Space Wolves

Amongst the many projects that I am working on is a Space Wolf army for my partner to use. I’ve had a few Space Wolf models since the mid 90s, but they have always been a bit of a side army for me. On the other hand, they are one of the armies that my partner used when she got into the hobby (in 3rd edition), so a few years ago when I was starting to sort it some 2nd edition forces, Space Wolves seemed to be the obvious choice.

The models will mainly be the late Rogue Trader/Early 2nd edition models, but some later sculpts or components will creep in, simply as I don’t necessarily have the exact models or bits (arms and weapons, etc), but we do have some slightly later ones.

To date, I’ve managed to get half of a Grey Hunter squander, and a couple of characters done - the idea is to try to get them fairly close to the blueish grey that the wolves were at that point.

The freehand on this Captain is based on the old Rogue Trader designs in the Space Marine Painting Guide from 1989 (shown below).

This model of Njal the Stormcaller will likely be used as a generic Rune Priest. For whatever reason, his bird holding hand had been cut off, so I ended up having to rebuild the forearm and wrist from greenstuff - it’s a little rough, but not too bad at a distance.

 

Terry the test termagant

As you might notice by the dates on posts so far, I’ve been mainly putting things up from a backlog of content. I’ve mostly been doing this in chronological order of what I painted, but sometimes something “new” will break through - in this case a test model for red tyranid creatures.

I ended up ordering a few 1st/2nd edition tyranid models over the Christmas break, but wanted to have a think about how I was going to paint the red before starting them. While very good for the more mainstream 40K races (at least, mainstream when 2nd edition was launched), the ‘Eavy Metal Painting Guide only has a few pages on tyranids - understandable as when it was written, the range was pretty much warriors, hunter-slayers, carnifexes and various genestealer adjacent stuff (and zoats!).

I didn’t have any of my old 2nd ed termagants to hand, so a much more recent (10th?) edition model would suit as a test model - sprayed red.

One of the advantages of blogging is you can use it as a reminder to how you paint things…

The main red body was painted with a few coats of Army Painter Fanatic Resplendent Red, then over brushed with Angelic red. I then thinned Baal Red contrast (c. 1:2) with contrast medium, and coated the entire model. Citadel Wild Rider Red was used for the main skin colour, leaving the previous colour in the recesses and amongst muscles, etc. I needed up going back and thinning a bit of coat d’arms vampire red down mixing it with Baal Red and adding that to areas I thought would have deep shadow, and a final highlight of Fanatic Burning Ore was added around the highest points - quite complicated, but it looks nice enough in the end. I wasn’t really sure on where I wanted to go with this for a lot of the time, so it probably could have been less steps overall.

The bone colour is a base of Fanatic Wasteland Clay, a citadel Reikland Fleshshade wash, then progressive highlights through Morghast Bone, Ushabti Bone and Screaming Skull. The dark blue bits are Fanatic Deep Ocean Blue, highlighted with Abyssal Blue, then mixing a bit of Arctic Gem in.

The green took a bit of figuring out as well. I started with a base of Fanatic Emerald Forest, a wash of Citadel Kroak Green, then tidied with Emerald Forest again. Highlights were made by mixing Emerald Forest with Citadel Skarsnik Green, the adding some screaming skull to this mix for final highlights.

The purple bits were a base of screamer pink, then highlights of Fanatic Wicked Pink and then Pixie Pink. Eyes were painted with Fanatic Deamonic Yellow, then Space Dust.

Blood Angels Dreadnought

Sometimes you manage to find a good job lot of models when searching eBay. I managed just such a bundle when trying to get some Orks a few months ago. Alongside the aforementioned green blighters, there were enough RTB01 marines for a tactical squad, and one of the old Rogue Trader Space Marine Dreadnoughts.

This fellow came along with a lascannon and a power fist with twin bolters, as well as the short legs, but was in pretty good nick. A swift bath in the stripping solution, and he was ready for a new coat of paint. My inspiration here was the one in the 2nd Edition rulebook, on the page of dreadnoughts (or dreadnought adjacent) models.

