Last post I was waxing lyrical about getting figures painted. And these two were a real joy to work on during my short recovery 'break'. They are old solid based C19 zombies from 1982 and until a few days ago I had no idea that they even existed. They were another gift to this grateful enthusiast from an online seller. He was the chap, or indeed chapess, I bought the Lord of Darkness from online. Considering I only paid a few pounds for the Lord of Darkness (see the bottom of this post for him) the seller was generous enough to throw these two figures in with the package.
Initially, I wasn't even sure if they were even Citadel. There were some Ral Partha elves in there too, but the keen eyed glare of Stuart confirmed their provenance with certainty. As with nearly all the models I get my mits on they were in terrible condition. Clogged with enamel paints that were decades old. Hours of Dettol, Nitro Moors and nail varnish baths later and I was able to remove much of the residue. Curiously, the red paint proved impossible to shift. It stained the metal too. I managed to scratch a lot of that off using a wire suede brush and a gentle hand. I then used a spray can to undercoat them in the hope the thin layer of detail wouldn't be lost.
I didn't really know where to start with the colour scheme. I sought out advice from other, more reliable painters online and flicked through a few old WDs for inspiration. I toyed with the idea of being traditional and basing the skin on Rotting Flesh but in the end went for a cold and clammy blue tone. I felt it looked more 'dead' and dirty. I kept to the earthy brown colours I've been limited myself with recently and tried to keep things naturalistic. To my eye, these zombies are far more 'Night of the Living Dead' than 'GrImDaRk'TM Warhammer style. I enjoyed the detailing on the innards too, hanging out and dangling down.
Once they were based and ready I knew that I'd like to paint up some more in the future. That is when things got really rather interesting. My era is roughly 1985 to 1992. If it says that on the slotta then I'd buy and use those models. It was the era I loved, and still love to this day. Initially I was rather boorish and dismissive of the preslotta years, foolishly deriding them as 'crap' many years ago. Anyone can learn the error of their ways and I certainly have. In many ways, I find the preslotta stuff more exciting to collect and restore these days as the models lead me down the unfamiliar corridors of Citadel's past.
The more research I did the more intriguing things got. My two models were from the Fantasy Tribes range. A selection of models that I knew nothing about. As I said before, they were well before my era and area of interest for collecting. These models were first introduced (as far as I could fathom) in issue 23 of White Dwarf and a quick search through internet archives located the original advertisement for the Fantasy Tribes range.
Here it is...
The first thing that strikes are the glorious '80s prices. Thirty pence for a model sounds like the things that dreams are made from but in the early part of that decade I'd image that this was not particularly cheap. I like how the gnoll figures advertised here are described as personalised figures. What did this mean? Knowing the practices of early Citadel from late night conversations with the players involved, I suspect this meant sitting around head or weapon swapping master miniatures to create a wide variety of variant models. When a mould wore out, they probably spun a new one, again further tweaking the model designs. This was rather revolutionary at the time and would have resulted a wide range of different looking figures.
You can see in the bottom part of the paragraph the claim being made that the dwarf models were the first truly definitive of the short, stout fellows ever produced. Now I am no expert in dwarf fantasy figures in the early part of the 1980s, but I know well the skill and drive behind the Citadel furnaces so don't doubt the claim.
Bryan went on to discuss this new approach to producing miniatures in 1983's Dragon Catalogue as you can in my snip above. With the fantasy tribes approach of mass production of variants within a range there was clearly an awful lot of choice for a still roleplay-minded enthusiast. Remember the Warhammer mass battle system was still very much in it's infancy here. Still, much like today, I expect punters loved buying a ton of models even if they did little more than plonk them down in the old leadpile... we are still guilty of that now!
Bryan goes on to say that they were making "at least six variations of costume, head, shield, weapon or equipment for each of (the fighter models)" and this seems very true of the two zombies I restored and painted up. Trying to find their exact match proved harder than I expected.
Here is one of the fliers promoting the range. By now, our zombies are been merged into the C ranges and are officially known as C19s. Top row far right looks vaguely like one of my models and bottom row third from the right the second example. Spot them? It turns out that there were at least eight different zombie bodies sculpted with twenty-seven possible head variants for each body. Phew! I wouldn't fancy being the completist who is trying to track those all down but I doubt anyone but Orclord would have the ability to do so these days.
On top of the wide range of possible zombie figures, there were also additional head packs that you could pick up to complete your own homebrew conversions if you wanted a little more rot for your money. The Collecting Citadel Miniatures website has a wonderful article which really goes into detail about this fascinating range and how complicated cataloguing them all is. Check it out here. As you will see, much of the range is still undocumented so if you have any further zombie chaps in you collection you might want to contribute.
What strikes me here is the scale of Bryan's ambition to create the greatest range of fantasy figures possible and he, and his colleagues, were prepared to experiment with the production process to do so. We now know that the slotta tab was only a few years away from proper development and the impact of that technological advance is still being felt today. I did ask him why he never considered patenting the slottta tab and he just shrugged and said there was so much else to be doing, it wasn't that important at the time.
Producing and selling metal models on the scale he was achieving and with such variation had never been done before, even in historical settings. I wonder if these humble zombie figures were a vital step on the way towards the slotta base and Warhammer 2nd Edition. That moment in 1985 would define how Games Workshop would operate for the decades to come and would move the company away from being a retailer and producer of roleplaying games into the major manufacturer of fantasy and science fiction tabletop games, a position it still holds today.
This is why this hobby fascinates and delights me. The generosity of a fellow enthusiast has lead an aging grognard on a merry little journey of discovery he may very well have missed otherwise. I'd certainly like to get my hands on some more of these lovely zombie figures one day, and knowing the key part of their history in the Warhammer story makes them even more special.
Orlygg
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