Space Crusade Re Imagined

[Rodiger]

Warning this is a massive post, sorry it is so long, but it is a write up of 3 years of work. 

A few years ago (2016), I got a hairbrained scheme to try and recreate Space Crusade from scratch. Fast confirming that I have no aptitude for graphic design or access to a high-quality printer I scaled back the idea to re doing the models with their modern counterparts. I scanned Ebay for a while looking for a set that had the components, I eventually found a complete copy, but alas it also came with the models. Not to be deterred on my quest to scratch build Space Crusade, despite buying a complete copy of the game rendering the entire project useless, I persevered on with my mad crusade and started to buy the models required. In another twist of fate I also found an almost complete, un punched copy of the expansion Mission Dreadnought, which alas also came with the models (missing the Mark X Dreadnought), however not all was lost, it did come with the Tarantulas, which we will see is important later. 

 

For those who don’t know, Space Crusade was a gateway drug specifically designed by GW and MB to hook small children into a lifelong plastic crack addiction. It was released in the early 90’s and involved 4 players, 3 taking on a team of Space Marines and 1 player being the Alien. The Space Marines, consisting of Blood Angels, Imperial Fists and Ultramarines, randomly board a Space Hulk at the same time to complete various tasks which only make sense to them. This might look like a semi co-op dungeon crawl, but make no mistake, those other Space Marine Chapters are not your friends. The Alien player controls a weird collaboration of Aliens that for the best part look stolen from hit 80’s Sci Fi movies, Genestealers - Aliens, Androids - Terminators, later to be known as Necrons, The Chaos Dreadnought - that walking Robot with guns from Robo Cop 2,  and GW staples of Orks, Gretchins and Chaos Space Marines. You compete to complete various missions and level up through upgrade cards as the game goes on, until you do all the missions and see who is the winner. There were 2 expansions, one with a Dreadnought factory and extra heavy weapons, and an Eldar one, which I do not own as I refuse to pay upwards of £100 on Ebay for some cardboard and some models I plan on replacing. (If anybody owns it by the way and is willing to sell it at a reasonable price I would be interested in buying it.)  

Here's a helpful advert

 

Anyway back to the mad project.

Each Space Marine squad consists of 4 Space Marines, a Sgt who can be armed with either a heavy bolter, bolt pistol and power axe, or a power sword and power fist (or glove as it’s known round these parts) the other three marines can be armed with 2 heavy weapons from either a rocket launcher, assault cannon (on a tactical marine, oh yeah) or a plasma gun, the last marine, had to and I mean had to, take a bolter, which is as useless as you imagined it is. With the Sgts it looks like each chapter was supposed to take 1 weapon set for each Sgt, even if the Heavy Bolter was blatantly the best choice for all of them, Imperial Fists were supposed to take the Heavy Bolter, Ultramarines were supposed to take the Power Axe and Bolt Pistol, and the Blood Angels the Power Fist and Power Sword. 

Here are the original models fitted out with the different Sgts 

 

My first thought was to make up the squad from Terminators, because they are the ones usually sent in to clean up Space Hulks of xenos scum, but when Betrayal of Calth came out and I saw the classic Rocket Launcher, and it had 3 of them, I thought that this was the best path forwards. Another thing to note is that each of the chapters have their own specific upgrade cards, this I wanted to show on the models, I also decided to make a model for each weapon variation as I couldn’t be bothered magnetising tiny little arms and hands. I bought some tactical marine assault cannon thing from forgeworld which I can’t for the life of me remember what it was called rotary cannon maybe?, ( I do remember the gluing hell they put me through though, super glue; sticks resin to fingers, sticks plastic to fingers, sticks fingers to fingers, but never, never plastic to resin.) I also ordered the parts I needed from bits sites, turns out power axes are rarer than griffon eggs, so I had to buy some Kromlech ones for those. I also decided to go with the sector mechanicus bases, they are 32 mm and Space crusade was 25 mm, they are a tad big, but they are still usable game wise. It is worth noting that I acquired Mission Dreadnought after this purchase so I needed to buy more Mark IV tactical marines, but more on that later. 

