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Presenting…



A Rogue Trader group project between axiom, cheetor and me.

Introduction written by axiom.

Choose Your Own Adventurers - An Introduction

Do you fancy painting a specific set of the weird spacemen that we have been drooling over for quarter of a century?" Cheetor said to Curis and myself. "As a group paint along?"

But which weird spacemen? Why the late 1980s Citadel Rogue Trader Adventurers range of course.



The iconic full-colour advert for the RT Adventurers range.

As with all paint along projects I've participated in, cheetor, Curis and myself are aiming for a mutually supportive approach which will result in actual figures being painted. Actual figures that for some cases have been on our wish lists or in our collections for literally decades.

Q. How will the process work?
A. We take it in turns to paint up an Adventurer, tagging the next in painter in a circular chain until we either paint up every single Adventurer model ever, or we get bored and decided to do something else.

Q. What figures are 'valid'?
A. After some discussion, we included some figures and eliminated others. Unreleased figures and the recently released Foundry Emperical Absolution and Liquidation Squad for example are not included. Squat Adventurers are. The definitive selection of permitted figures is covered by the catalogue pages below:







You have to admit that's a pretty iconic selection - some of the most characterful figures ever produced by Citadel, including some of my absolute favourites.

And axiom continues with the first adventurer in the series:

Choose Your Own Adventurers, Episode 1: Inquisitor Clousseau

The hardest part to this project has been where to start and working out which models to select. I approached it from the perspective of trying to make a coherent group, and where better for my first selection of figures, than an Imperial Inquisitor and his retinue. Happily, our list of approved figures included a necessary Inquisitor model, masquerading under the catalogue title of 'Lasgun 1'.



But who is this enigmatic character? We simply need to look at the pages of Rogue Trader to find out. He is none other than Inquisitor Obiwan Sherlock Clousseau.



Rogue Trader illustration by Martin McKenna.



The text actually appears overleaf from the illustration, but it clearly refers to this illustration rather than the illustration of the power-armoured Inquisitor which actually appears on the same page. After all, the Martin McKenna illustration is definitely sporting civilian head-wear! The figure itself is based on the Rogue Trooper Major Magnum figure, with significant oversculpting of coat, hat, facial features, gloves, boots and weapons:



Rogue Trooper Major Magnum. Image from CCM Wiki.

The resulting figure oozes character with a strong Western vibe. He's the lawman taking down grox rustlers. He's the lone gunman coming to the aid of isolated promethium miners. He's the defender of townships against the warpaint-daubed Kroot. He's the voice of the Imperium in the wild fringes of settled space.



I decided to play up to the Western look with a tan overcoat and drab greys, blues, black and brown. There is a little yin and yang symbol on his medallion which reflects the chest icon from Martin McKenna's illustration.



Similarly I added a some cheques to the trim of his coat, again the reflect the illustration.



The sculpt seems a little older and more grizzled than the wild-bearded illustration, so I gave him a greying beard and slightly sallow skin tone.



As for his, um, 'lasgun' - I'm not entirely sure what it's supposed to be. A shotgun perhaps? Or some kind of advanced close combat weapon? On cheetor's suggestion I painted it up as a Tau-esque pulse weapon (which seems fitting for an Inquisitor, who I suspect is from the Ordo Xenos).

On that note, the sculpting on the figure leaves a lot to be desired. There are lots of details which are unclear, poorly executed or blend into each other. I'd go so far to say that this sculpt is more crudely executed than pretty much any other Rogue Trader figure I've painted...and that says something!



But for all his faults, Inquisitor Clousseau is a prime example of character being distilled into a figure. Does it matter that he's carrying a stupid block of a weapon? Does it matter that his left leg must go through a hole in his coat lining? Not really, because the resulting figure just oozes John Wayne or Clint Eastwood.



In the distance, a lone bell tolls...

The second installment, by yours truly

Choose Your Own Adventurers – Episode 2: Captain Paradox Zeeman

"Let's all paint Adventurers!" cried sho3box. "I have almost all thirty-two of those rare expensive miniatures!"

"Yeah!" axiom responded. "I have all of that overly-fetishised and as such difficult-to-collect range."

"Yay!" Curis said, getting caught up in the enthusiasm of the group project. "I have … er … maybe … one? But I'll do a cool retro-mimic logo!"

