A MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU (IF YOU HAVE BEEN BEHAVING)

A tale my father used to tell me was of a mountaineering aquaintance who was hiking in the Alps, presumably in the late 1940's at the same time my Dad was hiking about Europe. This intrepid fellow was making his way along a lonely snow covered track one Christmas eve , when he heard galloping hooves behind him. On turning he could see nothing, so continued on his way, no doubt eager to get to the nearest gasthof for a glüwein and germknodel .Cocking an ear he heard the hoofbeats again getting nearer but still no sign of any animal coming along the track, hurrying on, the traveller was just coming to the village when the hoof beats sounded loud behind him...now severely frightened he took to his heels, and felt a mighty blow on his back as the galloping sound passed over him and continues toward the village, yet no sign of any beast was there. Stumbling to the inn, he managed to find a bed for the night, but in the morning, upon examining the back of his jacket he finds a cloven hoof mark burned into the fabric.......

Perhaps it was this chap Krampus, my Christmas figure for this year. I have just finished painting him, and after a few day of grotty behaviour from the 3 boys, I can sympathise with this tradition which you can read about here . A nice figure from Reaper, complete with birch twigs for swatting naughty children and washtub to carry them off to Hell.

Wishing you all a Very Merry Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PS. I'm painting a lot of 54mm toy soldiers at the moment, primarily for a project at my oldest son's school next year (they are studying The Battle of Lansdown), but after that I hope to get back painting some Prehammer toys. In the meantime here is an old Christmas figure which didn't feature on this blog, an early 80's freebie from Citadel

GRIMOIRES OF YORE #1

A good day was had yesterday when an old gaming friend Von Trinkenessen popped into my workplace bearing a set of vintage (1981) rules for me.

Reaper,  in mint condition including the quick reference sheet!! I am so looking forward to trying them out with my Prehammer Pre-slotta figures.

PREHAMMER 1981-83 (pictures that fired me up to start fantasy wargaming)

Like many mid 40 year old  fantasy wargamers, I started on this road to penury and madness by being introduced to Dungeons and Dragons. My first experience of the game was in 1979 (I think) playing the dungeon in the Blue Basis Book and of course I was hooked after that, desperate to source figures. The only shop I knew of at the time that sold figures was in Gosport, but luckily my Dad worked for the Admiralty and made regular trips there, so I gave him a shopping list of figures (3 skeletons 2 zombies, 1 Balrog etc) which he dutifully purchased for me (great old stick that he was).

The breakthrough came in 1981 however with this fuzzy picture in White Dwarf 27 showing a game laid on by Joe Dever at Dragonmeet that year.

(a clearer picture from mabden.blogspot.co.uk)

 I was absolutely entranced by the idea of actually recreating a full scale fantasy battle rather than just re-reading The Lord of the Rings and imagining it. I guess it was a tad ambitious considering my budget was £5 a week from a paper round, but 33 years later I have managed to source the castle that Mr. Dever used in his game, made by Elastolin. They often sell for hundreds of pounds but a lucky day on ebay picked me this lovely fortress ( a wee bit damaged, but repairable) for a few quid (although the postage was high).

Fiend Factory goblin for scale

The next inspiring picture came the following year in WD 35   featuring another of Joe Dever's battles (how I wish I had been able to see them in the flesh), and this time it was possible to identify figures. I spent many a happy hour poring over it with a magnifying glass working out what was what.

(if you are wondering, the disembodied legs in the picture above are from some gamers dressed up for a game of Gangbusters)

from left to right I can work out most of them.
Back row- Airfix dinosaurs with Sherwood castle howdahs. Citadel FT orcs. Minifigs elves in the little fort, 
and I guess at Prince August orcs in front of the fort, but could be wrong. In front of the dinosaurs are 3 Ral Partha Trills (yes Trills).
Front row- Minifigs Pig face orcs? Asgard and Citadel trolls, and then a row of Citadel and Ral Partha cavemen and berserkers....... a properly mixed Fantasy army!

I managed to copy the amazing dinosaur models by chopping up my Airfix Nottingham castle, and for a while they featured in many games at Bath Wargames club and the surrounding area (Devizes, Lyncombe Barn etc) , before I sold them off with most of my fantasy collection in 1988 (arghhhhhhhhh, never get rid of anything) when I was going off fantasy stuff and getting into English Civil War armies. I did see them crop up as a show piece on a trade stand for a couple of years after that, but they are now lost (if anyone knows where they are please let me know).

Recently I picked up this magazine, a sort of supplement to Military Modelling from 1983

 in which is an article on Fantasy wargaming.

 The text itself is rather incoherent and dissolves into an analysis of different races in Tolkien's work, but there are 3 pictures of rather nice battles again featuring Joe Dever's collection.

