"Can you tell me what these figures are?" Topic

The four in the back with the armor…
picture

They look a bit Void 1.1 like to me.

But I can't find a match on the Scotia Grendal site – sorry.

Nope, not Void minis. They're not old Citadel sculpts, are they?

Alternative Armies I think…

No definite ID springs to mind, but my brain-jelly is saying scratch-builds…

…the backpacks look like GW Chaos Marine issue.

…the shoulder-plates look like the ones from the old GW plastic space-ork boxed set, circa. 40k 2nd edition, laid one on top of another.
(The paired weapons carried by the right-hand genestealer are certainly from that set.)

They're damn good, though…

I'm with Norman, these are Genestealer Hybrids with some conversion work. I've got an old GW 2nd edition Codex that talks about them and how that army was supposed to appeal to modelers and scratch-builders.

Dave

Im sure the rear four came from this range…
link which look like they are going to be re-released… I might be wrong…

Yep, I agree with swordlord. Are they Shia Khan perhaps?

Yes, I think Swordlord is right…
These are also part of that line…
link

I also agree about the one in the front. I have each one of them. Definitely Genestealer hybrids. The two in robes are Genestealer psychers. The two on the left are from Space Hulk Genestealer expansion set(plastics). The two on the right are from blister packs, metals, as well as the psychers.

8)

Definitely Alt. Armies Shia Khan drop troops (in the middle, behind) and the others are old genestealer cultists/hybrids.

Yup those four are Shia Khan. I used to have a bunch of that stuff at one time.

Well I'm glad to be wrong on that one… because if these are AA's I'll be grabbing myself a bunch of them as soon as they're re-released!

The four in the back are indeed Alternative Armies Shia Khan, called "Pioneers" back in the day. I have a squad miself! My AA stuff has managed to survive every great purge, despite not being on the table since around 1997.

I love those figures. I've got some too in my collected, but unfinished, 28mm Shia Khan force. I had thought at one time the "pioneers" were also called Malig Troopers, not to be confused with the 15mm Malig troopers which were just space goblins without this style of helmet and shoulder plates.

There were 28mm Malig Goblins too. The Pioneers may have been armored Maligs, but I never saw it in print, and they packed a wollop in the Firefight rules.

Short answer:
They are Alternative Armies Shia Khan Pioneers.

Rumoured to be available again later this year (?) with the release of a new set of rules from the gentlemen who currently run Alternative Armies. The company has changed hands quite a few times!

You have one each of the only four poses which exist.

Long answer:
Cards on the table, I love this range of figures. I've made a point of trying to collect information about it. One of the areas I've paid particular attention to is the names given to particular figures. Please be forewarned that what follows is incredibly geeky…

While the humans of the Free Companies would describe these troops as Pioneers, they could also be accurately described as Nagor or Nagor Khahir. This is because they have been named by their human enemies according to their role, but they also have their own name for themselves in their own language. Hence, both names are "canonical" and both apply simultaneously. It seems that Khahir may refer to their role, and could therefore be a mark of rank or specialisation.

If you piece together all of the evidence from Alternative Armies' publications, catalogues and websites over the years, you'll see that all of the Shia Khan figures have at least two "official" names (and that's even before you remember that different staff have run the company over time, so some figures have been repurposed as part of different factions and thus may have gone by three or more names… in this regard I tend to regard the earliest material as canonical, with later rewrites to be referred to only where the original material was silent on a particular topic).

These two names are the Human and Shia Khan versions, explaining why one name tends to be in English while the other sounds a bit more alien. In the first Alt. Armies sci-fi rulebook, "Firefight", we were told that the humans choose name so as to minimise the psychological impact of the enemy, with the result that they are often comical or at least hard to take too seriously.

Goblin, for example, is a human-applied name, for the troops the Shia Khan refer to as Malig. The Shia Khan are noted for using different races in battlefield environments they are particularly suited to. The Pioneers, Goblins, standard Shia Khan Legion troops, and indeed the Drop Troopers are all different races.

Incidentally all of the weapons have names, too (yes, I could go on all day). For example, the chap with the silenced machine pistol is carrying a Sarlath – known to humans as a Pagan. The pistol carried by two other figures is a Sarlath Mk. II – the Mk. I is known to humans as the Popcorn! The Mk. I is carried by many of the Malig figures, but never by Pioneers. The grenade launcher is known to humans as a Lunchbox, and to the Shia Khan as a Kolkarr. For the Pioneers, it's a support weapon; if you ever see the heavier Drop Trooper figures you'll see that to them it's more like a carbine.

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Thanks to the OP for the photos. Always nice to see more of these figures painted up!

Thanks everybody, I've had these for so long I've forgotten what they were…