...And Then There Were More Starships!

Yup. As the 70s rolled along into the 80s more variety crept into the starship miniatures available, including the Space Squadrons 2998 series from Grenadier Miniatures. While I did manage to acquire the boxed set I never managed to get enough of the ships to really satisfy me desire for a galaxy conquering armada thanks to my measly allowance and the then perennial problem of not having found either a satisfactory  set of rules for starship miniatures combat that was generic enough to allow me to design my own ships nor the dratted basic problem of how to base the ships themselves and make them look good! So alas, I lost interest, and eventually sold off the Space Squadron 2998 ships that I did have to my eventual and eternal regret, but I did manage to retain a handful, a pair of the sleek Aurora class strike cruisers, the minelayer which remains to this day I think the best starship miniature of its class ever, and the repair tender which I have buried in storage at the moment so I'll have to post a shot or two on a later date.

Here in all their late 70s early 80s glory are the Auroras painted and based as New Anglian Confederation strike cruisers for Full Thrust, and the minelayer based as a generic enough human vessel ready to muck up the spacing lanes with a whole passel of 600 gigaton space mines ready to slide off the racks:

Later in the 1980s along came some very fetching plastic kits from Japan into the local hobby shop, and among them were some small, relatively inexpensive plastic kits of various starships from the classic anime Space Battleship Yamato. Here I thought might be a means to revive my space combat gaming hopes and aspirations. I collected quite a number during this period, but alas, the twin problems of no acceptable rules and no acceptable bases mitigated once again to drive me back to focusing on ground combat and using up the majority of my cheap plastic starship kits as parts for other kitbashing projects of a sci-fi ground combat nature (and several of them made great Lascannons or Plasma Cannon conversion fodder!).

Then along came Full Thrust to my great delight, and with the added bonus that some extremely clever 12-point cast metal starship flight bases complete with clearly marked 90-degree rear arcs were also being produced by Geo-Hex to coincide with their newly achieved status as the official U.S. licensed manufacturer of the Ground Zero Games metal ship models and distributor of the game itself! I could buy the flight bases separately, the game was generic and included a handy ship design system! 

Further joy came in the form of Silent Death 1st edition, so now I could play either at the fleet level with the big dawgs, or down and dirty at the space fighter dogfight level to my heart's content! So I forged ahead, building up my fleets again and ever vigilant for new and adaptable starship models. As it turned out, those handy little Space Battleship Yamato models were getting set for a return, and in a manner I did not suspect but would be very happy about upon discovery.

Know in Japan as gashopon ("capsule toys"), these came in a sealed box assortment, and sure enough Space Battleship Yamato was experiencing a renaissance of sorts due to an anniversary of the first release of this classic anime, so not one but several sets of assorted starships and fighters from the series came out in pre-painted preassembled assortments. By this point we had the internet, and further there was the sterling mail order service of HobbyLink Japan (http://www.hlj.com). 

I did not hesitate, and upon receiving my first shipment and discovering that the lion's share of the models were hard plastic and therefore eminently suitable as wargaming models, I proceeded to repaint them all to make them my own, and fulfill my mad dreams of a galaxy-conquering armada to call my own! 

Here are many of those splendid Space Battleship Yamato mini kits and gashopon adapted to serve as my armada from the Imperial Terran Space Navy, the defenders of all things Terrestrial, Civilized, and Imperial in the spirit of the creative visions of H. Beam Piper, Gordon R. Dixon, Poul Anderson, Keith Laumer, and Robert A. Heinlein for your consideration and enjoyment:

Something old and something new! The latest version of the Garmillas tri-deck carrier from Yamato 2199 Mecha Colle from Bandai, and the 70s vintage Garmillas tri-deck carrier form the original Space Battleship Yamato anime! The newer tri-deck carrier is thinner and less imposing than the original, but the latest in plastic mould tooling technology and CAD capabilities has resulted in a kit just dripping with detail even at this tiny scale so wonderfully suitable for tabletop wargaming:

Standard EDF battleship of the Borodino class reimagined as an Imperial Terran Navy dreadnought:

The main carrier division of my Imperial Terran armada to date! I plan to add two more fleet carriers eventually, and DON'T let Bandai or anyone else release the original EDF carrier dreadnought hybrid, or I'll have another four or six of those while I'm at it:

Imperial Terran superdreadnoughts and their attendant heavy cruiser and torpedo destroyer escorts:

The hybrid dreadnought carriers with a superdreadmought and many heavy cruisers in attendance, plus their fighter complements drawn from various sources: 

A closer look at the Imperial Terran Navy's latest class of superdreadnought and its attendant heavy cruisers:

