The Calcium Crew

Having fun with ancient plastic GW Skeletons. These are being made with Dragon Rampant in mind .

Mk 1 Land Raider

Resurrected some late-'80s plastic goodness!

this week's additions

Really pleased to have been revisiting this army. More to come soon I hope!

Mk1 Land Speeder

"anywhere here on the left is fine"

An absolute pig to assemble, this lad's got more pins inside it than Evel Knievel. I've wanted one of these since I was 10.

let me through, I'm a doctor!

A Rogue Trader era sawbones for the shinymarines. I like that he sort of looks like an ambulance!

LOTR dwarves so far

Really enjoying these!

Games Workshop LOTR Dwarves

I found I had some of these in my collection, and decided to paint them up. They're lovely sculpts by the Perrys, and dating as they do to before the newer Hobbit films, they were sculpted with comparatively little movie context for how Dwarves should look, besides Gimli and that old dwarf who hangs around at the Council of Elrond. Being plastic one-piece minis, some of the detail is a little bit smooth, due to the sculpt having to deal with undercuts, so I decided to use a blacklining technique to paint some missing detail in myself. I really like the graphic quality that gives, which ties it in further to the inspiration for the colour scheme- the original Hobbit cover by JRR himself!

Family Photo

Here are my marines so far (less two tac marines that have seemingly gone AWOL), representing their chapter, the Stormwatch. I've plans to swell their ranks in the coming year, and possibly even add a scratchbuilt Imperial Knight...

Warhammer Fantasy Battle 2nd edition

I've just taken delivery of a little eBay bargain- a copy of the second edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battle from 1984. I didn't know much about it before now. I have the 3rd edition from 1988 already and that's the one that the Oldhammer lads usually rave about. First impressions are that is a more slight production than 3rd (that book really is visual and lore feast), and the Old World is less crystallised than in future editions, but several things have already piqued my interest. It has a more laissez-faire approach to army building and a formula for costing just about troops or monsters you might have minis for. The army lists are very vague. Later on the Ravening Hordes supplement brought the army lists closer to what we'd recognise, but I quite like the fuzziness of the lore at this stage in Warhammer history. I'm going to have a closer look and see if it's something I'll look at playing, or whether it's just a nostalgic curio for the shelf. 

RTB01 Sternguard

A squad of Sternguard Veterans made using the original 1987 RTB01 space marine plastic kit. Such a pleasure to build and paint.

scouts and devastators

More for my marines- a squad of scouts and some Devastators with Lascannon and Plasma cannon, made from the old '90s Grenadier plastic Space Rangers, still available at a bargain price from EM4!

Toybashed Retro Dreadnought

I wanted to add a Dreadnought to my old fashioned Space Marine army, and I wanted it to be vaguely reminiscent of the old Rogue Trader ones sculpted back in the 80s by Bob Naismith- or at least to look as through they might conceivably have been designed in the same solar system, within the same millennium!

I started keeping an eye out for bits, and found an old broken toy that I liked the look of, and worked out was one of these (on the right)

The size was good, the face looked suitably robotic and '80s-looking and it had overtones of M.A.S.K., which was no bad thing.

I nicked the legs from one of these (in the middle) that I'd found on eBay very cheaply from Singapore.

I stuck them together with a pelvis made from two 25mm hex bases, and added two Assault Cannon barrels left over from when I converted my Space Crusade marines to Lascannons.

After the usual quick paint job and varnish, I'm pretty pleased!

Some new bits for my old-fashioned Space Marines

I've added some bits to my 40k army. An original Rhino:

A squad of Devastators made from old Space Crusade minis. Two were armed with assault cannons, which I don't think are game legal, so I converted them into lascannons.

And a Vindicator. Based on an old GZG APC, now available from Daemonscape (under the name Snow Cat) for a very reasonable £8.99. I added a marker pen cap for the demolisher cannon.

A plastic Middlehammer warband for AoS Skirmish

Continuing my current enthusiasm for chunky GW monopose plastic from the early to mid '90s, here's a small 'Free Peoples' warband ready for a little Age of Sigmar Skirmish campaign. A mix of Battlemasters, Warhammer, Talisman and Advanenced Heroquest. All lovely to paint, and all looking good on those rounded bases, particularly the knight I think- really shows off a cavalry figure well.

