In my ongoing efforts to document the hobby backlog that I have purchased for myself, I am starting a second blog to cover all of my non-Chaos Dwarf related items and projects.
I want to have pretty much every miniature I have listed out so that I can tick them off and use the blogs as motivation to STOP! HAVING! IDEAS!
Most of this stuff is non-GW, coming from defunct, discontinued or declining ranges and suppliers. But let’s ease our way into it with 40k, shall we?
NB - none of the images linked in this blog are my dudes, they’re just indicative pictures of the sculpts in question
1. GAMES WORKSHOP
A) CHAOS SPACE MARINE WARBAND
The idea for these guys is that a minor Thousand Sons sorcerer is trying to build his own Silver Tower. He enlists a range of slaves from the Guard, Mechanicus and beastmen, then abducts a handful of Iron Warriors to “help”. Like all my favourite stuff, this guy is a low-power figure and his warband lo-fi as a result. Few marines; he’s operating on a budget with primarily cultists and mortal minions.
Absolutely no way is this project intended for competitive 40k play at all and is definitely illegal and useless by the rules.
It actually stems from my idea for the old Black Library contest about a “band of brothers” - if a Traitor Guardsman, a Thrall Wizard, a Tzaangor and a Dark Mechanicus adept all had to coexist, what would it look like? How awful would it be? Someday I will write this properly. Someday farrrrrrrr into the future.
One other note - I wanted to show how terrifying an Aspiring Sorcerer is from a mortal perspective - it’s very similar to ATWD in that respect, which is just about one Sorcerer in one small border fort on the edge of the Dark Lands.
Thousand Sons
10x Rubric Marines w/Aspiring Sorcerer
10x Tzaangors
5x Thrall Wizards - various classic Realm of Chaos era champion chappies
1x Castellax Achaea-pattern automata
5x Scarab Occult terminators - these will actually be a kitbash of the Sekhmet parts with the Death Shroud kit, both from Forge World Heresy-era, because i bloody love scythes. Hopefully will look quite cool, but we’ll have to wait and see.
Traitor Guard formation
10x Cadians
15x Steel Legion & special weapons
1x Armoured Sentinel
If I write this story someday, these guys have the best story. What happens to make them into Tzeentchian traitor guard is fucking awful
Iron Warriors
5x Havocs & Iron Warriors Warsmith
1x Domitar-Ferrum automata
Dark Mechanicus Construction Crew
1x Tech-Priest
10x Skitarii
10x House Delaque - these guys are so Dark Mech it’s crazy - just intend them as dark mech adepts
10x Neophyte Hybrids, modified to remove cult iconography - all equipped with the mining gear
2x Ambots - fitting with the mining and robots and civilian equipment theme
1x Goliath Rockgrinder - again with mining laser
3x Thrallax automata
B) STORMTROOPERS
Militarum Tempestus
20x Tempestus Scions, w/Commisar
1x Taurox - probably sell this on sprue, don’t like it, came in the SCbox
12x Inquisitorial Stormtroopers including all special weapons - these were just “stormtroopers” but people often call them “Inquisitorial” to mark them apart from…
10x 2nd ed Stormtroopers, half monopose half metal
30x Rogue Trader Imperial Army, various metal and plastic sculpts.
1x Rogue Trader Army landspeeder
16x Grognard Lucky 87s which are based on the first plastic IA.
25x Solar Auxilia Veletaris Storm Section and Command
10x House Van Saar which I plan to convert using spare heads from the Scions
16x Palanite Enforcers one of each kit - interested to see how big these lads are
Resisting temptation to buy and modify some vintage Kasrkin. I don’t much like Cadians or Kasrkin aesthetics, but if I cut off the eagle logos I might like them. and yet I must RESIST!
White Scars Support Contingent
I put these lads in because I was reading the Book of the Astronomican which was the first real discussion of the Imperial Army and it also introduces them as a chapter. I also like the aesthetic of their Heresy range and I miss the days in 2nd where you saw more “Guard with a squad of Marines mixed in” type lists, especially in Epic battle reports. I think Bullgryns took that away a little bit, which is sad, because for melee you’d want Astartes with chainswords over ogres wearing tank treads carrying truncheons any day tbh.
