Realm of Chaos 80s

I must admit that I have laughed at the ridiculous prices that many internet traders give old school Citadel products. £29.99 for a single dwarf still available from the GW website as part of a set of 8? Or £7.99 for one Bretonnian knight that can be bought brand new from The Wargames Foundry along with seven others?

Any serious collector will no doubt have similar atrocious stories. Sadly, these greedy prices only confuse newbie collectors and encourage hyper-inflation with 4th Edition plastic monopose beastmen. If in doubt when selling an old school item on eBay, think carefully about what you are naming your listing and start at a 99p opening bid. A truly valuable item will always find its price.

Anyway, the much maligned BIN deal turned up trumps for me this week when I stumbled upon this little collection of skeleton models for a shocking sum of £9.99 (including p&p). Binning the minging 1993 'musician' still leaves me with six fantastic models (including the great beady skelly that Thantsants showed off last weekend during our Third Edition game) and an undead rider for just over a quid each.

No THAT's good value!

So good, I had to snap up a similar deal of Dark Elves today when I spotted them on the seller's shop. Now, I don't want to give away my secrets, but there is a little watermark on the picture above that may well give you a little clue to the seller. Be quick though, because there are a great deal of bargains on there at the moment, including lots of nice pre-slotta.

Like I said... Be quick!

Blandidir's dull eyes surveyed the near empty stock room with indifference. Soon the last of the coven's supplies would be loaded onto the wagons and thrashed south to the warband's new home. With many of their rivals disrupted, and the Deathfist to the east, there was little that could stand in the ways of their plans. It would be the simple, taxing chores of pretence for her in the coming days, as she acted in role as her master's savant and busied herself signing off the official papers that would see the large townhouse change hands once more. A fat, odious local butcher, heavy with coin after his financial success, had been more than eager to purchase the property and move his ever growing family within its handsome walls.

The dark elf sniffed softly, letting the soporific the filled the dusty room, enhance her senses once again. Pushing open a oaken door, she passed through a dimly lit corridor into a dank cell originally constructed as a kennel for the households canines. The low ceiling caused its occupant to bend their heads forwards and frown uncomfortably in the halflight. Spreadeagled before her on a wooden table lay the bandaged remains of a powerfully built human whose forehead erupted with a single, fleshy horn. Sickly blood glistened through the yellowing strips of cloth that covered his wounds while a fevered sweat clung to his skin like a death shroud.

It was clear to even the most unschooled that this man did not have long in this word.

The other occupants of the room bowed in respect as they caught sight of their priestess entrance. Silently, they watched her approach the wounded man and cast her cool gaze over his savaged body.

"Where did you recover him?" She asked, her voice but an accented whisper in the tiny room.

"Along the Forest Road, High One, alongside one other. He was dead. We found other bodies too, but none were worshippers of the True Gods." Came the quick response from one of the men.

"There was evidence of a small battle," his companion continued, "most likely undead from the amount of bone we found scattered. Whole ranks of them. We treated this one on the spot and brought him back her for you."

"You did well," Blandidir said. She raised her hands and placed them on the wounded man's chest. "let's found out what he knows," she said softly before plunging her fingers through the man's chest and deep into his heart...

As I mentioned last week, I had the pleasure of taking part in an excellent game of Warhammer Fantasy Battle at Slayer Gaming in Mansfield. Well, the scenario has been written up by Warlord Paul and can be seen here.

http://warlordpauluk.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/the-battle-of-burning-tower-14614.html

Its well worth a read. I have pinched a fair few pictures from his blog post but there are many, many more to enjoy via The Black Hole itself. So don't hesitate to visit when you have finished here. Here are the pics...

Chaos thugs and mutants in the service of the Deathfist skirmish with ogre near a tollbooth while a Black Orc looks on.

Grimgrunt, one of the Deathfist's disciples, fells the ogre with a blade in the back as blood maddened beastmen advance.

Behold the unheavenly host of the Deathfist!

Ulther Deathfist marches with his elite bodyguard beneath his sacred battlebanner! His newly recruited chaos dwarfs heft their artillery forwards in support.

Mastering their fear at last, the Warriors of Khorne clash with the undead legions.

The Seeress sat back and stilled her whirling eyes. Vassel had served his purpose once again and had informed her of what she needed to know to please her master.

"They are on the move, Lord Deathfist, though to where I cannot yet fathom. Vassel does not yet know himself, but when he does we shall know too."

Ulther Deathfist sat back on his throne of skulls and flexed the massive gauntlets that served for his hands before looking down at his servant. She had read the bloodauger well and should be rewarded. Motioning with his hand, a beastman stepped forwards and scattered the red stones across the sand of his throne room. Gorestones! Prized pieces of Khorne's blood solidified by the aeons and the perfect foil for cowardly magic.

As his followers roared with approval, the Deathfist contemplated the future. Soon it would be time to challenge that Dark Elf bitch properly. Until then, he planned to continue to build up his forces, something that would be made even easier as news of his victory over the weak dead ones spread through the Drakwald forest, and consolidate his position.

Yes, soon... Perhaps even in time for Geheimsnisnacht!

