Sunday, December 20, 2020

40k Adventurers - Ventolin Pirates

My penultimate entry for the 40K Adventurers project (my 2020 resolution) is the Ventolin Pirate. The Ventolin miniature has long been one of my favorites. I recall seeking him out in the early 90s, and managed to acquire a few more over the years. I decided to go all-out for this one- which meant chopping into some old lead.

 
I decided to modify four of the pirates, ranging from a difficult headswap (courtesy of a Confrontation Tech Ganger), weapon swaps, and an easy bionic eye. Grinding these guys with a Dremel produced a lot of metal shavings- here's hoping I didn't poison myself! The ones I modified the most are possibly recasts, so old-school metal purists can rest easy. The flamer is of course the one from the plastic Space Marines, and I'm not sure where the melta gun came from. I have to confess that it is likely 2nd or 3rd edition :)

As I was working on these I thought about Ventolin boarding tactics, and when rummaging through the bits box I came across some large shields that came as a freebie with a Kromlech order. I decided to make some breaching servitors that could withstand a lot of incoming firepower, but are also jury-rigged and expendable. The shields appear to be primaris-sized, so I removed about 5mm from the height to fit the servitors. I also added a heavy flamer and fuel tank. The bodies are the still excellent Jes Goodwin servitors.




I also had a mulit-legged RAFM weapon platform from the 'Reaction Marines' range. This thing was missing a leg, and as a result has been in the bits box for about 30 years. It has been on the slate to become a mining laser, but I thought these guys could use it. Not the best facsimile of the legs, but it works at first glance.



I wanted to paint them the dingy brown murky color used on the Ventolin in the advertisement. The leader received a blue helmet.

 
 Servitor shields have an old-school "KIL" painted on, along with the stylized Meobius pirate symbol.
 
  
 

Last but not least, these guys needed a boarding torpedo. I'd been wanting to make one for quite a while (since they showed up in the newer edition of Space Hulk), and Dragon's Rest released a brutal looking boarding craft 3D STL a couple months ago. It took a few days to print (I sized it up 135%) and the painting is fairly simple, but it does the trick.




That's it for the Ventolins!




 
 
 

17 comments:

  1. I absolutely love this crew. They have that perfect blend of professional functionality and jury-rigged making-do. They are clearly not military, but they are absolutely no-nonsense!

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    1. I'm glad they come off that way- that's exactly what I was going for. Appreciate the feedback :)

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  2. I really like the variety you've managed to get into the group through your conversions. The Moebius reference and the "KIL" are cool too. It reminds me of the renegades from Rogue Trader. Good find on the boarding torpedo too.

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    1. Thanks! Lots of Moebius influence in my 40K Adventurers. KIL certainly showed up a lot in the RT books :)

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  3. This is a hell platoon 👍😀 and the torpedo vessel as well. Pictures are so cool... Man, you rise the top ♥️

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  4. What a beautiful pirate force - in a grungy dirty evil sort of way. The boarding ship really works at that scale.

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  5. Wow, that's amazing. Not only you managed to take the very same mini like five times and made it look different, but the whole team looks great. It's kind of a gritty A-Team in space, some PMC going to a suicide mission. I love these.

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  6. So much to enjoy here! The pirate conversions are excellent, and the boarding torpedo is a great model. The standouts for me though, are those boarding servitors: great idea!

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    1. Thanks! I always thought that the first people through the breach in a boarding action were almost guaranteed an inglorious death- so servitors make sense :)

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  7. WarFactory has put out a crackin good set of 12 Ventolin 3d printing STL files . One is a limited edition Capitan. The rest are troopers/pirates

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    1. Thanks for the heads up! I acquired them, just need to print them off!

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  8. https://magpieandoldlead.blogspot.com/2023/06/warfactory-ventolin-pirates.html

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