Like wolves ready to charge after their prey, a wedge of Imperial Terran Navy torpedo destroyers ready to surge forward to deliver their deadly cargo of 600 gigaton warhead torpedoes:

Another view of the Imperial Terran Navy capital ships and their escorts:

Ever vigilant, the Imperial Terran Navy stands ready to repel the barbarians at the gates! And they don't come much more barbaric that the Entomolian Empire:

That's right, I didn't stop with the Terrans and the Carnivorians once Bill Char and Monday Knight Productions brought the classic Superior Miniatures Star Fleet Wars line back to us after so many decades! He in all their brightly colored insectoid menacing glory is my mostly finished Entomalian fleet. I have a half dozen destroyers and a small swarm of the star bombers to finish and base, so for now, they'll just have to make due as a very powerful assault group looking to overrun a border colony on the fringe of the Terran Empire:

The Entomalian incursion is repelled after much hard fighting, but the threat to the safety and security of the Terran Empire never ends, as a new aline menace appears! Classic Ground Zero Games Sa'avasku from the Full Thrust optional game universe. These are marvelous biotechnology symbiotic starships, quite literally living starships fully capable of traveling across the vast distances of space and wreaking havoc with their biologically generated energy weapons:

Oh, and there's still another fleet, but that, dear readers, is for another time... Stay tuned to your TBD receivers for further news from the fringe of the Known Universe!

A Long Time Ago in a Hobby Shop Far, Far Away...

... a Young Lad Saw Starships...

...And they were GLORIOUS....

...But He Couldn't Afford Anything Much 

Larger Than a Destroyer...

...And Then They Disappeared it Seemed for Forever...

And Then One Day Many Years Later They Returned!

 And Being a Grown-up With Some Pocket Money to Spare, 

at Last, He Had a Fleet!

In Fact, More Than One Fleet...

And So The Conquest of the Galaxy Can at Last Begin!

MWAAHAAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!!!!! LIFE!!! GIVE MY CREATION LIIIIFE!!!!

Just a sneak peak for those of you who are paying attention to this little blog of mine...

Remember these:

This just in:

Stay tuned for further, as this is just the beginning..... 

IGOR! WAKE UP THE WORK GANGS, AND BRING ME MY LATEST PLANS OFF MY DESK!! GO ON, GET A'MOVIN' YA SLACKERS!! THERE'S WORK TO DO!!! 

ZATHRUS!! DON'T JUST STAND THERE, MAN!!! GO TURN THE REACTOR UP TO 200 PERCENT, AND DON'T SPARE THE ISOTOPES!!!!

More Blasts from the Past: Metal Magic Done Long Ago!

Yup. Some Metal Magic Space Lords figures I painted up for my friend Paul Ryan roughly 30 years ago, a mix of Wartech SECS Troopers and a trio of Yoydyne Humbe "GELF" ("Genetically Engineered Life Form") troopers for your viewing pleasure:

A group shot of the Wartech SECS Troopers and the civilian space merchant figure painted up as a WH40KRT planetary governor or other personage of importance within the vast Imperium of Mankind. Now, we move on to some closeups from the group:

The uniform and body armor colors in this particular group were inspired by WW2 German Army patterns and colors found on their armored vehicles and the field grey uniforms common throughout the Wehrmacht. I even carried the whole Germanic vibe as far as the prevalence of fair skin tones, blonde hair, and Germanic names for each figure lettered by hand on their bases.

Next up, here's the three Yoydyne Humbe "GELF" troopers, two hand-to-hand specialists and a Humbe packing a "grapeshot cannon" which I take to mean a really large bore single barreled shotgun-type weapon:

Yes, that's right, I painted them like a variety of python, and named them after snakes:

My reasoning was that they were a blend of human and reptilian genes conveying some tremendous physical strength of a constrictor and the various alleged advantages of human DNA. My hands were so steady and my eyes so keen so long ago I even painted their poison fangs visible in their little mouths...

Finally in this quick installment, the best of this batch, the Wartech SECS grav bike armed with twin miniguns:

The flight stand is a standard plastic flight stand with an hexagonal base mounted on a steel washer, covered with paint and flock and the upright base spire concealed underneath reindeer lichen. 

Frankly, I think this remains one of the best rendered sci-fi flying bikes of all time, right down to the twin built-in machine guns, the miniguns, and the overall layout especially the way the rider sits on the vehicle.

Next Episode: More Metal Magic plus More Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader Nostalgia, and I mean there is still a lot more to go, so stay tuned to your TBD receivers for the next alert from the fringe of the Known Universe!

Rogue Trader Nostalgia...