Underneath the chaos helm that made up his ravaged face the split lips curled into a smile.

Yes! Geheimsnisnacht!

Following up on my recent post about Bolt Thrower miniatures, its commander-in-chief, Tom Pugh has contacted me with the final greens of his first two releases. Stavros the minotaur and Bloddwyn the halfling. If Bolt Thrower is a new name to you, click yourself post haste this way to check out my previous article in this series otherwise scroll down to check out the final models alongside the original concept art.

Bloddwyn is £3. Stravos is £6 and P&P to the UK is £1.50. If you dwell in Europe this rate is increased to £3.59 while the Rest of the World is £4.50. If you are interested in making a purchase or have any questions at all, just contact Tom at thomas.h.pugh@outlook.com. He will even issue you a Paypal receipt if you are so inclined!

Additionally, Tom is running a little bit of a competition which you can learn all about by visiting his Facebook page. The link is below.

https://www.facebook.com/bolthrowerminiatures/posts/460600460709432?ref=notif&notif_t=like

Issue 118 of White Dwarf builds on the previous editions momentum and propels us forwards into ever more glorious realm of old school painting. The content kicks off with two pages of of work by Mick Beard and Steve Mussared, both winners in the 1989 Golden Demon awards. Both have been (and would continue to be) frequent contributors to the pages of painted content in the magazine, and gazing through these pages it is obvious to see why.

On the first page above there are some fantastic conversions which inspire me everytime I look at them to get creative with old school Citadel daemons and champions. For starters, I love the Tzeentch champion on the flying disc, complete with ducking dwarf and ruined wall. Fantastic stuff! Even better are the converted genestealer and fleshound, which with a little work become excellent Khornate daemons. I will certainly be trying out those ideas in the time to come.

This second page contains more of these fantastic conversions. The mutant orcs just go to show what can be achieved with some fairly standard, generic models (here the Ruglud standard trooper), some wire, milliput and a bucketful of imagination. I spoke to Warlord Paul recently about adding some chaos orcs to my Khorne army and these models really inspire me to do something similar. Look out for that in a future post! I also love the bloodletter with a fleshound on a lead. Another fantastic idea that will be very easy to realise. However, my daemonic armies are a long way off at the moment, with a Khorne, Slaanesh, Undead and Goblinoid army all slowly being constructed.

Dale Hurst, another Golden Demon regular, joins the team in this issue. Here we see a full page of his work. I must confess to not being a big fan of these particular paint jobs. I think its the large areas of fairly flat colour but I am sure that many of you will disagree with me. One thing that does interest me about this selection of models are the inclusion of the magical cubes on the Tzeentch disc riding champion, certainly something to try out myself at some point.

Dale's Bloodbowl troll is much more to my liking here, and the filthy green he has opted to use really fits in well with the rather filthy background that these creatures have in the game. The skaven we have seen before I am sure but the lovely Bretonnians are new to me as part of the retrospective anyhow! I really like the mounted wizard in this range and must confess to having never really noticed it before, nor can I recall seeing it very often on eBay, though having said that I will probably find three the next time I look! The converted skeleton on horseback is outstanding and still holds its own today but the real prize on this page is Paul Benson's astonishing Palanquin of Nurgle. Benson was, and still is, one of my favourite old school painters, and this is entirely due to his destinctive style. No-one have ever quite painted yellow like him!

The science-fiction games of the era get some love on this page and the two Titans look fantastic. One thing I love about the RT and AM stuff that was present at this point in the company's life was that the colour schemes and iconography were not yet restricted by 'proper' designs, so subsequently you get original compositions like the terminator with the back banner.

Heroquest leads the way here, and those models look to be the original McVey paintjobs that were used in all the promotional materials. Again, Paul Benson's work stands out here more than a Mile away, and I can think of no other painters but Blanche and Gray that have such a destictive mastery of colour and style. The Skaven with the jessail is just exquisite! A great shield design can be spotted on that orc champion and it is certainly one that I shall be one day stealing. The standout model here for me is the converted chaos spawn, made up of the ever useful bloodletter body and a Lord of Change head. Such a simple exercise which has produced a great result!

Hope you all enjoyed this nostalgic look and have been inspired by what you have seen.

Orlygg.

Advanced Heroquest. What a game! Even after all of these years, it is still a firm favourite of mine for many reasons. The miniatures, the playing pieces, the ruleset, the background and not to mention the numerable scenarios published in WD over the following few years. If memory serves, I only played it a handful of times (with my stepbrothers) but those few hours were enough to sear a firm attachment to the game that remains to this day. Sadly, despite many efforts, I have yet to get my hands on a decent copy of the game and enjoy it all the more as part of the Oldhammer Scene.

What follows is a look at the material published in WD 118 in support of the games release. As a cursory glance will show, there was a great deal common with this game with its more famous sibling. The four heroes (barbarian, elf, dwarf and wizard), a playing surface that allows for almost innumerable different dungeons and a series of adventures in the grim world of perilous adventure! In fact, the only thing that Advanced Heroquest lacked was the plastic furniture!

