Dungeon Floor Planners

 I treated myself to a Christmas present which arrived on the 24th December luckily.

I had these as a youth, but fancied another look at them. That wonderful period when Warhammer still thought of itself as a role-playing game, and there were no boundaries to world building.

Each comes with a map that join together. An excellent resource for a campaign. The text within is all by Albie Fiore, so has that early D&D flavour of his excellent scenarios The Licheway and The Halls of Tizun Thane. 

Covers by Gary Chalk and Iain McCaig...chefs kiss.

Shiny, shiny, shiny wings of Leather...

 Following on from my post a couple of weeks ago, I dug out some more Balrogs and demons to paint in a similar manner.

Left is one of my first ever figures, a Ral Partha demon. Right is a recently acquired Heritage mini, who looks particularly nasty.

Both Heritage I think. Left hand chap

 has definite Maurice Sendak vibes, I love his slight pigeon toed stance.

I can't do a group shot with the previous demons as they have been summoned to Oakbound Studios to take part in a game at BOYL.

Ral Partha Goblins

This picture of one of Joe Dever's battles shows a unit of Ral Partha Goblin archers from the 1977 Wizards Warriors and Warlocks range ( bottom left partially in view). I think this regiment was split up and repurposed in Joe's Giak army, but I want to recreate it pre-Lone Wolf. 

These must have been some of Joe's earlier figures as the original unit is based with flock ( now faded) , rather than Tetrion or Pollyfilla. He mentions the advantages of the latter over the former in one of his Tabletop Heroes articles in White Dwarf. I only have 2 of the original regiment from Joe's collection in its pre Giak guise.

 

  But I do have a lot of this range, which were some of the first figures I bought from Forever People in Bristol around 1980, so I mustered 30 for service.

Unfortunately some of these soft lead

 figures had been bashed about and had lost their helmet spikes, so I drilled holes and added fine brass rod.

I had to repair 10, a few of which are shown above.

These will be off to the basing filler queue before undercoating. The detail is so crude on these figures I decided not to bother stripping the ones that were already painted. 

Shadow and Flame

 ...or to be accurate, bright red paint and gloss varnish.  I volunteered to provide this flock of Balrogs for the upcoming game at BOYL, thinking I had all the figures, but on rummaging about, I found I only had a couple of them ( I had owned these all in the past, but they must have gone in my big fantasy purge of 1987). Happily the Oldhammer community stepped up to the mark and I was able to source the missing figures for zero cost thanks to the generosity of members.

The figures in the original picture are nice and shiny.

So I was pleased to be able to carry that theme on and do likewise, so they also fit in with my Prehammer and Joe Dever collection. It was very refreshing to do a simple paint job, lovely gloss varnish and a filler base again after a couple of years of painting muddy 17c soldiers.

The entire flock. Lots of lovely wings, like all good Balrogs should have.

Citadel and Grenadier.

Two Ral Partha specimens.

Citadel demon by Nick Bibby. A dynamic pose, but I had to counterbalance the base as he tips forward. He's still a bit unstable, but better.

I thoroughly enjoyed painting these. So much so I started another batch of vintage fire demons to join them. They are currently awaiting basing.

The Fellowship by Hinchliffe

 Blogger behaving oddly ATM, and only allowing me to post pictures over a week old...so apologies if you've seen this already on my Instagram page @broadsword_miniatures.

I think these were released as a set by Hinchliffe for a short while , but all have individual codes. Old school quirkiness, long arms ( a Peter Gilder trait), Gimli towers above Legolas and one of the hobbits is much smaller than the others. All available now from Broadsword Miniatures individually or £17.50 for the unpainted set . I've also just received my backdrop book from Handiwork Games, which is an excellent product, put to use here.

GREEN GOBLINS - RESTORING JOE DEVER'S COLLECTION 4

 In the Project Aon battle day pictures is this splendid unit of green Hobgoblins and orcs.

 It was about 60% depleted when I took charge of it, with missing or rotted figures. I've tried to replace them like for like and paint them as they were originally done. Joe used a lot of inks on these, so Citadel contrast paints were really useful. When I came to take the pictures here, I was pleased that I had a job telling which were original and which were mine.

                                        

above are the survivors, below the rotted.

below, the regiment back to strength as far as I can know. One figure is being repaired by Geoff at Oakbound Studio, and I need to work on the banner I think they had.