As I had practically no Adventurers, sho3box generously jump-started my collection with the donation of a Pirate Captain.

Teenage-era sho3box had modified the Captain by adding an uzi-style magazine to the pistol and a pouch to the thigh. He'd also removed the sword, as the lumpen sculpting and lead's tendency to droop made it "look like a floppy *****". This did give me the opportunity to do some conversion work to ham up the pirate angle – a hook hand.



The first attempt at a replacement was a "split hook" prostheses, made from two paperclips filed to points and bent into curves. It didn't sit well with the chunky 1980s sculpting, so I added a big goofy Lego claw.


"Hello. I like money."

The other pirate cliche I went with was stripey trews. Disappointingly I realised after I'd painted Zeeman that the Studio paintjob also had stripey trews, so I wasn't doing anything new or edgy.

A lot of the early Rogue Trader figures incorporate anachronistic fantasy elements (either as a deliberate juxtaposition with the science fiction setting, or sculptors falling back on their established bags of tricks) – leather pouches, medieval boots, landsknecht sleeves, et cetera. It's interesting that the Pirate Captain's boots are anachronistic, but aren't the cliché thigh-high pirate boots of your 17th Century Caribbean pirate; no no no, instead, they're boring ankle-high medieval boots. Makes me wonder if he was sculpted as a generic 40K guy and later designated a pirate. But anyway, to get the boots away from the medieval leather look I painted them gleaming ice-white, imagining Paradox Zeeman as a space-chav displaying his wealth with immaculate footwear. (I may have also been thinking of the glorious Spacego cover.)


"Oi, innit blud. Hit the legs, this is well waffle."

I am thinking about adding freehand insignia to the back of his jacket, possibly the Crab Claw Nebula symbol. It'd tie in nicely with his claw. But that's a finishing touch for another day, when I've collected the other Space Pirates in the range and rounded them out to a little trio/squad/army/formation/Apocalypse detachment.


"Feds have landed up, wiv me in charge. You're merked."

Handing over to cheetor/sho3box, for episode 3…

Choose Your Own Adventurer pt 3: Eldar Trader


After all of my talk about catalogues and long term projects, I didn’t even know this figure existed until about five years ago as it didn’t appear in the 1991 catalogue. Being the one civilian Eldar model ever sold, I went out of my way to get one when I found out that it existed.





L’Oréal Wangst introduces his ally Ramirez to his kinsman Garnier.

I'm not certain that the Eldar Trader sculpt is a repurposed fantasy figure, but it certainly looks like one. The Trader carries a holstered pistol, but beyond that he looks like a disdainful wood elf to me.

With that in mind I thought it was best to steer clear of the earthy colours that are often associated with fantasy elves and to place the model firmly in an eighties sci-fi environment, so I went with the lurid, 1980s Miami Strip neon vibe that I first used on L’Oréal Wangst.



L’Oréal and Garnier display the colours of the Wangst clan.

It worked out nicely I think. The figure looks like the sort of recurring character that would have shown up in Buck Rogers in the 25th Century back in the day… if the budget had been four times larger. I quite like the expression on the figures face: he looks haughty, proud and vain.



My next CYOA figure isn’t one that I had expected to tackle this early in the project, but I had an idea that bumped it to the top of the queue. Axiom and Curis’ submissions are due before then however and they will be worth a look.

Great project. I especially like how you have painted the Eldar Trader. He looks like he would be a real jerk.

Thanks youwashock! He does capture arrogance perfectly with those folded arms. You can imagine him sarcing at everyone else quite easily.

Back to axiom for our thrilling fourth episode!

Choose Your Own Adventurers #4: Short Jern Silvo, Ratling Cook

My second contribution is a shorter, nastier piece of work. And that pretty much sums up a ratling cook - a greasy low-life responsible for acquiring supplies needed to feed his crew. I suspect those supplies may not always be of the highest quality!





I elected to give Short Jern Silvo traditional chef whites and stripy trousers, which kept the paint job pretty simple. Like many Rogue Trader sculpts, the figure is all about the character, rather than the execution of the sculpt. Which leaves some rather tricky areas to navigate - just what is the thing hanging from his cravat? What about the blobby stuff on the spoon? I rendered them as a sort of brooch / tie-pin and...blobby stuff on the spoon!





