Bleaseworld

Like every other wargamer who loved reading The Lord of the Rings the release of Warhammer by Citadel Miniatures in 1983 was an exciting event however it was the release of the 2nd edition a year later that had a bigger impact on me and my gaming...

3. Warhammer (2nd edition) by Bryan Ansell, Richard Halliwell & Richard Priestley (1984)

Focussing more on the mass battle and less on the role-playing (as in the first edition) I loved playing Warhammer in the mid-eighties. It was huge fun, you rolled lots of dice and there were no constraints on what you toys you could or could not play with. 

With Graham moving out of the area, Warhammer replaced WW2 for Simon and myself with him amassing a Dwarf army based around the wonderful Fantasy Tribe Dwarves and me a Goblinoid one using the Fantasy Tribe Orcs and Goblins, plus the original Citadel Lord of the Rings line. There were no points based army lists, no restrictions on what you could use. You bought something, you painted it, you played with it. End of.

The contrast with the complexity of historical rules at this time could not be more marked and whilst I bought WRG and Newbury Ancients rules to see if I could play a more "grown up" LoTR type game with them I never bothered. 

The incorporation of Citadel into GW and the move to the more prescriptive 3rd edition and the 'Beano' annual books saw me drift away from the game but I still have the figures and I still have my 2nd edition box so maybe one day...

This picture has been all over Facebook today. It is the new face of Warhammer, replacing the old game with a smaller scale game using less figures and on round bases.


Personally I am beyond caring with what GW do and what they do with WHFB (I still believe the 2nd edition was the best), but it does make for interesting viewing...

On and off over the last couple of days I've been slapping a bit of paint on this Wizkids D&D Earth Titan. Not quite 100% sure of what I am going to use it for, but probably something WHFB2 related...


A one piece plastic model, which can be found on eBay for around a tenner, it's a decent imposing piece and will form a good centrepiece to an army. The old Citadel Wizard gives some idea of scale (the Titan's base is 75mm square).


The model was fairly easy to repaint, drybrushing progressively lighter blue-greys over a black undercoat. I PVA'd some small gravel and sand on the figure to tie in with the base, painting the latter as soil and adding some flock to the model as well as the base. I added a little Army Painter Brown Shade ink wash to tie the soil and rock together...


Overall I am pleased with the outcome for a fairly minimal effort. The only question now is what to do with the other one I bought?!


Painting Target: 116/1000

Here's the second of the two Dwarf bear cavalry I created from a mash up of Arcane Legions and GW bits. My favourite of the two...


Here he is with his companion.


Painting Target: 101/1000

I finished the first of the two Dwarf bear cavalry I have converted using the bear and legs from a  Arcane Legions Ursan Cataphract (from the Roman Cavalry box) and the top half of a sixth(?) edition GW plastic Dwarf.


I'm not 100% happy with the Green Stuff cloak but the overall effect is pretty good and I'm happy enough with him. Hopefully his companion will be finished by tomorrow...


Painting Target: 100/1000

Dwarf Mountaineer - yours for £97!

Typical wargamer, my thoughts turn to 6mm WW2 so that naturally today sees me start painting some Warhammer Dwarves! :-)

I have had a unit of old Citadel plastics that I converted into a unit of Rangers a few years back, a number wearing Davy Crockett style fur hats.

Additionally I have a couple of Dwarves rounding bears I converted out of Citadel plastics and some plastic bears I picked up from a fantasy wargame a while back (I can't remember the name of the game but IIRC the bears had Romans riding them).

The Rangers put me in mind of an old article for Dwarf Mountaineers in an ancient White Dwarf (scan below), they'd make an interesting unit to convert, especially the ski troops. Certainly a better option than the £97 being asked for the one miniature Citadel produced back in the day on eBay!

It is quite amazing how many wargaming companies there are in the world and a little sad that some of the smaller ones with some unique offerings slip under the radar. For me one of these was Midlam Miniatures who I discovered yesterday evening produce a great looking "old school" fantasy range amongst other things.


Needing some paint I whacked off an order for some bottles and a set of their Dwarf Slaves which look great and are highly original. I think they will be used for a "Free The Slaves" scenario for something like Dungeon Saga: Dwarf King's Hold, but you could raise a wonderful penal troop unit for a WHFB Dwarven army from them.

I spotted some great stuff on my peruse of their website and will no doubt be back...

