Issue 102 hit newsagents with the sound of a heavily laden renegade class pursuit vehicle colliding with a stainless steel girder. Dark Future, the game of highway warriors, was finally released onto the gaming world. That game, and its associated releases is part of one of my other long term projects, and will, one day, be resurrected. Today, we will be discussing the Warhammer Third Edition releases from this issue, so lets sit back and enjoy a slice of retro Warhammer at its best.
First up, and the major article of the issue, the Fimir. Now, way back when in the early days of this blog I published a link to this excellent article and discussed the nature of the Fimir in the context of Warhammer Third Edition. I see no reason to repeat myself, but the online world has moved on and it is now possible to embed items onto blogs, so I present the article again in this form.
So what do we get?
Well first off, a little bit of narrative fluff that sets up the premise of the new race well. Mists, horror and hideousness. The article moves on to deliver a Warhammer Armies style armylist and a detailed WFRP adventure. This is a really good article and is well worth a read if you haven't seen it before. The art is also excellent, with some evocative pictures provided by Paul Bonner.
Next up is an 'Eavy Metal article deals with that old chestnut, faces. As well as some interesting old school painting advice, there are a great deal of quality miniatures to gawp at, including the famous Dwarf wizard and many other rare models, including an early glimpse at some, then, forthcoming daemonettes. The eye candy ends with a rather wordy discussion about how to get the best out of a miniature's face.
Then we have these crossbowmen. At first flick through the magazine its easy to miss these little shooty chaps. What we get is a set of sculpts, based on the same dollies, that provide troops for Imperial and Bretonnian armies. Anyone know if these models are now part of Foundry's ever expanded ex-citadel models?
Orlygg
Were Fimir original GW IP? Or did they derive from somewhere else?
ReplyDeleteAccording to legend, the Fimir were created by Graeme Davis and Jes Goodwin back in the '80s, inspired by the fomorians of celtic myth. Originally meant to be mansize, Nick Bibby ended up sculpting the range as larger models with stats that didn't seem appropriate to their scale. That and the rape element in the background so the creatures dropped by 4th Edition. They've made a bit of a return recently via Forge World.
ReplyDeleteYeah... the whole "Fimir kidnap human females for rape/breeding" thing is likely a little heavy for most players' taste. I'd only heard about it second hand, but it's definitely openly implied in the text here. Chalk that up as "fluff that never needed to be".
DeleteAnd, the only Fimir minis I've ever seen were plastic ones from "Hero Quest": I practically have a sack full of those and I'd just throw them away if it didn't seem so wrong to do that ;/
Thanks very much for that, it gave me plenty to go on. I looked up a couple of sources on Formorians, apparently the the original Irish race were notorious sea pirates and the word eventually came to mean 'pirate' in subsequent centuries and that's possibly where the whole rape and pillage thing comes in. They are described as often having only one eye (just like the fantasy reincarnation) or arm or leg. Possibly as a result of fighting all the time? As an avid student of history I mistrust the desire to sanitise the vile bits but I can see why it lost it's place in the emerging, 'corporate' warhammer world.
Delete@Allison M. Take those HQ Fimir to the foundry for the Oldhammer weekend bring and buy! Or post them along, I assure you they will find loving homes!
DeleteAh yes, I bought this edition for my Fimir army (http://gamesorkshop.blogspot.co.uk/p/clan-myeri.html) and enjoyed all the other bits as well. I have the Dark Future box but sadly no vehicles... car boot sale to the rescue and the matchbox cars just nee gunning up! There's not much Fimir stuff out there; this article, a brief mention in the 3rd Ed Rulebook and Armies Book, a bit in WFRP, quite a chunk in WFRP's "Dying of the Light" (http://www.scribd.com/doc/38819351/WFRP-1ed-Dying-of-the-Light), very brief bit in Heroquest and the Marvel Winter Special and the fan-written Warpstone Magazine. But they're lovely, creepy figures to write your own fluff for which I why I went for them!
ReplyDeleteThey seem to be super expensive to collect. But you are quite correct, they are wonderful models.
DeleteThank you for reminding me of those old materials. Watching these materials for a moment allowed me to go back to the memories of my youth. Great times ...
ReplyDeleteColoured Dust
Glad to be of service. There is much more to come.
DeleteBy the way, the imperial and bretonnian crossbow men can now be found among the wars of the roses models from foundry.
ReplyDeleteThe Bretonnian crossbowmen can be found at the Foundry Norman range. It's a pity that the current (8th edition) rules do not support crossbowmen for Brets, but there is always room for one or more units of Arblastiers in 3rd edition.
ReplyDelete