My approach to selecting my first mini-set from the Adventurers range is to create an Inquisitor with his personal retinue. Short Jern Silvo is therefore the first recruit to Inquisitor Clousseau's team. I'm looking forward to revealing which of the other Adventurers will make the cut!





Emerging from a remote hick bar, it seems that some of the locals want a word. "What did you say to them this time Silvo?"

Very impressive stuff, especially on such sculpts. Keep going, this is great.

Love this! Brilliant work on the old sculpts and great dioramas

I like the little pepper shaker. it doesn't matter where you are in space or time, a little pepper improves everything

Thanks, Ratling and Halfling miniatures are full of nice touches sown the years.

Choose Your Own Adventurers – Episode 5: Nebuli Tsar, Ventolin Pirate

My second model in this group painting project is the Ventolin Pirate – the one figure I actually had when I started this project!



Nebuli Tsar with a Squat boarding party.

The Adventurer range is full of a great many concepts that weren't developed further in Warhammer 40,000. The Ventolin Pirate has two pieces of background written about him. The first is "Ventolin". The second is "Pirate". Let's explore each of these in turn.



"Ventolin" is a brand of asthma medication that's been on sale in England since 1969. However, out of context it does look like the name of a planet / alien species / Imperial Army regiment / pirate warband. Presumably Tim Pollard slipped in the name as a joke as the model has a rebreather helmet. I like to think that Ventolin is actually a conehead alien race, and if I get a second figure I may convert it without its helmet on. There was a lot of scope in the early days of Rogue Trader for this type of humanoid alien race with brightly coloured skin and prosthetic rubber foreheads – just take a look at the Ironclaw Pirate range.

If you go with the "space is an ocean" concept, it must have pirates. Instead of being on boats, these Space Pirates are on board spaceships. Instead of being in sailor garb, they're in astronaut suits. The model has vacuum-sealed cuffs where armour panels join on his arms and legs. I've avoided the stripey trews for this model, and instead he's painted to match the Furnace Valley Squats for reasons that will become more apparent in future episodes of Choose Your Own Adventurers.

The vacuum-sealed cuffs, rebreather helmet, backpack and studded shoulderpad are reminiscent of the early Rogue Trader Space Marines. I've got a theory that this miniature was one of the dozen-or-so rejected Space Marine design attempts that Bob Naismith sculpted before he and Bryan Ansell settled on the LE02 Space Marine.



LE02 Space Marine and Ventolin Pirate.

To evoke a Rogue Trader vibe I added a freehand "GET VENT" on the shoulder pad. The phrase was AJ's suggestion; others I considered were:

[*] VENT THIS
[*] VENTI VIDI VICI
[*] VENT OUTTA SHAPE
[*] VENT YOUR ANGER
[*] VIVE LE VENT

I kept the other shoulderpad free for a Claw Nebula Pirate symbol in the future.

And now to ch33tor/sho3box for the next installment!

Choose Your Own Adventurers #6: Joan Grace, Null Maiden



Sometimes it’s easy to modernise an old sculpt… and sometimes it isn’t.

Sculpted in 1987, this particular example of the Rogue Trader Adventurer range is not my favourite sculpt.
On the plus side, the figure looks a lot like Grace Jones circa A View to a Kill.



Grace Jones on her preferred mode of flying: ‘The Concorde made life a lot easier, and I was the symbol of a Concorde crowd that had replaced the jet set. I flew on the Concorde so many times I knew the pilots. I knew their families. I could have flown the plane, except I would have wanted to do it naked, sprayed silver, in roller skates.’

Whatever one might say about Grace Jones, she is an eighties icon, which is an appropriate vibe for the figure.

I assume that the two female space marine miniatures in the Adventurer range were sculpted either at an early stage in the games development when the Adeptus Astartes were not exclusively male, or else just sculpted partly for fun, which does seem to be something that happened reasonably regularly during that Citadel era.

In terms of the background of the setting, those old figures pose a conceptual problem. What are they?



The fairly obvious thing to go for would have been to paint the female marines as Adepta Sororitas – Sisters of Battle.



The only photo of a Rogue Trader version of these is in the back of the RT rulebook. Its pretty metal. “Sister Sin” has spiked nipple armour, a veil and a bolter. The woman in the illustration also wears a ram skull motif on the left shoulder pauldron, which matches the miniature above.



