Retrohammer 4: Death Eagle Space Marines 1989 and the road to MK VII Aquila Armour

[@maxbrandt6]

According to Imperial records: The Death Eagles are a Loyalist, Codex Astartes-compliant Space Marine Chapter. It is suspected that they are one of the rare Successor Chapters of the Raven Guard, although some believe their roots actually lead to the Emperor's Children Traitor Legion, during the bygone Age of Darkness during the Horus Heresy in the 31st Millennium. Their exact Founding date is unknown. At this time, almost nothing is known about the Chapter in Imperial records beyond their name and Chapter appearance. Their chapter emblem is a black winged eagle skull, their colors are primarily black with bone white helmet and shoulder plates in white, company color is indicated by appropriate colored stripe on right knee pad. Originally, their color scheme was quartered purple and white with gold details.

[@Chivas6]

It's interesting to see how the earlier marines had much more dynamic poses than the ones I always saw during the mid 90's where they are just standing like statues with their bolter across their chest.

[@leakycheese]

+Chivas6 That's an interesting observation, each of the Death Eagles is doing something very different and it further adds to the individuality the figures. I guess back in these early days with single piece models there were far fewer limitations around poses. Your point also touches on a topic I want to talk about when I do reviews of Forge World marine models - how resin (and heat bending) allows you to more easily achieve interesting poses than when working with plastic. Cheers for commenting :)

[@BladeRunner21577]

"Cuisses" covers the thigh and the "Poleyn" protects the knee, "Grave" protects the shin but can extend over the knee while the "sabaton" is the boot. Ive still got a couple of those Strike Force boxes complete with the foam tray the models came in, before all my men were from the RTB01 set. I remember waiting for ages waiting for the UHU glue to set before you could paint them. They were still selling those same models years later after they released 2nd edition in blisters with i think 2 models in each pack. The plastic sprues they came with can sell for almost as much as the models themselves these days.

[@adamfox3526]

sweet! those look great. I really enjoy your Retro~Hammer postings. the way you do them is informed & easy to listen to while painting! keep up the great work

[@leakycheese]

+Adam Fox 🦊 Informed and easy to listen to, that's something I can be proud of. Thanks for watching :)

[@kaijupredator4063]

I have the guy with the Eagle Shoulder (still unpainted btw) but he came with 2 other different Marines in my blister which were in Mk 6 armor I believe (one carried a plasma gun sporting a Ram's head shoulder and the other might have had a hand flamer and a plasma gun with a Skull icon on his shoulder). Don't forget there was a prototype Mk 7 helmet on one of the guys in the "Marines with Terminator Honors" blister (which I also still have yet never got around to painting).

[@leakycheese]

+Kaiju Predator Cool to hear you still have one of these classics! I thought I mentioned the Terminator Honours model in the video? Thanks for watching :)

[@darrenrichardson6146]

An interesting note about the Strike Force models, they come with rounded shoulders, which don't fit the plastic arms very well which came supplied with the set, nore the later character arm sprues. I believe they originally were intending for the RTB01 spare arms to be used, but quickly realised that not all buyers would own the beakies box set..... hence the plastic arm sprues. Later models all come with flat shoulders after this box was released.

[@leakycheese]

I'd forgotten about that.... it's such a long time since I built mine! I'd have thought that given the models were designed by Jes Goodwin he carried the shoulder joint design over from the beakies that he also worked on to the strike force models. I did a force using a mix of the boxed set and later blister models and had to cut all the shoulders down to take the newer design arms. I remember that the SF box was delayed a long time from when it was first advertised to when it went on sale.

[@darrenrichardson6146]

I'm personally gonna go with the RTB01 arms on mine, I managed to get a few unclipped bolter arm sets which soon I'm gonna try casting some resin copies up from (for personal use only), since it's damned hard finding spare sets of those arms.....

[@adamfox1669]

As I watch this a second time (great reference material and painting accompaniment) I have that wd #129 /variations of power armour, I noticed that the salamander sgt has caucasian flesh, it just shows the great variety of'canon' lore 😀 I never tire of retro-hammer, thanks so much. Have a great christmastime holiday season too

[@leakycheese]

40K lore is splendidly inconsistent if nothing else! Thanks Adam, hope you have a good Christmas holiday as well 😊

[@ForgesOfLuna]

I managed to pick up the death eagles with the plasma gun and bolter without beyonet off ebay for cheap (along with the Rogue Trader Death Squad marine) , maybe I'll find the other one someday.

[@MetroidHatchling]

Totally thought of Dredd when I saw those shoulder pads. Very cool models.

[@L3GHO5T]

Maaaaan where in the freakin heck did you find that blister pack? What an absolute unicorn of a find!

[@zestypenguin8011]

they need to bring these back with Made to Order!!!

[@leakycheese]

+Zesty Penguin I'd second that idea! Thanks for watching :)

[@Chivas6]

21:55 Pedantry warning. Pauldrons are for shoulders. The eagle is on the cuirass (''chest pauldron''). ;)

[@leakycheese]

+Chivas6 Pedantry points +1 Good spot the wrong word came out there, I'll have to do my armour nomenclature 101 again :P Thanks for the comment!

