Friday, December 26, 2014

Gargog the Unstoppable

There are better sculpts of Chaos Warriors, but few have the character of this model! Gargog the Unstoppable is another 'named' model from the old Citadel range.



This model is mostly steel and leather. You can barely see the striped trousers, but I wanted to add a bit of detail to what would otherwise have been a very plain paint job. Although this model was a Chaos Warrior, I may use him as a Chaos Thug champion as he looks a little out of place next to all of the platemail armored models in the rest of my collection with bare arms and chainmail.

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Ultramarines

I originally posted these on the Quindia Studios site, but in the interest of getting all of my Oldhammer and Rogue Trader stuff in one place I thought I would drop them in again here...






Friday, December 19, 2014

The Cunning Plan

So apart from a bit of random painting, I do have a plan for my Oldhammer collection moving forward...

Undead
I have a substantial amount of classic undead models that I plan to forge into a 'legal' third edition army - meaning the minimum twenty Skeleton Warriors and ten Grim Reapers led by a spell casting character, mostly likely a low level Necromancer at this point. Beyond these models I have two small units of Death Riders, three Undead Chariots, thirty Zombies, four Carrion, three Mummies, a Skull Chukka, and a Plague Cart, plus various characters and a summoned wraith or three. I'm going to set a goal of painting 500 point 'brigades' per month, working toward a 2000 point army. Depending on the Winds of Chaos, I may not paint these in consecutive months, but if I start I will try to finish a brigade.

Chaos
Speaking of the Winds of Chaos, my plans for these models are a little different. Right now I have half a dozen Chaos Warriors and Chaos Champions, fifteen Chaos Thugs, and seven Chaos Beastmen. This army is growing in one's and two's so it may take all year to put together enough for a respectable army. I'm going to build two warbands that can battle each other or team up to face my Undead or Bretonnians. Nurgle and Slaanesh have always been my favorites so I will focus on these, but my Chaos Warriors and Chaos Thugs will be painted in neutral schemes so I can use them for either warband or combine them into larger units.

I'm not building to any specific list as recruitment will depend on models available on eBay - and at reasonable prices. While there are some truly rare minis that might be worth $20-30 (or more), too many sellers have slapped the collectible label on rank and file troops. There are great deals available (I got fifteen Citadel Chaos Thugs for $90 including shipping from the UK - make that $6 each, which is in the range I'm willing to spend for troops), but it's more usual for me to pick up recruits in one's and two's. The end result should be a very organic force - not unlike the way Chaos Champions might gather their retinues!

Bretonnia
I LOVED the third edition version of Bretonnia. Knights, Brigands, Rascals... The great thing about the Bretonnian army is that many of the miniatures are still available from Wargames Foundry! I have around 20 knights, 20 'Chasseurs de la Mort', 30 Rascals. and 10 Rapscallion for the core of this army. I want to build an army teaming with peasants and lowly infantry along the lines of the one featured in the Warhammer Army Book by Dave Andrews, but I'll settle for a few units to start with...

I'll delve into plans for my Rogue Trader collection next week...




Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Stro'Knor Macekiller

So here he is! As I mentioned, this has always been one of my favorite models from the old range. It is also one of few models from my original collection that was still in my possession. This was actually a happy accident. When I gave away most of my Warhammer Fantasy armies, there were a handful of models that had been shuffled into another box and lost in my mountain of lead. My current Chaos collection consists of four Chaos Champions (two Nurgle and two Slaanesh), two Chaos Warriors (Stro'Knor Macekiller and Gargog the Unstoppable), and three Beastmen. I stumbled on a great deal on eBay that made me the proud owner of fifteen Chaos Thugs in one auction and I am eagerly awaiting their arrival...

But back to Macekiller! I haven't gone as far oldschool as some by seeking out 80s era paints - I used modern GW paints and shades for this model. I have full sets of Games Workshop, Wargames Foundry, and Vallejo Model Color and typically draw from all of these ranges when painting, but for this model I stuck with GW:

Armour: Incubi Darkness (B), Coelia Greenshade (S), Kabalite Green (L), and Sybarite Green (L)
Hood and Shield: Zandri Dust (B), Seraphim Sepia (S), Ushabti Bone (L), and Screaming Skull (L)
Fur and Mace Handle: Dryad Dark (B), Agrax Earthshade (S), Gorthor Brown (L), and Baneblade Brown (L)
Steel: Leadbelcher (B), Nuln Oil (S), Runefang Steel (L), and Drakenhof Nightshade (S)
Gold: Balthasar Gold (B), Seraphim Sepia (S), and Gehenna's Gold (L)
Boots and Belt: Abaddon Black (B) and Skavenblight Dinge (L)

(B) Base (S) Shade (L) Layer

My normal method of painting is to block in the base colors, add washes, and build up highlights in two or three layers. The final layer is always sharp, thin highlights applied only to the edges and highest portions of the subject. If anyone is interested, I can do a step by step article at some point, but there aren't any secrets to my method.

I decided to keep the design for this model fairly simple, without resorting to stripes, decorative trim, etc. I felt there weren't many surfaces on this model that would benefit from these. I added a few subtle cracks in the armor plates (right arm and right knee) by painting thin lines of Abaddon Black and highlighting the lower edge with Sybarite Green.

I couldn't decide what to paint on the shield. I have the vague notion at the moment that I don't want my Chaos Warriors to be overly festooned with Chaos power symbols unless they are obvious champions of a power. The shape and center stud didn't lend itself well to complex designs so I decided to keep it simple and create a textured pattern. I simply painted stripes on the back to give the appearance of wood.

I really debated between basing the model in my usual method or going oldschool with the sand flocking and bright green, but I decided on the former. That way I can use them with existing models in my collection. The mushrooms are a nod to the oldschool basing and were taken from my bits box... I think they were from a Night Goblin sprue.

Next up... Gargog the Unstoppable!

Sunday, December 14, 2014

Welcome

I have been collecting and painting model soldiers for more than thirty years. During the last few years I have been watching the revival of the retro-game community with interest. I still have a pile of Rogue Trader era lead and last year I decided to paint some of these old minis - and as long as I'm at it, I thought I might as well start another blog, at least to document the progress and growth of the collection for myself!

For Oldhammer, I have a fairly large collection of 80's era Undead and I am slowly rebuilding a Chaos army from eBay to replace the one I GAVE AWAY fifteen years ago (before eBay - what a treasure horde I had) when I thought I had quit Warhammer Fantasy for historical wargaming and figured if I ever did start playing again it would be with shiny new models. I also have a pile of the modern Foundry Medieval range which used to be the Citadel Bretonnians. For Rogue Trader, I have Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Chaos Space Marines, and Orks, plus lots of adventurers, mercenaries, and pirates. I don't have any sort of schedule I'm going to maintain - posts and topics may be erratic depending on my free time.

Besides showing off my painted models, I plan to review the bits from the old books that really caught my attention way back when, post battle reports when I can actually get some games in, and generally ramble on about oldschool gaming in general.

For those who don't recognize the name Stro'Knor Macekiller, he is the Chaos Warrior pictured in the logo above. Back in ancient times, Citadel use to name all of their models in the adverts. Macekiller has always been one of my favorite models for the era and was the inaugural miniature for the launch of this site.