Tuesday, June 21, 2022

The First Rogue Trader Miniatures: Part 3


This is the third post dedicated to Citadel's first Warhammer 40K miniatures. I, of course, am not the first Oldhammer fan to take up the challenge of painting the rare miniatures in the RT1 range, and I'd like to pay some tribute to those who inspired me.

There are at least three others who have painted the full set of 14 miniatures:

  • In 2018, Jason Fulford at Rogue Heresy completed the range and presented his superb work. I love his imaginative colour choices and the way he paints faces. My particular favourite is his rendition of the "Ground Combat Trooper" (aka Abbadon). The blue-glass faceplate is a masterstroke.
  • Goblin Lee finished his set in 2015. His work nails the authentic feeling of Rogue Trader. Highlights for me include his "Dark Elf Space Trooper" and the "Imperial Bodyguard" (get a load of those pants!).
  • Giuseppe Chiafele's work on this range is archived at the Stuff of Legends. If you haven't seen it before, take a long look! Giuseppe is a professional and it really shows. I very much like the way he painted all the Imperial Troopers with the same colour scheme -- it's a nice change from the mercenary mishmash that I (and most other painters) employ when tackling the range. I wish I knew whether Giuseppe did these minis on commission or whether it's from his personal collection.
  • Then, there's Axion's work at Magpie and Old Lead. I don't think he's done the complete range, but some of his work on individual models is not-to-be-missed. Check out his exquisite work on the "Piscean Warrior" or the "Space Goblin".
  • Finally, check out Dave Stone's version of the "Piscean Warrior" - a strange, deep-sea paintjob that I just love.
Now to my own work. Here are the last five miniatures from the RT1 range...


First is the "Pirate". As I've mentioned before, this is a reworking of "Cedric", a fantasy C01 Fighter from 1986. Both were sculpted by Bob Naismith. Personally, I'm sad there weren't more adaptations from the fantasy line to Rogue Trader - it adds a Buck Rogers-esque flavour to things. I really love this miniature for the dynamic pose and quirky details.

Space Pirate RT1 1987 Citadel First Rogue Trader painted miniature


And now the original Space Elf: the "Dark Elf Space Trooper". This miniature is like a piece of concept art showing the first rough ideas for the Eldar. With the small head, huge backpack, and narrow legs, he (or she?) resembles a hornet. I took the trouble of creating a triple view of this miniature because it's hard to capture the strange dimensions of the sculpt by Bob Naismith. Although it is flawed, I wish there had been other miniatures made in this line so that the ideas could have been developed more fully. In the event, responsibility for the Space Elves was taken from the veteran Naismith and given to fledgling sculptor Jes Goodwin because the management at Games Workshop thought that Space Elves wouldn't sell.

Dark Elf Space Trooper RT1 1987 Citadel First Eldar miniature


The "Imperial Heavy Trooper" would later become "Faststar John" in the RT7 range of Mercenaries. He's another sculpt by Bob Naismith. I've got a deep personal attachment to this miniature because it was one of the first painted Rogue Trader miniatures I ever owned as a kid. My older brother painted him. He gave him to me after I agreed to go out and buy him some fried chicken.

Imperial Heavy Trooper RT1 1987 Citadel First Rogue Trader painted miniature


The hits keep on coming! We've already had the first Space Elf, and now we get the first Space Ork miniature -- known in this range as "Space Orc with Blaster". At this early stage of the game, not only were Orks simply called Orcs, but Bolters were called Blasters. Space Orks wouldn't deviate too far from this original mold -- the mishmash of gear, the spikey helmet, the heavy boots and the metal shoulder-pads all started here. (I'm giving you a triple view so you can catch all the orky details).

Space Orc with Blaster RT1 1987 Citadel First Space Ork miniature


And finally, the last miniature in the range: the "Imperial Heavy Infantry", also known as "Space-Dout Sam" in the RT7 Mercenary range. I'm lukewarm on both this miniature and my paintjob. In another sign that this was very early days in the world of Warhammer 40K, he appears to be carrying an M16.

Imperial Heavy Infantry RT1 1987 Citadel First Rogue Trader painted miniature



If you know of anyone else who has tackled some of these miniatures, please post about it in the comments. I'd love to see some other versions. Thanks!