The game looks more adult than Heroquest. And this is certainly true when you start delving into the background material, which has a lot more in common with WFRP than WFB. A quick scan through the artwork and narrative presented in this article shows are far darker tone to the game. As with many products released at this time, many of the pieces of associated artwork came from the massive stockpile of images that GW had at its disposal. Gary Chalk's shield designs and the beautiful pen and ink drawings are new though, and look just as magnificent as we have come to expect. In my book, it was this high quality art alongside high quality miniatures that sold these sets and still makes us love them today.

Many of you will recognise the famous Advanced Heroquest diorama that was put together, if memory serves, by Ivan Bartlett. It makes great use of the wide range of metal and plastic Citadel miniatures available at the time. As each model is a single sculpt and not part of a kit, apart from the few plastic models used, the diorama has an very different feel than many we see today, which are more a journey of familiarity rather than an adventure of new discoveries. One of thing worth noting on this page is Wayne England's crayon illustration of skaven to left. Very evocative that piece of art!

A big draw to games like Advanced Heroquest were the Solo Rules, advertised here with a giant yellow circle. As many of us gamers were still quite young, or lived miles away from other enthusiasts, rules like this made it possible to play out these games alone in the safety of your bedroom. I can recall many happy hours inventing my own dungeons before laying them out and gaming away using the original Heroquest set.

As with many products released in the late '80s, Advanced Heroquest was fully compatible with many of the models produced by GW. In fact, expanding the game with your own collection was positively encouraged by the game, and the cardboard cut outs of monsters and daemons secreted in the box only encouraged you to chase down the models and paint them for real.

Super keen eyed readers may well spot a familiar miniature in the selection above. It was part of my previous post. Can you spot which miniature I am referring too?

Orlygg

Good evening all, or indeed what ever time of day it is that you may be reading this. Not that time actually has any real relevance here but it is a polite way to begin this little missive. I have had a rather bizarre evening really, though. I was drawn into a conversation on the Facebook group with a new member of our little community who was a little confused about the status quo.

Its seems that as Oldhammer has spread across the world and expanded on an unprecedented scale through social media the message is getting a bit lost. The Old Guard may be surprised to hear that dear old Chico has even been mistaken as the 'owner' of Oldhammer. The prospect of such an occurrence is, indeed, terrifying and the thought of what such power would do to Chico's already damaged mind is worrying.

But the message seems to be getting lost with the huge influx of new members.

Oldhammer is NOT a particular ruleset, nor a figure manufacturer or a blog post to be adhered to religiously.

In fact, the term 'Oldhammer' has been used by gamers before us. But here a problem does arise, and that problem is linked to the actual name of our community. 'Old' and 'Hammer' has an obvious link to older versions of Warhammer and it is here that the terminology can be difficult to new members to get their heads around. Some people I have met are amazed that there are even editions of the game from the 1980s, and can be fascinated by the miniatures I use being older than them. So when such a person sees or reads the term 'Oldhammer' it is no surprise that they perceive the group to be primarily concerned with playing old versions of the game.

This also helps to promote the belief that only Citadel miniatures designed in the 1980s are suitable for a game of Oldhammer. Again, this is not the case. In fact, back in the day I remember using all kinds of things as proxies (Zoids, He-Man, Star Wars vehicles... the list goes on and on) and not giving two hoots as long as we had a great time.

I feel that I may be part of the problem too. This blog has been incredibly successful and I am sure that you will forgive me in blowing my own trumpet here but Realm of Chaos 80s has become (or so I have been told) the number one old school site in the world detailing 1980s 'Bryan Ansell' Warhammer. I collect, paint and write about miniatures produced during that time and like to play Third Edition games with them. Just because I am the most well known and visual Oldhammerer doesn't mean that my interpretation is the 'correct' way to play Oldhammer.

In fact, there is no 'correct way' to play Oldhammer or indeed be an Oldhammerer. Its definition is up to YOU to decide. Its what makes you happy and feel satisfied in the games you play and the miniatures you paint and collect. Because of this I find it highly hypocritical that a minority of people who claim to be part of our community seem to be pushing 'their' interpretation of what our community is and what it should or should not allow.

Its seems that the community (and I am quoting another Oldhammerer here) is "now a divided camp. Those who are trying to enforce their vision of Oldhammer and those who are just having fun and getting on with it."

So if you are new to us and feel inspired by what you see here just go out and get on with the games you want to play and find like-minded souls to share them with.

I had an email from Kev Adams the other day with a link to the Shadowkings blog. Tony Yates, a very fine gentleman himself and propriator of said blog, posted about his visit to the new Wargames Foundry site in Newark. During his visit, Tony Yates took the picture you can see above of Kev Adams back at work doing what he does best, sculpting miniatures for us to enjoy.

I am sure that this picture will make many of Kev's fans pleased to see him looking so much better than last year, after his dreadful ordeal. But what is Kev working on? Obviously its top secret and the Goblinmaster told me that we will hear first all about this exciting Wargames Foundry project as soon as he is able too. But Tony's photograph does offer up a few exciting hints, if you zoom in a bit at his workstation and squint a bit. Once I got over the sheer number of tools that Kev uses to sculpt with, I quickly spotted the painted version of those lovely orcs and orclings that Kev did for Foundry quite a few years ago. And the greens look, unless I am very wrong, like similar greens in the same vein - more orcs for the Foundry!

