Minotaurs Space Marines – Librarian Theophanes (Chief Librarian Tigurius V1, 1995): Dauntless December ’18

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Minotaurs Space Marines - Librarian, Chief Librarian Tigurius V1, 1995

My final model for the month of December – and as such, of 2018 is this model of Chief Librarian Tigurius, sculpted by Jes Goodwin. As I had a spare, I decided to do a minimal amount of work and use him for my Minotaurs Librarian. A tiny little brass-etch Minotaur over the top of the Ultramarines “U” icon in the middle of his chest, and we’re golden.

Minotaurs Space Marines - Librarian, Chief Librarian Tigurius V1, 1995

He’s a pretty busy model, absolutely covered with bling, but a great one nonetheless. I also think he’s a far superior sculpt to the completely unnecessary resculpt that came later on. I can only guess that the resculpt happened because models of this vintage were often quite flat, and “2D” in their posing. While the newer one isn’t objectively bad, it doesn’t really appeal to me. No matter, I’m sure it’ll be replaced by a plastic Primaris-ised version sometime soon.

Minotaurs Space Marines - Librarian, Chief Librarian Tigurius V1, 1995

In terms of paint, I’ve never been fond of Ultramarines Blue as a Librarian designation, despite not having a problem with White for Apothecaries/Medics, Black for Chaplains or even Red for Techmarines. With this in mind, I still gave a nod to the blue by combining my usual Minotaurs Brassy Bronze with some metallic blue on both pauldrons and his left arm. There’s a golden Minotaurs decal on that shoulder that no-one will ever see, too.

Minotaurs Space Marines - Librarian, Chief Librarian Tigurius V1, 1995

Aside from that, I kept to the usual elements. Mostly using silver and iron for (most of) the skull iconography, but using metallic green rather than blue for his Force Staff. I also did the “glowing eyes” thing using white and Nihilakh Oxide. Freehand Lambdas/Chevrons on his tabard because they fill the empty space in a way that looks good and because I can.

Minotaurs Space Marines - Librarian, Chief Librarian Tigurius V1, 1995, Minotaurs Space Marine Terminators

December (finally) brings reinforcements to the Minotaurs Space Marines.

And with that, 2018’s new models come to and end. To wrap up, expect my personal December wrap-up shortly, followed by the Community Round-Up for Diabolical/Dauntless December, and then a 2018 wrap-up/reflection/”New Year”/2019 goals post sometime after that. Probably around the middle of January at the rate I seem to get these things done!

Space Marine “Warriors of the Imperium” (1992-3): Dauntless December ’18

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Space Marine "Warriors of the Imperium" (1992-3)

This model was built and painted originally over 20 years ago, when the “new” Mk7 Space Marines had their first multipart plastic kit released in 1992-3 or so following the metal Space Marine Strike Force (and long before the more familiar multipart kit from the 40k 3rd edition Starter box. It was known as “Warriors of the Imperium”

Space Marine "Warriors of the Imperium" (1992-3)

Anyway, I saw a converted model, essentially the same model – either in White Dwarf or converted by someone local. The original version had a metal head used, and possibly a metal torso and legs, but featured the same kind of converted skull-backpack, pointing finger and a broadly similar head. I made mine from the the aforementioned plastic marine kit, along with a plastic Imperial Guard head, and the skulls were taken from HeroQuest decorative Skulls, cut down and modified to become power armour vents.

Space Marine "Warriors of the Imperium" (1992-3)

What this guy is exactly, I couldn’t tell you. It kind of feels like a distant ancestor to the Deathwatch, and certainly GW of the day would slap different names onto random marines like Doom Eagle, or even as captions in White Dwarf, so it’s entirely possible that there was some relationship there. I (briefly) considered replacing the left arm and/or pauldron blinging him out as a modern DW marine, but I think he works better simply rebased on a 32mm, and with the rest of him as a kind of restored time capsule. I did tone down his bright yellow Bolt Pistol, though!

Space Marine "Warriors of the Imperium" (1992-3)

Since he’s a (late) Rogue Trader-era model, he also qualifies as “Oldhammer”, though not original-era RT. As for the current edition, he doesn’t really fit in well as anything. No matter, I can always use him to proxy as some kind of low-level hero. Perhaps a Lieutenant. I guess that makes him Dauntless!

There’s now only one more model to complete my December output – see you in about 24 hours for December’s exciting conclusion!