You bastards. You have no idea how good you have it today. When I was young in the early '80's, we didn’t have nice rulebooks with full-colour illustrations. Holy Jumping Christ, we barely had rules. And we certainly didn’t have Warhammer 40K. If we wanted to play a knock-off Star Wars skirmish game, we couldn’t just reach for the latest British import, like some silk-slippered princeling. Oh no. If we wanted to roll dice, we had only one option: we played Galacta: Star Commandos.
Those old ladies are gone now. So are the hobby stores. And so are the malls. They have been plowed into the earth so that you and your friends can sip bubble tea on a patio. What is bubble tea, anyway? My only prayer is that it's something that will give you gas.
Unboxing Galacta was a painful experience, but we grew up fast in those days. Inside we found: (1) ten solid-based miniatures so lumpy they looked like Hershey’s Kisses; (2) a photocopied pamphlet with two pages of rules; (3); a dozen pots of paint dried into hard putty; and (4) a paint brush so splayed that it couldn’t be used to apply makeup on a Bonobo.
They called it a “paint-and-play” game, the cruel jerks. But did we make a Reddit about it? Of course not. Because that’s what wargaming was all about in my day: disappointment.
And then Rogue Trade showed up and ruined everything.
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This is the last time I let someone write guest post. What a downer. Anyway, let's continue the tour through Citadel's RT601 range of Adventurers for 40K Rogue Trader.
First up is "Female Warrior Gabs". Her slotta tab gives her the alternative name "Sister", which seems to a reference to page 268 of the Rogue Trader rulebook (1987), where we find an enigmatic passage mentioning the Adepta Sororitas or Sisterhood: "an order of devotional warrior women." The accompanying illustration by Stephen Tappin shows "Sister Sin" in full power armor. Sadly, the Sisterhood was an idea that languished for a few years, but was rekindled in the 2nd edition Warhammer 40,000 rulebook (1993).
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| Illustration by Stephen Tappin (1987) |