Now this is just conjecture, but at Salute Wargames Foundry was busy promoting Warmonger Miniatures though there was little information beyond them being a Salute Special. Could Kev be working on additional models for that range?

Nude man fighting off equally nude (goblin?) opponents is an amusing symbol at the best of times and certainly fits in with the Goblinmaster's comedic touch with the green stuff.

As you can see from these models, the range is everything you would expect from Wargames Foundry and Kevin Adams. Expertly crafted white metal models. I for one would like to see this range expanded on further.

Fingers crossed!

Oh, and before I depart, here is a link to the wonderful interview that Kevin Adams did for me a few months ago. It seems to have got a bit lost in the ether, but that is my fault for not adding it to my sidebar.

Orlygg.

I haven't published much of my painting recently and the reason for that is I have been hard at work finishing off these Chaos Dwarf re-enforcements for Ulthar Deathfist's Khorne army. After his drubbing at the hands of the undead, it became obvious that he would need a little long range power. Hence, the purchasing of the Bazooka I posted last month and these crossbow dwarfs. To protect them from any annoying enemies I have a small unit of heavily armoured chaos dwarf fighters.

I haven't decided on any background for them yet, I will wait until the next game to create that. I have a few ideas about who the champion is but I will save them for a future post. The standard bearer is a rare conversion from me and was built from the crewman of the swivel gun. I chopped off and re-positioned the hand and added a shield to give him a different kind of feel from the regular model. The banner is much smaller than my other efforts as I learnt how easy the massive show stopper flags can get battered when you travel the length and breadth of England playing games.

I had fun painting up these four little stunties. As I attempted with many of my Khornate chaos warriors, I tried to vary the colours of their armour to avoid the 'sea of red' that some Blood God armies can become. Of note, is the dwarf third from the left with th emetallic green plate armour. This model was another of my attempts at painting in the mid '80s chaos warrior colour.

The models you can see here were already painted for other projects and were swallowed up by the larger unit with a few minor touches. Oldhammer die-hards may well recognise the chaos dwarf I entered in the first Golden Gobbo painting competition all those days ago.

And finally, a close up of my Khorne crossbows. I love these models and I now have a few more of them. The crossbows are not Citadel ones but more moderns sculpts via Marcus Ansell at the Foundry.

Well, I have a few more Khorne pieces to finish off on the painting desk. Another chaos dwarf (so I can build the unit up to 10 models if I want) and a swivel gun. After that, Slaanesh will be seeing some re-enforcements too!

Orlygg.

Just when you thought that Warhammer Third Edition was dead in the water, propped up with casual reprints from the Lost and the Damned and the monthly releases from Marauder Miniatures, White Dwarf published a completely out of the blue article of background. Not just a one page wonder either, but a deep analysis of the dark, underground world of the Skaven, from the pens of Rick 'Mr Wargiming' Priestley and Jes 'Mr Miniatures' Goodwin.

Now we know that there were many such articles written in the Design Studio in the late 1980s and many of you may recall Graeme Davis' story about his background article about trolls. Sadly, for reasons he alludes too in his interview, few of this material saw print in relationship to Warhammer Third Edition, though I suspect it was ransacked for armybooks and further articles later on in Warhammer's history.

So what do we have here then? Well its an article that gives a great overview to the skavan circa 1989. What really struck me was how little the background has changed to this day. everything we know and love about the ratmen is present in this article, even the iconic Screaming Bell and Council of the Thirteen! There are a couple of really interesting snippets of information within though, that are probably worth a little discussion and you fill find those at the bottom of the article.

The model bottom left appears again in an 'Eavy Metal article. The third time at least if I recall correctly. That makes him probably the most republished model in WD until the creation of the Citadel plastic giant in 2006!

So what did you spot that was different? Well, for me two things stand out. The first is the way that Cathay is described. In this article it is described as an 'abandoned city', so its seems that both the country and its capital shared the same name, similar to Rome and Romans I suppose. Now I am no expert at all, but I am pretty sure that I have never read anything else about there being an abandoned city called Cathay in the Warhammer background, have you?

Now this little fact is fascinating for a nerd like me. Why was Cathay abandoned? Was the idea ever fleshed out back then? It implies in the article above that the Skaven simply took over the city of Cathay after it was abandoned but it doesn't seem to me that they were the cause.

The second interesting thing that article brings up is mention of the Black Ark, which sounds all very Indiana Jones and the Search for the Lost Ark style, only with rats instead of Nazis and a chunk of warpstone rather than the writings of Moses.

Interesting points. What do you think?

Orlygg

So we have got as far as looking at the Warhammer releases inside White Dwarf 119 in this history of Warhammer Third Edition. As you may have already read, this issue also included a fairly detailed look at the Skaven race in this article here.

The now regular set of releases from the Morrisons were these orc boar riders. Now I have gone on the record saying that the majority of sculptors who tackle goblinoids fair utterly unless they are Kev Adams. Its the faces, I think, that often let them down for I see greenskins as rather crafty yet cruel creatures, and certainly not the muscular brutes with generic WAAAGHH attitude.

