On lifespan and evolution

I've been gaming for rather a long time. I know that i bought every issue of White Dwarf from December 1991 until June 1998, and my collection spans about 5 years further back in bits and pieces, with back issues and second hand copies to fill some of the gaps. So, more than 28 years, certainly. 

There's a long standing joke that a dedicated miniature gamer will drop dead once they have finished painting every model in their collection. This joke comes from the backlog we all develop. We buy miniatures or are given miniatures that we want for forces we're building or components we want, and then life gets in the way or we find a new model or line or game that's just so much better/newer/fresher, and we have a pile of stuff that hasn't been painted and is now being ignored. I have years and years and years of that, without interruption. I also have inherited a few armies, when people have been clearing out their old gaming stuff, most pressing, at present, for me is 1000 points or so of Craftworld Eldar.

Anyway, I'm currently working through some of my backlog, in the form of some 40k Imperial Space Marines. When I say backlog, i mean it. While the marines from the Dark Imperium starter set are still in wide circulation, they're joined by 4 re-cast Land Speeders i got last year to use up spares from older kits, but these are the newest of the batch. (By the way,  when I say "re-cast" I'm referring to a licensed re-cast of the previous kit, not an unlicensed one.) Accompanying all of that (yes, i paint in bulk) are a 10-man Tactical squad, a 5-man Assault squad, a 5-man Vanguard squad,  a 5-man bike squad, 3 bike apothecaries, 2 bike officers, 3 techmarines, 4 apothecaries on foot and 4 other models to fill squads after updating my marines from their 5th edition armament. Those 41 models are ancient. The newest of them are a 1994 techmarine and apothecary, the rest are from the 1980s. Included in that are the last 17 models from a pair of the original starter plastics, the RTB-coded Imperial Space Marines. 

Looking at these while I'm painting them, I'm noticing the evolution of the models, not just in scale and pose but also in detail and realism. The RT codes, the earliest releases for 40k, were churned out. Back then, the idea of a hobby game that involved collecting and painting playing pieces was still fairly new: Dungeons and Dragons was only 10 years old, and only used a handful; Chainmail and Warhammer were younger still. With the rise of computer games, it seemed that sci-fi and fantasy hobby gaming might be a flash-in-the-pan fad that wouldn't survive the 1980s.

Indeed, many of the games of that era, which had their own miniature ranges - Paranoia, Judge Dredd, Valley of the Four Winds, Chainsaw Warrior, to name a handful GW carried - were already starting to fade out. Some would re-emerge every few years, with a new publisher and a new edition (Paranoia, Judge Dredd), while many, many more simply faded into the twilight. Models from those games and copies of the games themselves now occupy a weird nebulous place in collectables markets: for those who recognise them and have fond memories, they're treasured, valuable relics of bygone years; for most other people, they're not the new cool, so are comparatively worthless. 

This perceived transience of the market can be seen readily in the models of the time. While the Imperial Space Marines boxed set was revolutionary at the time, allowing posing, a selection of armaments and even a choice of helmet or bare head, the edges aren't crisp, the detail is largely missing and the plates seem to sag in places. Similarly, while the Imperial Starship Marines of 1986 were gloriously detailed, vibrant models, sculpted using the expensive new epoxy putties that could take minute detail, the RT code marines, since at this point power armour was rarely found in other settings, were crudely sculpted, with huge, often mis-matched hands, thighs that look too thin to bear their weight, and faces that are hideously malformed. One of the apothecaries can't see forwards, as the lenses on his helmet face the sides.

I'm not criticising the models, however, or the zeal and urgency with which they were produced. Far from it, in fact: without them there's a very good chance 40k would have been one of the many games that vanished into the ether, and without it, hobby gaming would be a much smaller hobby. No, they have a distinct charm and character, reminiscent of the infancy of the game and the hobby. They also show us how far the hobby has evolved over the last 32 years. 

As i said, I'm painting those models at present. I'm someone with fond memories of the time when they were the leading edge of the hobby, and of facing the same models (in some cases literally, since there was a lack of players round my way) across the table. To me, while they are ugly, small, scrunched up, toxic (lead) or fragile (30+ year old hard styrene) little things, they are also relics of my youth. I'm one of those people who will pay a silly price for a rare piece. Despite this, they are being painted, not for display in a cabinet, but for gaming. Their useful lifespan is thus far from over. 

Of course, it's been over a decade since I last fielded marines myself, so  they will see far less table-time than my Guard, Genestealers, Tyranids, Orks, etc., but I'm a veteran of the youth of the hobby. The original 40k rulebook suggested building 2 armies, so you'd have one to loan to an opponent who was curious about the hobby. My second army back then was Marines, and the size of my collection shows that, and shows how much they've evolved from 1986 to today (well, technically, June 2017, since I've not bought and painted any marines in a couple of years. 

Hmm, i do have that box of RTB and RT code Terminators still to paint, and a handful of event models still to build, and a few more squads scattered through the bits box, and...