Where we’re going we don’t need roads…

Welcome back my excellent friends. My humblest apologies for the time between updates, but the weather has not been helpful with painting.

This is quite a long post, so be prepared.

I currently have 3 squads and 2 characters for the pirate force, a sizeable warband, some decent heavy weapons and anti infantry options, it would be quite flexible on the tabletop. However…

Heavy weapons reduce the movement speed of my troops (and suspensors to offset that are not in the Eldar equipment list for some reason), and, more importantly, my planned opponent has been proudly showing off all of his rhino chassis based conversions for his space marines. He has an advantage of having started his project a few years ago.

I need added movement, and I need something harder to damage than squishy space elves. I need a tank!

However, the only vehicles available at this point, as I am collecting as if it was 1988, were the Rhino and the Land Raider for transport…

…Unless I use the vehicle creation rules in the RT rule book! That marvellous set of stats and numbers that gave us the Deodorant Grav Tank should be my salvation. I just need something to base it on. 

One trip into town and a look around and I found this piece of lovely plastic;

Given the ‘insect’ like appearance in the original art of the Eldar, a giant beetle shaped armoured transport seems ideal for what I want. Eyes for the driver and gunner, and I can explain that the back wing areas swing up in game for mounting/disembarking of the squad being moved.

I also want to do some work to make it look plausible as an anti-grav vehicle, as again, very much in the space elf style. So what are we dealing with in the box?

There was a motor unit, battery mount and a set of wheels, but we just want the chassis, lighter and easier to transport. Now… it needs some weapons. During the trip to find the base vehicle also gave me this;

A small gundam box showing a pair of small rifles on top? Yes please! Can I make these a base for a pair of shuriken catapults, let’s break out the milliput and see.

For the circular ammunition magazines, I found some old split pins, filled in the underside with greenstuff to allow it to indent the guns for a better fit, and some sculpted housing. 

Unfortunately, two light catapults aren’t going to help hugely against other vehicles no matter how good the following fire rule is. We need a big gun. We need to go old school again.

TRANSFORMERS! ROBOTS WITH BIG GUNS!

I had many transformers/knock off changing robots in my youth, so getting my hands on a decent sized cannon just meant looking through an old toy box when I visited family. This option seemed appropriate, but I can’t remember what bot it was from so don’t ask.

Boom. Literally.

That’s the offensive ability sorted, now to look at the ‘anti-grav’ ability, let’s talk greebling. The art of taking normal items and using them to add detail to a project, for my tank, this took the form of pins!

With holes drilled through the (deceptively thick) plastic of the blue areas, that you may notice here were also filled in with milliput rather than keeping them hollow (and had I been smart I would have greebled before filling), so the circular pin heads (cut off the pin a short way down) are set looking like some sort of ‘power globe’.

Now, it looks a bit wonky here, but trust me, paint will tie things together, so first we prime!

You may notice the new dome in the ‘head’, my display cabinet came with a number of these ‘dots’ as a way to stop damage with the door slamming. Free greebling!

Then we base colour and wash!

And finally main colour and highlights!

And my local game store does some nice laser cut mdf bases, so with some dowel and hot glue, we get a finished product!

Now, I can see some rough areas, and my limited skill in a few areas, but I feel this is very much in the spirit of those older RT vehicles seen in white dwarf, made from deodorant sticks, or zoids! I’m not a miniature designer, just a strange wizard sat at his kitchen table making an army for a game from almost 40 years ago. I had fun doing it, and it looks good based next to my units. 3 foot rule is in effect!

So how will it play? What are its rules? Well, my excellent followers, keep an eye on this space, and we shall go through how to make an army using the Rogue Trader rule book.

It’s … very different…

‘No problem, here’s how you make one…’

Greetings my most excellent friends!

I’m currently two units and two characters into my Pirates force, it’s a start but not a lot. Now, under a GM or store staff on a weekend in the late 80’s it would be balanced by a number of other players, but a 1v1 game, it’s a bit puny.

I would say I need another unit at least, but at this point of collecting, these 12 minis were all that existed, so units are going to look… samey. I want something that stands out in the table, that other players will look at and go ‘wow!’. Looking through the rule book shows me what I want, I want these;

Eldar Pirates with Flight Packs! Hell yes! (Not a jump pack, that is a different bit of equipment in the listings not available to Eldar).

The downside, these were never made, this means we have to go through the art of CONVERSION!

WARNING: ⚠️ 

If you decide to do anything similar to models of this period, use a mask, and put down an easily disposable surface cover. Most of these minis are lead based, and you don’t want to breathe that in.

With that out of the way, let’s start on the unit leader. There’s a mini that comes with a melta gun and a power glove, he’s a good option, but I already have that weapon combo in the other batch.

