The Rarest of Them All: the Unreleased Protonid aka The Rogue Trader Tyranid

EDIT NOTE: Some ebay sellers are using my article in their Protonid ebay auctions without my permission. I don’t give it to them to use.
My article was written in a time where the old hammer community was very young, it was far harder to find out things back then, then it is now, and that includes tracking models down. Whilst the Protonid is still insanely rare and the holy grail of Tyranid Collecting so to speak, I know of several dozen worldwide and that number slowly increases with time, as it has since this article was first published. A lot of the Protonid’s that surface are with gamers that were around in the late 80’s that haven’t touched miniatures in many years or don’t use the internet for miniatures based discussion and so the armies/models while away seemingly hidden from view. It’s like that Fimir army from one of the early Games Day’s where more then 60 Fimir are in the picture vs a Skaven army yet no one knows where that Fimir army lives today. END EDIT NOTE

The Rogue Trader Tyranid more commonly known as The Protonid (ie. Prototype Tyranid), was an unreleased model that featured in the Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader Rulebook (1st Edition 40k) on page 103 (the lovely Bryan Ansell Protonid – see further below for more on Bryan) battling against some space marines (image shown below – please excuse the quality, I’m not the greatest with copying things from a pdf and turning them into a picture, but clicking the individual images will enlarge them):

with rules and background on pages 200-202.

Whilst it is officially an unreleased model, and is the rarest of all Tyranid models (after the Unreleased Genestealer Magus overlooking a city display), a recent discussion on the Collecting Citadel Miniatures Yahoo Group has suggested 17 or so known in circulation. Considering this was one of the first aliens for Warhammer 40,000 and how things were cast at the time, some people would like it rebranded as limited release, but the fact of the matter is the limited release models are so much easier to acquire in large numbers. I believe that ‘unreleased’ as a label for this model is much more fitting, and failing that a new label of ‘Severely Limited Release’ should be introduced. It took me just shy of 2 full years to find one of these that was for sale, where in that time I had brought 3 Limited Release Dominators and could have had a fourth whilst seeing 5 others picked up by various people, as another comparison, the limited release Mounted Genestealer Hybrids, I own 17 of them and rising, I could have had 3 more but was unable to acquire them on short notice and other people picked them up, and I have seen well over 100 others in various places online, it shows a distinct difference in the rarity and value of the Protonid. For all you budding collectors out there, you are looking at a minimum of $400 USD for one of these buggers and likely more. A buy it now auction on ebay that popped up this week saw one (that makes 3 I’ve seen on ebay total in just over 2 years) listed at $580 USD for reference. Finding detailed pictures of this fellow is hard. I did come across a deep red Protonid painted by a chap by the name of Adam Skinnner (unfortunately I don’t have the location whence I found this):

I alsofound a Protonid painted by Bryan Ansell (Bryan Ansell for those not in the know was the managing director of Citadel Miniatures at the vital transition time of the late 1980’s whereby Citadel and Games-workshop became one brand and the core games we all know and love today were created and expanded significantly in his time; additionally, he was responsible for a lot of the miniatures casting advances developed and adopted by Games-workshop, and various interviews exist about the interwebs with him and his extensive collection of early miniatures) himself. This Protonid is marvelous and painted in a fascinating way to both emphasise existing detail and free-hand in extra markings.

When I did finally track down and pick up my own Protonid, I was amazed by the detail in the model and the size. For its’ age and what was being produced in the late ’80’s, there are a lot of small details on the miniature. From the various bumps and ridges on the head to the fleshborer and leg/foot details, it is quite impressive, more so because the Protonid is the size of a small horse. Below are my own pictures of the Protonid including some scale shots with other Rogue Trader era models. The following 3 shots are of the Protonid in its’ bare metal form:

Finally, shots of my very own Protonid, the first is a blurry side shot:

The second is a comparison shot next to a Genestealer Patriarch on Throne, and above a Limited Edition Wizard with Sub-machinegun (my favourite model!), Genestealer Magus Advisor, and a Rogue Trader Space Marine Devastator with Multi-Melta on Firing Stand (yes, that’s one of mine and painted in the Rainbow Warriors colour scheme my army is using!):

Finally, a group shot showing the Protonids’ relative size next to a small swarm of Hunter Slayers {Termagants} (I own 123 and rising!), a Rogue Trader Space Marine Land Raider, and an Armorcast Tyranid Malefactor (whilst not strictly Rogue Trader era, it suits the army very well):

The Tyranid Protonid is a highly sought after model, considered by many to be the Holy Grail of Tyranid collecting, it is a magnificent model and is right at home amongst a collection of the original Tyranids. In terms of gaming, I intend to use this fellow as either a Tyranid Prime or as a Tyranid Warrior (I might need to acquire 2 others for a minimal squad haha!). And with that, the inaugural post of this blog is completed.

Have a great day everyone,

Auretious Taak.