Over on the Lead adventure Forum more than a few members have been waxing nostalgic over the grimdark whimsy that was the original Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader game universe, indulging their wistful flights of past miniature gaming fancy by dusting off old and forgotten Rogue Trader figures and painting them up using current skill sets and techniques. The end results have been impressive to say the least, and so much so that I myself was not immune to the siren song of nostalgia for sci-fantasy wargames past.

Roughly 30 years ago I painted a great many figures for quite a few people including my old friend Paul Ryan. We were discussing some various and sundry topics last week and two of my gaming-related brain cells had a collision, and I asked Paul if he still had any of those figures I painted for him so long ago. As it turned out, he didn't have merely some of them, but damn near all of them including the many Rogue Trader era Space Marines, Inquisitors, and other fun things sci-fi and miniature. 

I wasted no time and arranged to set up and execute a photo shoot, to chronicle my work of years past, so here now for your consideration and viewing pleasure are some of the many official and proxy Rogue Trader figures I rendered so long ago when my eyes were young and much keener, my hand much steadier, and my imagination running wild in the grimdark universe of a galaxy at war in the 41st millennium! 

We begin with a number of Warzone figures and a wayward Grenadier Miniatures Traveller Vargr figure all adapted to serve as various WH40KRT proxies...

A Bauhaus hero adapted as a high ranking Imperial Army officer in carapace armor wielding a Bolter. Within the original Rogue Trader canon Imperial Army officers could and did have access to much better wargear that the hapless enlisted ranks of the vast hordes of lasgun-wielding cannon fodder of the Emperor of Humanity...

Next up is a Traveller Vargyr adventurer figure from Grenadier Models, repurposed as a faithful Beastman companion to a Rogue Trader:

I replaced the original pistol with a WH40KRT plastic plasma pistol, and painted his vest as a surcoat bearing the sigil of his Rogue Trader master befitting his elevated status as the loyal inner circle minion/bodyguard of so powerful (and eccentric) an archetype of the Rogue Trader canon.

Next up are several more character figures from other manufacturers repurposed as various denizens of the Rogue Trader universe, starting with a junior Imperial Army officer with a bionic eye, Bolter, and Carapace Armor, an Urban War figure who also makes a more than passing Imperial Assassin with the right paint job:

One of the Warzone heroes of the religious warrior order from that competitor wargame canon, here repurposed as a Rogue Trader wearing Carapace Armor and wielding a Bolter and a Power Axe:

Here's a quartet of Urban War Syntha androids repurposed as generic robot soldiers of the Adeptus Mechanicus, but breveted out to an Imperial Army unit (hence the graffiti courtesy of the wits amongst the rank and file who fought alongside these mechanical servants of the Emperor):

Next comes a heroine from the Firefight aka Ion Age line repurposed as an Inquisitor armed with a plasma gun and assorted built in weapon system in her custom-built powered armor suit:

Second generation Space Marine Terminators and an Inquisitor in Terminator Armour sporting a bionic leg. The Inquisitor has been finished as an Inquisitor turned Rogue Trader character, while the Terminators are finished in a custom-to-order livery that nearly drove me barking mad to execute back when I was twenty-something, steady of hand and keen of eye:

Finished in a connected theme was this Rogue Trader era seated Space Marine vehicle rider figure adapted to serve as a rank and file Space Marine suitable for the wargame table rather than just as an accessory to a finished Rhino APC:

 The knocked-out Khornate war robot the Marine is using for a barstool is a Grenadier robot from a boxed set that has been brought back into production along with its fellows by Mirliton of Italy.

Next comes a bit of Rogue Trader whimsy and a bit of figure ancient history, a Gretchin minefield clearance squad made up of old Citadel Miniatures fantasy goblins kitted out with assorted 1/35 scale cut down white metal muskets and flintlock pistols, and some 1/35 scale plastic WW2 German helmets:

The banner is made from the lead foil that used to be used for sealing wine bottle tops, with some brass wire for the flagpole and crossbar, and a spare white metal skull from Dragontooth Miniatures (IIRC the skull's origins!).

Up next are Shamus and O'Malley, two Imperial Army Squat troopers full of blarney and ready to knock out the heavy armored enemies of the Emperor:

And to end this installment with a bang as it were, an original Rogue Trader Terminator Marine, finished as a member of the Legion of the Damned complete with a lengthy slogan that I freehand lettered back when I was young (and had more guts than brains!):

This ends the first installment of this photo chronicle. There were no less than five (5) Chessex figure boxes full of painted figures to sort out, and my camera battery gave out on me (#$%@@^!!!!). Even so, I took a great many photos, and the result is that the next installment of this humble blog will be all about the Metal Magic Space Lords figures I rendered for my old Friend Paul, so stay tuned until next time, because in addition to those five storage cases I mentioned, there were other boxes as well, and a castle that has to be seen to be appreciated!