 

(2017)

Imperial Fists

Imperial Fists Upgrade Cards

 

I started by building and converting the models to make the Imperial Fists, the important part was that an upgrade card had a bionic eye so I went for heads that had that, and the Sgt could take a Heavy Bolter Combi Plasma (Oh Yeah!) So I used a standard combi plasma for that as it was included with the Mark IV marines, in retrospect I feel that the combi bolter was a little underwhelming, especially as there wasn’t really much on it to even tell it was a combi plasma. A marine with a Melta Bomb also had to be included as this was one of the upgrades available for every chapter.  

 

Early Build Squad

 

Early Build Extra Models

 

3 Sgt Variations

In these photos you can see the different Sgt’s with Bionic Eyes, and the combi bolter. At this point in time there was that ‘eavy metal painting article for heads in a White Dwarf, I felt it was a disaster when I tried it, I think I will paint over the power fist Sgts eyes again, the other 2 look ok I suppose.

 

Sgt With Combi Plasma

 

Heavy Weapon Models

 

Bolter Variations, the guy on the right was my test model for painting Imperial Fists as I had never painted them before, I don’t know what happened to him when I built him, he looks like he has just walked into a room and can’t remember why he came in there.

 

Imperial Fists Squad

 

Imperial Fists Comparison with old models. 

 

Painting yellow sapped the life out of me, so I had a break for a few months.

 

(2018)

When I came back to the project, I decided to do the Ultramarines like the Imperial Fists I had never painted Ultramarines before, thankfully blue is a lot quicker than yellow.

 

Ultramarines

 

 

From the upgrade cards important part for the Ultramarines was the Bio Scanner card and a Medi Kit card, I used an Auspex for the Bio Scanner and being unable to find something similar for the Medi Kit I just ended up using a pouch. There was also a digital glove, which is pretty much unnoticeable, so it didn’t get modelled.

 

For the Bioscanner I used an arm from the Deathwatch box, I remember it was pretty hard finding an arm for this that was on the correct side of the body and in a good position to compliment the Auspex.

 

Here are the 3 Sgts, I really should have painted un helmeted heads for all of them, I am tempted to cut the heads off and re do them, I think I was so jaded from the Imperial fist heads at the time I thought I can’t paint them again and just gave up. The guy in the middle is holding the Kromlech Axe as I only had one GW one and that is on the Imperial Fists Sgt, tbh I think it looks better, the GW one is a tad too small and dull. 

 

Heavy Weapon Squad

 

Bolters including Auspex and Melta Bomb models 

 

Ultramarines Squad

 

Ultramarine Comparison with old models

 

When these were finished I decided I would power through and get the Blood Angels done. I had painted Blood Angels before while painting Space Hulk so I wasn’t too apprehensive about these ones.

 

Blood Angels

The most apparent thing about the Blood Angels was the Sgt with white power armour, I am not a Blood Angels player, but I could see no precedence for this, I went with it any way as it is the most iconic thing, he is on the box art in the centre of both edition of the game, looking like some 80’s Emo Vampire.

 

I recently found this page from a White Dwarf that said it was personalised armour (the cheeky git). 

 

 

With the Upgrade cards The Blood Angels Sgt had a bionic arm, so I had to order 2 of them from the Space Marine Commander model. They also had bayonets for their bolters so I added some on their bolters made from the sword thing the Mark IV’s come with (all the bolter models come with bayonets, but only the Blood Angels had the upgrade card). They also had a force field, I really needed an Iron Halo for this but I couldn’t get one. 

 

The 3 Sgts, all in white, never been happy with the white, probably up for a re touch up.

 

Sgts with bionic arms.

 

Heavy Weapons

 

Bolters, the bayonets were converted from the swords that come in the Mark IV kit, I modelled one holding the melta bomb instead of being stuck on the back. 

 

Blood Angels Squad

 

Blood Angels Comparison

 

 

As a note all chapters could take Bolt Pistols as an upgrade card so they all have that. After finishing all of this, around 45 marines in total (including mission dreadnought) I had another break but managed to acquire the rest of the models along the way.

 

Mission Dreadnought

 

Mission Dreadnought added 4 ‘extra heavy weapons’ to the mix, as well as more types of dreadnoughts with the same weapons. The heavy weapons in the expansion, are a Las Cannon, A Fusion Gun, a Conversion Beamer and the Tarantula. To model these, the Las Cannon was easy enough, A Fusion Gun was basically a Multi Melta, again easy, A Conversion Beamer … Forge World had one, but it goes on a Contemptor Dreadnought, I now had to buy Devastators for the this project any way and the Grav Cannnon looked like it would do so I used that, and then the Tarantulas... The tarantula looks like 2 Lascannons strapped together, I considered trying to convert some from Land Raiders and I tried searching for things for these but I thought they looked rubbish and the price was very off putting. Just had a search now, 20 dollars each and they are stationary so wouldn’t even look good in game. I didn’t have much faith in converting Land Raider Lascannons either, so I used the original ones, and it is the only original part I will use in the whole project, you never know I may go back later and try again with something else.