Battle 1

(some Pal Partha ents are emerging from the woods, and I can make out Minifigs foot soldiers. The mass of white cavalry centre right are Minifigs Knights of the Silver Rose who also appear in Mr. Dever's Thistlewood scenario in WD45- see pic below. The hill or volcano to the extreme left seems to appear in a number of Joe Dever's games as well, see pic above with the dinosaur models)

Interestingly the caption to the photos (attributed to Games Workshop) describe them as showing a game of "Warhammer" (in inverted commas) underway, but there is no mention of the rules in the text. I should think that they were playtesting the rules, then about to be released in the first 'white box' edition.


Battle 2

(in the foreground from left to right we have Ral Partha goblins from the WWW range, then Minifigs kobolds, and a mixed unit of Minifigs skeletons, Citadel Zombies headed by a Ral Partha wraith. Far right I think we can see Minifigs VFW Forest Orcs. The main body of orcs are a right old mix of Heritage, Ral Partha, Minifigs etc).

the same battle from the other side of the table.

(Minifigs foot soldiers I think, and I can see a Citadel 2 headed troll in the far left group of trolls. Catapult is Minifigs or Hinchliffe)

In WD 45 is the wonderful scenario Thistlewood, the first official scenario for Warhammer, more of which can be found elsewhere on this blog. Although Joe Dever is using many of the figures featured above, the terrain is more professional, and the article figure recommendations are primarily Citadel, Ral Partha (produced by Citadel) and Essex, despite the fact the armies in the pictures clearly show plenty of Minifigs.

(left to right, not sure of the eastern types but the standard bearer is a Citadel illusionist. The orcs are Citadel FT, and the knights Minifigs as discussed above. The wyvern is Citadel Fiend Factory, and the troll chucking the rock a FT troll).

Also in WD45, is this little picture of the man himself involved in a game at Games Day 1983. I can't make out much of the game, but the omnipresent volcano terrain is there in the background. The opponent looks suitably dejected so I assume Joe is winning.

If anyone reading knows Joe Dever, I would dearly like to ransack his collection and take more pictures of it, as well as shake his hand for inspiring me with these battles.

PEWTER MOON DWARVES

It's been ages since I posted any figures, but I haven't been idle. Amazingly I stuck long enough at a project to actually complete it (well, almost complete it). I was thinking about doing some new fantasy stuff, but in bite size chunks, so fell back on that great rule set, Hordes of the Things. Half the fun of these rules is planning your army, and trying to incorporate all the figures you want to use into 24 points. Inevitably I ended up painting  more than I needed, as well as some figures to use with the army when playing another ruleset.

Here we have then, the Pewter Moon Dwarves, implacable enemies of the Crimson King, they dwell in lighthouses and granite castles along the Northern coasts of Gonchovia. The dwarves hold the great alchemist and conjuror Professor Grunkasse in high esteem, possibly because his head is moon shaped (or does he wear a warmask to aid his spells?)

(picked this guy up in a dumpbin at a show. He was missing a hand so I added a plastic zombie hand an an old Rafm staff). 

Pride of the army are the Walrus knights, 6 HOTT knight elements in total.

(I've had these guys in mind for years now, so it's nice to finally realise the idea. Cheap EM-4 plastic dwarves off ebay riding Britains walrus also from ebay. The walrus medallions are GW shields with moon device on them and the flagpole moons are plastic beads.....from ebay. Each figure cost about £1.20 in total).

The footslogging infantry are 6 blade elements, with 2 extra to make a unit of 20 for other games

(again plastic EM-4 figures with Milliput cloaks)

A Hero Jasper Brummbar mounted on his faithful steed, and 2 Beast elements, the singing bears of Norrin

(Brummbar is a Reaper figure, and the singing bears are plastic ebay finds)

2 Behemoth elements in the form of  hairy Struppigs with howdahs. As well as the Pewter Moon, the howdahs bear the Sunchild device of their allies.

(plastic Star Wars beasts from a dump bin with EM-4 Dwarf crossbows in the scratch built howdahs)

To defend the army from frequent aerial attacks from the Owls of Lord Aluco (an ally of the Crimson King) the dwarves often field a unit of pikes (not for use with HOTT)

The whole army in array

There are more forces to follow for this campaign. Owl worshippers, Ice Gypsies and of course the Court of the Crimson King.

I really enjoyed banging these out, and spent little time on overshading, relying on loads of washes from GW and Army Painter (the latter are really good).If I missed a bit, or went over a boundary with the paint I just carried on regardless. In recent years I've been a bit pedantic with my brush, resulting in minimal amounts of painting being done and boredom with a project before completion. 

Apropos the last comment, I realised why my Thistlewood project ground to a halt. It was the bases which were dull and drab. So I'm going to redo them using Tetrion filler as above but washed green. This is how I (and all my gaming mates) used to do our bases in the early 1980's, so they are suitable old school in appearance.

I've recently linked up with a gaming buddy (Von Trinkenessen) from those days  (and we are planning a few games of Prehammer (we used to use WRG Renaissance rules for our fantasy games), so I am really looking forward to seeing his armies again after 30 years, and trouncing them.