Below, Joe's and mine mixed. I hope you can't tell the difference.

Below, a few shots of the replaced figures on the left, and the rotted orginals on the right. I haven't shown them all, but just a few to give an idea of how I copied the paint schemes.

It was a really fun project to complete, and I hope they will see battle soon.

LORD VASSAGO? RESTORING JOE DEVER'S COLLECTION 3

 Over on the Project Aon site here

https://projectaon.proboards.com/thread/2830/lone-wolf-battle-day-photos

is a description from lucky fellow who attended a battle day at Joe's house. I was ecstatic to find these pictures as they provide another glimpse of Joe's collection. I'm lucky enough to be custodian of many of the regiments shown, but those I don't have, I am recreating.

The commander of the evil forces on the centre left of the first picture appears to be a Ral Partha necromancer with Minifigs Monk Spirit attendants.

He  he is glimpsed in a couple of other shots too, below in the graveyard to the right of the turquoise statue.

and below from the rear exhorting the dead to arise no doubt. You can see his wraith like monk spirit attendants a bit closer here.

I have a hunch that this is the figure used by Joe to represent Lord Vassago in the Thistlewood scenario in WD43. Certainly the red and gold cavalry (Minifigs Parthian cataphracts btw) on the left in the first picture carry a banner which reads Emperor Vassago ( I have the banner, rather than unnaturally good eyesight).

Anyhow, as I didn't have the evil overlord and attendants, I set about copying Joe's. 

VILE RUNE ORCS - RESTORING JOE DEVER'S COLLECTION 2

 Lurking in Joe's collection were this handful of Citadel Fantasy Tribes orcs. 9 survivors and 2 with leadrot in the right.

 These guys are in the centre of this black and white picture showing part of the Battle of Thistlewood in WD43.

 They are named as Vile Rune Orcs, part of a unit of 50. I don't know if there ever were 39 more, as Joe's collection doesn't always correspond with the army lists in his articles. I made the unit up to 50 anyhow, painted to match the survivors. 

Hopefully you can't tell which ones are Joe's 40 year old paint jobs and which are mine. The yellowing metallics on the original figures was mimicked by a wash of GW Seraphim Sepia over GW Ironbreaker. 

The Vile Rune Orcs appear to have been invented by Gary Gygax and first mentioned in a Wargamers Newsletter battle report in 1971. Gygax in a later interview mentions that their symbol was a fist with a raised digit. They are again mentioned in The Monster Manual 1977. Joe Dever was of course a champion D&D player, so would no doubt knew the name before he used it in the Thistlewood scenario and later in Bloodbath at Orcs Drift.

I painted the banner as described by Gary Gygax, but added a few runes from the Vile Rune orc banner shown in Bloodbath at Orcs Drift. Finally I topped the standard with an early 80s Citadel Broo head I had knocking about in my bits box.

DEMONS AS BLACK AS PITCH - RESTORING JOE DEVER'S COLLECTION 1

 I've been repairing some of the regiments in Joe Dever's collection, either doing repairs or replacing rotting or missing miniatures.

These sinister demons sculpted by Barry Minot were missing a few wings. As they are fairly unusual figures, I didn't think I'd be able to find replacements, but happily a seller on Old School Miniatures Facebook group listed some recently so I snapped them up ( one of the many advantages of liking bizarre and eclectic niche figures is there are few people to compete against).

Below are the wing donors as they arrived. A more detailed paintjob perhaps, but gloss Humbrol black makes the demons look particularly creepy.

Another strange miniature in the collection is this disturbing chap.

A Minifigs sci fi figure, but definitely the stuff of nightmares.

You may notice a Peco railway backdrop here. I recently bought a few of the more rural scenes to use with my old school figures.

LOST IN LIMBO

There will be some painted figures appearing soon I hope. Progress (albeit very slow) is being made on restoring some of Joe Dever's units to full strength. In the meantime let me show you this wonderful piece of art I acquired recently, just back from the framers.

An original preliminary sketch in charcoal by Rodney Matthews of Elric, for his painting Elric Lost in Limbo. 

I've been a devotee of Rodney Matthews' work since my early teenage years, collecting his calendars in my youth and then cutting them up to stick all over my bedroom wall, so I was thrilled to obtain an original sketch by him. It will be hung on the stairs which lead up the the attic/mancave/growlery.