 

Imperial Fists Extra Heavy Weapons

 

Ultramarine Extra Heavy Weapons

 

Blood Angels Extra Heavy Weapons

 

Tarantulas, the gunners were converted from using the gunner arms from the attack bike and then putting a magnet on the tarantula and the arms. The connecter is actually contains part of the original space marine arms, it was impractical to try anything else and it is quite hard to even notice. The plastic for these guys seems different and it doesn’t seem like it would mix well with he modern stuff.

 

A comparison with the Blood Angels of the original models, the conversion beamer is on the right. 

 

I had finished all of the imperium models, I now needed to move on to the Alien models. 

 

2019

 

I decided I would start with the Dreadnoughts as these were the show piece model of the game. I now had 4 of them to make 1 from the base game then another 3 from Mission Dreadnought. 

 

Mark VII Dreadnought

 

The base game comes with one dreadnought (Mark VII) that can be armed with a choice of two weapons from the assault cannon, rocket launcher and plasma gun. I decided to use the helbrute for this and magnetise it, I just straight up loved that model and was looking for an excuse to get one. Because of how the model is made, it will always have to have the rocket launcher o the left arm, ( it is magnetised so I can put the other weapons like the flail and power fist on there) but it can have a plasma gun, assault cannon – auto cannon, las cannon and the multi melta on the other arm. As far as play is concerned this isn’t a big deal, the alien player can just say which weapons they chose. The base is the 65 mm base, this is a tad large for the game, but it is still playable. Thousand Sons are my favourite Chaos Legion so I decided to paint it this scheme, this was my first attempt at a Thousand Sons paint scheme.

 

Original Model

 

Assault Cannon and Missile Launcher

 

Side

 

Plasma Gun and Missile Launcher Side

 

Back

 

Comparison with old Dreadnought Assault Cannon Missile Launcher

 

Comparison old Dreadnought Plasma Gun

 

Comparison old Dreadnought back

 

Mission Dreadnought

 

The expansion added a Mark VIII, IX and X. The difference being the VIII had 2 weapons but long legs, the IX had 4 weapons and short legs, and the X had long legs and 4 weapons, the long legs added a bigger move in game, they also had access to every weapon. The expansion had a dreadnaught factory where they could be built turn by turn, with the actual models you could do this and make them step by step as the models were push fit, I will have to use some sort of token system for this in game. 

 

Here is a picture I found at some point showing the different marks.

Deciding what to use for the other Dreadnoughts took a long time, I looked through just about every dreadnought and walker available and basically none of them fit. Walkers and Dreadnoughts just don’t have 4 arms, or that sheer array of weapons. I tried expanding the search into other areas I even gave serious consideration to using a Hive Tyrant. Whatever models I did use would have to proxy weapons and would not be wysiwyg, which is disappointing, but there are certain limits you have to accept to any project. 

 

Mark VIII

Already owning the Betrayal of Calth Box I decided to use the Contemptor for the VIII. It fits well as it has long legs and two weapons. Personally I don’t like this model, I think it looks like the mannequin dummy of contemptor dreads, I own a forgeworld one and this one is just so meh in comparison. I did some quick converting chopping off the power first and replacing it with the multi melta. I had run out of large mechanicus bases and didn’t want to buy another expensive box for 2 bases so his base doesn’t look as grand. I decided to go with Night Lords theme for paint scheme as they are my second favourite Chaos Legion. I’m pretty happy with how he turned out, I don’t own an airbrush so the fade from dark blue to black was achieved by layered dry brushing. I have painted lightning before and it always seem to fall a bit flat if you put it in streaks, I went for a plasma ball style for the electric charges and it seemed to work a lot better.

