I Cantrip into a challenge…

This year saw a trip to Wargames Foundry for Bring Out Your Lead with my regular opponent. Now he has a very nicely painted Rogue Trader Marine Army he decided to show off, and did so to great effect.

This led to the suggestion that we reserve a table for next year and actually play a game of 1st Edition 40k with appropriate army, because of course I had some very old minis in my store of components, but what to actually play, and how to go about it…

Well, my actual start in this life we call gaming actually started during the time of 2nd edition 40K, I have my Eldar army, and to be fair, they are mainly RT era minis anyway, but that wasn’t good enough.

This needs to be very old school. So, Introducing;

RT04 ‘Space Elves’

Not RTB4, that was the original Rhino box (the one that had 3 Rhino’s in for £9.99, yes, you read that correctly). The ‘Space Elves’ line of models didn’t get any box releases, RTB06 was for the Harlequins and RTB17 contained the ‘Eldar Guardians’ when the idea of the Craftworld armies was introduced, but our fun pointy eared space Pirates? Nope. The only Main Book faction to not get a box set, or even any plastic models for them (RTB01 – Plastic Marines, RTB07 for Guard, RTB10 for Squats and RTB13 for Orks!)

So these are the Miniatures I have available to start my journey to a full game with, and while you will see a variety of weapons, and we will go more into that when it comes to pointing up a force, there is one major point of confusion.

If you look at the Citadel Compendiums, those wonderful books full of pictures of old Mini’s of yesteryear, all of these models are liisted as having ‘Shuriken Pistols’. 

Except Shuriken Pistols did not exist in the game at release, all of those weapons that look like a sci-fi crossbow? Those are Shuriken Catapults! What we would now point to and call a shuriken weapon didn’t get its now iconic look until later in the games life, so being the pedant I am, these will be referred to as Catapults.

Now, let’s try to collect a Space Elf force like its 1987, lets see how we are going to paint them… Next time…