In the early 90s, before Games Workshop opened the Forge World studio to create superheavy tanks and titans for Warhammer 40k, it sub-licensed the rights for a few select designs to the American studio Armorcast. The partnership only lasted for a few years, but Armorcast created a whole range of massive resin models based on the tiny 6mm scale tanks and titans from GW's spin-off game Epic Space Marine. For a certain vintage of wargamer those Armorcast models are truly iconic - and for John Lander, they were the inspiration to launch Battle Castings, a whole business dedicated to making new models with the same retro aesthetic.
Born in Britain, Lander discovered Warhammer 40k via the Rogue Trader rulebook while serving in the armed forces. "I just liked the art, and the references to 80's Britain", he says. Though he was aware of Armorcast, very few of the kits made it to the UK, so it wasn't until he moved to the USA in 2016 that he was able to get one of his own, a massive Reaver Class Warhammer 40k Titan.
That started something of an obsession. Searching for one particular rare model - a retro-styled resin Imperial Knight with a hard to trace lineage - he decided he would be better off simply making his own kit in the same retro style. As soon as he had created the first model, friends started asking if they could buy a copy - and his company Battle Castings was born.
Lander follows some very simple design principles; his models are "Retro, simple to build, inspired by Rogue Trader era artwork, but reimagined into a modern kit that's actually well engineered".
His first kit, the BC0001 Cutlass class, is "The most popular because it's so versatile", Lander says, "And it's still my favorite. I feel an affinity with it, like your first child".
Battle Castings is a side project to Lander's main job as a commission painter, and he lets his personal interests decide what he's going to create next. "The whole range is just retro stuff that I like", Lander says, "I'm more of a gamer than a businessman". His product range includes some really deep cuts: he makes conversion parts for the Armorcast Reaver Titan, products that I assume have a market measured in the dozens rather than thousands.
His latest kit is the Broadsword Class Heavy War Strider, a massive egg of a war machine with guns popping out of the carapace. It's clearly influenced by the original 6mm scale Knight Warden models that appeared in Epic Space Marine, well before Games workshop formalised the modern knight chassis.
Armorcast never adapted any of the original Epic scale knight miniatures into 28mm scale, and GW shows no sign of creating a retro callback line based on designs from the '90s. So Battle Castings' miniatures are like a glimpse into a parallel universe where '90s aesthetics never went away.
Are you an Oldhammer enjoyer, or the proud owner of an original Armorcast titan or superheavy gravtank? I'd love to see pictures of your collection - come and share them in the dedicated army showcase channel in the Wargamer Discord community!