 

Mark VIII Front

 

Mark VIII Side

 

Mark VIII Back

 

Mark IX

The mark IX had short legs and 4 weapons, the only model I could find with 4 arms was the Ork Deff Dread. I thought it fit quite well as it looks quite stumpy too, despite being taller than the Contemptor. His base is still being worked on so he is not quite finished. Using the Ork one might seem out of place, but this Space Hulk has a collaboration of Chaos, Orks, Tyranids and Necrons so it’s fine. I believe I did some converting on the weapons, not sure now, I tried to put weapons that looked like they fit, so it has a missile launcher, a flamer – melta gun, possibly another flamer, could be a plasma, and a machine gun thing that could be an assault cannon. The box art appears to put the Orks coming from the Evil Sunz so that was fine with me, I didn’t really want to paint yellow again, or any of the actual Orks or Gretchins yellow. I had no real plan when I started painting this, just Evil Sunz in my mind. It turned out to have a light flame effect on it. 

 

Mark IX Front

 

Mark IX Back

 

Mark IX Side

 

Mark X

The Mark X was the hardest to choose and I was at a loss until the Imperial Knight Armiger was revealed, spying the Forgebane box which came with 2 of these and a load of Necrons which would do for the Androids I snapped it up. Unfortunately, the Halverin was revealed after I had already bought this, so he has a chainsword instead of 2 weapons that might look better. Model wise he has 3 including the heavy stubber on top, he is absolutely massive though and well looks like the boss of this game. He is modelled on the smaller base as this fits better game wise and it is a mechanicus base. When I saw this paint job on the box and then in the white dwarf I wanted to do homage to it on the Armiger.

 

Dreadnought Box Art

As a paint scheme it’s nuts, I’m not even sure what it’s supposed to be, looking at it now, it might be a meteor burning up on entry to an atmosphere, but what’s that fire beneath then. The yellow lightning really threw me while painting it, especially as it is night time at the back. Whatever it is, it looks like it stopped off at a 1980’s hells angels spray shop.

 

Mark X Front

 

Mark X Side Multi Melta

 

Mark X Back

 

Mark X Side Chainsword

 

Mark X Top

 

Mark X Mark VII and original comparison

 

This is where I am up to now, I have a lot of models still left to make and paint. I have bought all the models and I am currently building them now. I am using the Ork boys I got with Shadow War Armageddon for the Orks, I bought 2 boxes of Grots for the Gretchins, I have 2 princeling Genestealers from Deathwatch Overkill, and I can use one from about the hundred Genestealers I already own, I have the Necrons (which I have no idea what they are) from the Forgebane box for the androids, and some rubric marines for the chaos space marines.

 

So I am setting up this blog to try and make me finish the project I dreamt of back in 2016, started in 2017 and have done sporadically since.

It is my mad crusade, and I do not want to calculate at all how much money I have spent on this. I have not played the game since I was a child either, I was saving the first play through for when I was finished. I hope it doesn’t suck, because that would really suck if it was an awful game.

 

Finished List

Blood Angels

Imperial Fists

Ultramarines

Mark VII Dreadnought

Mark VIII Dreadnought

Mark IX Dreadnought

Mark X Dreadnought

 

To Do

14 Grots

8 Orks

6 Chaos Space Marines

8 Androids

3 Genestealers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Kierdale]

Excellent stuff!

I made one of the boards some time ago, with a bit of 3D to it, but never got around to doing the others.

 

Looking forward to seeing this project progress! :tu:

[Aramis K]

This is completely wonderful.

 

I especially like the Armiger as the old dreadnought. I thought there were some design cues there when it was released.

 

Also really like the white sgts.

 

My suggestion for the androids would be maybe don't use standard Necrons. Might be something interesting to create some chaos androids/robots that are less recognisable as Necrons. Stormcast heads and admech guns perhaps.

 

Really looking forward to updates.

[Marshal Rohr]

This project is amazing! Can't wait to see where you take this. 

[noigrim]

10/10 wpuld buy the game after seeing the commercial

[Rodiger]

Thanks for the kind words! Kind of feel it's going to be a bit underwhelming from now on though, I've finished all the exciting models, except maybe the Rubric Marines, there are some interesting conversions to do with them. 

 

Excellent stuff!
I made one of the boards some time ago, with a bit of 3D to it, but never got around to doing the others.

Looking forward to seeing this project progress!

Do you have any pictures of the board? When I first thought up this project I wanted to try and do a 3D board, I looked at some, I did considered a Battle Systems one.

 

 

This is completely wonderful.

