The Grand Experiment

Back in the days of yore, my friend Brian and I started collecting Warhammer miniatures. Among several other armies we collected, we got ahold of quite a lot of Space Marines. What could be cooler than dudes in the future who flew around in spaceships in armor with huge machine guns and chainsaw swords?

Is that a fair question? No.

Anyways, we amassed quite a horde of little toy soldiers (I have no delusions about my pastimes) - and then we let them rot for years. Which isn't to say we stopped playing, but that we moved on to armies more suited to our style - and less mainstream, because we're lame Indie kids like that.

I gave my marines up for the Green Tide (Waaaagh!) and Brian gave up his old, grab-bag marines for a more themed army.

So what became of the old, dusty marines? Why, I just found a box full of them, and an Idea came to mind.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Behold!

I present to you

The Grand Experiment

In which the author tries to take several dozens of mismatched and often poorly modeled
miniature soldiers and make them into a functional Space Marine Company.

So what am I working with? Well, I just got my hands on a camera capable of capturing the essence of 1 inch scale miniatures (28mm for you European barbarians) in what is probably overly gruesome detail.

Let's take a look at what I'm dealing with:



Goodness! That's a lot of genetically-enhanced manflesh!

As you can see, I've done a job of organizing them up for you. Despite this, some of them are having trouble standing up. Their muscles must have atrophied in the years of darkness... Or somebody stole the bases they were standing on.

And now for some close ups!



From right to left: Ragnar, Ulrik, Mephiston, Njal, The Emperor's Champ, a Techmarine, and That Dude with the Hammer.

So here we have the once glorious champions of justice that headed the army. Ragnar looks somewhat silly with his hemi-jumping-jack pose - well, that and someone stole his sword a while back. Njal is almost as bad. Did they really need that raven to be all winged out like that? Silly.

Mephiston (the shiny unpainted guy) only looks that way because someone soaked him in turpentine recently (something a lot of these guys are gonna get in the near future), but I think he makes a more convincing Librarian than Njal. At least he can be more dynamic.

Ulrik and the Champ are pretty good as is, though the Techmarine and the Dude with the Hammer both have suffered from some bad Green Stuff molding - especially the Dude, whom I tried to give a full body cloak...




Ah. How do I explain this one? Back in the day Games Workshop encouraged players to come up with their own Geneseed variations, and I got this fool notion that my marines grew shorter as they aged.

Now, I must point out that I knew about Squats back then. I just thought it was a fun challenge to take the marine models and stunt their proportions.

As you can see, I only got through 4 of these. They were the Company Chaplain, the Captain and two Sergeants. I still like how these four turned out, but I don't think I'll go any further down this path, and I don't think I'll feature these guys in the final army. I just thought they should get mentioned at least once, somewhere in time, and since they were in the Pile, I grabbed a picture.

Don't worry. They were the first and last of the Midget Marine brood.




Now we have several old school Terminators. One is a Captain, one is a Grey Knights Captain (nearly the same thing, in my book), several are old Grey Knights and the others are just old models. The 2 funky ones on the left are Obliterators. Oh, and somewhere I got a pair of plastic legs.




Here are about 2 dozen 2nd edition pewter models, the oldest we got. I got a pack of Long Fangs, a pack of Blood Claws, half a squad of Chaos Marines, some Legion of the Damned, and some Sarges.










Here is the bulk of the Horde, in several images. The top features marines set up for the True Grit special rule, which allows for a bolter and close combat weapon, so I got creative and gave some interesting weapons like Chainsaw Bayonets (later, Epic Games would go on to take my advice and put them in a certain game and its upcoming sequel). Next in line are the standard marine, with simply a bolter, though I think I will set them up with True Grit equipment as well - all I gotta do is add a sheathed weapon somewhere.

Then come the assault marines, who have pistols and close combat weapons of various natures. I had fun with these, and you can see a couple different types of double ended sawblades in there.

And finally we have a couple dozen unfinished marines - or more accurately, marines with their arms torn off for other models.




Here are some special weapons troopers I have picked out of the masses. There aren't a lot of them, but hey, they count.




And now for some bikes! One of them is rearing up in the air, and I had to steal a horse's base for that effect. The presence of the extra biker lends me hope that I might see more bikes surface in the future.




Scouts. 5 of them. With so much as a sniper rifle. Yay!

At least I won't have to strip them, because they hardly even have a base coat.




Grey Knights? What are they doing here?!

I don't know if or how I'm going to use these guys. Most of their right arms are missing, anyways.

Well, at least that's as weird as it gets...




What the hell? Raptors?! What am I supposed to do with them, without their jetpacks? Or arms, for that matter?

Well it can't get much worse...




Insert the sound of me putting my foot in my mouth here.

Ok, now I have around 20 ugly marines... er, plague marines in identical poses... Hell, I'm gonna use them. And they're gonna like it.

So by now we must've seen the most incredibly bad models to have been dredged out from under a rock...




Oh. These guys. Well, at least we used the best of them a few years back when we made 14 possessed marines out of them... so that leaves me with the craziest, most profanely modeled ones.

That guy up in the right? He's got an extra arm, holding a pistol, pointing behind him... yeah. I know this because I put him together. I think we assembled these guys before we had any concept of what Khorne Berzerkers were, let alone a solid idea for a squad to create. We were kids back then. Give us a break.

Most of these guys are craning their necks back, as though they're trying to get a good look at the people playing the game...

How could this get any worse?

...I'm waiting for some new horror to pop up in front of me so I can take a picture and post it, but nay, I believe I have indeed exhausted my reserves of varied inanity - or at least, strange yet wonderful models from a time gone by.

The Porpoise of All This

Overall, I have about 148 models that have surfaced (not counting the bikes; i've dug up at least 3 more bikeless bikers so far).

I intend to take all the various and sundry models above and make them into a working Space Marine Company; that's at least 100 warm bodies in 10 squads, probably more considering the amount of models I'm gonna try to work into the structure.

The Chapter they herald from is officially going to be Renegade, which means that it can either use the Orthodox Space Marine or the Chaos Marine (Undivided or possibly Nurgle) rules. I'm considering making each squad a forsaken team from a different Chapter, since I have Space Wolves, Dark Angels, Legion of the Damned and many more floating around in the mix, though I may decide on a unified scheme.

Time will tell, and suggestions are welcome.

Ooh, a dozen Nurglings!