Inquisitor: The Rogue Trader

It's time for another radical gear shift in Model Mondays. There's a big reason I've stepped back from my Empire army to post bits and bobs instead: I find it much easier to paint a single miniature than to paint an entire regiment. Rest assured, I'll coming to my black-and-yellow boys soon enough, but for now, let's talk about one of Games Workshop's greatest and all-too-brief forays into skirmish-style tabletop gaming.

Games Workshop has done warband-sized gaming before, most likely as an attempt to reach out to a market that can't afford $500+ for their standard tabletop wargames (Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000). With each of their universes, they've brought out skirmish games (Necromunda, Mordheim), small-scale strategy games (Warmaster, Epic), and even fleet games (Dreadfleet, Battlefleet Gothic). Every time this happens, GW always puts the new game front and centre, flashing exciting advertisements on their website, and in their own publication, White Dwarf Magazine.

And then support almost immediately evaporates.

As a company almost nightmarishly focused on a profit margin, GW seems to demand immediate monetary gain from its games, and responds like a sulking child when sales are lacklustre. They go just as quickly as they arrived (in the case of Dreadfleet, seemingly over the course of a matter of months).

Simultaneously, support for so-called "specialist games" like the ones I've mentioned is quickly overshadowed when GW finds a quick and easy market like it did with its Lord of the Rings tabletop game. The measurement of marketing funds during the boom of LoTR was easily traceable in the column inches of White Dwarf as articles shifted to Frodo Baggins and orcs.

Nowhere was this more obvious than in the tragic development of Inquisitor.

mmechtley via Compfight cc

An Inquisitor ponders the merits of selling out to McD's

When this game was coming out, the hype was HUGE. There was a huge campaign instores, online, and in print. GW even constructed a viral website that required a unique password, which turned out to be the first letters of each word of the campaign's tagline: The Ends Don't Justify The Means. Later on, they released some of the imagery from the rulebook, which was even darker in content than the standard Warhammer 40,000 fare, with great lines like "The Battle for the Emperor's Soul."

The coolest part about this game, though, was that it promised miniatures in mighty 54mm scale, nearly twice the size of their ordinary 28mm scale.

Like I said, it was going to be huge (PUNS!).

When it did arrive, reception was largely positive, however some critics seized on the fact that quasi-roleplaying in the Warhammer universe didn't make a TON of sense (perhaps best summarized in this strip from Penny Arcade). This was especially evident in the game mechanics; rules favored a large focus on storytelling and quickly grew murky on even the basics of movement, shooting, etc. Also troubling was the initially small product line; my personal recollection was of a group of only 9-10 distinct models.

At the time, though, I fell in love immediately. The models which they released then and subsequently are beautifully sculpted and have a lot of great detail to them. They're articulated and multi-parted in such a way as to make parts-swapping a snap, even for a relative amateur like myself. This customization factor was a big selling point in the Inquisitor marketing.

Then Lord of the Rings happened. And slowly but surely, Inquisitor faded away, to the point where the models are out of production, the rulebook is free online, and no new errata is being offered. Not with a bang, but a whimper.

Now that the story's out of the way...let's talk about MY WARBAND!

Yes, I assembled a small group of these nifty minis, and over the next few weeks I'm going to feature each one.

Without further ado...

Inquisitor: The Rogue Trader

One of my favourite aspects of Inquisitor was how it fleshed out the 40k universe. The tagline of 40k - "In the Grim Darkness of the Far Future, there is only WAR" - would have you believe that quite literally the entire universe is fighting. All humans fight, all Orks fight, all Eldar, everyone fights, and all of them naturally obey their racial traits and governments.

Inquisitor gave us a look at the independent people of the Imperium.

Rogue Traders are very much the Han Solos of the 40k universe. They toot around the galaxy, conducting affairs with whomever they please, ignoring the xenophobic laws of an oppressive government. They collect wacky weaponry, items, and followers.

To this end, when I made my rogue trader, I wanted to throw a lot of things on him. This guy is primarily two kits: the Von Castellan Rogue Trader, and the Inquisitor Covenant. To start with, I wanted to give him a more solid looking stance than the Von Castellan figure, so I took the legs and bent them into a walking position. I swapped Von Castellan's laspistol for the stub-pistol from Slick Devlan's kit. Von Castellan has his sword out, but I preferred the look of having it sheathed, and tried to position his free hand to look like he's about to grab his shotgun from his backpack.

As it is, the hand being close-fisted doesn't really look quite right, but meh. The backpack itself, I have to say, is a gorgeous little accessory. The chained book is a great touch, perfectly selling the idea of "forbidden knowledge" in one handy snapshot.

For a paint scheme, I tried to keep it to dark tones, but went with bright red on the sword scabbard and belt in attempt to make the blade look more daemonic. I'm not sure it worked. As it is, it certainly makes it stand out from the rest of him, but he does look a bit TOO fancy now.

One last thing I have to mention. I hate ponytails on men. I have no idea why they felt compelled to give most of the male inquisitor models ponytails, but there you go. Chopped it off and tried in vain to sculpt a hair-shaped blob of green stuff. He kind of looks like Mr. Spock now. ANGRY Mr. Spock.