I especially like the Armiger as the old dreadnought. I thought there were some design cues there when it was released.

Also really like the white sgts.

My suggestion for the androids would be maybe don't use standard Necrons. Might be something interesting to create some chaos androids/robots that are less recognisable as Necrons. Stormcast heads and admech guns perhaps.

Really looking forward to updates.

 

I already have the Necrons from the Forgebane box, they are Immortals and Praetorians, I have a load of Skitarri warriors though, no Stormcast heads, I might have a go at making something out of them. 

[Morticon]

I love absolutely everything about this thread <3 

[Kierdale]

HERE is the thread to the one board I did.

I did it with 25mm squares as the boards I had to make it with were that size, but at the back of my mind I always kind of wished I had done it 32 mm. That and general hobby butterfly syndrome saw me never finish the other boards.

I actually started to redo them at 32 mm using textures found on the Internet, intending to simply print them as 2D boards, and making the first one took very little time but you just can’t get the detail, like debris, like you can with a 3-D model.

Soooo, sometime, I intend to consider the first 3-D one as a proof of concept and then make them all 3-D at 32 mm.

Someday :D

[Rodiger]

HERE is the thread to the one board I did.

I did it with 25mm squares as the boards I had to make it with were that size, but at the back of my mind I always kind of wished I had done it 32 mm. That and general hobby butterfly syndrome saw me never finish the other boards.

I actually started to redo them at 32 mm using textures found on the Internet, intending to simply print them as 2D boards, and making the first one took very little time but you just can’t get the detail, like debris, like you can with a 3-D model.

Soooo, sometime, I intend to consider the first 3-D one as a proof of concept and then make them all 3-D at 32 mm.

Someday

 

That board looks great! it's a shame you never finished them. A 32mm board would be loads better for my project.  I have the boards from Calth, Deathwatch Over Kill, Kill Team Arena, and Rogue Trader and I've always hoped I could adapt these for Space Crusade. Re doing the board might be an aspect I look at later.

[Rodiger]

Update, I have been a busy beaver building lots and lots of models and even at certain points cursing audibly, so this is where I am up to now.

 

Chaos Space Marines

 

When I first conceived this project, I initially thought to use Chaos Terminators for the Chaos Space Marines, I love Terminators so I need very little excuse to actually get them, the Chaos Space Marines squad were old and I didn’t really want to use them for the project. Thankfully Rubric Marines were released, they ticked all the boxes and as Thousand Sons are my favourite Legion I was sold.

The game comes with 5 Marines, A Sgt, 1 heavy weapon which is a Missile Launcher and 3 Bolters. 

 

Original Models

 

Interestingly the Sgt is armed with a Heavy Bolter, but his blip token clearly shows him with a Power Axe and Bolt Pistol, my copy didn’t come with this weapon option, and from what I could find online it isn’t listed as part of the game contents either. The box Box art had him with this configuration as did the ‘Eavy Metal page from the White Dwarf.

 

Box Art

 

With the Sgts I had a spare heavy bolter from the Mark IV marines so that went on one, I had to use a right arm from the Mark IV as the Rubric arm wouldn’t fit in the gun. I decided to use the Aspiring sorcerer for the Bolt Pistol and Power Axe configuration, it is undecided if you can have a different weapon load out in game, but because of the blip and its my project I decided I can. I decided to keep his force staff instead of putting an axe there as it just looks better and he has the hand flamer instead of the bolt pistol because it looks cooler. I made a mistake here when I built him I used the hand arm instead of the gun arm, it’s not that noticeable, but I think it makes him look like he’s shouting ‘why I oughta’

 

Chaos Marine Commanders

 

I decided I had 2 of them so why not make the 3rd one with a  Power Fist and Power Sword, he was only interesting as it required some kit bashing and conversion due to lack of parts. I have no idea why right hand close combat weapons are so rare but I was not going to order from bits sites again. I found a lightening claw from the Mark IVs as I wanted something I thought would be a little more Chaos Looking than a Powerfist. I had no weapon for the right arm, I found a free right arm from the devastator box, and I decided to put a power sword on his back. I got a Mark IV (where else) power sword and as it had a hand in the middle I chopped that out, the Mark IVs come with combat blades that have straps on the handle, I chopped that out and stuck it in the middle. It really had nowhere it would fit, so I stuck it on his back pack remembering the Chaos Lord from Dark Vengeance had something similar. 