[@jh316]

I find it interesting that I can look at that guy and immediately know he's got a plasmagun. Like it looks different but there's a definite continuity of design over the last 30 years.

[@StormWildSpace]

The strike force box was the first 40k models i ever bought, while i was in college in Georgia

[@leakycheese]

+Melanie Dawn Very cool, I remember the Strike Force coming out, I was so excited to get the new marines back then. I wonder if we are about to get the first new Marines in a long time with Roboute's rumoured super-Marines in 8th? Cheers for the view :)

[@StormWildSpace]

Yeah... I hate to think there might be awesome new marines while i wait for plastic aspect warriors :(

[@darrenrichardson6146]

It's a shame the Death Eagles (and Christmas Marines) were dropped from the range by the time the famous Blue Catalogue in 91/92.....

[@henrimela8495]

These look so rad compared to the current ones.

[@leakycheese]

+Henri Mela Rad, now that's I word of the time these guys were from. Thanks for watching :)

[@joethomas5528]

£2.50 back in 1989 is around £6 today

[@shortlong8936]

White Dwarf did used to have Dredd stuff in it so that shoulder pauldron idea is probably correct.

[@darrenrichardson6146]

I also notice you never once mentioned the 1990 Space Crusade plastic marines which took design cues from those guys and are slightly different to the Strike Force Marines and later 2nd edition Plastic Marines as well.....

[@leakycheese]

I didn't really consider those as part of this design evolution... they were clearly MKVII but were dumbed down detail models to be cheaply produced for the boxed game. They were more of an evolutionary offshoot of the designs, like the plastic terminators in Space Hulk. What does interest me and I will look at eventually is metal variant marine armour designs.. some interesting stuff going on there.

[@darrenrichardson6146]

Fair enough, I personally do believe that they are part of the design process though, as most of the metals which were released after SC refined elements found on the plastic ones in that game. I do know for many gamers (such as myself) the Space Crusade miniatures were our first ever glimpse at the 40k universe, and those miniatures set the standards for what us board gameplayers would expect from 40k miniatures.... Needless to say, 28 years later and I'm still being impressed by GW's miniatures :p

[@Enzo012]

Death Eagle Space Marines AKA Angry Marines.

[@leakycheese]

Always angry, all of the time ;)

[@Guardbuddy]

Hmm the first awfully reminds me of the Sons of Horus upgrade helmet from FW

[@leakycheese]

+Guardbuddy I'd not thought of that one, but see what you mean..... that's what interests me with this early stuff, bits of it here and there keep cropping up on current miniature ranges. I had a chance to look through Jes Goodwin's sketches from 1988-90 (he often turns up with them at WW open days) and was surprised at all the ideas he had that have only recently come into production. Examples include Kastelan and Vorax robots and various Skitarii and Cult Mechanicus infantry are examples that spring to mind. Thanks for watching!

[@Mikey__R]

The pangs of nostalgia! Ouch!

[@Mikey__R]

Jess Goodwin was my favourite designer of the time. He designed all of my Elder miniatures. I actually rate his concept sketches up there with John Blanches.

[@leakycheese]

+Mikey R Yes, the nostalgia get's turned up to maximum here! I seem to recall I cut my thumb while I was assembling the M61A5 tank.... I was filming at the time so superglued the cut shut because it was bleeding so much, finished the build and popped the plaster on later. Thanks for watching :)

[@tristenbezayiff571]

they look so angry

[@leakycheese]

+Tristen Bezayiff Angry enough to be Angry Marines? Behold, a meme was born. Thanks for watching :)

[@Caddy666]

what was the packaging like before this one? this one was th first i saw, back in about 1992ish

[@leakycheese]

Before this the backing card had the black background design and blue inset border with the Warhammer 40,000 logo at the top.

[@Caddy666]

@@leakycheese so pretty much the one they followed this up with, but with the old logo instead?

[@leakycheese]

You'd have to link me some images of what you are referring to. I don't recall a design between this and the black background (which also featured a 40K rendition of the Citadel Miniatures logo) but I may have forgotten.

[@Caddy666]

@@leakycheese webimg.secondhandapp.com/w-i-mgl/5af2e21d4d5dd528073b1ad2

[@leakycheese]

That's a later, second edition design.

[@sunsofruss]

Are you going to do the old landraider or rhino in the sand colored plastic?

[@leakycheese]

+sunsofruss I would like to do those guys but need to source the models first. I think I know of a Rhino in reasonable condition to use but the only Land Raider I have access to has, shall we say, been subjected to the worst possible deprivations of Nurgle and not really the best subject to use. Safe to say on the wish list for the time being ;) Thanks for watching!

[@zednotzee7]

I've still got one of the original predators ( actually I have two, but one got a bit broken and so got " kustomised " for my Ork army ). I also have an original Rhino - but that got a bit modified to be used by my Inquisitor ( Inquisitor Morse, lol ). I still have one of the original " Daredo " (?) SM dreads ( I might have another one somewhere as well, a Furibundas I think it is - but I've no idea where it is, lol ) as well as an original Ork dread. Strange how we hang on to such things isn't it ?

[@Mikey__R]

What happened to your thumb?