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.

Golden Demon awards in the Golden Age: 1987 revisited using Scribd

Orlygg over at Realm of Chaos 80s has just reposted his feature on the three Fantasy Miniatures books, and they are very handily presented in Scribd format. I haven't tried this approach before so if you will indulge me I'm going to repost the Golden Demon Awards 1987 feature from White Dwarf 93 using Scribd. If this works then I will probably present a number of similar future posts using Scribd - it will save on all that clicking...please let me know if this format isn't working for you. If you are new to Scribd then clicking on the expand screen icon at the bottom right of the Scribd box below (to the right of the + and - zoom buttons) gives you a full screen view.

Golden Demon 1987 by bridgend_steve

Golden Demon awards in the Golden Age: part 1 (1987)

Games Workshop's National Figure Painting Championships - The Golden Demon Awards - began in 1987. Between 1988 and 1990 Games Workshop produced a series of three books (Fantasy Miniatures) which showcased the Golden Demon awards of 1988, 1989 and 1990 (the first book also illustrated some of the 1987 finalists). Unfortunately GW did not produce any further such books until 2002. White Dwarf magazines did, however, continue to feature photographs of Golden Demon finalists' figures, and I thought it might be fun to share with you images of such figures from 1991 and 1992. During these two years most of the figures illustrated were still of 1980's vintage (my favourite period) - after 1992 such figures tend to tail off.

I'll begin this retrospective series of blog posts, however, with the Golden Demon Awards of 1987. As I mentioned, Fantasy Miniatures (1988) illustrated some of the entries for the 1987 Awards, but there is better narrative and illustrative coverage of these Awards in White Dwarf 93. Actually, it's a very entertaining read and I'd recommend you make yourself a cuppa and spend a few moments basking in nostalgia...be warned however - there is 1980's fashion on display...

(PLEASE NOTE: if you simply click on the images you will see a slide show - if you want to see any image in close-up then right-click on it and select "Open link in new tab." Then click to zoom).

 If you are wondering where these wonderful figures are today then I can tell you that Bryan Ansell now has the "Chalice of Doom":

 ...and I own Nick Sewell's Zombie Dragon.

So, were you there? What are your memories of the day? Did you win anything? Who was Azaroth?