 

Chaos Sgt Lightening Claw

 

Chaos Sgt Back

 

The Rubric Marines come with a Soul Reaper Cannon, however they don’t come with a missile launcher. I decided I couldn’t not possibly use the Reaper Cannon, it looks awesome and is perfect for the game, I did need a Rocket Launcher so I used one from the Mark IV marines. This required some kit bashing and light conversion to make it work, his arms are from the Mark IV marines so he doesn’t have the armour pattern on them, the back pack for the loyalist one is missing a vent and connects to the Rocket Launcher, so I had to chop a bit of his back pack, it fit well and was no hassle. His head was a tad too large so I had to trim a little bit off the … what is called? The large ornament to make it fit. He isn’t very photogenic so I have included a few different angles so you can see how he fits together better.

 

Rocket Launcher Side

 

Rocket Launcher Back

 

Rocket Launcher Above

 

Rocket Launcher Side

 

Now having two of the heavy weapons it wouldn’t make sense not to include the plasma gun, I did at first consider just using the flamer for the plasma gun, on the White Dwarf page the plasma gun from Space Crusade is listed as a flamer so they are obviously interchangeable. I had a spare one of these from the Mark IV marines (that’s 4 boxes of them I used btw) so I added that into the mix. I had a look at the flamer and found the end fit quite well, so I chopped the end of the plasma gun and the flamer off and stuck it on to make it look more like a thousand sons weapon. 

 

Chaos Plasma Gun

 

Chaos marines Heavy Weapons

 

Lastly here are the bolters and I had a model spare so made the flamer as well.

 

Androids.

 

First I would like to categorically state that I hate the Necron models. I have built hundreds of models and I have never had as much trouble as I have had with these, for some reason the arms have no intention at all of sticking to the body or the gun, to make matters worse they appear to be in all sorts of weird positions and when you inevitably drop them, it isn’t even apparent which arm is which. It took me the better part of an hour to glue 4 pairs of arms to the bodies, destroying some in the process too.

 

Original Androids

 

That out of the way, the Androids in game look like a blatant rip off of a T 100 but with a gun, they are pretty hard game wise as there are only 4 in the original box. I had mission dreadnought so I had 8 in total. I really should have got a box of Necron Warriors, they are just perfect for the Androids. I had bought Forgebane though and the Immortals and Praetorians were in that so that is what I used. I don’t play necrons at all (and never will) so I have no idea what these things are. I tried to build ones that looked like they fit but also add some variation to them. I believe some are slight kit bashes between the 2 kits ( that had nothing to do with them being the absolute worse models to build ever, that was happening on the ones I was building from the instructions too)

 

Necrons, don’t even stand up on their own.

 

From the ‘Eavy Metal White Dwarf article, and box art they are painted white, no chance, I’m not putting myself through more hassle on these, contrast white maybe ...

 

Gretchins

 

Side note, are they Gretchins or Grots? When I started back with Space Crusade and 2nd Edition they were called Gretchins, then when I got back into it all around 6th edition they were called Grots, now they appear to be called Gretchin again. Can anyone explain?

 

Original Gretchins, You can see there were 3 types of gretchin models

 

Gretchins. There isn’t really a lot that can be done with the Grot models really, what else can I add. 

 

Orks

Original Orks I initially thought there were 4 types of ork, but from closer inspection it appears the one on the right is a broken type of ork. 

 

I had some Ork Boys I got with Shadow War Armageddon, these are the models that fit best really, and with keeping costs down. I made them so they had a close combat weapon and a gun. 

 

Orks, you’ve all seen ork boys before, nothing exciting here.

 

Box Art. The box has them as Evil Sunz so I will try paint them like this, the Gretchins appear to be circus employees, I will see how I feel about painting that.

 

Genestealers

 

Original Genestealers 

 

Here are the original ones, they look very similar to the Space Hulk 2nd edition Genestealers, although they may be from the 1st edition. Tbh these are the only models that wouldn’t look out of place in a modern 40k army. For these I decided to use the 2 Princeling genestealers from Deathwatch overkill. These are hands down the best genestealer model made, I tried to get a third one, but just couldn’t, so I have one made from the old kit. I stuck him on a bit of Imperialis terrain to add something to him.

 

Old Genestealer (He's blue because he is from Lost Patrol)

 

Princeling Genestealers, I had forgotten I had already painted one, so a bonus, he will get a new base though. 