10x Assault Intercessors with Forge World White Scars torsos and heads
1x Cataphractii Praetor
1x Kyzagan Assault Land Speeder
1x Proteus Pattern Land Speeder because it will be fun to see alongside the rogue trader one
C) REBEL GROTS
My lifelong addiction to goblins is not immune to space travel.
6x Gorkamorka era grots
6x Rogue Trader grots
10x current grots
~5 Space Crusade grots
~5 2nd Edition grots
6x Goblin secret weapons and killer kontraptions
5x Mek Gun crew
Nikkit
modern Makari
da Red Gobbo
1x Big Lugga
2x Cuttas
1x Marienburg Landship - I’ve spoken often about my intention to convert this using the howdah from the Marshcrawla Sloggoth - the original idea came to me because the Cutta and Lugga are both styled like boats, so I thought why not, but now I can’t tell whether to make it fantasy or 40k. Possibly both, who cares? I’ll never game with any of this stuff.
4x Grot tanks
We will now take a brief break from GW minis to consider alternative grots - mainly Kromlech.
1x Scrap Tank Kommanda
4x Grot tanks
10x Soviet grots
10x Pirate grots - obviously destined to crew the Landship
3x Grease Monkeys
6x cannon crew
Wargame Exclusive
4x Squig riders and their boss
Various weird fun fellows which I got for cheap.
D) VALHALLANS
These are actually original and legit from when I was a kid. I can’t remember how in God’s name I scored the haul, I think it might have been someone selling them for cheap at a gaming con, but it is just a bunch of lasguns, a mortar, the tank-sitters which I’m turning into a diorama, the character and the lieutenant. I painted them terribly, in brown. First minis I ever primed white and I never did it again. I’ve since stripped them. There’s only like 20 total at most.
E) AELDARI
The only collection I made in earnest, these are mostly useless and broken now, but includes some good work. I’ve got parts of three Falcons which I vaguely plan to turn into crashed terrain pieces, and various broken jetbikes.
~6 classic outcasts
2x classic Wraithguard
5x plastic Wraithguard
1x classic Farseer
4x Warlocks
~10 Guardians, including metal Rogue Trader era and plastic lasgun monopose.
~10 Dire Avengers
2x Armorcast Wave Serpents, I LOVE these, bought one then found a second cheaper and bought it to resell
1x Armorcast Falcon - it’s a really rough cast in really bad shape though.
F) LOTR MESBG EASTERLINGS & HARADRIM
In the immortal words of Aaron Dembskii-Bowden, “uhh… those guys.”
20x Easterling Warriors
6x Easterling Kataphracts
4x Easterling Commanders
1x Easterling Dragon Knight
2x Easterling Amdur, Lord of Blades (he comes as a pair, mounted and dismounted)
6x Easterling Kataphrakts
1x Easterling War Priest
1x Hashari Hasharin
4x Haradrim Commanders
24x Haradrim Warriors
5x Haradrim Raiders
3x Watchers of Kârna
2x Suladan
2x Raza
G) EPIC 40K
Guard and Eldar. Not worth counting, mostly damaged or gone. Of note
2. WARMACHINE
You’ve actually heard about this range on my chorf blog - I have some of the Hordes range warbeasts to use as part of my war-slaves army. Big elephant creatures and armoured ogre samurai types.
Warmachine is the original, and historically the most successful, range by Seattle’s Privateer Press. It’s day came and went in the early to mid 00s; it’s steampunk American hypercompetitive robot battles. The meta is absolutely brutal, but the game has been dead on its arse for a long time and the company is apparently a fuckshow now. Also, prices are jacked. I picked up all this stuff in clearance sales and, ahem, on my travels. So when I link you to the items don’t mistake me for a guy who would buy this shit at retail.
All of this is for converting to Chorf war machines or conversion parts for the same work, except for a few little items.
1x Railless Interceptor to be a sort of Iron Daemon
1x Hammerfall Siege Crawler for use as a fucking huge daemonic robot
1x Siege Chariot - I will likely ditch the horses from this and see how it looks as a daemon engine
1x Gun Carriage for which again I will likely ditch the horses
2x Revengers - two different sculpts actually (Privateer models are brutally monopose), will need serious surgery to remove the logos but once done I think K’Dai-style possessed clanking golems.
