Future Troopers

I’m not sure what happened here… This past week I’ve been obsessing a little over the Warhammer 40K universe...!? Ever since Fantasy Flight Games published Rogue Trader a few years back I’ve been having moments of nostalgia – thinking back to those teenage days of playing the original Rogue Trader… Playing games set in a universe a little darker than that of Star Wars or Traveller… Anyway, I’ve been wanting to pick the book up for a while, but $65-70 is a bit steep for a book that I only want to read the fluff from (I have no desire to use the system – percentile systems just don’t do it for me…). The game also looks a bit limiting in that I think you only play the “Rogue Trader and his most trusted counselors”… The original Rogue trader just gave you a simple skirmish game (including a system whereby you could make your own damn troops and aliens and vehicles) and some cool fluff and you were basically let loose in this universe to wreak havoc!

Then when Only War came out last fall… well… That fired up my imagination as well. I’ve always had a soft spot for military role-playing games (probably because of the potential to mix role-playing and tabletop skirmish…). I’ve played Revised Recon, Behind Enemy Lines, Twilight: 2000, and have played no shortage of military campaigns in Traveller, Traveller: 2300, Space:1889, Savage Worlds, etc, etc…

Now I don’t know what got me on it again, but I’ve been thinking about trying out running an Only War adventure (or maybe campaign?) for the kids… I downloaded a pdf of their free sample adventure (Eleventh Hour), but I’ll probably use a mix of Savage Worlds for character gerneration and skills and such and Tomorrow’s War for combat resolution…

Now I also just happen to have a few Imperial Guard and other 40k figures… some I have from waaaaaaay back, others I picked up a few years back while running a Savage Worlds Sci-fi campaign - so I have some stuff I can use, though a few things need to get painted up… and so here, today, are a few of those things…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):

These are Catachan Jungle fighters from Games Workshop. I think they’re supposed to be sporting red bandanas… but I think that’s silly…

These are some support teams for the Catachan Jungle fighters - also from Games Workshop.

Here they are with the rest of the force so far. Lots of these are I-Kore Void Vasa commandos. I have another 25 or so of these I can paint up. I’ll have about a platoon of three or four squads of 10 troopers… plus some support weapons (2 rocket launchers, the autocannon, a light mortar and a heavy mortar) and a platoon HQ and Snipers and stuff. 

Imperial Guard Tank crew – also from Games Workshop - that I picked up off ebay a while back. As part of this recent obsession I’ve started reading Hammer of the Emperor. I also have a Leman Russ I picked up off of ebay years back that I may get around to assembling and painting. I also picked up three 1/48 scale KV-2 tanks that I thought I might try to convert into something like an Imperial Guard tank… I can’t remember what they’re called…

(Oh, I also tracked down and watched the Ultramarines movie…).

An Astropath - also from Games Workshop - this is a more recent purchase… like, this week… I figures he could be handy in either an Only War scenario/campaign as perhaps an object to be protected/rescued, or as a major player in a Rogue Trader campaign.

The kids have also been fired up about painting more miniatures (well, at least the girl is… the boy would rather play with them… he could care less if they’re painted or not – but we’ll fix that!!) so I picked up a few squads of plastic Cadian Imperial Guardsmen off of ebay for them to mess around with when they arrive.

An old Imperial Guard medic from waaaaaaay back, that I’ve finally got around to repainting. I was torn between the “old school” grey uniform and the newer khaki and green of the standard Cadian uniform…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Oh, who knows at this point. Could be more 1914 French, could be more 40k Catachans… or something altogether completely different!