LE11 Giant Orc Chieftain and Bodyguard

Hello, today's classic miniature post features a lovely Oldhammer pair from the 1980's Citadel Miniatures 'not so' limited edition range the LE11 Giant Orc Chieftain and Bodyguard.  The pair were released in 1987 and I believe sculpted by Kevin 'Goblinmaster' Adams.

I hold these miniatures close to my heart my first Warhammer Fantasy Battle Army was Orcs way back in about 1983-84 during the transition from 1st edition to the more exciting 2nd edition so large were our armies and that we tended to field everything we had, it would take about 2 hours to put your army out on the field, play all day and then 2 hours to pack it all back up, these guy's were some of the few miniatures remaining from that army so I had to get them out and strip them for a revisit here.

These are really nice sculpts and demanded some extra attention both prepping and painting, I attempted to go for those classic goblinoid skin tone colours that appeared in the White Dwarf 'Eavy Metal pages of the time, working up the greens to a yellow highlight, dirty dull metallic armour, I painted all the studs on the jerkin and spear staff first post undercoat as I find it a lot easier to paint around the studs rather than clumsily painting them all in at the end plus a dark wash blends them in nicely and I put some extra time in on yellow and black checked shields as it brings the pair together and it one of my favourite shield patterns, I would hope it dazzles their opponents during a fight.

LE11 Giant Orc Chieftain and Bodyguard

LE11 Giant Orc Chieftain - front

LE11 Giant Orc Chieftain - back

LE11 Giant Orc Bodyguard - front

LE11 Giant Orc Bodyguard - back

I should of probably saved these for Orctober but couldn't wait, I hope you enjoyed them.

Come back soon!

J

Blackstone Fortress - The Explorers

Hello, today we have some modern Warhammer 40,000 miniatures from the Warhammer Quest Blackstone Fortress game, I really want to play this game so much that completing the explorers is a massive milestone to me on the road to getting a game on with painted miniatures.

For the paint job I wanted to go as close to the examples on the Games Workshop website as possible to make them easily recognisable to my little boy, some of the ridiculously professional detailing was ignored for obvious reasons, here they are my efforts.

Janus Draik, Rogue Trader, like all Rogue Traders Janus is a pioneer tasked with exploration and expansion beyond Imperial space boarders, they are granted permission to trade and interact with aliens out in the fringes of space. Janus Draik is looking to bring archeotech and artefacts back to the Imperium.

Janus Draik - side

Janus Draik - front

Janus Draik - back

Espern Locarno, Imperial Navigator, sanctioned mutant, he seeks to search the Blackstone Fortress for lost archeotech, hoping to discover cargos that will unlock the arcane secrets of warp travel. 

Espern Locarno - front

Espern Locarno - back

Thaddeus the Purifier, Ministorum Priest, Taddeus has come to the Blackstone Fortress to bring the Imperial Cult to Precipice. He wants to purge the Fortress of any taint he finds.

Thaddeus the Purifier - front

Thaddeus the Purifier - back

Pious Vorne, Missionary Zealot, she used to be a hive ganger and after imperial conversion she now fights along side Taddeus the Purifier.

Pious Vorne - front

Pious Vorne - back

Amallyn Shadowguide, originally from the now shattered Craftworld Biel-Tan, she now searches the Blackstone Fortress for ways to save her dying home. The lost secrets and archeotech may have some clues on how to restore her craftworld. 

Amallyn Shadowguide - front

Amallyn Shadowguide - back

Dahyak Grekh, Kroot Tracker, is a Kroot mercenary and heading into the Blackstone Fortress in search of more genetic material to consume which could unlock the secrets held within.

Dahyak Grekh - side

Dahyak Grekh - back

Dahyak Grekh - front

UR-025 is an Imperial Robot in the service of a Magos. Is this Robot sentient and possibly one of the legendary "Men of Iron" sentient robots who threatened the earlier human civilisation of the Dark Age of Technology?

UR-025 - front

UR-025 - back

UR-025 - side

Rien & Raus, Ratling Twins, they come as a package, have Astra Militarum training and gear but are now hired guns. 