I also have this one with a sword and hand flamer. So let’s go for a weapon swap.

This is called a Fret Saw. It has a small, thin blade, and it’s made for very small, very precise cuts. The hobby saws you see for sale now are made to go through thick, heavy chunks of plastic that a hobby knife can’t deal with. That’s fine for modern kits, but I’d lose far too much off this arm with one of those. Same with any hobby clippers, as the v-shaped ‘snip’ would need to be flattened.

This is a case of right tool for the job.

Both of these minis are based on the same basic initial sculpt, this helps, you can see the chainmail ‘sleeve’ on both, and the fuel line for the weapons. Two quick saw cuts, and we look at reattaching the new gun.

And that grey powder? Lead shavings. Wear A Mask.

One pin drill, the smallest bit I have, and a slow, steady effort to keep everything straight, then another hole in the arm, test fit with a paper clip, and we are getting there!

Oh look. MORE lead shavings.

I did wonder about the wings. How do I make them? I could do the shapes in plasticard, the image I’m going from has very little detail so it would look picture right, but feels too basic. I could try sculpting them? I’m not that good at sculpting though, and now isn’t the time to practice.

While looking online for a different mini for another game, I found my answer. Heresy Miniatures, a small mini company, makes insect wings, and they seem to fit the bill. So I ordered, and compared the size… absolutely spot on!

But how to attach them?

The old Eldar have two small ‘vent’ type bumps on the back, about the same size as the wing nubs. So what if I snipped those off, used the smallest bit drill bit to make a guide hole, then a large bit to create an indent for the nub?

Back in the older times, if at first you didn’t succeed, you could go get another mini and try again. I don’t have that luxury, as these guys are getting harder to get a hold of.

Let’s make this count.

The arm fits, the nubs seem to fit the holes, let’s glue it all in and hope for the best.

And there we are! A completely unique mini for my force, ready to deliver fire and punching to the enemy.

Now to give him some friends. I have three complete Pirates, along with an Eldar with no arm, and an arm with no Eldar… let’s fix that.

Bit of bending to give the wings a few different looks, and we go for the same painting method of base colours…

Washes to shade…

Clean up the base colours…

Highlights…

And bases!

These came out so much better than I thought, especially the weapon swaps. That 17 models to play with. It’s a shame there were no vehicles released for the Eldar at this time. (Insert foreshadowing music here).

Thanks again to Heresy Miniatures, I’m not sponsored, I’m just happy they had the bits I needed, along with a really nice range of minis, sci fi and fantasy based. Check them out, it’s a one man operation so be patient. 

https://www.heresyminiatures.com/shop/

See you next time.

Where do we fight?

You buy and paint your minis, what then? You want to play a game with them, obviously, but a blank, featureless table isn’t really an inviting game for anyone is it. The folks who put Rogue Trader together knew this, and actually mention it in the book!

Well, it just so happens that the recycling bin at home had these in;

These look close enough to what was used in the book almost … 40… years… oh boy! Ah well, let’s get some thick card (you’ll have a box from something that’s been delivered) and the glue gun (mine was very cheap from a craft shop for hobby things, if you get me).

Inner circle is traced around the pot top, the outer ring is just guessing how far out I want the base to be to give stability.

I used a Stanley knife, you can use scissors, be careful with either.

Hot glue and press down. You can use PVA, but it will take longer to dry. Superglue can work, but you MUST apply the glue to the plastic first, THEN press it to the card, if you glue the cardboard it will soak in and not stick.

More hot glue.

Then it’s just gluing the pots together until you have as many levels as you like! This used two large pots and one smaller one.

One important tool for crafting, gaffa tape! I cut several sections done the above size, and one long bit for the whole top. The reason will become clear.

Some old broken headphone wire to the outside, bit more visual interest.

Then a full covering on Concrete paste to get that authentic ‘80’s prefab’ look. Rougher than sandpaper, but looks good.

And this idea why we used the tape, peel off, we have some smooth areas, why? Because we don’t want windows that look like concrete! Keep the paste on hand to touch up any bits that flake off.

Outside for an undercoat

Now, here I apologise, I got into a flow and stopped taking pictures, but yes, I also did a second one. They were both given washes of different shades, the windows and doors were painted with greens and browns, with a thick black marker to line them. After this, the cables were painted and the basing to match my force, and we got…

Boom! Two scale buildings to fight between, done as period as possible, might as well keep on theme!

I did these with a few hours after work over a couple of weeks, drying times made the longest parts, and even with the flaws I can see, once you start playing, you really don’t notice.

Even now, you don’t have to buy terrain, a bit of time and looking at shapes of boxes or packing, you can do some cool things. Plus, we will need more terrain for the game.

Be magical folks.