Shadow Wars: Rogue Trader Revival

Welcome to the first post of this blog. I've been painting for about a year now, after just getting back into this hobby again. You can thank Star Wars Armada and X-wing for that, after getting the various sets I decided I needed a few unique craft. So up into the attic I went, for an explore and discovery of my old paints, and apparently my miniatures. I'm going to try and be a bit honest here too, some people might consider what I do a bit nerdy. Though that in turn seems to be the in thing, well I don't do it for that. I rediscovered painting and in turn discovered that it helps me relax rather a lot. I've had a bit of depression and anxiety over the last few years, and while mental illness doesn't have quite the same stigma it had it still can get some questions. I kind of kicked of the help with a bit of art, which you can still see at http://hairylittleewok.deviantart.com/ something I might expand more too. But I have found that while the painting takes up time, it also frees my mind a bit, it wanders to those questions I didn’t realised were bothering me. That then seem to help me release the anxiety and stress behind them. Now, it doesn’t always work, and sometimes I’m up rather late pondering things while I paint ‘hence the blog title’. But it is helping massively, and while I’m at it, my painting technique is improving loads.

Shadow Wars, is something new, by that old gaming brand Games Workshop. Little skirmishes in the 40st millennium using small squads of 3-10 troops normally, rules for quick and simple games. The best thing is that due to the fact that the teams are small, you can get something painted up in a short time and get to the table. Not that I’ve had a game yet, been a bit busy with other things to get a chance. Within a month I’ve painted a created 4 different squads, a set of Marines, Orks, Eldar, and old Imperial Army (now known as Astra Militarum). Unfortunately, the Marines will have to be used with Chaos rules as I didn’t realise they are not in SWA. For this post I’m just including my Eldar and Imperial Army teams, as I’ll feature the others later. The main thing you will notice is that the majority of my figures are from the early days of Warhammer 40K, know as Rogue Trader. So they will date around 87 to 92, and maybe some odd others to about 00 depending on my preference.

Harlequins

 Eldar Harlequins, Solitaire, Trooper and Death Jester

Trooper, Squad Leader and another Avatar being a Trooper.

These are some of the first miniatures that I painted last year, lots of bright colours but only simple schemes as I was still trying to recall how to shade and highlight. Along with this I was still using nothing but my original 80’s paints, I’ve picked up a few more since, with Nuln Oil being invaluable. So we have some basic shading, dry brushed highlights and the starting of highlights with lighter paint mixes. I did try a few bit of detail, like a tear on the Avatar figure.

Eldar

 Warlock, my favourite figure of all the Eldar. I spent a lot of time on him and I'm really please with how his coat came out, its simply Nuln Oil and then a very light lined highlight with blue in key areas. No dry brushing apart from on the sword blade to mix the colours and then light painted lines and flicks.

 Squad of Avengers and their leader, my favourite colour at the moment is this very bright pink, it makes a excellent contrast with the blue below.

These I painted first, and I must say, I think they are some of my best work. The lines where all rather new and experimental for me as a highlight, and the original blue was much lighter until it got a very dark shade. I should have watered it down more, but it seems to have worked out in the end.

Next we have some Craftworld Eldar, these are not the earliest version of the Space Elves that I remember in Rogue Trader. Though they are the last ones I saw before I got out of the hobby around 92. I did think about painting them in very traditional colours, but I’ve tried to mix it up a bit from what is expected. I’m hoping in the future to get a few more original Space Elves and paint those in my own interpretation of the 80s pirates. Overall, these took about a week to get done.

Imperial Army

Both of these figures are form around 87, with a Sergeant on the left (Lt in the publications) and a Trooper on the right. Both had particular difficult faces to paint, which I'm not sure if was damage due to time, or just problem sculpts. As you might recognise I've tried to paint these in a scheme similar to the White Dwarf publication 109.

The first figure as you might notice, doesn't look very GW, and it isn't. Its from a defunct system called Void if I'm right, but I really liked the look of her when I acquired a number of figures. Was have a old 89 Commissar and another difficult to paint faced trooper. 

These two are my 'sniper' element of the squad and probably the hardest to get hold of, both dating from around 87. Trooper Lang on the left has a very nice and detailed sculpt to his face and overall look.

Finally with have 'Hambo' and his buddies, who as you can see below I've also tried to add some very traditional 80's tattoos. With 'MOM', barb wire, dagger and some blood drops.

Finally, for this post we have the original Imperial Army with all but one a non GW figure. These are some of my favourites, though a few of the faces seem to have not stood up to the test of time. Making them very challenging to paint and keep some sort of expression. Three of them as you can see I’ve decided to tattoo their arms, including on that remind me and was inspired by Rambo. Who I’ve decided to call ‘Hambo’ with his ‘MOM’ tattoo, just to keep it really 80’s. These took about 2 weeks to get finished, requiring a little more attention than the others.