Now these orcs are nearly on par with Kev's best stuff and I have always really liked this range. The boars look great and the orcs are classic '80s greenskins. What is there not to like about from the high eBay price for these models?

Orlygg

Hello and welcome to another 'Eavy Metal special, this time concentrating on the painted miniatures from WD119. I would like to pint out here that, for me anyway, this and the following issues stand sentinel over the greatest era for 'Eavy metal. The reasons I feel this way are clear. There was a great mix between Studio and 'guest' painters, all of whom had quite different styles and tastes. The range of models on offer in the articles were all very different, original and often highly creative. Finally, as these articles were created in the days before colour schemes and painting was standardised, there are some great ideas and techniques that would never be seen today. Certainly not in WD anyway. You really do get the feel that the painting team during this period were letting rip with all the guns and really producing some excellent work.

So WD119 kicks off with another spread of models from Mick Beard. Now, we are used to seeing lots of fantasy models from him but its a pleasant change to see a wealth of Rogue Trader stuff. Especially, Rogue Trader stuff with original retro colour schemes for the power armour. My personal favourite? It has to be the Space Sharks marine in camouflage patterns though the Leman Russ model is also outstanding.

The stand out piece from this page has to be the skeleton chariot conversion, similar to the rider we saw last issue. Again, green stuff has been used to create the weathered, dry flesh of the horses and the addition of the bridge is fabulous. In my opinion, one of the very best conversions to appear in WD during this period.

Now Pete Taylor is a name that I am sure many of you will recognise. The page begins with a photo montage of how he set about producing the green chaos spawn model that we have seen before. pete Taylor really was the master of metal and milliput and his work is distinctive and original. Anyone know where he is these days as he would make a great candidate for a RoC80s interview, wouldn't he!?

The bottom half of this page if of particular interest for here we see quite a rare display of models. Miniatures painted by one of the Studio artists. In this case, Paul (no-one drew orcs like me) Bonner. It comes as no surprise that he has chosen the more grotesque models to apply that paint. My personal favourite here? The definitive Skrag.

When you mention Tony Cottrell you would expect to be talking about tanks or some other fantastic machine with enormous firepower. So it comes as a bit of a surprise to see this collection of dragons from him. He really knows his subject though, and this selection of firebreathers is one of the very best I have seen anywhere - including the earlier Mike McVey spread on dragons around WD100. I love the triceratops with the Chaos Warrior mounted on its back, and the dinosaur reminds me of a toy I had back in the 1980s. Dinoriders they were called. I love models like this and they always get me thinking about the wackiest mount (easy, Chico!) I could possibly fathom and what model I would sit on top of it.

The regular 'Eavy Metal painters show their worth on this page with some stunning work from the forthcoming Waaagh! The Orcs book. Now, many of the later miniatures produced in support of the orc books were terrible, but these are characterful and varied (my two top criteria for a good model) as well as brightly coloured. Of note, is the pump wagon (and I am wondering if this is the Andy Craig version) which has always in my mind been a superb model. And one that has got steadily worse with each new interpretation. the stand out model here is the brilliant skeletal centaur, which is a great idea and like all great ideas, very simple.

Chaos terminators and multipart Chaos warriors adorn this page, resplendent in crazy designs. The genestealers here, including the famous Patriarch, are all excellent painjobs. The purple and blue classic look is my preferred interpretation of how they should look. A few other Rogue Trader pieces adorn the pages here, including the famous Emperor's Children traitor marine that pops up quite regularly in GW publications around this time, including if memory serves as a scale model for Guy Carpenter's Imperial Walker. So beautifully painted Eldar and a giant scorpion finish off this months selection. I love the painted muddy puddles on the scorpion's giant base.

Orlygg.

I have spoken about the old White Dwarf battle reports before and have even published my own scenarios. Now, I missed this one from my overview published in March and have finally got around to address the balance.

Peter Morrison is again at the helm of the article and in this installment (the third to be published in WD) we have a classic match up between the Wood Elves and the Goblinoids. I find it no surprise that Orcs and Goblins were extremely popular back in the late '80s as they remains so today. Wood Elves seem to have been in decline for some time, certainly from what I saw of Warhammer gaming 2004-2011, and were recently mooted to being expunged altogether; it stirs happy memories to be reminded that the mighty forest folk were highly popular back then.

Its also interesting to hear about the effectiveness of magic. The wind blast spell is no one that I consider using very often, which is hardly surprising considering my main Oldhammer Army is a Khorne one, but its power is easily demonstrated here with the little story about the 100 strong block of goblins.

Let's have a look at this article...

No doubt the gorgeous (and I really do mean that) artwork produced by this article will no doubt failed to make your notice. Its by Gary Chalk and is some of my favourite work produced in White Dwarf It really is lovely stuff and really helps me imagine the mad cap battle in my mind's eye.

So a Wood Elf victory! Whatever happened to them in the pages of White Dwarf?