1x Redeemer for same use as above
1x Repenter for same
7x Man-o-War steampunk robot looking chappies, for same use
1x Gun crew for sticking the gun on something
1x Horgenhold gun crew - nice big mortar. Potentially could even convert the nice armoured dwarfs - remove the heads, put some spares on. I think I’ve got Mantic ones I could use.
4x Widowmakers who will look normal next to my recently stripped Valhallan Guardsmen
- WARZONE: MUTANT CHRONICLES
A 90s contemporary rival to 40k 2nd ed, very much the Digimon of its day - and roughly as similar to the successful franchise. I own two (!!) of the 80-miniature starter boxes for this. I’ll have to sell one of them. How it happened was, I bought a slightly battered one, then I saw a much cheaper one, so I bought that to re-sell. Why re-sell? Well, WARZONE is getting a (third!) revival very soon, with the release of a new (fifth!) edition.
Because of you and your lovely words at the bottom of my story posts, I became involved in writing the lore and fiction for that project. Made like $800 out of it. That’s why I’m so grateful to the community.
I don’t plan to use these guys for Warzone. I will just paint them how I please and have them as armies from private fictional settings or whatever. They would work well as Imperial Guard, and still see play as such.
Imperial
Imperial are the British in the setting, and live on Ganymede in the moons of Jupiter. They’re NUTS, but these guys are very down to earth with bulky gas-mask stylings.
40x plastic starter-set Trenchers, inc 4x Officers and 4x Heavy Gunners
2x metal Trencher Snipers
1x Trencher hero
1x Blood Beret captain
I don’t like all the other Imperial stuff, it’s too techno-fantasy, based on Braveheart and unrealistically huge swords. Message me if you want to hear more.
Bauhaus
These guys are the Germans in the setting, and live mainly on Venus with a Hapsburg vibe. I like them a lot, but I’ll probably cut the spikes off their pickelhaubes, which are a bit cringe. I’ve also filed off the cogs from most shoulder-pads as I think it’s inelegant.
40x plastic starter-set Militia, inc. 4x Officers and 4x Heavy Gunners
20x Blitzers including various heavy weapons, all in metal.
Various cool looking sergeants sprinkled around the range… the dragoons have wolf helmets, it looks dumb.
A lot of warzone is really aggressively dumb, which is why it failed. Twice. It’s a Swedish franchise originally. I blame the various Swedes of the forum, and also all the Swedes whose work I don’t respect, like Arch Warhammer and Alfabusa. Shoddy workmanship. Bring back the Danelaw. All downhill since Vasa was crowned.
Misc
I won’t bore you with the lore here but there’s a space church on the moon and some space japanese on mercury and the earth is a radioactive wasteland with russians and protestants on it.
1x Space samurai with a machine-gun
1x Space church dude
12x Russians - these guys are so wide they look like what I imagine Thunder Warriors to have been, or at least, the techno-barbarian Ursh warriors they fought.
10x Lutherans - these guys look like theyre wearing masks but actually they cut their faces off - nice trenchcoats.
1x Gomorrian Emasculator - I don’t know why i felt I had to have this - it’s sort of a minotaur with rocket launchers and a gas mask. Maybe I thought I would chorf it? And I may yet.
1x Unholy Carronade - again, I’m planning to use this gun with the Chorfs.
- VOR: THE MAELSTROM
FASA, the company behind Battletech and Shadowrun, went out of business in part because it gambled on another 00s 40k competitor, a new IP named Vor. It had Russians in it and was cheap. Another childhood memory that I’ve since collected to exhaustion. I own every rulebook and all six of the novels they published before going under.
Neo-Soviet
32x Neo-Soviet Vanguard, composed of four base sculpts, LMG, Missile Launcher, Prototype (who is massively outscale) and an Officer either with mask, bare head or a Mutant Handler who I think makes a good sculpt for variety
The vanguard still come in neat 00s glossy boxes if you get them from RPE, which is interesting.
8x Neo-Soviet Power Armour including Kommander
8x Neo-Soviet Rad Troopers, half with rifles and half with SMGs - the riflemen go bare-chested into battle, the absolute chads that they are
4x Rad Hounds with bombs surgically implanted in them
2x Close Combat troops - goofy and stupid, there were never even rules for these - each man with a hammer and sickle.