Given that my Blood Angels are from the 5th company, I slightly changed the banner design to reflect that, but otherwise tried to paint it up in the same style.

Here he is, battling his Ork counterpart in the midst of an Ork settlement. He hasn’t actually made it onto the battlefield proper as yet, but I’m sure he will do soon.

Space Orks

When I first got 2nd ed 40k, the main army I played with were the Orks. I’ve always loved this era of Ork (and correspondingly, the ones from roughly the same time in Warhammer Fantasy Battle). While the slightly later (Brian Nelson era) Orks are ok, I never really vibed with them.

I don’t seem to have all of my old Ork army, but a few models did manage to get through whatever purges seem to have occurred. This has been supplemented over the years with a few purchases. Last autumn, I push ahead to get a good chunk of the Orks that I had to hand base coated, so they could be used in games without being too much of an eyesore.

Here you can see the majority of them with base colours and bases done. I’ve also completed a few more units since, but the majority of these need finishing off at some point, and I have another 30 or so boys to do split across Bad Moons, Snakebites and Blood Axes.

Of the ones that are finished, we have the following: A Weirdboy, a Painboy, some Goffs, a 3D printed Battlewagon and Gobsmasha (designed by the excellent Dr Spork), a shokk attack gunner and his Runtherd friend, some Blood Axes Commandos and Deathskullz, and a dreadnought.

DWARVES IN SPAAAAACEEE

 One of the other collections I seem to have built up over the years is a small squat army - having added a couple more bikes and a trike from eBay, and a couple of Horus Heresy tanks (a Rhino and a resin Land Raider), I now have about 2000pts of the little blighters.

Having 2000pts of squats does not mean I have painted 2000pts of squats - most of these doughty fellows are sprayed and ready for the brush when I get round to it. I did manage to paint up one of the squads last year, as well as a couple of characters and a Chaos Squat in Exo Armour however, so the basic scheme is sorted out.

Hopefully I’ll get onto these squats at some point in the next few months - though as you will see there are quite a few collections tidied and ready for the brush!

A slight note on the Ancestor Lord here - he’s actually an old Warhammer Fantasy dwarf that I had previously been using as a runesmith. A quick bit of green stuff to make a few cables and a bionic eye, as well as a little comms thingy near his ear has sorted him out for the far future instead.

One of the squads of generic squats from the army - this one with a lascannon and heavy plasma. The eagle eyed amongst you may note that this is technically a conversion beamer rather than a heavy plasma gun, but since conversion beamers are support weapons in 2nd ed, the similar shape will let the cheeky little guy get away with it. A couple of the old plastic squats make up the ranks here along with a metal chap with a lasgun.

The Eldar

While I didn’t really play Eldar back in 2nd edition (the first time round), I pretty much used them as my main army for 4th - 7th edition, which means I ended up with quite a few models over the years. Going back to tidying and painting up old collections, I ended up starting to paint the Eldar up as the opposition to my Blood Angels.

For whatever reason, I started painting them up as Ulthwe - I’ve had quite a few Eldar armies over the years, though my first main one in 4th edition was Ulthwe (in the era of seer councils and the like). At the time, they had been painted in broadly the (at the time) current style - bone helmets, and somewhat muted colours. With the start of this reworked collection, I’ve tried to get a bit closer to that 2nd edition brightness.

You will probably see that not all of these models are 2nd edition ones - with various different editions of models creeping in - at some point, it would be nice to get all the old sculpts, but for now,  is nothing wrong with a lot of these newer ones. The scale changes a bit, but if we stay away from the most recent Eldar sculpts, the scale creep isn’t too bad.

Blood Angels

I’m not sure exactly who made the decision as to which squads were painted in which colours when we first got 2nd edition 40k. My mum painted some of the first models, so it may have been her, but equally it could have been myself or my brother. We did have a very small number of Dark Angels, but in the main, the Space Marines were originally painted as Blood Angels. 

