Some people have rescue pets; I have started to rescue miniatures from ebay. The idea was to buy some cheap miniatures in poor condition to see if I could breathe some new life into them. Here are the results from my first attempt.

As a teenager I was drawn more to the Warhammer fantasy setting than its sci-fi brother which has grown to dominate the tabletop gaming landscape. However, I always had a soft spot for the brooding Dark Angels chapter of the Space Marines. Whilst the chapter mostly wears dark green power armour, its elite Deathwing Terminators are clad in iconic bone-coloured armour. So, to fulfil a childhood desire, that is what I bought. There was not much competition on the ebay listing and, a few days after winning, the models arrived in a plastic tub with bubble wrap taped inside.

All of these models sport some new fluorescent paints which I used sparingly on the lights and visors, with more obvious use on the power sword. For the bases, I experimented with some cracked earth texture paste painted as desert (too tonally similar to the bone armour) or lava (for contrast). In the end I took inspiration from the lore — the Dark Angels home world of Caliban was a forest planet and these forest bases would also work with the chapter’s typical dark green if I end up painting more.

The immediately visible issue was that the miniatures were caked in thick paint which had clogged details and then cracked as it dried to create new textures. This was fixed with relative ease by soaking them in AK Interactive’s paint stripper — it is far more effective than alcohol to remove acrylic paint and does so without any damage to the plastic or metal underneath. It still requires brushing to remove paint collected in recesses, but it is a much quicker process now that when I originally stripped some of my own old models last year.

Removing the paint revealed two further issues. The first is that these had been assembled sloppily with large amounts of plastic cement, an adhesive that produces the strongest bond on plastic miniatures by melting the surface. If not carefully applied to the contact surfaces, it can damage or warp visible parts of the model. It also leaves the model fused together so that one cannot easily disassemble or reposition anything. In other places chunks of the plastic sprue had been left attached but these were generally easier to remove with a sharp craft knife . The second issue was that this old kit was mostly plastic but included two arms made from the much-maligned Citadel Finecast resin. This obsolete resin was able to capture greater detail but was notoriously soft and prone to damage. There was little I could do about that damage, so it seemed more appropriate simply to embrace it as battle damage.

In the model on the left you can see the effect of poorly applied plastic cement. One arm is fused solidly to the body and the other has damage where visible parts have been exposed to the adhesive. If I were to do this again, I would be inclined to slice off the arms so that I could sand down those areas and then reassemble with less visible damage. Meanwhile thick layers of paint had rendered the detail of his chest insignia all but invisible.

The completed models are far from perfect but there is something really satisfying about looking at the results side by side with the originals, moreso than just seeing a model come to life from new grey plastic. The preparation time was significantly longer in trying to clean up a model that has already been assembled, so there is definitely a trade off for those just looking to save money by buying second hand.

The completed squad of Deathwing Rescues