Rogue Heresy - An Oldhammer blog dedicated to painting and collecting classic Citadel Miniatures, Rogue Trader, Warhammer Fantasy Battle and 1980's licensed ranges like Judge Dredd and others can be found here, come on in and have a look.
Howdy, today I bring you Oldhammer Cowboy and Indians, this post started off as lets paint some more Judge Dredd perps and developed into a look into some of the early Citadel Miniatures influenced by the western film genre.
Cowboy and Indians
First up we have 'Running Sore' this miniature was tagged as Medicine Man and is a 1987 Slaughter MarginJudge Dredd RPG campaign miniature, a variant or revisit of the C Series 1985 C07 Ranger 'Scout', this miniature confused me as the slotta tag looked original and not your usual Citadel recycle, revisited miniatures tags tended to have a small lead plate on top of the old name, this had me thinking was it resculpted as a potential 1986 C03 Cleric a year later, Scout was released in 1985 and the later 'Medicine Man' now has loads of feathers about his person, has lost his bow, tomahawk axe and now carries a big mace the weapon of a cleric but not a weapon of a plains indians that I know of, I thought I would chuck that out there as I do.
Running Sore or Medicine Man
Running Sore - front
Running Sore or Medicine Man - back
Next we have 'Snake in the Grass' another 1987 Slaughter Margin miniature, a cool looking Indian chieftain wearing a headdress and with what I can only describe as a tomahawk on steroids, I did a lot of searching on this one as I did not believe he was an original sculpt, I think the base miniatures were either F3 Barbarian 'Blood' or F3 Barbarian ' Freca Foulbreath'.
Snake in the Grass - front
Snake in the Grass - back
Snake in the Grass - side
Next is 'Brave' also another 1987 Slaughter Margin miniature and the last Judge Dredd perp of this post, you got 6 of this miniature on the original offer sheet, a simple miniature, the jury is out on whether I think it is a resculpt or not. **Update** Mystery solved, thanks to Axiom of the illustrious magpieandoldlead blog who pointed out on the comments below that the Brave is a resculpt of Zuggy Spotz/Crazy Joseph, he is in my cabinet and starring me in the face so I took a couple of comparison shots and uploaded them below, I have a spare of Zuggy so he may be getting the western treatment very soon.
Brave - front
Brave - back
Brave and Zuggy Spotz/Crazy Joseph - front comparison
Brave and Zuggy Spotz/Crazy Joseph - back comparison
Following on we have 'Sacred Bull' a C Series 1986 C03 Cleric, while I was painting the Slaughter Margin perp miniatures it got me thinking which other Citadel miniatures might fit this group so I climbed into the loft for a mooch and came out with several western themed miniatures. He appears to be a medicine man adorned with strange ornamental armour and a big stone club, no pointy weapons for a cleric and all that, he was fun to paint.
Sacred Bull - front
Sacred Bull - back
Next we have 'Hawkeye the Scout' a C Series 1985 C07 Ranger listed and tagged as Scout and appeared as a named character in the Warhammer Fantasy Battle Second Edition campaign pack 'Blood on the Streets' or as know to many 'The Riding', we played this campaign to death over the six weeks school holiday as kids, it was loose and benefited from a Games Master as it was so RPG, the stats say he is skilled in the use of the longbow but the bow on the miniature is clearly a short bow, I still have John the Trapper too, the C07 Ranger range was full of character.
Hawkeye the Scout
Hawkeye the Scout - front
Hawkeye the Scout - side
Hawkeye the Scout - back
C Series Rangers about to be liberated from their HOTT Lurkers base
Running Sore and Hawkeye Scout - front comparison
Running Sore and Hawkeye Scout - back comparison
Hawkeye the Scout character stats
Finally we come to 'Bounty Hunter' another C Series 1985 C07 Ranger, well this one needs no introduction, the 'Uomo senza nome' or the 'Man with No Name' a homage to Clint Eastward in all those great spaghetti westerns we know and love. I am not the greatest painter but I did do my homework and put the effort into his poncho using references from my favourite appearance of his. The Handbow is a nice touch and I am sure he is quick at drawing it.
