MERRY CROM-MAS FROM THE FROST GIANT JARL

I didn't have time to paint a Christmas figure this year, so had to plunder one from the collection. This great old Ral Partha figure is a giant in my Warmaster Chaos Marauder army where he towers pleasingly over the 10mm warriors.  I've got a few more of this chap waiting to be painted for my Pre-Hammer armies.

Wishing you a Splendid Winter Solstice

and a Merry Christmas

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.

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.

BEAR RIDERS OF THE DRIFTS

About time I posted here, and I have managed to find time to re-photograph my Chaos stuff (I lost the last lot of pics with a computer crash or something)

All GW figures I think, marauder bodies on Kislev horse archer legs. The bears are from the old Wood Elf range.  Banner design shows influence of Ronnie James Dio album cover (glad I managed to catch one of his last tours, still a cracking singer into his sixties and with stomach cancer).

THROK THE FACELESS (AND HANDLESS)

 Work is going well with the Thistlewood armies (I've painted about 200 figures so far) but I am just deciding  on how to start the bases having had some good tips from Thantsants over at Somewhere the teas getting cold .

Meanwhile here are some more barbarians, my chaos pooches and their handler

The hounds are GW plastic wolves with spiky bits then coated in static grass and painted.

I really like this helmet from the first Chaos Warriors Speciality set. The hounds got a bit frisky one day and chewed off Throk's face and hand...

On the subject of hounds, I have always been a bit ambivalent towards our canine chums, but was pretty heavily converted by having this splendid dog (or bitch to be accurate but less polite) Pip to stay a week or so back

I think I was more gutted than the boys when she left and since then the pressure has been on from them to get a four legged member of the family...we shall see.

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.