Rien & Raus - front

Rien & Raus - back

Now to paint the core box 35 hostiles, come back in 2 years for an update :D

cheers

J

Space Crusade - Ultramarine Commander

Hello, during lockdown and with the boy at home, home schooling went to pot and out from the loft came the 1990 M&B classic Space Crusade, my son loved it, I saw it as an education activity and we went on to play many scenarios and some homebrew ones of my own, we used some originally painted miniatures from the early 1990's and some unpainted figures.  

When I got the box down from the loft of holding and opened it up I found three sets of the game crammed into one box and the 1991 Mission dreadnought expansion with those awful Tarantula guns.

The box graphics with those photos of garish painted Space Marines gave me the urge to have a go at painting one so in my boys honour I did and here's the result, I might do some more one day maybe during another lockdown.

Space Crusade - Ultramarine Commander - front

Space Crusade - Ultramarine Commander - back

Now go get your Space Crusades out your loft's and treat the kids.

cheers
J

Fantasy Oldhammer distractions

Hey, another little post today as you can see from my blog posts I mainly paint sci-fi miniatures related to Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader or 2000ad but I often get distracted and start a classic Oldhammer fantasy miniature on the side, I find them exciting and fun as it catapults me straight back to my teenage years, many of the fantasy miniatures I paint are ones I have painted back then and have stripped them of their original enamel paints to have another go. I have some cracking fantasy on the go which you will see soon but in the meantime have a look below at some of the fantasy miniatures I have finished in the last few months, it's a bit of a dump blog post, enjoy.

First up is a C Series 1985 C02 Wizards female sorceress 'Samantha Phox' sculpted by Aly Morrison, I was dying to give this miniature an update from it's blocked in bronze flesh enamel original, there's lots of lovely tiny little details like rings and garter that make this miniature so sweet to paint, I think she would be at home in any 1980's fantasy painting.

C02 Wizard Samantha Phox - front

C02 Wizard Samantha Phox - back

Next is a C Series 1986 C25 Minotaurs 'Bhovus' sculpted by Bob Naismith, This was the second Minotaur I ever owned and used it for AD&D originally painted in human flesh colours, I went for a Yeti feel with this one, a snow Minotaur from the frozen chaos wastes if you like, I just love the absolutely massive muscles with a realistic sized bulls head.

C25 Minotaur Bhovus - front

C25 Minotaur Bhovus - back

I still have my 'finish every Oldhammer Beastman ever created' project on the back-boiler so occasionally get one out to do and this time I chose a 1988 Realm of Chaos Beastmen of Khorne sculpted by Jes Goodwin, he is a bit of a mini minotaur, it was a joy to paint, my original paint job was dreadful as I had painted him for my whacky Genestealer cult army.

Realm of Chaos Beastman of Khorne - front

Realm of Chaos Beastman of Khorne - back

Realm of Chaos Beastman of Khorne - side

Finally we have 1988 Realm of Chaos Champion of Khorne with technology sculpted by Jes Goodwin, not too pleased with this paint job the red feels a bit flat and bright but it's better than my original version that was painted as a Champion of Nurgle!!! so I'll take it as I am not stripping it again.

Realm of Chaos Champion of Khorne with technology - front

Realm of Chaos Champion of Khorne with technology - front

Well I hope you have enjoyed these odd paint jobs now back to my space pirates I go.

Cheers

J

Forces of the Imperium - Inquisitor with power weapon

Hello, todays Oldhammer miniature blog post features the 1989 Inquisitor with power weapon which made it's appearance in White Dwarf 118 October 1989 as part of the Forces of the Imperium range, I think it might have been sculpted by Jes Goodwin, the range mainly consisted of inquisitors but also featured assassins and a Rogue Trader who I have previously blogged here. 

The miniature like other Inquisitors of the range has really interesting armour, personalised, baroque styling, is he wearing foot clamps for zero gravity fighting or are they bionic feet? What is going on with the powersword it is so phallic was the sculptor having a laugh here?  My favourite feature is his unique backpack with cloak that you don't see used on any other Rogue Trader era miniature, the downside of this backpack is that it completely obscures the back of the miniature (photo below).

