BANG THE DRUM

...a Waterboys song if I remember. Here is the morale boosting musician for my barbarians, the drum made from a plant food scoop and tomato puree tube skin with lentil rivets.

strangely as I was typing this post my wife and her friend started singing The Whole of the Moon by the Waterboys from the other room.

BIG BU**ERS

This unit counted as Chaos warriors when I was playing Warhammer, more beefy than marauders, but I didn't want to stray from the barbarian theme and get figures with plate armour. Instead of sickening chaos mutations beloved by GW (and my Nurgle worshipping son) my marauders just grow huge when exposed to the warping effects of Chaos (did Michael Moorcock ever sue GW for stealing his ideas? he should)

3 Ral Partha giants, the 2 with horned helmets emind me of the giants in the famous Frazetta painting . The guy in the middle looks like my father in law. The right hand chap has a new axe as the original club was a bit weedy

2 from Grenadier. again an axe change on the right hand guy (spellcheck is telling me axe is spelt incorrectly, but it likes ax)

A Reaper giant with GW minotaur hand and axe

ahh, a really old figure from Asgard with a GW axe added.

THUNDERBOLTS OF CROM

...or something equally barbaric, here are a couple of chariots I made for my barbarians, using balsa  and hessian over foamboard. They remind me of the Airfix Ancient Britons chariots

In the few games of Warhammer I ever played, I seem to remember they did rather well, mowing down ranks of hapless Landsknect type Empire troops.

THE VANIR ARE COMING

As promised I have finally got around to photographing my decade old Warhammer army (they let me out of work for the day, and I am having a nice time at home). I became re-infected by Games Workshop about 12 years ago after a very long break from Fantasy gaming. Partially due to there being a really good member of staff in the local GW who was just interested in modelling rather than flogging stuff , but mainly due to the release of the Marauder horseman and infantry plastic box sets. I had been waiting for figures like these since seeing Conan the Barbarian back in the 80's, the initial village attack scene in particular (can anyone send me a link to this on youtube? I can't find it anywhere).

Here is the first shot of some of the cavalry of the Horde of the Glacial Rift, a Vanir tribe out of my head. I don't really like the GW official chaos line with gribbly mutations and 4 gross chaos gods, so I tend to set my stuff in a sort of Hyborian world.

Mainly Citadel figures, some riders are made of marauder sprue torsos on Kislev horse archer legs. Top right rider has a very old head from the first Citadel Speciality set of Chaos Warriors (I bought 3 or 4 of these when they came out, but sadly only kept the spare heads when I sold off most of my fantasy stuff a few years later (NEVER EVER sell or get rid of anything). Some of the horse chest plates are old Minifigs shields, and you can see my Horned God rune which pops up on a lot of my figures (from Runequest) More hairy ginger barbarians to follow.

WHAT DO NAZARETH, RODNEY MATTHEWS AND MINIFIGS HAVE IN COMMON?

Well the first 2 or pretty obvious as Matthews painted a number of album covers for the Scottish band Nazareth in the late 70's, but the latter wasn't clear to me until I took a good look at this figure which has been lurking in the attic for 25 years

I reckon he is based on the cover to No Mean City by the aforesaid band . I painted him to match anyway (base to be finished later). I think I will use this figure as N'aarsh, Vassago's spectre champion.

I went to see Nazareth a couple of times a few years ago in Bristol. Still rocking well.

GOBLINSES

I finished these chaps (bar the bases) a while back but have just varnished them. The Black Sun Goblins are the other large unit in Lord Vassago's army. Unfortunately these rather nice Fiend Factory goblins have a wolf embossed on the shield, so now the tribe has been renamed the Scarlet Dog Goblins. These chaps fit perfectly my idea of goblins in The Hobbit (rather than the ghoul like abominations in the latest film) and I hoovered up loads on ebay about 8 years ago with a plan to use them in a Battle of the Five Armies game,  I painted them so I could use them for that as well, a bit dull and grubby, hopefully the bases will brighten them up a bit when done.

I replaced all the spear/naginata with new ones from Dixon miniatures as the original ones had gone a bit bendy or broken.

The usual mantra (in case you are new), I will complete all the army bases in one fell swoop (with the aid of my friend Speckled Jim).

VILE RUNE

Apologies for a lack of posts (and commenting) over the last month and a bit, but I have been busy at the painting table and finished over 100 figures which I will post up over the next week or so. I generally find if I sit down in front of the laptop to fiddle with my blogs, pretty much the whole evening flies by without any useful painting or modelling (or DIY or cooking) done, so I have been trying to keep off the demon box.

I have owned these figures for decades and they are still my favourite orc figures for non Lord of the Rings games, really bestial almost dog like faces but in quasi classical armour. They have finally been dragooned into action as Lord Vassago's Vile Rune Orcs

I always imagined these orcs should be blue (which I think is the colour they were painted on the original Ral Partha  orc war machine box set).

The skull topped standards also have little discs on showing the White Hand and Red Eye, as many orc figures did in the 70's and 80's (quite rightly too, non of this Gork and Mork nonsense)

Painted almost entirely with washes, GW Teclis blue washed with Windsor and Newton cobalt ink and then again with GW Drakenhof Nightshade. The armour was done with Vallejo bronze and GW Badab black.

The shields, bearing the Vile Rune (nicked from Runequest). I have used this Horned God rune on all my chaos marauder shields too (must post them up one day). As always, the bases will be finished en masse at the end of the project (the end is in sight for Lord Vassagos army at least, only 30 wargs to paint!!)