But I didn’t want another Adepta Sororitas miniature. And the recently explored Sisters of Silence feature armoured pariah nuns that I fancied painting, while also being a concept that dates back to Rogue Trader, which isnt essential, but is fun to callback to.
So I ignored the Adepta Sororitas and roughly copied the Sister of Silence colour scheme that Warhammer TV’s Duncan used instead.



The model that I had was a pretty battered example of a pretty rough sculpt. The casting wasnt too bad, but while it wasn’t a chore to paint, it also wasn’t really inspirational. So plans to add some weathering and some Rogue Trader style graffiti to Joans armour (like “Sister Sin” above) fell by the wayside as I aimed to just get it finished. I might go back to add some slogans if I can think of anything apt.

Suggestions in the comments please. “Pull Up to the Bumper” is too long.



Good news is that it gives the rather lonely Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor Jodorowsky a thematically apt partner for future witch hunting, assuming that he can tolerate the massive, permanent hangover that Joan generates in psychics like him.

Part seven of Choose Your Own Adventurer will be on either Magpie and Old Lead or Ninjabread, as usual and will return here for number nine.

Great tour down old times lane.

Vintage miniatures, nice paintjobs, and great notes to boot.

Awesome project!

Over to axiom for part 7!

Choose Your Own Adventurers #7: Cinereal Jeannie, Inquisitional Psyker

My next selection, also part of Inquisitor Clousseau's retinue, is a rather beautiful and delicately sculpted figure from the Adventurers range: the Psyker.



I love pretty much everything about this sculpt - she's beautifully posed mid-power and has an interesting, yet understated outfit. Best of all, she has a lovely, characterful face - slightly concerned about the effects of the psychic power emitting from her mind perhaps? I even like her 1980s mobile phone!

She also reminds me a little of Jean Grey from the X-Men. Perhaps a little less confident about her abilities?





Jeannie got the same colour palette as Short Jern Silvo, and Inquisitor Clousseau himself, this time with the addition of some darker elements.


Look at that worried face!







No doubt she will be blasting some bad guys and grotesque mutants, while Clousseau gets busy with his shotgun. I mean chainsword. I mean xenos rifle.



Inquisitor Clousseau and associates find themselves in yet another tight spot.

Loving these. Keep it up! Grace Jones!

Brilliant stuff. Nostalgia asides, there were some ropey, yet characterful sculpts back in the day. Keep 'em coming

Wow! Reading this is the best thing to happen to me all day. Maybe all week. Love the background and discussion, and most of all the staged pictures. I appreciate the old sculpts especially when they are painted well. Neat stuff!

I absolutely love your thread! Love the fluff, love the paintjobs, and love seeing these classic minis. This sort of character-first take on 40k is one I've always been interested in but never really done, but I'm happy to admire it from here.

Thanks for all the comments! Brother SRM, it's really liberating to paint a series of oddballs that don't instantly tie into an army. I'm painting an archaeologist at the moment and he's giving me narrative hooks for games and other small-fire painting projects. Love it.

It's my turn to blast out a Rogue Trader Adventurer again!

Choose Your Own Adventurers #8: Steppenwolf, Mutant Outlander

Over at the Emporium of Rogue Dreams, Mark Elster organised a summer competition to model and paint a Rogue Trader mutant, judged by Warhammer 40,000 supremo Andy Chambers himself. Seeing other people get their entries together (like axiom's and asslessman's) inspired me to make my own mutant. Presenting Steppenwolf, Mutant Outlander.



"I am a man wolf. I am a wolf man."

In my trades and trawls I'd picked up a duplicate Inquisitor from the Adventurers range. One had his right arm with its chainsword/shotgun/railgun badly chopped away by the previous owner. I couldn't save the arm at all, so removed it up to the shoulder.



The notorious Inquisitor Sixty Pence. He's gonna party like it's your birthday.

Then I went chop-happy and removed the head, saving the stetson for a future project. Wanting to keep the conversion components Rogue Trader 1980s I found a spare wolf from the original Leman Russ. At least, I think it was spare, I definitely have three and I hope it's the duplicate I decapitated. I then added the tail peeping out the back of the trenchcoat. A wolf in a trenchcoat has a pleasing Shadowrun vibe.