 

A note, I wanted 25mm bases at this point for the majority of the Aliens, I wanted to get the 25mm Necromunda ones but they are not stocked where I live. So I went with the Imperialis ones as they will add a bit of flavour to the bases and compliment the rooms better than the metal grating.  I think I am going to put the Rubric Marines on 25 mm too as really I need them to fit game wise. 

 

New Sgt's

Having had to buy devastators when I got Mission Dreadnought, I now had a load of bits available to me that I didn’t when I started the project. Looking at the combi plasma I decided that this was much better than the Mark IV one so I thought I’d make a new Imperial Fist Sgt, while doing this I also saw the robotic hand and it looked remarkably like the Digital Weapons upgrade card, so I decided to make another Ultramarines Sgt, especially as I wasn’t happy that I put a helmet on the original. 

 

Imperial Fist Sgt, just realised I forgot to glue a shoulder pad on him ha ha, I will go and correct that. 

 

Again the Ultramarines one provided some challenges as he had a hand with nothing in and I needed to put a Power Axe somewhere. The Power Axe had the hand cut out and the straps from the blades put in the middle, then it fit on his back, kind of. 

 

Ultramarines Sgt

 

Ultramarines Sgt Back

 

Digital Weapons upgrade Card

 

The hand, really hard to take a photo of.

 

 

 

I now need to go and prime the models are and start painting. I have some decisions to make in regard to ork skin, I would like to use contrast, but A, I am not entirely convinced it looks great, and B, I haven’t used it yet. I have spent too much time and money on this project to mess it up learning and new system. I will need to do some test models for the orks before I commit to anything with them. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 3, 2019 by Rodiger

[Rodiger]

May 2020 update

 

Well it’s been nearly a year since I last updated this, after the last post I was a busy beaver and got most of what I needed to finish painted. I had a deadline of August for my birthday when I wanted to play a game. So...

 

July 2019

Working through the July of 2019 and into August I got all the models I needed to play the game finished, I didn’t however complete all the extra models I made as I was a bit burnt out by it. I painted: 14 Grots, 8 Orks, 5 Chaos Space Marines, 8 Androids, 3 Genestealers.

 

Orks.

 

I did have a plan of using the newly (at the time) contrast, but not having enough confidence to make it look good and not wanting to ruin my project with awfully painted models I went with the classic painting style. I did try one ork’s skin with it, but it looked so bad I painted over it. They were painted as Evil Sunz with rusty weapons. I did try some contrast for some of the bases to try and match some room tiles.

 

Orks

 

Comparison with originals

 

Grots

Pretty much same as the orks, I largely just speed painted both sets.

 

Gretchins

 

Comparisons with originals (quite a bit shorter)

 

Androids

Thankfully these were very fast to paint, I didn’t just want to leave them all metallic and I really didn’t want to paint them white like in the picture on the box, I gave them some blue highlights with some contrast paint to jazz them up a little.

 

Androids/Necrons

 

Comparison with Originals

 

Chaos Marines

I painted the five I needed back in 2019, these took a while. I find if I start batch painting the quality of each paint job decreases as I find it boring, it’s almost like working on a factory conveyor belt, so I make more mistakes and it saps the fun out of it. With these I painted one at a time, well I painted them all gold first together but that was it. I wonder with models like this, do people prefer to paint the trim first and then the panel over the top, or the panel then paint the trim afterwards? I have used both methods and I am not sure what I prefer. I think the gold first was a better choice for these models though. They took around 2 hours each I think, there is a lot of small bits that need touching up all the time. I really like these models though, some of my favourites from GW.

 

Chaos Marines

 

Comparison with Originals.

 

This is where I left the project, and I got to play a game for my birthday. After that deadline had passed and it was in a playable state, I moved on to painting something else for a bit as I was a bit worn out by it all. The other 7 models just sat unfinished in my cupboard for a long time. I was also ‘always just about getting round to’ updating this log but finding the time to write and take photos was eluding me, then as time goes by it slipped further down in priorities. Who knows if I had updated it, it would have been finished quicker

 

May 2020

Having the unfinished models sat in my cupboard was starting to shame me a little and I really thought I should finish it, after trying to paint a Blood Bowl Lizardman Team with contrast which I found a little soul destroying, ( I still have another 5 teams all primed for contrast, yikes) I missed just painting normally so these guys got the nod.