Just a quick note to say that Warlord Paul has set up a new Google + Oldhammer Community and its really rather intriguing. I have had a go and find it very easy to use. Its fairly embryonic, but seems a bit more modern than the Oldhammer Forum. I know a lot of people are reluctant to use the forum these days so hopefully this new group will help bridge the divide between the Facebook Diehards and the Forum Longbeards.

Obviously, the success of any online community is entirely down to its members. So how about you pop on over and join up after reading these few words?

Here's the link.

Oldhammer on Google +

Orlygg

PS: I hope you like the goblin above! Its a 1988 sculpt from Kevin Adams and comes with attachable arms. Though unreleased, there are some kicking around the collecting scene. This one is part of the Ansell family collection and was painted (quite recently, I might add) by Marcus Ansell.

I finished school today after a very long but satisfying year. A year made even more satisfying considering that it was heralded with the news that Michael Gove was removed as the Education Secretary, much to the delight of many a teacher here in the United Kingdom.

Upon returning home I got some even better news via the Oldhammer Community. Bryan Ansell has informed us that Kev 'Goblinmaster' Adams is going to be producing a special model to celebrate this year's Bring Out Your Lead. It appears that there will be about one hundred castings made of this special figure available on the day.

Here's the full quote:

From Bryan Ansell:
Kevin Adams has kindly offered to sculpt a special Oldhammer Goblin for the event. He is pushing the putty as I speak. Assuming we get it cast up on time everyone will get a free one on the day. We will cast up a hundred and probably sell any leftovers off.

Well I am looking forwards to seeing what Kev produces for us and would like to publicly thank Kevin for contributing to our community in this way, as indeed I would like to thank Bryan and Marcus Ansell for casting them up for us.

Fingers crossed everything goes smoothly!

Its been quite a while since I posted up some models I found online here. Today, I found a collection of models that are well worth a wider share. Some of you who frequent the Oldhammer Facebook group may well recall seeing these miniatures before as they were posted there by their owner, Edward George Gladdis.

As you will have noticed after gazing through the first image, there are a good range of classic era Citadel models on show here, including some that are rarely seen painted up. From his postings, its seems that Edward has been working on this army for about 17 years and that there are more units to share in the future. Hopefully, more images of this lovely force will wing their way towards the internet in the not to distant future.

This dark metallic and scarlet colour scheme just goes to show how effective simple colour schemes can be. If memory serves the two knights on the left are preslotta mounted chaos warriors and the two on the right are the Chaos brothers from the Malal era, though these models were released as chaos thugs in the later '80s I am not sure if the mounted versions (shown here) were part of the release. The super retro bases are very evocative of the era and help tie the models together.

Two classic era Realm of Chaos champions by Jes Goodwin (I think). The model with the book began life as a limited edition job but later became part of the general release. I am lucky enough to own both of these pieces and they are excellent. If you are not familiar with the range go look it up, as these models are easily part of the greatest set of chaos champion models ever released.

The metallic and red colour scheme continues here (which is rather unusual for these Slannesh based models) though there are great touches to be found. I love the strip on the trousers (something that I want to try out myself) and the Blanchian cheques on the other. The pink tinge to the hair of the female champion is also a great idea and one I shall be most certainly stealing in the future.

Ahhh, proper old school chaos warriors. The more I learn about this range (from 1985) the more I love the crazy variation that the models offer. Long term readers may well recognise the model in the centre of this photo in my own collection. The standard bearer is a conversion using a later plastic piece and a '80s metal shield. The model on the right is new to me and looks brilliant with that purple head stuck on the helmet. A great fun model that just oozes classic chaos!

Orlygg

No sooner do I publish a little article about the work of Edward George Gladdis than he posts more lovely models on the Facebook group. So I am going to have to do a second post to have a closer look at his chaos cavalry. As you will have noted in the picture above, these models follow the now familiar scheme of colour we discussed earlier with a little variation created with different coloured tassels. I like this idea and its a useful one for anyone trying to produce a lot of models for a unit in s small amount of time.

Again all the models here are preslotta chaos warriors and the spectacular command model (with the mutated mouth) is one of those mid '80s mounted chaos warriors that came with a foot version. You can see Edward's painted version of this model in the previous post of his work. Of note here are the shields Edward has used to finish off these models. They are the rare metal ones produced by Citadel before the adoption of the plastic sprues that came in the later '80s. They are very collectible and can be quite pricy, especially the ones with the sculpted faces. For more information about this range look here.

Okay, lets have a closer look at each of the models.

Well, I hoped that was as inspirational for you as it was for me. Considering that I have a bunch of (albeit later) chaos knights on the work bench in front of me, these images couldn't have come at a more useful time. With three weeks to go to the Oldhammer Weekend (BOYL) and holidays commencing there is plenty of time for me to get stuck into the lead pile and get some lovely models of my own completed.

Orlygg

Here is a super snap brought to you via the Oldhammer Facebook Group and the Mighty Avenging Bryan Ansell himself. It the goblin we mentioned earlier in the week and available for FREE to all attendees of this year's Oldhammer Weekend at the Wargames Foundry.

