Remembrance and Honour

When I first started playing 40K, back before the turn of the century, there was a guy named Tobin Lathrop who was a fixture of the Seattle gaming scene. Absolutely great guy, and he became something of a role model for me as a gamer who really embraced the whole hobby, and didn't get hung up on not being the most skillful player or anything like that. He'd just keep showing up with his fantastic looking Imperial Fists and have fun hanging out with everyone while getting his butt kicked. As a regular at the bottom tables with a bit of a knack for painting myself, it was reassuring. 

On a few occasions, when he was downsizing his collection, he'd just give stuff away to people who he thought would appreciate it and put it to good use. At one point, he gave me a bunch of long OOP Mordians, because he knew I used them as Command Squads and officers in my metal IG army, and that I didn't have many opportunities to expand that force.

The last time I saw him (tho I didn't know that at the time), he gave me this LE101 Chaos Renegade Marine, telling me* that it was the first Chaos Marine GW ever released, because he knew that I had gotten started in 40K with Chaos Marines, and they've always been my core faction.

At this point, I was starting to really run into disability issues, and was kinda falling out of being able to make it in to events and stuff. Some time later, he got pancreatic cancer, and just under two years ago, it killed him.

I still hadn't done anything with this model, worried that I wouldn't be able to do something worthy of the emotional and historical weight it had, and that continued until GW announced the 35th anniversary of Warhammer 40,000. I decided that, worthy or not, it was time to do something with it, and figured I'd also take advantage of the motivation to do something with the Imperial Space Marine from the 30th anniversary that had just been sitting around in primer gathering dust for similar reasons.

It took me a while still to decide what colour scheme to use. Part of me wanted to paint him up as Alpha Legion, which were more specifically my start in 40K, but I eventually decided that the first Chaos Marine should really be done as a Word Bearer. 

The Imperial Space Marine was simpler, of course. I really couldn't think of anything other than to paint him up as a tribute to Tobin's Imperial Fists.

I didn't have the courage to try to freehand insignia on either of them, but other than that, I'm really happy with what I managed to accomplish with them. I know I haven't been around the 40K blogosphere for ages, but I've had a painting streak thread going on twitter for a couple of years now, and that, combined with not worrying about how things would work in the game, has led to some pretty substantial improvements in my painting, if I do say so myself, and I feel like I was indeed able to do something worthy with them.

I don't know if there is anything after we die, any form or part of us that survives the passing of the body, but if you are out there in some way, Tobin, this one is for you. Thank you for helping me get into a hobby that has brought me so much in the quarter century and more since then.

Y'all have a good one now, y'hear! 

*As far as I know, this is correct, but it's really hard to find precise and complete info on old GW releases, so I'm stating only what I know to be true. It is unquestionably one of the first, and the tab on the base actually names it a "Chaos Warrior", which suggests to me that the sculpt was done before the writers had really nailed down what they wanted to do with Chaos in 40K.