21 comments:

  1. Really cool bunch of models - perfect candidates for RPG characters' personalisations. Rogue Trades was kinda RPG, correct? Mean - it wasn't "just" tabletop game? 🤔
    Hever had a chance to play it or even see it in action...

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    1. That's quite correct. It was a real hybrid. In some senses, it was an awkward hybrid (for instance, a lot of pages are taken up with tables for randomly arming characters, which makes no sense in a wargame where one model randomly gets a missile launcher and his opponent is randomly assigned a club).

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    2. LOL, that must've been quite a duel! 🤣

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    3. That's the Way of Oldhammer (TM, patent pending, all rights reserved).

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  2. Great work on all Matthew, I think the only one I've painted is the Piscean Warrior, but for the life of me can't remember if I posted it up on the blog ! LOL

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    1. Dave, if you find a link to your Piscean, please let me know and I'll update this post. I'd love to see how you handled him!

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    2. Just put up a post with him in for you Matthew https://wargamesculptorsblog.blogspot.com/2022/06/saint-exmin.html

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  3. Another lovely sort of great classic minis!

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    1. Thanks Michal!
      I'm looking forward to seeing more of your WWII stuff.

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  4. I love them sooo much. Your personal style suits them in quite a lovely way! I had both the troopers for my lost gone Imperial Guard, but it's so refreshing to see other people's versions (specially when they look as good as these!)

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    1. Suber, I'd love to see how you painted the troopers - let me know if you ever posted pics on your blog. I did a quick search just now but didn't find them.

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  5. Great work on these. The more you post these early RT minatures, the more I want to go up in the attic and retrieve my poorly painted Mercenaries and give them an update! Because I could do with a new project, not having any others in the go ;-)

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  6. As for the miniatures, we were drawn to the "space orc", both for the fact that orcs are one of the races we are fond of, and for the rich detail of this miniature, which you highlighted with colour. We were also very impressed by your painting on the early eldar, with very bright yellow and blue tones.
    It also seems interesting to us what you and demi morgana wrote in the comments: these old miniatures were each different because they were conceived for an individual role as a character - as indeed for the first Citadel fantasy miniatures. In your opinion, around which year did they move to pure wargame and the standardization of miniatures?

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    1. That's a great question, Rodor.

      I think it depends on one's own tastes. For me, the change from the free-wheeling role-playing style to the more regimented style happened within 2 years
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      You can see it clearly, for example, in the Eldar miniatures:

      http://solegends.com/citrt2/rto4eldar/index.htm

      The first Eldar (late 1987) were a mixed bunch: some with helmets, some without. Some carrying shotguns, some carrying las-pistols, some carrying both. But by late 1989, the new Eldar sculps ("the Guardians") begin to resemble each other. They all wear helms, they all carry shuriken weapons. You can see the pattern repeat in all the ranges around this time.

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  7. thanks for the plug Matthew and welcome to the Church of the 1st Flyer, beautiful painting, some great colour ideas going on there, my favourite is good old Space Cedric, you made look like a total techno barbarian before his initiation into the Space Marines :)

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    1. I'm glad you liked them, Jason!
      Lately I feel like I've often been dogging your footsteps because I've just been painting the RT601 adventurers too. It's nice to know I'm not the only completionist out there.

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  8. Love all these figures, Matthew, they're classic sculpts and you've really done them justice with your painting. My fave has to be the pirate if only for its "what happens if we give a medieval knight a laser gun" aesthetic :-) The space elf (I cannot believe I'm old enough to remember when Eldar were called that) is looking sharp too!

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  9. No clue why you aren't showing in my feed, but I just saw this post. These are fantastic! Love the colors you pulled, particularly with the Space Ork and Space Dark Elf. So bright and vibrant. Love it!

    Also, I'm jealous of that Space Dark Elf. Those colors pop so well and point right back to Rogue Trader (See, not only because I don't have one yet...)

    Fantastic work!

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    1. Thanks Hobbs. I hope I start showing up in your feed again. I feel like an old man when I say this, but I miss Google Groups. I feel like the blogging community was more easily connected when it was around.

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