A few days ago I was talking with 73rd on his blog The Unforgiven Angels, and I mentioned the oldest White Dwarf magazine I owned, back when I first got into the hobby in 1987. Well, here's some scans of the first issue I bought, #98, from February 1988. The next image is an ad for "Chapter Approved", containing all sorts of neat stuff:
And next, of course, is the first incarnation of someone everything is familiar with these days, Marneus Calgar, although back then he was just a cool Imperial Commander...
The issue had an article about the Mentor Legion chapter of Space Marines (now they are known as just the "Mentors"). GW hadn't settled on calling the post-Heresy Space Marines the Adeptus Astartes yet--they were still all the Legiones Astartes.
And finally there is an ad for some generic "Space Pirates", and below, some of the earliest incarnations of the Imperial Guard, then known as "Imperial Army". Back then recruitment was so small they could give each trooper individual names!
Ah, the good ol' days, when miniatures were only made out of lead, and were ridiculously cheap (compared to today's standards). Still, the quality of the miniatures has gone up tremendously. I still have my RTB-01 marines from those days, still fighting in the ranks of my Raven Guard. Hopefully they will be taking to the field in another 20 years, still fighting for the Emperor...
6 comments:
Any chance of turning that into a PDF file? I'm interested in reading more of it. Please try.
Do you mean the article on the Mentor Legion, or something else?
Now this is so cool Darkwing, thanks for sharing this, and thanks for the mention! That Imperial Commander model really is... dioramic to say the least. The Imperial Soldiers look so full of character, and when I look at them I can't help but be reminded of the dynamic poses only seen in Blood Bowl. Really great to see the history of our hobby on display like this, especially the similarites between WD #98 and present White Dwarf mags. Great post mate
ahhhh, that takes me back! I'm feeling all nostalgic now.
So the picture of the seated Marneus Calgar that appeared in the 4th edition codex drew its inspiration from the image in this model...(?)
It would appear that way.
Interesting. Thanks.
Awesome. I never realized there had been space pirate models!!
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