Thursday 20 December 2012

Back to the paintbrush: What Orlygg did next?


Hello and welcome back to Realm of Chaos 80s. I have been gone awhile (and not just from this blog, it seems) and I am pleased to be back. Since the unholy combination of work, work and more work has stayed my hand from the painting, or indeed collecting, table and I lament the terrible absence of any actual progress.

That is correct; I have painted nothing, collected nothing - done nothing!

In truth, I was in that downward spiral that all of us must combat from time to time. The painting lethargy that sees the collection gather dust, and with each mote that falls, a further decrease in the drive required to work.

Such woes, for woes they are, were further enhanced due to the destruction of my scanner, which paid heed to my idea for a picture round of my festive pub quiz. Still, I can save that for another year. ICT troubles weren't further, with the email account linked to this blog dumping loads of emails from fellow enthusiasts into the spam box where I failed to notice them. Apologies if you are one of the many who went without reply, I shall attempt to clear the backlog as soon as I am on holiday.

Ahh, talk of the holiday. As I teacher, I have over two weeks off over the festive period (starting 3pm tomorrow) and I hope to spend most of that time either painting, gaming or collecting. So you will be reading a fair amount from this site in the coming days.

So I rise, pheonix like from the dusty embers of my paint station to illuminate this small corner of the internet with old school Citadel goodness, or something like that anyway...

I knew that I needed something special to get me motivated, so I opted to restore a paint a model I have wanted to do for years, namely the 1980s Realm of Chaos Chariot. I bought one from eBay a few months back in a truly shocking state and I have managed to clean it up.

Here is what I have so far achieved...

What are a kit! A classic Perry sculpt!
Obviously, the chariot is going to be a multi-assemblage job. I intend to build the chariot and paint that up first, minus the scythes, quiver and banner pole. These will be added last. Next, I intend to work on the horses to create an actual chariot before painting the crew and placing them inside. Keen eyed collectors will probably notice that the champion lacks the mace arm... I have been unable to locate one, so intend to use the halberd arm in its place.

No saddle!
The previous owner of the horses filled off the saddle detail, leaving some rather irregular markings. I'll probably be filling them down a little more before I paint them.

Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones!
As you may recall, I was unhappy with the finish of my last chariot (the undead version above) so look forwards to completing a decent model before Christmas Day. I don't want this chariot to be overtly chaotic, so with a minimum of mutation of wild colour schemes. With that in mind, I am going to treat the actual vehicle as corrupted wood, rather than a living thing as I have seen in other examples of this model.

So I suppose, I better get gluing. Oh, and I have finally finished off my final interceptor for my copy of Dark Future, and I hope to get a game in before the end of the holidays. You can follow this on my Dark Future blog here.

Speak soon,

Orlygg.

8 comments:

  1. Welcome back, Mr O! I know your story, for it is mine too...

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  2. Right, I expect two weeks of non-stop painting and no excuses!

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  3. I have a couple of questions that I dont know whom to ask. Hopefully someone can answer them. In Slaves to Darkness most units available to Khorne have higher strength then regular units of their type. For example, Goblins are strength 4. So are thugs, beastmen and chaos dwarves. Is this a mistake? Why would Khorne units have better stats then the same units in a generic chaos army?

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  4. The champion can have any one of a number of arms:

    http://www.solegends.com/citcat912/c20271rcchaoschar-m.htm

    If you are particularly keen to have the mace arm I've probably got one which you can have?

    cheers
    Steve

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  5. Hi Darren

    I realise this is Orlygg's space, but having come across your question, I thought I'd have a swing. The units in the Realms of Chaos books each have a unique 'gift' marking them for their particular patron god. So, units of Khorne will have an extra point of Strength. Units devoted to Slaanesh have an extra point of Will Power. If you look at The Lost and The Damned, you'll see units devoted to Nurgle have an extra point of Toughness. I think units devoted to Tzeentch get at least 1d3 chaos attributes.

    Generally speaking, the maths in the two RoC books is quite screwy - quite representative of the realm of chaos! You'll see some massive differences in costs (Chaos Dwarf Bazuka!) and some of the unit costs can't be divided by the unit number to give you an even score.

    As to why they are different, I suspect that this has happened because RoC was a later release than the Armies book and was intended to supersede the former. Just a guess, though - I don't know that for sure. It does match up with GW developing their army book sales strategy, though...

    Regards
    Gaj



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  6. Exactly what I would have said, Gaj. Only balance was never really a concern for GW at the time, remember it was the era of the GM. The points values published in Warhammer Armies were very controversial at the time- many contemporary gamers feeling them un- necessary. Unlike modern Warhammer, there is no right or wrong way to play any of this stuff. You do use what is presented or change it to suit your needs. Warhammer third was designed with this philosophy.

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  7. You really should put that skeleton chariot on a single large base covering not only the horses but also the chariot. Would make it look much more like a single model, all proper like.

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    1. You are quite correct there Phreedh. I am hoping to experiment with larger scale bases once I have finished my Chaos Chariot. Not only would a large base make things look 'proper', they will ensure I don't drop or otherwise break these rather delicate models with my oafish hands.

      I was even debating whether or not to have a go at some Kevin Adams Greenstuff foliage.

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