 

Chaos Marines continued.

I had largely forgotten how I painted these before so there are some micro differences, if ever the Rubric Marine Inspector comes round he is sure to find them, but it doesn’t matter that much. I found contrast black was great for doing an ink line between the yellow and blue stripes, and contrast white on the cloak was great, so they do have some good points it seems, (I’m still learning with contrast.) The commanders sword broke off the back, I couldn’t work out why I stuck it on his back pack before so I just cut the bit out, which from re reading this log is something I stuck in, and just glued it in his hand.

 

Alternative Chaos Marines

 

Full Squad

 

2 Extra Sgts.

I finished these two quite quickly, they offer a different option to play with, they weren’t strictly necessary, but I had the spare models and I was never that happy with the other ones.

 

Alternative Sgts

 

Digital Weapons

 

Imperial Fist Squad with new Sgt

 

Ultramarine Squad with new Sgt

 

Complete Collection.

 

Final thoughts

It's been around 4 years since I envisioned this project and now it is complete, I feel quite satisfied and a big sense of relief. I do try to finish things even if it takes me a long time. I did a quick guesstimate of how much I've spent on this and I think it is around 550 pounds, some of the stuff wasn't bought exclusively for this and is used in other things, but those purchases did have this in mind.

 

From playing the one game it was hard to tell if it was any good or not. I had fun, but I was with friends playing a game to celebrate my birthday any game would have been fun. We were playing aspects wrong, the dice were great sometimes and awful other times so it made it fun and memorable. Was to play the game the reason I started this? I think not, I will play this with my daughter when she is older, but the reason I did it I think was like with most things we do in this hobby, it was just a really fun project. I loved planning it, sourcing the parts, building and converting the models, painting the different styles. Was it worth 550 pounds, not if you look at what is there, but I've spent countless hours on this and the enjoyment of that was worth 550 pounds. That's like 30 trips to the pub over 4 years, it's been worth a lot more than that.

 

I did look at building a 3D board with the stuff from Battle Systems, but to buy the bits I would need then chop up would come to about 90 pounds and honestly 90 pounds for some bits of printed card is just too much.

 

I am still interested in doing the Eldar Attack expansion and if anyone wants to sell me it at a reasonable price I may be interested. I only need the card components not the models obviously. It is listed at around 100 ~ 250 on ebay and that is just ridiculous quite frankly, I can’t think they sell many at that price. Anyway it is not essential it is only for completeness, I never enjoyed that expansion as much as mission dreadnought.

Thanks for reading.

Edited May 22, 2020 by Rodiger

[Freakshow668]

Amazing project, seems you had a lot of fun.

[Sandalphon]

A year well spent! Glad you resurrected the thread. Some fantastic work in not only the detailed extent of the recreations but both the patience and discipline to keep going!

 

Your reference to the MB gateway drug is particularly pertinent, I had hero quest, my friend had space crusade and it has been an ongoing obsession for about 30years since :0

[hushrong]

Awesome work revamping a classic! I love seeing the originals with their modern replacements!

 

Hope you can find that eldar expansion for a good price. Love to see your take on that.

[Rodiger]

A year well spent! Glad you resurrected the thread. Some fantastic work in not only the detailed extent of the recreations but both the patience and discipline to keep going!

 

Your reference to the MB gateway drug is particularly pertinent, I had hero quest, my friend had space crusade and it has been an ongoing obsession for about 30years since :0

 

Thanks, I think it was a bit of a sliding doors moment for me, if my older brother hadn't come home with a copy of Space Crusade one day, I'm not sure if I would have ever gotten into wargaming, I didn't know anything like that existed at the time. I am tempted to try do a HeroQuest version, but I never had that game so I don't have the emotional attachment to it. I'd love to try recreate the original Warhammer Quest, but copies of that go for a lot on Ebay, there isn't a lot of bat, snotling or spider models I can find either.

 

 

Awesome work revamping a classic! I love seeing the originals with their modern replacements!

 

Hope you can find that eldar expansion for a good price. Love to see your take on that.

 

Thanks, I would like to give it ago, but I basically need 2 decks of cards and 2 board tiles and over 100 pounds is just insane for that. I could try get them professionally printed I suppose, I do have a pdf of them.

 

I have the White Dwarfs with the extra rules, I think I have most of the models already for them if I wanted to try expand the project.