THE DUNGHILL JESTERS

There are 9 of these Fantasy Tribe orcs in the picture of the Joe Dever fantasy battle I am re-building. I scraped together about 10 from the first release (about 1982?) and another 10 from later 1984 releases. I hated these figures when they came out, with their grotesque lantern jaws and tusks, and am still pretty ambivalent towards them now. Still, needs must, and they painted up pretty quickly. I wanted them to look as if they lived in some old cavern filled with midden, hardly ever venturing out unless summoned by their Overlord, the Crimson King. They are in mi-parti uniforms of red and yellow, as the Crimson King finds their antics moderately diverting.

The banner shows the Crimson King ascendant over his enemy the Sun Child. In the corner is The Vile Rune, showing the Dunghill Jesters are members of the Vile Rune Co-operative of various orc tribes. Most (but not all) of my goblinoids sport this Rune. The banner top is an old Citadel Broo head.

CLAN OF THE JADE BAT

I finished these a while ago, but have been waiting for some free daylight time in which to photograph them. Middle son, whom we home educate, was feeling ropy today, so we scrapped lessons, and while he chilled out with Return of the Jedi, I snuck up to the attic to take some pics. These Minifigs Hobgoblins were surprisingly quick to paint, but as usual, I prevaricated about the bases for weeks. First they were painted green, to fit in with other Prehammer figures in the army, then brown, then I decided I might want to use them for old school Dungeon games (when this might happen I have no idea) so changed them to grey, which I'm not entirely happy with. I suspect they might change again. I'm not fussed about bases matching in an army, so long as they suit the figures.

To re-cap, these guys are for a reconstruction of part of an early 80's Joe Dever battle you can see here . Airfix dinosaurs, Airfix Sherwood castle parts, Minifigs and Tin Soldier crew. All available in the early 80's (pre '83 is generally my goal). 

Citadel Fantasy Tribe skeletons.

The Banner of The Crimson King, a recurring character in the odd world from inside my head.The Jade Bat Clan are in his service.  The piled heads are from the top of an old Broo standard I think. 

The Horned Skull is an Asgard ogre skull with added horns. Dave Wood  helped me out with this piece.

The badge (or mon) of the Jade Bat Clan

The Daimyo of the Jade Bat Clan, Ichiboti Tadanoi 

He carries a shield coated in dragon hide.

These are Tin Soldier samurai. The left hand standard bearer has had a head swap, but the others look quite Hobgoblinish. I think they are wearing masked helmets, but I've painted them up as faces.

The cavalry contingent. Garrison figures.

The lizards were going to be yellow, but somehow ended up orange.

Their shields sport the Jade Bat too.

Another Tin Soldier dude, mounted on a Ral Partha land dragon. This is Saiko Madasakoi

The rank and file...good old Minifigs Hobgoblins from the late 1970's. 

I painted them following the description in the Monster Manual, but also following the lead of Spooktalker, over at Belched from the Depths . I don't think I've seen figures better painted than his. Mine are pale shadows of his amazing work, but I appreciate the inspiration he gives me.

The mace warrior on the right is my favourite pose.

The entire clan in array. 

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.