Bryan Ansell's Rogue Trader Space Marines: part 1

Looking at my blog archive, I can't believe I haven't written anything as yet in July, despite the fact I have a ton of photos. Time does slip away. I'm aiming to make amends for that over the next couple of weeks with several pic-filled posts for your delectation. I shall start with a subject which I don't recall having addressed to date with my blog posts, or indeed in my Bryan Ansell gallery: Rogue Trader Space Marines. Bryan has a wonderful collection of these, and it will take me several posts to cover them all. I promise you though it will be worth waiting for; hang around and you'll get to see some female space marines as you've never seen them before!

Now, although I still buy White Dwarf and attend the occasional event at Warhammer World in Nottingham, I have to confess I'm not entirely clued-up with the modern era fluff. I couldn't for example, give you a detailed breakdown of how many of the original Rogue Trader Space Marine chapters have survived to today. Ultramarines, Space Wolves, Blood Angels, Dark Angels - hard to miss the likes of those of course. But what of chapters such as the Rainbow Warriors? Do they still exist in some footnote in a contemporary codex? Given that a number of figures I'm about to present bear colour schemes which may not be familiar to some readers with more contemporary tastes, I thought it might be worth revisiting some of the chapters that were illustrated in the first edition of Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader:

Above: from Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader 1987.

Above: from White Dwarf 101. Depending on your inclination and possibly your age, chances are you are looking at the above colour schemes with either absolute delight or abject horror. Personally I opt for absolute delight - I may well go for one of these schemes at the forthcoming Oldhammer weekend.

In this post, I'll illustrate some figures based on appearances in various White Dwarf adverts, and include the adverts themselves. First we have the C100 Space Marines, the range that kick-started it all, designed by Bob Naismith and appeared in the Citadel Journal of Spring 1987 and White Dwarf 80. For those pedantic types among you who are currently clenching their fists and gnashing their teeth by I am of course referring to the first range of Space Marines for WH40K, not the "first ever Space Marines" (so I'm discounting the likes of Asgard, Citadel Spacefareres etc).

White Dwarf 80

 White Dwarf 93

White Dwarf 96

 Back in my day Space Marines got drunk AND celebrated Christmas.

White Dwarf 99

White Dwarf 100

White Dwarf 102

I dont think this is the exact same figure as in the advert above.

White Dwarf 108

White Dwarf 112

That's it for today, plenty more to come.