"I have half a canine mind. I have half the mind of man."

Mutation-wise, Steppenwolf has a "bestial face", which the Rogue Trader rulebook describes as:

"The mutation changes the facial structure so that it resembles that of a beast. It is extremely common amongst mutated humans and has spawned the sub-race of Beastmen. Apart from leaving its victim in a state of sickening ugliness this mutation is neither harmful nor beneficial."

Rogue Trader describes space pirates as particularly prone to mutation, so Steppenwolf will slot right into my Claw Nebula force. He will be a member of an Outlander squad, so I gave him a new arm with a bolt pistol to keep him compliant with the Book of the Astronomican army list.



Nebula Claw Pirates with the remnants of Squad Hawkwind.

Since I was listening to Hawkwind's Steppenwolf while converting this figure, it seems only right to photograph him alongside the Imperial Army figures named after Hawkwind members in White Dwarf advertisements. Above you can see troopers Powell, Turner, Langton and Bainbridge. I hope to track down the other Hawkwind members to go full-on 1980s space rock.

Thanks to Steve at Eldritch Epistles for hooking me up with some more signature orange lichen recently.

Fun stuff.

Cool concept. Absolutely love the ventolin pirate, that is a concept GW should have followed up. He looks great even today.

Thanks! I think the Ventolin Pirate is quite obscure, but I wouldn't put it past Forge World to release a homage. They did release a unit based on the classic LE10 Power Armour Trooper after all.

And now to ch33tor/sho3box for the next installment!

Choose Your Own Adventurers #9: Erica James, Sister of Silence



Shes superfreakaayy.



Some readers may remember that I recently painted one of the “Female Warrior Gabs” Rogue Trader Adventurers. The more observant of you may have by now have noticed that I obviously painted “Female Warrior Jayne” at the same time.



Female Warrior Gabs AKA Joan Grace came out just about bearable, aided by a notional connection with Grace Jones. The same cannot be said for Jayne. She ended up looking like Rick James.



I was very tempted to repaint the hair on Jayne/Erica but I didn’t have the energy. The tu[i][i/i]rd polishing had to stop, I needed to paint some figures that felt a little more rewarding. And so, I doomed Erica James to her new name and her truly awful hairdo.



My next trip into the vaults of eighties lead from space will hopefully be a little more successful. I leave you with a shot of the RT Adventurers that I have painted to date, and likely, an earworm.

It's axiom's turn to paint a Rogue Trader Adventurer!

Time for axiom's next installment of the project.

Choose Your Own Adventurers #10: Rico "Snakey" Vitovitch, Pilot for Hire

Last time on the Choose Your Own Adventurers project, cheetor presented us with another golden-clad 1980s musikkie lookalike. My latest contribution is a rather concerned looking pilot (named Lorgar in the catalogue pages).

Rico "Snakey" Vitovitch was once a rising star in the Imperial Fleet's 'Maximal Blaster' fighter ace programme. However, a propensity for heavy drinking sessions and a lack of discipline meant Vitovitch was slung off the programme. Vitovitch has found himself as the retained pilot on Inquisitor Clousseau's crew. Clousseau can forgive the insolence and massive hangovers as long as Vitovitch continues to pilot air or spacecraft as required, using the innate flying skills that were once coveted by the Imperial Fleet.

The pilot is a funny old sculpt. I can't work out if he's listening to comms, ducking under a rotor or engine, or whether he has a stinking headache. Possibly all three. His outfit is equally bizarre - is the epaulette military, or from an old commercial shipping uniform? Why is he wearing cricket pads? Is the mobile phone on his belt the companion to the one on the psyker?



I painted Vitovitch in the same colour palette as all of Clousseau's companions, with a nice tan flight suit and white armoured sections. He gets a touch of blue on his shoulders just to jazz things up a bit. I tried to go for a Hispanic tone to his skin too. Not sure it's that obvious though!



Clousseau and team barter over some new guns n ammo from a backstreet dealer.

It's my turn to paint a figure now!

Choose Your Own Adventurers – Episode 11: Indiana Jones, Xenoarchaeologist

Warhammer 40,000 and archaeology. My two hobbies melded together. There’s not been this much combination of leisure pursuits since the notorious Inquisitor Bingedrink.



