Victoria Miniatures Human Bomb and 40K Ork Heavy Weapons

Here's a model that's been hanging around primed for some time, that I finally buckled down and painted today. It's Victoria Miniatures' "Penal Guard Human Bomb" sculpted by the talented and prolific Bobby Jackson.

I think I got it as a free add-on to an order made years ago. It's a resin casting of course, and very reminiscent of the old GW Human Bombs that were part of the Imperial Guard. Decals are from the excellent Death Korps of Krieg decal sheet that was in my folder for some reason!

Of course back in the dim distant past of 40K there was a part of the Imperial Guard Astra Militarum called the "Penal Legion". These were composed of chaps whose crimes (desertion, murder, overdue library data-slates etc.) were so heinous that they merited assignment to the Penal Legions... essentially food for powder. Penal Legion troopers were equipped with explosive collars that could be triggered by a commissar to thwart a desertion attempt or "pour encourager les autres" in the event of a lapse of squad morale. But the worst of these offenders were equipped with explosive harnesses and became human bombs. 

Believe it or not, there were actually rules for deployment and use of human bombs, although mercifully these have been absent from 40K for some time now... as I was writing this post I've been looking for those rules (I could have SWORN that there was an example of template/blast weapons in a rulebook that used an exploding human bomb) but have come up empty... nothing in the Compendium, Compilation, Codex Imperialis, Codex Army List... Penal Legions yes, but human bombs nada. If any readers remember where those rules were (other than in the Citadel Journal list linked above) I'd be grateful if you'd post in the comments.

 

Anyway that's it for this guy. Pretty fun to paint if you don't think too hard about what his fate is likely to be. I seem to remember that part of the fluff was that there was a chance that the explosive harness wouldn't detonate, and if it didn't, the penitent was forgiven!

EDIT: Here are the original rules and background for human bombs, from WD 109. Thank you to reader Scott A. for the reference, much appreciated!

The other thing I've been doing the last few days is painting some old metal Orks for the Red Star Boyz army. My plan is to pit the boyz against my Sisters of Battle in the New Year's Day 2026 game.

Here we have a heavily armoured Nob and a plasma gunner. 

Heavy plasma and heavy bolter. The heavy weapons in this lot are separate castings, except for the heavy bolter boyz that are one-piece models. 

I've painted the pants in the universal camo pattern that all the Red Star Boyz wear.

Heavy (I don't know) flamer? Another heavy bolter, and "rokkit launcha".

These old metal Orks were pretty cool weren't they?

I still have a bunch of metal Orks left should I ever get the urge to paint more, but I think now we'll be good for the game. Sadly the 5th Ed Ork codex doesn't really have a "heavy weapons squad" entry so I'll have to figure out how to fit these new models in - maybe as a Tankbusta squad??

Tom Meier Golden (now Green) Dragon

                                     

Knocked off one here that's been primed for a few weeks - it's an ancient Golden Dragon sculpted by the legendary Tom Meier for Ral Partha back in the 1980s. I have a soft spot for these old dragons and this one is just superb isn't it! (This was originally posted on the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge blog).

Such a characterful face on this magnificent beast... I just had to paint him green.

Let me tell you it was a bit of a struggle to find an appropriate base for him but Challenger ByronM came through for me with an mdf base from his Northern Lights Terrain shop. Cheers Byron!

Shown here for scale with a Citadel knight (of about the same era) from their BC1 "Adventurers Starter Set." I like the unusual pose of the dragon - sort of just checking things out rather than roaring and being all intimidating. But by the look of him you'd still think twice about trying to steal his gold - he just looks clever and sneaky.

Here he is with one of the old Metal Magic female adventurers by Josef Ochmann. Looks like they're having a nice chat.

This was a fun model to paint - mostly - the only difficulty was reaching some of his scales that are blocked by the wings, and the underside of his tail. But I think he turned out OK.

More Ancient Germans and... Ancient Citadel Aragorn and Boromir??

                                     

Back again with another post from the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, starting with some command  (C, S, M as we used to say) for my Germanic tribesmen. These are resin models from Warlord Games.

These dudes actually mix quite well with my Foundry models, after I cut off the integral bases. The models' feet are stuck straight down to the bases.

These guys seem to be quite fond of their severed heads, no??

Not to be outdone, the carynx-blower has a head hanging off his belt too. Nice models. 

To complete a mini-project I've also painted a couple of "equally ancient" Citadel models from their 1980s Lord of the Rings range. 

This is Boromir, from the ME21 "Boromir of Gondor" blister. Nice model in the old chunky Citadel style.

The other one is Aragorn, from the BME1 "Fellowship of the Ring" boxed set. Also a nice model but slightly gangly compared to Boromir.

Here's the whole crew from Citadel, with Aragorn and Boromir done that completes my old-school Citadel LotR collection. Good to have 'em done.

Now that the command is done for a German unit I need to get on to painting the unit... that'll come shortly.

Citadel BC2 Monsters Starter Set!

I love painting old models. They're metal, for one thing, and they're characterful, for another. And these Citadel box sets that came out back in the day are primo for sure.

I posted my work on the BC1 "Adventurers Starter Set" over 4 1/2 years ago (!) and it took me awhile to find the Monsters Starter Set. It was released way back in 1985 but I gotta say, the quality of the sculpts (for the most part) is bang up to date and just as nice as pretty much anything you'll find nowadays.

Here's the whole set together. I picked up the box complete with 6 of the 8 models for a pretty good price, but of course I had to find the missing two models separately. They came from eBay too. Some of the models were painted but I did tune them up myself to a lesser or in most cases, greater extent.

First up - the Vicious Giant Wolf. 

This one was painted plain grey, but I spiffed it up a bit in the style of a painted one I saw on Stuff of Legends.

In fact I got a lot of inspiration for all of these models from Mike Curry's excellent work there. I find that a significant blocker to me finishing these fantasy models is figuring out a paint scheme...

Here's the Orc Champion. Green-skinned of course.

The bronze cuirass is cool eh!

Next up - Vile Goblin.

I like the kind of Mongol vibe this guy has with his cool lid.

Lesser Goblin.

He's just a li'l guy!!

This was one that was missing from the box - the Evil Dark Elf Captain.

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This one I painted from scratch, it came as bare metal from a different seller. A really cool model, I gave him white hair. Eternal Champion, anyone?

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Manic Hobgoblin Hero here. If the horns look a bit wonky, that's my own fault...

I had to strip the model as it was poorly painted. I used alcohol as usual. But when I was scrubbing it down, the left horn came off and went down the drain :-(  But I attached a piece of wire and sculpted a horn over that, I think it came out OK.

Ogre Champion here. I have to say that this is probably my least favourite of the set, it just seems a bit... meh. Not as cool or dynamic a sculpt as the rest.

The other annoyance was that (as you can see) I used round bases for the group rather than the square ones they would've come with. This is because all of my other fantasy "character" models are round-based. But the problem with this dude was that he wouldn't fit on a 25mm round... so I have to put him on a 32mm base, which doesn't fit as well into the box. Oh well.

Lastly, here's the Warrior of Chaos. He's OK but I'm not crazy about his helmet, it covers most (but not all) of his face, which made it pretty tricky to paint.

He's all right though, I hand-painted the planks on the shield, the model had a flat surface there. Also Mike Curry's idea.

Well that's it for the set, I'm glad to have them done but they were pretty fun to paint. And I love the style of these models, especially the goblins and hobgoblin. They're cool. But I think the next thing I'm going to be onto is the opposite of these fantasy models - it's back to some historical subjects!