When going back a few years ago (c. 2020ish) and finding old models, I made the decision to repaint them up as Blood Angels again - I’ve always had a soft spot for their background, and I enjoy painting red, so it seemed fairly obvious, and given my first inspirations for 40k were for the period that Blood Angels were pretty much the poster boy for marines, it also makes sense.

I’ve got quite a few painted up to a basic table top standard, with a few squads almost finished (they effectively need transfers doing at some point). To that end, here are the “nearly finished” groups:

Painting wise, I tried to follow (fairly closely) the method in the 2nd ed ‘Eavy Metal Painting Guide. This is mainly with Coat d’arms paints, and a fair few coats in places, as soon of these are pretty translucent.

The armour starts with a coat of 50:50 Blood Red and Angel Red (Blood Angels Red/Orange), before shading in between plates with a mix of Red Ink and Vampire Red. After a bit of tidying up, highlights are Angel Red and the mixing a bit of Flame Orange in. I ended up doing black shoulder pad trim to break up the red slightly, highlighted through mixing in some blues and Shadow Grey.

A bit of history

 The best place to start this catalogue of misdeeds?

I first got into “the hobby” in the early ‘90s, via Heroquest and Space Crusade. Exactly when this was is a bit hazy, but my entry into the more mainstream GW games was with Warhammer 40,000 2nd edition, in 1994, with the main boxed set arriving as a Christmas present from my parents - I remember staring at the 2 page spread in White Dwarf 180 (my first issue) for ages before that Christmas. 

Back in the ‘90s this was enough to make hours of entertainment for a small child…

While I don’t have my full collection of White Dwarfs anymore, I still have that old issue, much loved, and often flicked back through. Just look at that cover art!

We played 40k initially, branching out into Warhammer Fantasy Battle when 5th Edition came out, and then other things beyond that. I’ve played pretty much every edition of 40k since 2nd, pretty much as each came out, but I have a lot of nostalgia for the RT, 2nd and 3rd editions, which has only been enhanced by the stellar efforts of YouTubers like Minisodes and Miniscape.

Back in the day, my main armies for 2nd edition were pretty much straight from the box - Blood Angels Space Marines and Space Orks, with a few additions here and there: the Blood Angels Devastator squad, a few Ork support weapons and vehicles, fighting games against my brother’s Eldar and Imperial Guard. I’m not actually convinced I had a great grip on the rules back then, but who knows. 

My interest in “what came before” was mainly from the handful of older White Dwarfs I’d managed to get (back when GW stores had a bunch of back issues behind the till that could stretch back ages!) - White Dwarf 141 in particular stands out, with the Alaitoc Craftworld vs The Blood Angels Rogue Trader Battle Report. In secondary school, my form teacher had a copy of Rogue Trader on her shelves (she was an art teacher with quite an eclectic selection of books) - a few of us would take it in turns to borrow that book and leaf through the pages, seeking mysteries of an older time. Getting my hands on a copy off eBay (as a gift from my partner) years later was a delight, and one I need to get round to exploring more fully at some point with a few games.

Quite a few years later on, after various distractions with other projects and so on, I have returned to the games of my youth, digging out and expanding (where affordable) collections, repairing and repainting models, and playing games of 2nd edition 40K, as well as NetEpic Gold. Further systems await (I’ve dug out the old Battlefleet Gothic Fleets, for instance), but for now, we are firmly in 40K territory.

Welcome to the Halo Stars

Far from the light of Holy Terra, at the very edges of the galaxy, the Halo Stars await... 

These ancient stars are all that remain before the vast intergalactic void. A place of uncertainty, danger, and mysterious phernomena, haunted by unknown beings. This is not a place for rational, living men. Still, they attract the ecentric, the curious and the obscure. 

Come amongst the Halo, and witness the wonders of past ages...

I’ve started this new blog to catalogue my efforts working through my old Games Workshop collections, particularly those based in the Warhammer 40,000 universe (though other items may appear where appropriate). Incoherent ramblings await!