“1988 Rogue Trader Citadel miniature? That belongs in a museum.”

You might wonder what Indy is doing in the forty-first millennium, but seems Games Workshop had a serious thing for the archeologist producing not one but THREE homages to the character.



Left to right: “Idaho Smith” from the Gothic Horror range; “Archaeologist” from the Talisman Timescape expansion; and “Bandit” from the Rogue Trader Adventurers range.


I decided to paint this figure straight up as Indy rather than do any clever reimagining. Painting him in a grimdark scheme is something axiom or sho3box may attempt (good luck lads). The only thing actually placing this miniature in the forty-millennium is the Eldar laspistol. (At least I assume it’s an Eldar design, as it appears exclusively on the Eldar range, though oddly it pops up again in the Adventurers range on the Punk.)



I’d like to get some more displaced 20th century archaeologists to accompany Indy on his field trips. The Citadel Gothic Horror range has both a Vicar and a Reverend that would work well as antiquarians, and a couple of Kathleen Kenyon lookalikes. The possibilities are endless when you’re hunting for something as mundane as a civilian in slightly muddy clothing.

[center][i]

Indiana Jones and the Great Crusade.


The Chaos Temple

All this recent blogging and photography has highlighted the main terrain I have is cardboard Space Crusade pieces. To remedy this I picked through my storage crates and unearthed a polystyrene Chaos temple. Teenage Curis went through a Slaanesh phase and badly repainted the flagged flooring in a veiny purple marble. It looked awful and was hidden away for decades. I borrowed insipration and techniques from cheetor’s recent Age of Sigmar pieces.



Stone Temple Bandit.

The result is fairly plain, and I feel I need to pick out the odd brick in different colours – but it was gloriously quick to spray and drybrush. Most of the work was adding extra sand and rubble texture to cover the old factory-applied bright green static grass and damaged areas. It’s given me the confidence to tackle more terrain, perhaps the Battle Masters tower next.



Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

oh wow, this is most fantastic. I LOVE the rick james mini... IM RICK JAMES BITCH!!!!

I love the choice of colours you have chosen it just screams old school citadel/ 'eavy metal team painting....and I love it.

I look forward to more updates

Thanks FabGeneralMike!

Time for another installment courtesy of cheetor.

*********

Choose Your Own Adventurers #12: Doug Orewell, Squat Miner

In a space mine (space mine),
In a space mine (space mine),
Where a million dilithium crystals (shine).



Fantasy Dwarfs, both the earthbound and the interstellar varieties, have struggled to shed the image of being almost exclusively comprised of miners. Even with the occasional inclusion of terms like “artisan”, “brewer” or “artisan brewer”, dwarfs still appear to have a frankly pretty ludicrous society with very narrow employment prospects, not unlike Klingons and Bothans. There are no dwarven or space dwarven greengrocers, hairdressers or phone sanitisers.

In this regard, even the Smurfs are more credible.

Today’s CYOA submission does nothing to deconstruct this in any way.



Doug Orewell is a miner, wearing a sort of hi-viz yellow outfit (tying the figure to my Construction Crew project) and carrying a large drill bit. For drilling. Because he is a miner. Fair enough.



Citadel Miniatures 1991 “Blue” Catalogue (Image from solegends.com)

Like a number of the Rogue Trader Adventurers, I didn’t even know that this little guy even existed until some point relatively recently. That was when I realised that the Citadel Catalogue 1991 (AKA the “Blue Catalogue”, which sounds like something that one might ask the video shop man for in 1986) was not the definitive tome that I had once thought it to be.
My copy of the catalogue is still worn thin from sheer scrutiny – I seem to have had a lot more time for sheer scrutiny in the early nineties than I do now – and as a result I will always be fond of it… but it didn’t feature all of the RT Adventurers dammit.



RT601 Adventurers – RT2 Flyer, March 1988 (image from solegends.com)[/i]

Pleasingly I gathered up the range over the years since. This particular model came from Curis at Ninjabread a couple of years ago. Hooray for him!

This model was far more pleasant to paint than either of the “Female Warrior” figures that I last painted for this project (visible here and here). The miner is thirty year old sculpt and likely casting, but involved significantly fewer “I dont even know what that is…” moments than the two ladies did.



