Hammer time! (*hammer not included)

ABC War Robots. Atomic. Bacterial. Chemical. Mass-produced, automated troops, designed to withstand the most hostile warfare environments. I may have said this before, but it's definitely worth saying again: everyone needs one of these in their life. So here's mine, Hammerstein, leader of the ABC Warriors, and now my stand-in model for any dangerous, humanoid robot in any science fiction miniatures game you care to mention.

I decided I wanted a model of this implacable metal soldier after completing my squad of Adeptus Arbites Enforcers inspired by the Judges from the 2012 Karl Urban Dredd movie. 

As a continuing homage, I thought it would be cool to revisit the earlier 1995 Stallone movie, Judge Dredd, and try to build one of the Judges' main foes.

This guy

Seen here deploying signature 'red steel' 'looks to kill.'

However I soon stopped short when I realised I had no idea whatsoever how to go about doing this. No idea whatsoever until I saw something rather excellent on Twitter. Enter Martin Carcosa and his ancient cybernetica combat unit, based on the same high-cheekboned, killer robot.

So thanks are due to Martin Carcosa, not just for this wonderful inspiration, and for working out which parts from other kits looked awesome, but also for being kind enough to let me copy it, and even actively encouraging me to do so.

However there was one downside. I liked what Martin had done so much, it became kind of pointless to simply try to make an exact copy. He had already created what I considered the definitive WH40K version of the Judge Dredd movie robot, so what was the point in me doing the same?

Instead I figured I'd do what I did with my Judges' bikes and go back to the original comics and take some additional inspiration from there. So a quick flick through several hundred pages of collected stories and I'd found the following images:

A panel from the original ABC Warriors strip in the late 1970s, with art by Mike McMahon

The above image showed I could have Hammerstein's iconic ROVER badge on the back of his waist, instead of the front where it's usually found. In my design for the model I wanted V-shaped pistons below his stomach region, rather than a wide, flat space for text.

Hammerstein in classic 80s story The Black Hole, with art by Simon Bisley

In the Bisley picture above we are seeing the character's rank markings on his arm, with a single arch-like sweeping shoulder pad to frame them. This felt like a good look for my version.

Hammerstein in Khronicles of Khaos, with art by Kev Walker

As the comics went on, Hammerstein took more and more knocks, with his armour starting to look heavily pockmarked and battle-scarred. I suspect images like the one above (circa 1992) had quite an influence on the movie version, which hit the cinemas just a few years later.

A page from The Volgon War, with art by Clint Langley

Skip forward another decade or so, and the square-jawed war droid appears to have rebuilt and repaired himself and given his bodywork a new coat of paint. I figured using that blue-grey colour for my model would be a very obvious way to differentiate it from Martin's and would give an instant clue that mine wasn't wholly based on the robot from the film. Although I am still partial to a bit of rust and weathering, so my version isn't exactly what you'd call factory fresh.

So in the end it made sense to base my model around the same head and arms that Martin used, emphasizing Hammerstein's flat-top, crew-cut, and giving up the hammer in favour of those over-sized hands, whilst at the same time keeping all the exposed cabling and pistons from the movie version. But then mix in some of the comic book cues seen above. 

For anyone interested in the construction side of kit-bashing and scratch-building, you can see the, er, 'nude' version of my model below.

And finally, if, like me, you find this monstrous metal infantryman strangely fascinating, and want to know more about the character's appearances in various media, you might be interested in this earlier post detailing some of his history.

Lost and found

A very short post today. Just over a year ago, I completed my Addiction Challenge with five final models that took me over the line. But in my haste to publish the article, I forgot I'd taken a few work-in-progress shots of two of the more complicated models.

The other day, while starting to put together a longer post, I stumbled across the below...

... three photos that show some of the cut-up and glued-together scraps of rubbish, that I seem to find so exciting.

Here are the completed models again:

Fast forward 12 months

It's been almost exactly a year since my last post. That's a huge gap, but the good news (at least for me) is that, although this blog has been dormant, my hobby activity has not, and I have plenty of bits and pieces to share over the next few posts.