1x Cyclops
1x Ursa heavy assault suit - ugly, top-heavy and fragile, this thing was an obvious attempt at the Dreadnaught market and to do vehicles before they could work with anything besides metal. Don’t like it.
And then I have the starter box contents twice, which means:
Union
18x Union infantry inc 2x officers and 2x HMGs
Growlers
2x Razorback bulls
6x Razorback onehorns
6x Razorback pups
These I have kept purely for painting practice - I hate them - they look ridiculous, the game designer clearly thought they were the best thing ever and FASA/Ral Partha made FAR too many sculpts of them. The bulls in particular are a nightmare, with ridiculously narrow waists and unfeasibly huge upper bodies and fists raised, which makes them hard even to pin. LOOK AT THIS MESS.
- VOID 1.1 / URBAN WAR
A funny one. A less-obvious 40k ripoff that was launched with great fanfare in the 00s, attempting to be a GW killer and going to cons giving out free minis. Reasons for the failure abound, not least of which is the tedious overwritten lore and lack of supernatural aspects. The Sci fi roman slave convict soldier faction, the Junkers, and the classic 70s androids faction, the Sythna, were both pretty cool. There’s also a weird range of Space Marine looking dudes, the Viridians, who ride around on dinosaurs and are eco-warriors. All would make good guard. You might know these ranges from their sale on Scotia Grendel. There’s weeb shit too, russo-japanese anime stuff.
A sequel was made, Urban War. It’s sold on Scotia Grendel now.
Viridians
14x Colonial Marines and weapons teams - these guys look like inquisitorial stormtroopers, it’s awesome
14x Colonial Veterans and weapons teams - who are just the same guys wearing kepis, but they look good, so I’m into it.
Syntha
robuts.
6x Tactical Androsynths
6x Assault Androsynths
1x Pointman big robut
1x Dr. Omega robut man
Junkers
~20 Convict Legionaries with heavy weapons and grenades and officers and so forth. Metal good - plastics bad. I’m not linking you to the plastics. Working with them is miserable.
4 Exo-suits, which are literally just Terminators, and also look dumb until you cut off those ridiculous tubes sticking out of them.
1 Exo-suit Urban War version - absolute chad, still a Terminator rip-off.
If you like Gorkamorka, check out the Junker vehicles.
- WW3 TEAM YANKEE / NAM / FLAMES OF WAR
My latest folly. 15mm has always been a sideline of mine since I played an excellent Russian Civil War game at a con. It really does split the difference between 6mm and 28mm. Team Yankee is set in the 80s. I love soviet military hardware and history so it’s been a hoot collecting these on eBay and from storefronts.
I’m weirdly proud that (once I’ve sold the US vehicles from my WW3 starter sets) I’ll have collected this whole set of minis for £3.20/tank instead of the retail targeted £5+.
Cold War - World War 3 Team Yankee / Nam
21x T-80s - four platoons of four and a command tank.
24x T-54/55s - nine 54s from the Nam box, ten 55s from Plastic Soldier Company and five more 55s got cheap on Troll Trader.
15x T-64s - all modern plastics, either from ebay or starter sets
2x Hinds - the flying tank of the motherland
2x SU-25s - Soviet A-10 Warthog equivalents
11x BMP-3s
216x Soviet infantry, a combination of the 141 that come in this excellent value box and 75-odd Chechens and Russians by Eureka.
They will not fit into the eleven BMP-3s. But I’ll almost certainly never play Team Yankee so who cares?
10x Anti-Tank/Anti-Air support vehicles - the ZSUs from the Vietnam box and the Spandrels and Gaskins from the WW3 Soviet starter box contents.
6x RM-70 Rocket Launchers
World War 2 - Flames of War - Late War
120x Soviet infantry, PPSh-41, flamethrower teams and command
10x T-34s
5x IS-2s
10x SU-76s
5x SU-85 or 100s
5x ISU-122 or 152s
4x Katyusha rocket launchers
2x IL-2 Shturmoviks
- ALTERNATIVE ARMIES
36x Retained Knights I like them better than Space Marines, because they look more like half-space-suit half-knights. Keep them for a private setting, will never see the table.
