inquisitor Augustus can clean it all up . . . with a little help from his friend Ed.

Ed has popped up here in the past. He's a heavily converted vinyl E.D. 209 in need of some love and care, but if something needs cleaning he's your man. I figure one of these days he'll be a very nice objective marker. 

(Incidentally, what idiot decided that hacking up kits and putting them back together backwards with parts from ten other kits mashed in was "scratchbuilding"? It's not. It's kitbashing. Scratchbuilding works from raw materials up, which is to say no kits are harmed in the making of a scratchbuilt thing. Ed here would be misnomed "scratchbuilt" on many 40K pages. He is in fact kitbashed.)

. . . 

But I digress. I hope you enjoy this little bit of stuff and nonsense. I will return you to the wonderful world of Naval Wargaming in the next post, but stay tuned. More Rogue Trader era 40K will pop up from time to time. Maybe I'll even get a game going. Seems to be the thing to do these days and I've had it in the back of my head for some time. (Even ran a one-off where a group of plucky adventurers cleaned up a whole batch of greenskins and stole their wagon to boot. "We got a mule!" said the band's tough, referring to the ATV cum pick-up from Firefly. Indeed they did. No more appropriate vehicle was ever called a mule.)

Thanks for listening space-fans. Talk to you again soon.

Sincerely,

The Composer.