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!

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...

Stormhawk Interceptor

I wanted to add a flyer to my Space Marines, and I liked the sound of the Stormhawk Interceptor. I started with a kit from Daemonscape, which was originally sold in the 90s by GZG. You can find it here as 'VTOL Gunship A' for £9.99. It was a reasonably close match for size and shape to the proper model. The kit comes with two main hill parts which stick together, top onto bottom, with a flat join. I cut a piece of 3mm plasticard to be neatly sandwiched between the halves, adding wings and fins to bring it closer to the GW kit and give it some size.

The weaponry on the Stormhawk consists of a lascannon type thing, assault cannon and missile launcher. Luckily these are probably the easiest weapons to scratchbuild recognisably. I used pen lids, plastic cake-pop sticks and a piece of Lego to make those. I'm quite pleased with it- let's see how quickly it gets shot off the table!

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.

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!