But firstly, let's start with why. Why have I been quiet for so long? Well, the main reason is that this time last year, my wife and I began to undertake some fairly extensive work on our family home. Work that saw us completely pack away all my models, tools and paint, that saw us remove most of the top section of our house, that saw at least one ceiling fall in, and two people fall through them (neither were injured), that had rain water pouring down internal walls, a bedroom completely open to the elements for several days, and that ended up taking more than twice as long as originally estimated. But after everything was over, and finally complete, work that gave us a whole new floor on our house. I'm talking, of course, about a loft conversion, but after the painful, drawn-out process that we went through, it feels like so much more than just those simple words.

When we first started the work, I had no idea that I'd be putting this blog into such a long slumber, even though the building work had been planned many months in advance. I just never put two and two together and realised quite how disruptive it would be. I hadn't accounted for some of the intense mental anguish that would occur, while watching one's home being quite literally torn apart.

But it's done now and the upshot of the process, as far as this blog is concerned, is that instead of a dingy space, in among the rafters of a dusty roof, I now have a properly appointed office for all my work and hobby pursuits.

When fitting out the room we ensured there was plenty of shelf, desk and storage space. Me so that I could fit everything in and it would still be neat and functional, and my wife so that she could guarantee there wouldn't be any of my toys elsewhere in the house.

One of the biggest boons of this, and of being forced to organise everything from scratch, is that when placing finished models on shelves, I was able to set them up as little displays – almost like dioramas. 

Chaos troops man the ramparts of a town they have taken...

... in defence against the approaching Undead horde

Dredd style Arbites Enforcers bring riot suppression weaponry to bear

An Ork armoured brigade starts to amass in preparation for their next Waaagh.

The streets of Kruenta are alive with all manner of Imperial citizenry

There was a lot more to the last 12 months than just the moments I've touched on above, and there's a fair bit more to my office than just these images, but I think it's probably best to leave it here for now, to ward against the dreaded approach of boring and excruciating detail.

What's that? Too late?

Days of thunder

The Earth was being torn apart. Continuous warfare was ravaging its surface into a desolate, apocalyptic wasteland. The last scraps of its long depleted resources were being fought over by hordes of brutal, genhanced warriors. Humanity, at one time unified in its conquest of the stars, was now, once again, in the midst of bitter infighting. Techno-barbarian warlords were attempting to seize and consolidate power, splitting the planet into powerful, feuding factions, while swathes of mankind's collective knowledge were becoming lost forever. All while massive Warp storms swept the galaxy, cutting off Earth from its interstellar colonies, and ushering in an era of fear, anarchy and collapse.

In Warhammer 40,000 lore this was the Age of Strife, around the 27th or 28th Millennium, roughly 13 thousand years before the game's current timeline. It was against this backdrop that the mysterious individual, who would later become the Emperor, stepped from the shadows and declared his intent to reunite the planet.

Into the turbulent affray he unleashed his Legio Cataegis, precursors to the Space Marines; larger, tougher and more savage than his later warriors, but prone to both physical and mental instability. These troops came to be known as Thunder Warriors, due to the Emperor's thunderbolt and lightning symbol often sported on the torso of their proto-power-armour.

They wrestled back control of the planet, and by the 30th Millennium the Emperor was ready to continue his crusade off planet. He phased out his now defunct Thunder Warriors, replacing them instead with the first Astartes (or Space Marines) – more rounded warriors, better suited to the wider theatre of battle, the decentralised leadership, and the potential need for diplomatic solutions.

His earlier troops were thought all but extinct.

But that was not quite the case. At least a handful of Thunder Warriors managed to deny their genetically imposed expiration, and survive right through to the end of the Great Crusade and the beginning of the Horus Heresy. Exactly what happened to these cunning champions is clouded by time, but by the 41st Millennium they must surely all have perished?

A few years ago, hot on the heels of my little Custodes project, I thought I'd have a crack at making a single Thunder Warrior – one of the Emperor's first attempts at creating genetically and surgically enhanced super soldiers, designed to fight in the Unification Wars on Earth. Bigger, but more basic than their Astartes successors, they were meant to be all but wiped out by the beginning of the Great Crusade, circa 30,000 AD. But this is WH40K and, let's face it, anything can happen. Strange relativity effects (a là Interstellar), or weird Warp-based time dilations, or poorly understood arcane techno-magic, or even just because Chaos fancied it, somehow this lone warrior survived long enough to join my collection of 40th-Millennium-era toy soldiers.

His construction involved quite a bit of jiggery pokery, and took a ridiculous amount of time for a single miniature. Here are some of the initial pieces I put together for him.