Bounty Hunter - front
Bounty Hunter - back
The man with no name
A repo of the original poncho but as you can see from the photo above there is a lot more going on
I have identified a few more 1980's Citadel Miniatures that would fit with this group nicely so in a couple of months I may dig them out and add them to the group. I do recall seeing other America Indian influenced Citadel Miniatures made 5-10 years after the miniatures above like the Deathwing, Necromunda Ratskins and Colonel Schaeffer's Last Chancers 'Shiv' so maybe it was a theme that someone on the Games workshop design team enjoyed at the time.
The 1980's and early 90's was a wonderful time for us thrash metaller's, you had the hair rockers with their Bon Jovi 'Wanted', Young Gun's movies and dream catcher tattoos but we had Joey Belladonna's Anthrax to tell us America Indian history, War Dance!!!!! enjoy!
If I have offended anyone by my use of the word Indians instead of 'Native America', it's the Warhammer world peeps I have no idea where America might be in the Oldworld it should be above Lustria but that looks like Outer Mongolia to me, many indigenous people or first nations of the world still refer to themselves as Indians especially the American Indian Peoples, I omitted the word 'Red' before Indians as I now understand it can be seen as derogatory as I would never wish to insult anyone I recognize them.
I painted this one up back in the day with enamels, solid gun metal car and a colourful Squat so It was nice to revisit it and so I got down to stripping it for a repaint. For the hovercar I went for a Vallejo medium grey which looks like a nice light brown colour this was easy to wash and pick out the details of this tiny miniature, I painted squat bold so he stood out from the car and really enjoyed painting the control panel, it is a beautifully sculpted miniature but a challenge to paint the biggest brush I used was a 0/3.
Squat Dakka Dakka?
Squat Hovercar - side
Squat Hovercar - top
Squat Hovercar - controls
Squat Hovercar - side
The hover car is also used as the cockpit of the Iron Claw Roborg with modifications to fit the gun and arms into, the Iron Claw Megabot shares arms and legs with the Roborg, the modular nature of these miniatures appeals to me and had me daydreaming of building a Squat Roborgtm.
Space Ork Mechs on the loft floor
Space Dwarf Roborg anyone?
I should also mention that I am sure I saw this labelled as a 'Gnome Cloud Car' back in the day which makes sense as the miniature is tiny even for squat standards, I can't remember where though but it was either a blister or a flyer, digging deeper I found evidence that it was actually sold and packaged in blisters as a 'TSF20 - Halfling Cloud Car' see photo below.
TSF20 - Halfling Cloud Car
With the new rumours of Squats making a comeback it makes me happy that squats will some classic flying firepower to support the infantry :D
Borag Thungg, Earthlet,
Today we have more citadel Judge Dredd miniatures many of which actually featured in the 2000AD comic's golden age Judge Dredd strips. A lot of today's miniatures are during Bob Naismith's head swap era some worked others not so much.
My latest perp paint jobs all together
The first miniature today is 'Chimichunga' and I am really pleased how this one turned out, her variant is the JD10/11 Rogue Trooper 'Venus Bluegenes', I really enjoyed painting this one and twitter followers pointed out her likeness to Madonna although I was going for Gaga :D She makes an excellent generic Sci-Fi character and could appear as ships crew think Nostromo, deep south Nazi post apocalyptic renegade or Imperial Army female squad leader, I could roll with this for hours all of the scenarios I could use her in.
Chimichunga - front
Chimichunga - back
'Belcharo' was the name on the original advert but I think that was a typo or typeface problem but if you examine the tag on this miniature it reveals the true name and character 'Belchard' this character appeared in the Judge Dredd story 'The Witness' Prog 500 .
