Top Ten Old 40K Minis
It's an exciting time to be a 40K fan, with Games Workshop producing fantastic new models and minis, showing themselves to be at the top of the game when it comes to miniature design. The company is producing some fantastic stuff for gamers and hobbyists alike.
That said, not everything new is hot.
Conversely, just because a mini is old, doesn't mean it's drek. I'd like to share with you the minis I hope GW doesn't replace, the ones they got right the first time, all dating back from 4th edition or earlier.
So, without further ado, and in no particular order...
10: The Emperor's Champion
Starting off with the Black Templars, because they've recently been featured in Fall of Cadia. What is not to like about this mini? Introduced back around the end of 3rd Edition, the Emperor's Champion used to be usable by all Space Marine players. Then the 4th ed Codex: Space Marines came out, and he was BT-only. Which was a crying shame for the rest of us, because this mini just looks great. It's not overly ostentatious, the pose is dyamic, and he just looks like a badass.
9: Sisters of Battle Canoness
There are people who are not a fan of the Sisters of Battle aesthetic, but I'm not one of them. Considering she dates from I like the Canoness mini because she looks like she's in the process of throwing down on some heretic. Too bad the current rules for them are so lackluster.
8: Ultramarines Tyrranic War Veterans
I've always liked these guys. They show that regular Marines in power armor can be badass looking on the table. I'd have bought them for my army if they weren't plastered all over with Ultramarines symbols. Smurf players, know I'll always be a teensy bit jealous that you get to use these guys and I don't.
7: Typhus
Nothing says badass like a scythe. Typhus was introduced to us by Codex Chaos Space Marines, edition 3.5, and GW would be hard pressed to replace this mini with something better.
6: Commissar Gaunt
Another 3rd edition veteran, Commissar Gaunt represents the protagonist in the popular Gaunt's Ghosts novels, brought to tabletop life by some better-than-average sculptor. He's got a good, dyamanic pose that makes him look like he's actually leading men in battle, and he's got some ornateness to him without the mini being overly busy. If only GW sold him as a single mini instead of with all those extra guys.
5: Space Wolf Rune Priest
If memory serves, this guy began life as a limited edition mini, but he appeared at the same time as GW released the Eye of Terror codex, and was featured in a White Dwarf batrep involving the 13th Company Space Wolves. He's an excellent mini with a fairly natural pose and just the right amount of Space Wolfiness. He does lose points for having a plasma pistol - as an aside, I hate GW saddling special characters with plasma pistols - but as I found recently, it's fairly easy to remove and replace with a bolt pistol, as I did for the one I gave Wolf Mistress Sheri when she first got interested in playing Space Wolves.
4: Death Cult Assassins
My judgment may be tinged by a certain amount of nostalgia, but Death Cult Assassins were a scupt GW got right. Unlike the original Callidus Assassin, DCAs look like women, but not ridiculously proportioned, and they also look like they're perfectly willing to stab you for looking at the Emperor funny. I miss me the old Codex: Daemonhunters and my radical inquisitorial force with three of these girls in it.
3: Grey Knight Grand Master
Speaking of Codex: Daemonhunters, it brought us this guy. Grey Knight Terminators were the most badass Terminators GW had produced up until that time, and this guy was everything you wanted a hero in Tactical Dreadnought Armor to be. As a bonus, it was also fairly easy to simply swap out his storm bolter arm for a psycannon arm from another GKT, which was cool as heck because he could actually take one.
2: Inquisitor Lord Coteaz
Man, Codex: Daemonhunters was the gift that kept on giving. Coteaz here made his debut in 3rd edition as well. If this mini isn't everything you'd want in an Inquisitor Lord, I'm not sure what else you're looking for. Also, he scores some serious bonus points because back in the day, you used to just be able to order individual bits of minis from GW. I ordered a bunch of the hammer (with attached hand) and the double headed eagle, and used them in any number of conversions.
1: Ezekial, Dark Angels Master Librarian
My First Legion bias may be showing here, but Ezekial dates all the way back from 2nd edition. There are any number of doofy-looking minis from 2nd ed, which makes Ezekial stand out all the more for his badassitude. He is one old mini you do not want to mess with. GW's later efforts with named DA characters have been a mixed bag, so here's hoping they leave well enough alone with Ezekial!
Honorable Mention: Dark Eldar Slave Girls
I was a little surprised (and not a little amused) to discover that GW still sells these two minis. They used to be basically just decoration in the Asdrubael Vect kit, which was the original version of Logan Grimnar's Santa Sled, as it had the character on his own personal Raider, complete with these two as his captives. They don't sell Vect anymore, but for some reason these two have survived their original captor's discontinuation. I actually bitz-ordered the pair of them and put each on her own base, because when 4th edition dropped, GW introduced objective-scoring as the new standard for missions, but the teenage boys at the GW store I played at needed some convincing to shift over from just kill-the-other-guy games. I deduced they'd be more likely to give it a go if the objectives were scantily clad girl minis. Turns out I was right. So they get an honorable mention for helping me convince adolescent males to play objective-based missions.