Now you don't see many painted examples of this miniature out on the web for inspiration so I just went a bit crazy, I put away the usual reds and golds I would lean towards for an Imperial Inquisitor and dug out some more radical base colours, citadel colour hawk turquoise for his main suit then for the main plates vallejo game color plague brown which is more of a mustard colour and a vallejo royal purple cloak, the power weapon and power fist I painted with a blue green iridescent paint.  I think his colour scheme gives him an aquatic feel, maybe he's off cleansing xenos Saharduin on the ocean planet of Piscea or having some other underwater adventure.

Inquisitor with power weapon

Inquisitor with power weapon - front

Inquisitor with power weapon - side

Inquisitor with power weapon - back

Inquisitor with power weapon - side

Not long after the photo below all this lovely detail was covered up forever by is backpack and cloak.

Inquisitor with power weapon - work in progress

Thanks for stopping by

J

Rogue Trader RT601 - Pirates - Part 1

Hello, welcome as another new oldhammer project begins, the Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader RT601 Pirates, over the last 30+ years I have painted up most of these and stashed them away in various boxes in the loft, some painted as jungle fighters of Catachan, Imperial Army and even renegades and I've always had the urge to revisit them but didn't want to go sorting through the loft and the ensuing 'strippathon' so I sorted through my doubles and traded a few I was missing and committed to having another go. 

This project is part of a wider goal of mine to complete all the non imperial humans of the Rogue Trader era.  The RT601 Pirates range consists of 24 miniatures sculpted by Bob Naismith and Michael Perry and released July 1988, I think the majority of the range are Naismith's as they reflect his chop shop approach of the time or maybe Perry sculpted the first 12 miniatures and then Bob chopped them up for the other 12, who knows?  whilst prepping the first 20 minis I noticed that some of this miniatures are badly executed sculpts, either the anatomy a bit off or some cases pieces are missing, maybe this was why they weren't available that long, this quirkiness is probably what makes them so appealing to me. Most of the range carry modifications of the same pre cast autogun and bolter and I will be focussing on miniatures carry these first, the rank and file before moving onto the more characterful sculpts.

Spaceway scum, autoguns blazing

As the Citadel Miniatures moved away from individually naming each miniature and slowly moving towards unified catalogue codes, this change makes it a bit more difficult to identify and collect these ranges years on so for my own sanity I have numbered the original advert and will use these numbers as their identities.  The slightly later catalogue numbers had discrepancies especially the later catalogues.  When blogging this project I am going to pair up the pirates based on the bodies they share, some have donor heads from other pirates and some completely fresh sculpts.

Original Advert that appeared in White Dwarf 103

Enough rambling let's move to the miniatures, first up we have pirates 13 and 5.  Pirate 5 is a fun miniature typical bicorn pirate hand, I have 5 copies of this miniature and all have a funny cast hand with a missing thumb.

RT601 Pirates 13 and 5

RT601 Pirate 13 - front

RT601 Pirate 13 - back

RT601 Pirate 5 - front

RT601 Pirate 5 - back

Next we have pirates 12 and 22, 22 has some really nice disc armour plates on his shirt, 12's head is used on another pirate 14 who will appear on my next pirate blog post, I thought the scar on the face was a mould line at first until I inspected pirate 14's face and there it was under the eye patch.

RT601 Pirates 12 and 22

RT601 Pirate 12 - front

RT601 Pirate 12 - back

RT601 Pirate 22 - front

RT601 Pirate 22 - back

Next we have pirates 21 and 15, on my other version of 21 I painted the neck as flabby fat similar to the original advert and I started to do that again on this one but it didn't look right so I repainted it as a scrim neck scarf, I think it looks ok.

RT601 Pirates 21 and 15

RT601 Pirate 21 - front

RT601 Pirate 21 - back

RT601 Pirate 15 - front

RT601 Pirate 15 - back

And finally for this post we have pirates 23 and 18. Pirate 23 has pirate 2's head and 18's head is a bit of a mash up, they have slightly different autoguns, I really like this advancing pose not as bent over as some of the mercenaries or imperial army miniatures.

RT601 Pirates 23 and 18

RT601 Pirate 23 - front

RT601 Pirate 23 - back

RT601 Pirate 18 - front

RT601 Pirate 18 - back

Thanks for dropping in, get following for more pirates in the near future

J