As ever, bright and shiny is the order of the day! I used a different varnish this time though: Ronseal Ultra Tough Hardglaze Clear Varnish. Cheaper per 100ml than Humbrol Glosscote by a huge margin, and gives a subtle shading/warming effect to the colours, without staining or muddying like Quickshade.

Colours used (for my reference really!):
White spray
Averland Sunset spray
AP Daemonic yellow spray
AP Black
Mournfang Brown
Zandri Dust
Pallid Wych Flesh
AP Plate Mail Metal
AP Flesh
Reikland Fleshshade
Warboss Green
Averland Sunset
Celestra Grey
Dryad Bark
AP Ultramarine Blue

Old School Space Marines for 40K

I've really been enjoying the new edition of Warhammer 40k, and my Tyranid army are doing very much better than in the last two editions! This past fortnight or so though I've been working on a new army- one that ticks the following boxes:

• inexpensive (these are all bits I had in my miniature pile so far, and I'll be making use of proxies further down the line too)
• robust (bulletproof gloss finish, very few pointy bits to snap off)
• easy to transport (compact minis, and a more elite army than 'nids, so will be less numerous and bulky
• nostalgic (this is a big reason for why I play 40k, so I'm painting these figures from my childhood exactly as I did when I was 12: no shading, no highlighting, simple basing- no fuss, just fun!)

The Terminator squad at top left are actually quite new figures from Revell's Build and Paint range, but they are made from the sculpts that were made for the mid-90s re-release of Space Hulk. I remember when they were absolutely cutting edge in terms of plastic figures!

The Tactical squad are the ones that came with the 2nd edition 40k starter set in the early '90s. Probably the first figures thousands of gamers of my vintage first put brush to. Possibly still my favourite Space Marines.

The other Terminator Squad are older minis from the previous incarnation of Space Hulk from the late '80s. I had to convert the main chap slightly to give him the right wargear- his power sword and half of his left hand is from a modern Ork Boy, with a bit of recarving and reshaping of the blade, and the banner is a stout bit of brass rod and an old plastic skull. The artwork is my own.

The Captain is probably my favourite one from back in the day. Timeless sculpt.

The plastic Librarian in Terminator armour I think is from the Tyranid Attack boxed game from the late '80s.

The chapter is one I invented. I had some blue spray, I decided I could just about freehand a thunderbolt shape, and I chose some contrasting colours to compliment the blue. I'm calling these lads The Stormwatch, after the Jethro Tull album. My Chaptermaster will be Bartin Marre. Look out for other Tull nods as I continue the project!

Next on the list- some of the original Rogue Trader RTB-01 plastic marines!

a small gathering of Khornishmen for AoS Skirmish

a little departure from the realms of the old-fashioned and the glossy to paint up some more current miniatures, ready to play GW's Age of Sigmar: Skirmish tomorrow. I finished these off very quickly with Army Painter Quickshade which, if used carefully with the right model and the right colour scheme, is incredible stuff.

Warhammer 40,000 Tyranids

 About once a year a friend and I get together for a day and play a game of Warhammer 40,000. We're still playing the last edition, and Chris is still playing an old codex for his Eldar, but there's no real need for us to keep up with GW's bewildering release schedule.

I've recently added some bits to my Tyranids. I love the Tyranids, and they're a joy to paint. Being entirely organic, you can roughly divide each model into 'sticky fleshy bits' and 'hard bony bits'. No rivets, no gun barrels, no bits and pieces dangling from belts- you can really bash through them quite quickly with the aid of drybrushing, washes and glazes.

The basic scheme here is achieved by priming the whole model with Citadel Zandri Dust spray, washing it with Reikland Fleshshade, drybrushing up through Ushabti Bone, Pallid Wych Flesh and white (Just Pallid Wych is sufficient on the hordes of unimportant smaller models) and then painting everything that isn't bony carapace with Tamiya Clear Red, which is a transparent red paint that dries with a wet look. Quick, effective, striking and disgusting!