I managed to finish off the smaller of the Mantic Orc with axes regiments this lunchtime, painting the flag (made from tomato puree tube foil) and the movement tray (made from plastic card and rod).


As with the shields, the flag iconography is pretty basic, in keeping, in my opinion, with the Orc psyche (or should that be psycho?).

Painting Target: 517/1000

Hurray! We come to the end! The final two stages of painting the Mantic Orcs for Orctober. I have a few bits and pieces to do to finish off the whole unit, so hopefully tomorrow will see one of the three units finished off.

The basing technique is the standard one I apply to all my "temperate zone" miniatures whether they are Orcs, Vikings or Panzergrenadiers, providing a consistent "look" on the tabletop.

Stage Fourteen:

Having let the Beasty Brown paint dry overnight, the next stage is a quick drybrush of the top of the base with Buff or similar. Try and avoid drybrushing the foot of any of the miniatures as I have done here...


Stage Fifteen:

Apply some slightly watered down PVA to about 1/4 to 1/3 of the base and then sprinkle on some static grass. I am (still) using some old GW stuff which is a bit bright, but works well enough.


Painting Target: 507/1000

Apologies for the boring nature of today's Orctober post but basing isn't that exciting...

Stage Twelve:

Paint the base with PVA glue and stick in a tub of sand (told you it wasn't exciting!)


Stage Thirteen:

Once the sand and glue have dried I paint the entire base with Vallejo Beasty Brown.


Tomorrow we get the flock out!

I managed to grab a few minutes at lunchtime to progress the Orctober Orcs.

Stage Eleven:

This is really the final painting stage, picking out some of the details that provide good contrast with a fine paintbrush. With the Orcs this was the teeth and eyes. The Vallejo Buff used for the teeth, was also painted n the end of the helmet horns and used for the skull design on the shields.

I may have said before, but I am not a fan of the John Blanche style of ornately painted orc shields, it seems so un-orcish. Can you really imagine an orc being of any kind of artistic bent or have the patience to paint some of the designs GW have inflicted on us over the years?

I have gone with a simple, crudely painted skull design here (I imagine Orcs use their fingers), which I think works well. I added a touch of Beaty Brown to the Buff for a rough first coat, then some swipes f Buff, before dabbing the Black eyes and nose cavities in...

Horrid weather today really cut down on the natural light and so I only managed to progress a little further during my lunchtime on the Orctober Orc painting exercise!

Stage Ten:

Now the wash has dried I get a detail brush and pick out highlights using the same colour palette I used for the block painting in Stage Eight. This doesn't take that long and with the shading providing by the ink wash and the main areas stained by the wash and then the highlights, you get an effective quick and dirty three stage shading.

I had hoped to do the final detail work (teeth, eyes etc) today but that will have to wait until tomorrow, hoping the light improves.

Domestic duties got in the way of much painting today, so only one small step on the Orctober journey...

Despite some bizarre weather outside meaning I had to turn the lights on to paint at 2pm before the black clouds disappeared at 3pm and the sun came back out, I have made further progress with the Orctober Orcs.

Stage Seven:

The next stage is the flesh. I have never liked GW's Orc and Goblin green, it is too bright, but I;m not a fan of brown orcs as the flesh areas don't stand out enough for me. Back in the early eighties I used to use Humbrol's French Artillery Green on my Orcs and Goblins and I struggled to find an acrylic replacement - until I discovered how Napoleon's troops made the paint for their artillery carriages, just mix yellow and black. A little bit of experimenting and et voila! as they no doubt said.

With these Orcs, I did a heavy drybrush of a darker green made with yellow and black over the flesh areas, then highlighted this with a little more yellow added to the mix.


Stage Eight:

Having painted the flesh, I now go round and block paint all the remaining non-metallic areas. I use a limited palette and this time restricted myself to Vallejo's Red Leather, Green Ochre, Luftwaffe Uniform WWII and Beasty Brown. Any wooden bits (here the axe hafts) are painted Dark Flesh as were the helmet horns and teeth.

Continuing the "how I paint orcs" topic for Orctober, I am using a slightly different technique than that which I used a few years back, especially when it comes to rusting the armour where I am now using the techniques employed on the ArcWorlde Hobgoblins.

Stage Four:

The Oily Steel over Tin Bitz approach to metalwork is one I pretty much use on all Fantasy, Dark Ages and Medieval armour for rank and file types, to give it a slightly grubby look. With Orcs I now go one stage further as I can't imagine them sitting around the campfire drying and polishing their armour in the evening.

