Legions of Steel Nightmares – aka: Not-Terminators from the 1990’s

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Legions of Steel Nightmares

One of each sculpt.

I have to admit, I couldn’t remember what these things were called and so it took literally minutes of playing internet detective to figure out what the game these things are from was called (and what they are). Armed only with “(illegible) games, 1992” on the bottom of their integral metal bases, google, wikipedia and BGG, I figured it out. Hooray!

Legions of Steel Nightmares

The first of not all that many…

I bought these figures back in the ’90s for a few reasons. None of which had anything to do with Legions of Steel. 1) On sale. 2) Because Terminators. And most importantly, 3) They came in little miniatures carrying cases with foam inside. So naturally, I used the cases for a few years, the figures all got shunted into bits boxes, and that was that. I gave the cases away a year or two ago, (I think?) to Tarmor. At some point I found one of them and quickly painted it up, because let’s face it – how hard could it be? Had no idea where the rest of them were, though.

Thanks, oh Noble Knight, for your image. Have a link to your product in return.

So sometime last year while cleaning up some bits boxes – around the same time as I found and repainted that Judge Dredd RTB01 Space Marine – I found the “Nightmares”. Since I first found out that they’re called that literally 2 minutes before starting this post, I’m just going to call them Terminators from here on in. Anyway, I found the Terminators, and bundled them into a zip-lock bag alongside the tiny number of (licenced) Aliens miniatures I have from the same era. And then put them away in one of my Unpainted Miniatures Storage Cases. And promptly forgot about them until a few days ago, while attempting to tidy up the room where I keep all that crap, I bumbled onto them, sharing space with a bunch of Mantic models.

Legions of Steel Nightmares

The Shiny Dozen.

This being my Summer break from work, and as I’m now getting in some good paint time, I brought them out, lost them, found them again and then painted them from Spray to Varnish to Flock in less than 3 days – most of which was drying time. So now I have a unit of 12… well. I can use them as Terminators in the Terminator Genisys game I picked up on sale during Black Friday. I understand it’s supposed to be quite a good game, but hampered by being massively overpriced for what you get in the box, and an expensive licence that seriously underperformed in the wider market, with the height of it’s popularity being, you know… 25-odd years ago. Still, when it was on sale for £20 I decided to grab it. Also, free rules if anyone wants to try it out.

Failing that I could use them as Necrons in 40k… I just picked up their Start Collecting set, and will probably grab a second one before too long. Or… as Cultists for my Iron Warriors? Hmm….

Legions of Steel Nightmares

Their likely future. As cannon fodder for the Iron Warriors.

17 thoughts on “Legions of Steel Nightmares – aka: Not-Terminators from the 1990’s”

    • Thanks Ann. As they have integral metal bases, they’re not really suitable for putting on slottas or other plastic bases (not without too much work, anyway) so I just went with the usual method and it luckily worked out decently.

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  4. I can never guess what’s going to pop up from your painting desk next! Well done getting these painted, I’ve never seen them before. I think they work great as cultists for Iron Warriors. They look more like human engineered tech rather than Necrons. Although encountering Necrons could have inspired their construction.

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    • Thanks! I’ve got some stuff on the desk right now that’s somewhat inspired by your recent work, actually. Hopefully i manage to finish them since I apparently have the attention span of a mayfly. They do look more like human tech in a lot of ways, but then again Necrons have had several iterations at this point, and they all look like their core inspiration – The Terminator/Robot Skeletons. I figure they’ll probably get double duty as and when needed – much like my fantasy artillery pieces.

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  6. I loved your story how you unearthed those guys. Must be like Christmas to go through your stuff once in a while. I think the guys look great. Excellent metal tone with the right amount of wear.
    They don’t really look like Terminators, but they could be a previous model to the T-800.

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    • Well, not in a detailed, specifc sense, but given what was available back in the 1990’s they were probably the best thing going at the time. As for more recent figures, I know the T-600s are more of a hulking, “less human” version. I haven’t gotten around to reading the T:G rules yet, but given that I’ve got a couple dozen “proper” T-800s my intention was always to run them as a different model if they take the table as Cyberdyne Systems creations.
      The drawback to going through my stuff and finding cool things is then I seem to lose them just as quickly. I’ve got to find those bloody Confrontation walls again that I unearthed about a week or so ago…

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