Crossing the Rubicon Nostalgius! A 1991 Blood Angels Tribute – Pt.1

In lead they shall be cast, and upon sand and PVA they shall walk. White shall their primer be, and in plate of brightest orange shall I clad them. In red ink I shall shade them, and they shall walk upon fields of goblin green. Let them bear their weapons close to their chests, and in but one pose they shall stand. For they are my Blood Angels, and they shall know no weathering.

Sit down, gentle reader, and I shall tell you a tale. This all started a month or so back when my car quite unexpectedly passed it’s MOT. A welcome piece of good news, to be sure, and given my car’s recent history a most surprising one – and one that left me with a little bit of spare cash.

Spare cash + wine + 1990s nostalgia (because 2020 isn’t really doing itself any favours, is it?) – you can see where this is going. A couple of hours later and a cursory browse of eBay found me a job lot of Space Marines for £20 or thereabouts including posting… plastic Marines and Terminators in a variety of states, but in quantity enough that I could start to build a tribute to one of the very first armies I ever saw in White Dwarf, the Blood Angels 3rd Company from White Dwarf 139, July 1991:

Pic linked from https://whittlesey40k.wordpress.com/ – check him out, it’s a great blog

These lads are part of the exhibition at Warhammer World, check them out here:

The Grim Darkness OF The Far Future rendered in glorious technicolour!

Just for the young ‘uns, this is what Gretchin looked like back then

So, giddy with anticipation, I did my planning and preparation, getting the paint and primers together – white primer (naturally), Vallejo Hot Orange and Red Ink, and Army Painter Goblin Green for the bases. These seemed to be the closest match for the old GW paints – I prefer Vallejo because of their dropper bottles, the Citadel stuff dries out too easily in my view.

They’re here! In various states of disrepair…

Next step was stripping them – and not just them, my Deathwatch too, as these would be needed to form the tactical squads. A bit of a wrench, to be sure, but equally I’d never been entirely happy with them… so I made my peace, these lads were going to be what they always should have been, Blood Angels in glorious orange! (Side note – these chaps came in the 2nd Ed box set we accidentally bought while under the influence a couple of years back, so we really are going full on early 90s here)

Farewell lads…

Into the meths you go – methylated spirits + old toothbrush + elbow grease = successfully stripped plastic model

Glued sand to the base THEN applied the primer – wish I’d thought of that back in ’91…

First tranche underway – primed white, two thin coats (natch) of Vallejo Hot Orange

Wash of Vallejo Red Ink, straight from the pot

Drybrushed back up with Vallejo Hot Orange

Pin wash of Vallejo Brown Ink and then edged with black craft paint

Metallics! Vallejo Mithril Silver with thinned black ink wash to take the edge off

Taking care of details – getting there now

It’s 1991! Drybrushed the bases with yellow to add depth

So there we go! Not quite there yet, I’ve got to get hold of some decals, but I’m happy with the basic scheme. Now, here’s the list:

So yeah, a fair bit to do..

My goal is to take these lads down to Warhammer World next year, assuming 2020 doesn’t have any more nasty surprises in store for us, as it’ll be a nice little 30th anniversary for them, so let’s see what we can do – Jim has already built a scaled down Rhino from papercraft templates, I’m going to see if I can build some full sized ones for these lads. Land Speeder, Thudd Gun and Bikes might be a bit more of a challenge, but let’s give it a go.. in any case, my biggest ever vanity project is underway!

If you made it this far, well done and stay safe out there – Jim & I were looking forward to a first game and pint since January (!) only to find ourselves caught by a local lockdown, so that’s buggered that for the next couple of weeks… Oh well, at least I’ve got something to keep me busy!

PS – Thanks again to Whittlesey40k for use of the photos – check out his blog, lots of great stuff: https://whittlesey40k.wordpress.com/