As you can see, the model looks suitably amusing and would fit in easily with any goblin model produced in the last thirty years, though with that wildly flung sword he may be a little difficult to rank up, eh? Though difficult to rank up models are nice and old school anyway!

There is a kind of unofficial naming competition for him. No prizes I think, just the kudos of creating a suitable moniker for this little jester. My own effort was Gobhammer Jesterfest. I expect many of you will be able to do much better, so off you go and try in the comments section.

It seems that this isn't they only craziness going on at the Foundry. Check out these strange and unusual sculpts to emerge from the desk of Kev Goblinmaster Adams!

Check these out! A chaos twig? A rosehip goblin?

Good morning, well its morning here, and welcome to a final stroll through the Chaos army of Edward George Gladdis. As we have seen previously, he has quite a large force made up from models take from the Citadel ranges from the early to mid '80s, with a few later '80s models thrown in too. In this first photograph we have models that fall into that criteria. These are all single piece castings from the mid '80s that didn't make it into the later famous Realm of Chaos ranges. They may not look like the traditional chaos warrior but these models are varied and imaginative even if the sculpting is less precise in places.

Here we have the on foot versions of the models we discussed in a previous post. In fact, I have really grown to like the idea behind them. One purchase gives you two versions of the same model, one mounted and the other on foot. Its shame that this concept didn't continue as I would love to have some mounted versions of some of the later chaos champions.

Slambo drops in to say hello before getting stuck in with his matching axes. Probably the definitive chaos warrior in my opinion and a fantastic model. The other two chaos warriors in this image are also of note as they are some of the few that suggest a more oriental origin. Chaos samurai on the left and a chaos ninja on the right? These models seem to have a slightly different colour scheme. The metal effects seem much more precise and smooth but are simple enough to match the previous tones. It is worth reminding you here that Edward has been working on this army for some 17 years so some inconsistencies are going to occur. Not that this ever actually matters when models are based and fielded of course.

This chaos sorcerer makes a welcome change from all the chaos warriors. He is accompanied on his chaotic travels with one of the more common famous familiars sculpted by Jes Goodwin. Many of these were still available up until recently and are a joy to behold for their imagination and variety. These models are very well executed and I particularly like the green, yellow and pink scheme on the sorcerer himself. Though the red tone on the familiar is very rich and just goes to show what can be achieved with a dark basecoat. The white start on the model's forehead adds super detail that helps bring the smaller model to life. An idea well worth copying in my opinion.

What follows are a series of photographs that show off the chaos warriors in Edward's collection. They are a mixture of slotta and preslotta much like the models we have seen previously.

And to finish this review off a final single piece. None other than a Jes Goodwin Chaos Champion from 1987. This is a fantastic model and has really been well presented here. Two motiefs well worth stealing here are the chequers (very John Blanche) and the gorgeous flames on the boots. The yellow face with the pink lips create a good contrast with the red and black of the rest of the model and help draw attention to the facial features of this model.

Do you have an old school army that you think we would be interested in seeing? Just let me know and I will gladly share your collection here in a future post.

Big thanks to Edward for taking the time to post up these shots of his collection. i have really enjoyed putting these posts together and have been inspired to try some new ideas in my own work. I hope you dear readers feel the same.

Orlygg

Like many Oldhammerers, I am in the teaching profession. Subsequently, I have just started the long six week holiday that is our reward for putting up with 'experts' in our field like Michael Gove telling us how we should be doing our job. With just under three weeks until the Oldhammer Weekend kicks off painting in the Orlygg household is starting to build towards an industrial scale. I plan to get a large part of the Slanneshi army I have been planning for sometime completed, and this involves finishing off a thug regiment, a chaos warrior regiment and a unit of mounted chaos warriors all of whom will serve the pleasure god.

The image above shows off my latest banner, painted for the thug regiment I mentioned before. Its a simple printer paper job attached with flaps to a wire frame. Things were a little different with this one, as the actual banner pole had to be extended as I cut it too short. I used brass wire to create two coil ties to hold the pieces together before running superglue down inside the joins. The result is really rather strong. The banner is different in style form my previous efforts as I attempted to show a figure rather than a face or geometric symbols. To this end, I did a little research into tapestries used by Christian groups here in the UK as well as the USA. Their work was often stylized and out of proportion but it run a cord with what I was wanting to achieve, after all, these followers would be intelligent and worshipful, despite being depraved, and would no doubt want to reflect their god well. I just copied the design I found and merged ideas from John Blanche's drawing of Slannesh from Slaves to Darkness.

The actual model is a quick conversion of the chaos thug with two pistols. I simply cut away one of the arms and replaced it with a tentacle with the wire pole supported through the base and secure with greenstuff underneath. I really went to town on the skin as I felt that I wasn't really going far enough with the 'chaotic' element behind this range of models. After all, the original add for Slaves to Darkness said 'chaos thugs any colour you like' or some such.

These two models are actually quite rare in my collection. Actual models that I owned in the 1980s that survived the two major culls I had to do with my collection to keep myself afloat financially in years gone past. They have sat at the bottom of my chaos thug collection bag ever since and I was pleased to get them finally painted up for my modern forces. They must have both been painted and stripped three or four times over the years. They also served as warm up models as I haven't had much time for miniature painting over the last few hectic weeks of school. I am always surprised about how quickly techniques fall away if you don't remain in constant practice, so perhaps one day these two will see the paint stripper once again and be met with a fresh coat of paint.