After allowing the metal pigments to thoroughly dry overnight, I apply a wash of brown ink. For rusty effects I use the Flames of War Brown Shade which is browner and warmer than the Army Painter Strong Tone ink. I don't wash it all over the armour, just paint streaks over areas and in recesses.


Stage Five:

I then add some top surface brighter rust by dabbing some bright orange paint in certain areas using a sponge. Normally for this I use a bit of sponge out of a blister back but today used a small piece out of a pack of Woodland Scenics bushes. A certain balance is needed between making the effect noticeable and going OTT so try in moderation as it is easier to add more than it is to try and remove.


Stage Six:

The armour is now pretty much done, so you need to repaint the non-metallic areas with black paint. With the Mantic Orcs is is sometimes unclear whether something is supposed to be cloth/leather or armour (especially across the shoulder blades). This doesn't really matter as long as you are consistent on the miniature. No one is really going to notice in a unit of them.

For the shields (which I dislike but couldn't be bothered to try and remove and replace with sensible round ones) I dabbed some black paint on over the metal and rust to give the impression of a badly worn surface. I have an idea for a basic shield pattern for the units which I will paint on later.

Back to Orctober today and I have started painting the first (smaller) Mantic Orc Axe Regiment. Whilst I don't normally do tutorials on the blog (mainly because I'm not that good a painter), as it was Orctober I thought I'd go through my rough and ready approach to painting Orcs over the next few days...

Stage One:

Undercoat models black (no I didn't take a photo!)

Stage Two:

Apply a heavy drybrush over all metal areas with GW's Tin Bitz (or whatever it is called now). Don't worry if you get it over the non-metal areas, we will go back to them later.


Stage Three:

After the Tin Bitz has dried, lightly drybrush a steel colour over the Tin Bitz (I used Vallejo Oily Steel). The key here is not to completely cover the Tin Bitz and to have bits showing through underneath. Again, neatness is not a worry at this stage.

The smaller of the two axe armed Orc regiments is now glued together. I used some of the Mantic orcs I had painted up a couple of years back to help bulk out the unit (though I seem to have lost one). I found I was short of plastic rod for the standard bearer but after some thought have glued a shorter left over piece with the thought of having one of those short staff Landsknecht ones. If it looks good, I might do the others like it.

Still propped in an armchair and with SWMBO gone out, having fed me ibuprofen and beans on toast, I dug out the box of Mantic Orc Axe Horde to make up. The box contains 30 figures and remembering I had several I had painted up a while back I decided to spilt the box to make two regiments adding in the spare bodies I had over from the Poleaxe unit.


I decided on one 21 figure regiment and one 18 figure one, but after making the movement trays discovered I was two orcs short. To fill the gap I have included the mounted figure from Mantic's Orc Krudger's Gang which will fill the gap of two figures. The white metal model is nice but is going to require some serious filling with Green Stuff tomorrow. The larger unit is now constructed, the smaller one earmarked for gluing together tomorrow.

I'm feeling really sorry for myself at the moment. I've done something to my neck and cannot move my head or shoulders without being in pain (you'd be surprised how often you forget this and turn your head!). I've been told to take ibuprofen to ease the swelling and rest for 48 hours which means I can't get to Blast-tastic, which I am absolutely gutted about.


Propped in an armchair (with TV remote and laptop to hand) I decided to attempt a bit more work for Orctober, after all, how hard could it be to stick plastic orcs together without moving your head or shoulders?! Anyway in my decrepit state I managed to make up the remaining twelve Mantic orcs with poleaxes and even line them up without too much swearing! I also made a movement tray which helped with the latter.


The models are nicely detailed but not really thought out too well from a wargaming as lining up the unit is tricky with all the overhanging arms and weapons. There is also one glaring error on one of the left arms with the fingers having been sculpted horizontally not vertically. The painted unit on the box does not show this clearly but it is easily corrected with a sharp knife.

Well I have started Orctober! After an initial panic when I couldn't find the orcs, I have started on a Mantic Great Axe Regiment. The box contains 20 figures, but my unit will be 18 as I like 6 figure wide units for orcs.


As with most plastics there is a learning curve so much of my lunchtime was lost to working out the sprues. With only two body variants in the set I decided to mix in some bodies from a Mantic Orc Axe Horde box for variety. This meant that a whole lot wasn't achieved but the front rank is now constructed!