**Spoiler Alert - stop reading now!** ...the character was a mentally disturbed perp with a split personality disorder know as 'Prunella Belchard' or 'Keef' when murdering, a super strong amazon masseuse Grace Jones lookalike and at the time when she was massively infamous for beating up tv presenters which the popular media found fascinating and in true 2000AD fashion they did some sort of parody of her which found it way into miniature. Now in my opinion the miniature really doesn't do this lady justice, and the comic drawings echo that, many paint jobs of this miniature I have seen are as a fat white bloke with a crowbar which is a shame as this one appears in Judge Dredd lore. I also must bring to your attention that the LE6 Space Santa released on February 1986 and sculpted by Bob Naismith is a variant of this miniature, it could be possible Santa came first but Belchard tag date is older but I am still undecided as I know casting and release does not mean when was it sculpted and there are lots of examples of this across my blog.
Belchard - front
Belchard - back
Belchard and LE6 Space Santa
Mad Jack, a variant made up of Pa Angel's body, One Eye Schumaen the organ legger's head, this is a cracking little miniature, very characterful and would make an excellent cursed earth desperado.
Mad Jack - front
Mad Jack - back
Head and body swaps are common in the Judge Dredd range, this line up could extend a lot further
Ratex is a odd miniature anatomically his arms would probably reach the floor, he makes a decent regular perp though, he is another head swap and has Pa Angels head with Blaster Bellamy's body.
Ratex - front
Ratex - back
Chester Zermal, I had a good time painting this miniature, he looks like he is out for a run so I went for garish running leggings and a vest although there is no way he'll outrun Dredd's heatseeker round. His variant is the 'Dead Perp' which is in my paint queue but really lacklustre as it's just Chester cut of his tab with no gun.
Chester Zermal - front
Chester Zermal- back
Next up is 'Spit Gun Suzi', I own two different versions of this miniature one with a short nozzle on the gun pictured and the other long one, I think the may have been lost in the blister pack process even the original advert leaves it open to debate as it has a short one, it may have eventually failed in the molds and was filled in by the caster. I painted the variant 'Judge Pike' a long time ago.
Spit Gun Suzi - front
Spit Gun Suzi - back
Spit Gun Suzi and Judge Pike
Next up we have a character who is up there in Judge Dredd infamy 'Gestapo Bob Harris' originally drawn by the legendary Brian Bolland, he first appeared in the Judge Dredd story 'Punks Rule' Prog 110, Bob lead the Cosmic Punks, after Dredd deals with him and his gang they reappear as members of the Doomsday Dogs in Father Earth Prog 122, no more spoilers to be told here. Bob also appeared in the appeared in the 1982 Judge Dredd board game which we played to death as teenagers, the art and quality of the game was a major factor here.
As for variants his head was used on the Judge Dredd miniature 'Zodiac' and his body on 'Squid' who are painted below.
Gestapo Bob Harris - front
Gestapo Bob Harris - back
Gestapo Bob Harris and Squid
Pepe, this one reminds of the Red Hot Chilli Pepper's lead singer Anthony Kiedis that is all, a simple head swap of his variant the Mutie Squid face.
Pepe - front
Pepe - back
Squid Face and Pepe
Zodiac, hate this miniature, poorly executed head swap and I can't place the really odd body at the moment but I will.
Zodiac - front
Zodiac - back
Bellamy, a head swap of mutie 'Monkey Face' body and 'Two Heads' head
Bellamy - front
Bellamy - back
Bellamy and Monkey Face
Lepuka, this one was ok to paint but again it's a simple head swap with three eyes with Jason basin head, the head is class sculpt influenced by Ron Smiths art.
Lepuka - front
Lepuka - back
Jason Basin, Lepuka and Three Eyes
Squid a variant of Gestapo Bob Harris with a hideously sculpted head, I did not enjoy painting this miniature but had to for completeness, he might have Belchard's face in cut and paste fashion.
Squid - front
Squid - back
Not many more perps to do and then that's the range hopefully have them all finished by the close of 2020.