I finished these three models last night and I must say I really enjoyed painting them, though I must admit to finding some of the effects I created challenging at the time. Still, I am quite happy with the overall look of this little group, especially when I had finished the varied shield designs. The miniature in the centre if worthy of note as it was bought for me by my HLTA at school (that's my classroom teaching assistant for those of you not in the know) after learning about my blog. He was badly damaged when he arrived in my possession and needed quite a bit of repair work as both his horns and shield spike had been badly cut away. Patient repair work with greenstuff restored him to new and here he is ready for service. I haven't had a chance to show him to her yet but I plan to take the miniature into school next term.

For the shield designs I wanted to move away from just doing variants of the ogre face design. So, I explored a little bit into symbols used by other painters when dealing with Slannesh. All contain work on a theme, the Slannesh symbol, and follow the set of colours I had been using to bring coherency to force, namely pastel pink, green and blue.

Right, back to the painting desk for me. I need to finish off the champion model for this unit (as well as sprucing up some of the older thug models in my collection for their paint jobs are in need of a bit of TLC in places) as well as finishing off the test piece for the unit of mounted chaos warriors. Hopefully, you will see an update soon!

Orlygg.

Analysis of painted figures is always rewarding. Tricks, tips and inspiration are very easy to come by if you take the time to observe what other painters have done before. I am always doing it, and really enjoy cruising through the copious Oldhammer blogs, forums and websites in search of new ideas. In truth, we are spoilt these days. Its hard to recall what life was like in our younger days, when waiting for news or images of the latest releases revolved around White Dwarf's release into newsagents nationwide. No internet, no downloads, no pdfs... nothing. If you wanted to see painted models you had to either get out there and socialise or flick through the monthly hallowed pages of White Dwarf.

'Eavy Metal was always the first thing I would flick to when I received my copy of the magazine. The blue, granite backdrop a welcome balm to the hurried paint smeared attempts that were my early figures. I would peer closely at the paintjobs of Andy Craig, or Paul Benson or Mike McVey and wonder impossibly about how the effects I was seeing were achieved. After all, my technique at the time was base colour and then wash with black!

Thankfully, none of my early efforts survive to this day but we can rejoice that many of the old school pieces we enjoyed in our younger years still do, either on the pages of ancient issues of White Dwarf or in the collection of Bryan Ansell. Today, we are going to take a stroll through the miniatures that were presented in issue 120 of White Dwarf.

Staff pieces begin our little nostalgic trip. Some recently released transfers seem to be the order of the day here, with the primitive marine top left being adorned with one. Only this transfer has had additional detail added through repainting. You have just gotta love that retro '80s rocket launcher! This spread is typical of the time and sees a hotpotch of different miniatures from different games, including those rather naff early '90s Marauder minotaurs. Its nice to see some epic vehicles get some love on this page too. Of note to us here is the converted jump pack marine who looks like he is standing in mid-air and the Bad Moon Noble ork, painted by Andy Craig- if I am not mistaken.

There is lots to like on this second page. The Inquisitor top left is not known to me and I am not sure if its a conversion or an unreleased model. No doubt you serious collectors can give us further information in the comments section about that particular model. I do like its paint scheme though, the pinky red works very well with the gold of the armour and fittings giving the model a patrician look. The minotaur is a little better than the model shown on the previous page but it is still very dull compared to the models released earlier on in the 1980s in my opinion. The ratling snipers are fantastic models (by the Perrys if memory serves) and just ooze the wacky character of Rogue Trader. The converted ork Snakebite shows us the the ear of the Ork books is about to hit us hard on the pages of WD. Genestealer hybrids were also very popular at this time (and are also rather popular in Oldhammer circles in the time of writing) and various models from a personal army appear here regularly. More of the new Citadel transfers are shown off on the shoulder pads of the space marines, proving once again that the plastic box set from all those years ago is still excellent. The star models on this page begin with the excellent Palanquin of Nurgle (which I have managed to acquire recently for a very reasonable price) and the multiple mounted figures shown provide usual for the model in both Warhammer and 40k, and early example of GW doing this. Next we have the brilliant Link Angel, which I am assuming is a Judge Dredd model so please correct me if I am wrong, which looks very Mad Max and Dark Futurey - if such an adjective is possible! The stand out models on this page are the plastic skeletons because they have great shields and bases and just look totally different to anyone else's interpretation of these models.

By this time, Paul Benson was giving up teaching (very sensible) to join the Design Studio and so more of his work starts to appear in GW publications. I have always found this page of his painting quite interesting as you can start to see his style shift away from the bright models he was famous for into models that looked a little bit gritty. You can see this with the terminator models at the top of the page. One can only assume that Paul started to undercoat in darker tones. His orcs here are top, top notch and in my opinion rival even the greatest painter of them all, Fraser Gray.

Champion - as they say up North.

Orlygg

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