"Rogue Trader plastics" Topic

I have been tempted to get into Rogue Trader or 40K 1st edition as it's also known. I see they also had plastics back then, but wondered if they were the same type of plastic as now and used the same plastic glue to stick together as I see the parts are not grey but whitish colored.

The Rogue Trader era plastics were polystyrene, like the current GW offering, and could be put together with the same glues.

The colour of the models does not really come from the type of plastic (polymer) used, but from pigment particles that have been added as a colourant and filler.

They used grey for Orks and Imperial Guard while Beaky Marines were a pale beige, at least in my boxes. The grey varied a bit from batch to batch.

Does anyone make plastics in the same style as those made in the Rogue Trader era?

The original beakies were dark blue I believe.

I have blue, cream and beige beaky marines. They seem to varry the colours as they liked back then.
As to plastic liquid poly cement works well with them :)

There were also dark green beakies.

Yep mine were dark green beakies

yeah I had cream and dark green Marines.

Mind you back then metal miniatures cost less than most hard plastics do today :)

I've seen a set of marines on ebay with blue and beige sprues, so it could be legitimately original then.

Yes I had dark blue beaches bought c1990. Since then I have come across beige ones.

Blue originally, then green, beige and cream depending on what plastic colour they had in stock. I think cream is the most common.

My beakies are tan.
Orks, IG, and Squats are light grey.
The Terminators were a dark blue (from Space Hulk).

I too had the green beakies, bought in 89 I think, or maybe early 90.

My beakies came in dark green, dark blue, cream and grey (youngest of them). All of them glued with the same polycement I'd use for a plastic model kit.

GW didn't make their own plastics at that point, subcontracting them out to another party (the company that used to do the plastic interior parts for Matchbox(tm) cars).

The way I understand it, they just got them to swap in their dies to the machines, using whatever coloured plastic was used for the previous job (probably got them a bit cheaper, too).

Looking fine in 89 blue.

all the boxes of beakies I bought were tan, but I got a few dark blue and dark green ones in trade. All my plastic Orks are a medium grey and Imperial Army are lighter grey

@Whirlwind- those old style Marines are long OOP.
You can get some of the Horus Heresy kits, but they are pricy.
I'd say maybe pick up some of the various starter set Marines if you're looking for some simplicity. 3rd edition still had beakies available as part of their Marines, as well.

You can get some of the Horus Heresy kits, but they are pricy.

Is there any particular reason why they are expensive (I mean, apart from "GW have decided to charge more")?. I don't follow such things very closely, I'm afraid, not my normal gaming genre.

Somebody did some calculations here and showed that the bulk of the price increases are from inflation. GW was expensive in the '80s, but we just didn't notice in the same way.

Thanks, I had thought that the previous poster meant "pricy compared to other space marines".

You can actually pick up the original plastic Marine sprues on E-Bay quite cheap, the classic RTB01. I've bought up a few for a Horus Heresy Space Hulk game I'm planning. It's been fun, researching old 'canon' colour schemes, markings, asking people on TMP, hunting down old chapter decals, for the Blood angels, and Imperial fists.

John

How cheap are the original plastic Marine sprues (approximately)?

A quick look on E-Bay……..
auction
auction
auction
But not this one!!
auction

John

Oh, none of these are anything to do with me! hope I dont fall foul of the ever-changing TMP banning rules!

Thanks!

Is there any particular reason why they are expensive (I mean, apart from "GW have decided to charge more")?.

Whirlwind, if you're looking for pure beakies, the only place to get them is from Forge World, which makes pricey resin miniatures which are quite expensive compared to GW plastics. Forgeworld produces modernized versions of the bolters (with chain-bayonets), flamers, and missile launchers that came with the original plastics.

How cheap were the original plastics?

The RTB001 box had 30 marines and sold for $30.00 AUD.
So $1.00 AUD per figure.

Currently about $60 USD or so for 10.

Very interesting, my marines arrived today. Now I've got to sort through the weapon options. It seems I can use large guns that appear to be bolters or smaller uzi looking pistols. After a glance at the rogue trader book it is rather vague on how to equip a squad and the associated points, etc. I guess I could also glue on spare clips and fix some bayonets. There are some razor back or comb looking bits that I'm not sure how to use. My sprues say 1991.

Its very easy, 10 man section, 1 flamer, 1 missile launcher, 1 sergeant, with the bolter, and 7 marines, also with bolters. This was the old Rogue Trader section, now, I believe the sergeant has a sword, maybe?

The litte 'uzi' type things are Bolt pistols, much beloved of Marine assault sections, where the section carried two each marine, with two marines with hand flamers, or hand plasma pistols, the whole section could replace a pistol with a chainsword.

The razor comb things, sound like the chainsword bayonets for the bolters. Mental looking things, but in keeping with the Rogue Trader whimsey!

John