Of mild interest is that Doug has some sort of rolled up item on his belt at the rear. I painted it to match the camo pattern on the camo cloaks on my Ursa Miners, just for fun. Maybe Doug is some sort of sapper or combat engineer, or maybe he is a now civilian engineer who has a fondness for his old camo cloak… who knows?



Thanks for looking!

Time for another installment courtesy of axiom.

*********

Choose Your Own Adventurers #13: Phineas, the Navigator

According to Wikipedia (on the subject of Theosophical beliefs) "humans had in far ancient times an actual third eye in the back of the head with a physical and spiritual function. Over time, as humans evolved, this eye atrophied and sunk into what today is known as the pineal gland...by extending an "etheric tube" from the third eye, it is possible to develop microscopic and telescopic vision."

I suspect on the basis of this, and other spiritual beliefs, the concept of the Imperium's Navigators was born - after all, they have a third eye and can see weird stuff!





The Adventurers range gives us one of two Navigators that Citadel have released (the other being a much more recent Forgeworld event miniature). The Navigator possesses some of the weird anatomy referred to in the Rogue Trader rulebook - the spindly legs, the oversized hands, the bulbous head and protruding eyes. He's an ugly misfit wearing a bizarre costume that suggests wealth with all the flounces and frills. In short, a perfect representation of a Navigator.



My version of the gangly fellow is Phineas - Inquisitor Clousseau's personal Navigator from House Saq D'os. I decided that I wanted his warp eye to be concealed, so modified the figure with a sculpted bandanna. In terms of colours, I wanted to reflect my previous Navigator, Ryaph, from the same house, so adopted the same black with flashes of colour.






Navigator Phineas sports a natty little fur stole, along with his bows and puffed sleeves!

Having completed the last member of Clousseau's companions, I can also reveal the display base I made to show them off. This is made simply from an oval movement tray and display plinth. I added some resin barricades to the movement tray, then sanded the whole thing, before painting and adding some static grass and tufts.





I also added a few cables and chains as a little additional piece of visual interest.



Hopefully the group of figures hang together nicely - they're an eclectic, exotic and interesting group - ideal for an Inquisitorial retinue!

I'm loving these old RT figures. Keep it up!

Choose Your Own Adventurers – Episode 14: Necromunda Mauretania, Space Amazon

Necromunda’s just been re-rereleased, and there’s a piece of art floating around in White Dwarf and Warhammer Community that doesn’t correspond to any of the miniatures released yet, but is a lovely call back to a couple of 1980s classics.



Necromunda Mauretania makes all her decisions on the hoof.

The hoofed mad-haired Amazon in stockings is a leitmotif Games Workshop trot out occasionally – much like female miniatures. Let’s chart a quick family tree.



John Blanche’s Amazonia Gothique on the cover of White Dwarf 79 (July 1986).

This piece of art was made into the LE15 Kinky Chaosette miniature released a couple of months afterwards. The version on the left was a conversion by John Blanche himself, rather than a commercially available miniature. I’d love to know where the gun component came from.



White Dwarf 82 Amazonia Gothique miniatures (October 1986).

The Amazon with a gun concept did appear as a commercially available miniature a couple of years later, sporting a paint scheme very similar to the John Blanche conversion. She’s an Amazon, but she’s in space.



RT601 Space Amazon Adventurers, White Dwarf 99 (March 1988).

This Space Amazon turns up in those exact same colours, zebra stripe, leopard spots, piebald cow blobs in the John Blanche art compilation a year later. Sto’Knor Macekiller has painted his copy to match this, right down to the polka dot neckerbow.



Space Amazon by John Blanche, from Ratspike (1989).

Flashing forward to 2017, past some other possible miniature incarnations of the Amazon, and the cheeky nostalgia monkeys at Games Workshop re-relaunch Necromunda with this character popping up in the promotional art teasers.



Interestingly, I think the yellow patterns on her armour are meant to evoke the shape of the shield from the original Amazonia Gothique. I hope we see a miniature based on the this concept! Until then, I have painted the Rogue Trader incarnation based on the new (and the original) artwork.



Mauretania and the Claw Nebula pirates in the Jericho Ironworks on Necromunda.

The next episode of Choose Your Own Adventurers will be brought to you be sho3box.

Magnificent addition and a marvelous link between then and now. I also hope she gets reimagined in modern Necromunda.