WHITE DWARF WISDOM issue # 30

The fantasy gaming boat is being re-floated in my world as I start to paint some non-glossy figures again (for really old school shinyness see my Conan blog ) as well as running a new dungeon for my 2 older sons to explore. I say new, new to them, the excellent The Licheway from White Dwarf 10 (so far the attrition rate is high with a dead thief and druid littering the corridors).

A bonus of pulling out the old WD's is the chance to scan over the letters pages and chortle at the arguments that seemed so important then. Of course it's easy to look back and laugh with hindsight and I mean no disrespect to the author of this letter from White Dwarf 30 from April/May 1982

Dear WD

could you please not start up a department devoted to micro-computers without even taking an opinion poll because I am sure the majority of White Dwarf readers do not possess micro-computers.

For instance no-one in our D&D group of about 5 people has the slightest inclination to buy a micro-computer for seventy pounds which is practically useless unless you buy extra 'chips' to increase its performance and price. 

Personally, I think a department on the subject would be a waste of space and money. I hope others feel the same.

R J Leedham

well Mr. Leedham, they certainly do (or did). I had no interest in computers back then and rapidly got bored with the family ZX Spectrum, an antipathy which has lasted into middle age. Still it has to be said Mr Leedham was a little off the mark.

POTTED HISTORY OF CITADEL

Maybe old news to a lot of Oldhammer readers, but I found this potted history of Citadel and Foundry fascinating

http://www.wargamesfoundry.com/ (scroll down a bit for the info)

working on a raiding force of Dwarves at the moment to crew my ship, so hopefully will be posting them soon.

MARAUDER CHIEF

I enjoyed making this model back along. I think I based the chariot on one in White Dwarf by a French gamer who had an eternal champion character in a chariot like this. It was an inspirational article anyhow

I never did name this fellow, all barbaric sounding names are welcome if you would like to have a go at naming him.

(an unfortunate empire dude)

CLAW RAIDERS OF VANAHEIM

Some Chaos footsloggers here, counting as marauders with hand weapons the few times I played Warhammer with them.

The sixteen figure unit on movement tray

Drummer, and warriors . I think the sword maiden on the right is a Keltos figure. The spiky helmet comes from an early Chaos warrior set.

Some warlords. The banner will be familiar to Sabbath fans.

I like to give a lot of my warriors their own back banners, but it can make ranking them up difficult, still they can look more scary carting around an impractical framework of wood and rags.

BLOGGER-STOP MESSING ABOUT WITH MY BLOGS.

I normally come on this blog if I need advice or just want a good moan. Now blogger seems to have removed the facility to upload pictures from my computer. They keep messing about with things and quite frankly I am getting really p****d off with it. I don't have a lot of time and the rare occasion I get my act together to actually post something I want to be able to do it without hassle. In a nutshell I am feeling as if the blogs are more trouble than they are worth. I'M ANGRY AND NOT VERY GOOD WITH TECHNICAL STUFF .

MAD BARKI THE SHAMAN (warning - gory model)

Here's Mad Barki the magician model in my Warhammer type army, complete with victim and his familiar Snaffles. In my army the warping effect of Chaos simply makes most of the affected warriors grow bigger, but Snaffles shrank.

Not sure why I painted this poor guy blue. Perhaps to show he's cold (as well as very dead). I don't normally go in for really bloody stuff like this so must have been having an off day.

Barki is a Citadel flagellant with zombie arms, the tree is from Asgard and the other characters are made up of bits and pieces.

MONSTER MANUAL MONDAY 16

It's a Monster Manual Monday. I have a touch of The Black Dog so appropriately today it's the turn of the Hellhound

2 Hellhounds from the Citadel Fiend Factory range. I always thought they looked rather friendly myself.

Quite often I look at other peoples blogs and painting and want to cry because their stuff is so much better than mine. Better painted, better pictures and just....better. However I am continually inspired by the incredibly talented Spooktalker over at Belched from the Depths . Just take a look at his treatment of the Minifigs Hobgoblins. Charming but static old school figures made wonderful. After seeing pictures like these I am always filled with vim and vigour to lift a paintbrush again.

FANTASY BACKDROP FINISHED

I've just finished painting a new backdrop for my forthcoming Conan and Lord of the Rings projects  on the reverse of my more rural 18c countryside backdrop.

A distant mountain range with a lilac sky (many good fantasy skies appear to be this colour)

Frazetta's Conan in battle with Frost Giants

Safe and Sound on the Sundial by Rodney Matthews (I have this poster on the attic door)

I also did a couple of desert backdrops too, as I hope to start painting some Stygians soon.

Here's how the backdrops stay up. They are made of 3mm MDF

the other more rural side

they come apart for easy storage (or at least are meant too, but the feet get a bit stuck sometimes).

I need to make some fantasy terrain now in a Swords and Sorcery style.