The greaves on the front of the legs were recast (using Instamold) from one of the Slaughterpriest models. These were then combined with boots from a Chaos Warrior, armour plates from Mark II or III Space Marine legs, plasticard and a bunch of badly hand-sculpted chainmail of some description.

A bit further down the line, the sifted, sculpted and combined pieces started to look like this:

Which, with the inclusion of arms (from what was then the freshly released bona fide Custodes models) plus a load of straps, packs, grenades and armament, ended up looking like this, when assembled:

And now, after a conversation with my five year old son, where he told me he wanted to see a 'tiny soldier man wearing green' my somewhat-slim-thighed Thunder Warrior is finally sporting a little pigment.

As the last of his kind, this model has given me an inkling as to how he may become the first of my new challenge. But I'll talk more about that at some point in the future.

Objective complete

It's a major celebration. A few days ago I finished painting five more miniatures, which took me over the finish line on my Addiction Challenge –  and the whole country erupted in fireworks.

For anyone not familiar with British customs, I should point out, however, that the two occurrences were not related. The former was conducted at home, alone, over a number of days, and the latter was Guy Fawkes Night (also known as Bonfire Night or Fireworks Night) celebrated in the UK on November 5th, come rain or shine or Covid 19.

But even though the fireworks were not for me, it doesn't take anything away from the fact that I've finally completed my Addiction Challenge. This was a self-imposed ban on buying any new models until I'd completed 100 existing ones. It's taken nearly three and a half years to do, but it was definitely worth it. It upped my motivation to find hobby time, got me focussing on painting instead of just constructing and converting, and curbed my incessant desire to buy the next new shiny thing, before completing the last.

These latest five models are a return to my fantasy (or Age of Sigmar) Chaos Warrior army, with the first three below representing a suite of related objective markers for my warriors to fight over. They are made up entirely of spare scraps from my bag of Chaos bits, that I couldn't find a home for elsewhere, so I'm pretty pleased I was able to do something constructive with them.

The other two models could be objective markers too, but could also be more like freelancers, similar to the models from this post, that can be attached to any army or terrain piece to add a bit of character or firepower. Like the first three models, they too are made from unused bits that were lying around waiting for a purpose.

So now that these are all finished, and I've completed my Addiction Challenge, I need to find another way to keep my motivation up for future projects. Another little challenge to undertake, or objective to head towards. But more importantly, before I do that, you'll have to excuse me while I nip out and buy a truck load of brand new miniatures.

ADDICTION CHALLENGE:

COMPLETE

End of the line, creep

Engage smug mode. The project that prompted me to create this blog has been completed. The final four Dredd style Arbites Enforcers are below. I was meant to be working on my fantasy Chaos dudes, but once I picked up one of these guys a few weeks ago I just couldn't stop. And it's always good to harness a bit of hobby energy. Never look a gift horse in the mouth, right?*

I added weathering powder to each of these characters in an attempt to emulate that dusty look the Judges have in the 2012 Dredd film (you can see the reference picture I was aiming for in this post), but when I then gave them a light spray of Munitorum Varnish, all the powders subsequently disappeared. In the end, after varying my process three times, I got worried that the powders were subtly dampening all the rest of the painting and gave up. In fairness it's still visible in the odd location, and these guys don't exactly look pristine, so I'm happy to draw this project to a close...

... for now.

Here's a quick shot of the gang altogether.

To celebrate the fact that I'm getting close to the end of my Addiction Challenge, in my next post I'm going to try something a little different. There will be words, and there will be photos, but quite unlike anything I've done on here before.

ADDICTION CHALLENGE

REMAINING: 4

*Unless you live in Troy

Riot suppression

A few more Dredd style Arbites Enforcers today. These next three models include the areas that needed the most freehand work – namely the lettering on the riot shields and the illuminated number 3 on the side of the Sentinel. Freehand isn't my strong-point, so needless to say the results are passable at best.

But any finished miniature is a win in my book, and I always knew I'd struggle with the lettering, so on balance I'm pretty pleased with how this project is turning out. Below are a couple more shots of the Sentinel.

And the good news is that this takes me below the remaining 10 mark on my painting challenge, so not long now before my house is totally overrun by an influx of new, tiny, plastic toys.

ADDICTION CHALLENGE

REMAINING: 8