Necrotic nerves... that is what was holding me back all this time. So you can imagine how eager I am to crack on a get some miniatures painted. And games played. On my PC not over a spectacular gaming table, though that will come, I promise.
Oh, and I'll need a couple of armies to actually fight over the thing. I'm settling on Orcs and Goblins and Undead at the moment. As both seem easy to get hold of without comedy prices and in my old age I'm finding them the more characterful and interesting of models to paint.
Though I must admit to having enjoyed a few hours of Baldur's Gate 3 again. I feel I can enjoy the game now I don't have to worry about flare ups and toothache all the time. Though I wasn't a fan of D&D back in the day, we had WFRP for goodness sake, I was always partial to their computer games. Eye of the Beholder on the Amiga was INCREDIBLE and I have played it through numerous times, even killing the beholder once. I was rather bemused back in my youth to just get a screen stating... well done... especially after that classic opening sequence and sombre music.
My favourite of all the characters is Lae'zel. And I could never have guessed there would be a link between her and the first model I have painted up in a while. But there is... so read on a find out just how tenuous Orlygg is going to be.
Let's slip back a few hours. It is evening. MFM wants to watch some telly and tells me that it won't be something I'd like. This means that I'll need to go elsewhere so to my little portable painting set up I go. The workshop still looks like a clan of goblins have squatted in it. Which one shall I choose, I thought. Something poignant yet simple. Something that can easily be completed in a single sitting while I weep at the thought of how many figures I could have bought with the £1000 dental bill... oooh, errr... a single chaos champion on eBay prices eh, resellers?
Thankfully, recent purchases I have made discreetly online have started to arrive. And the first package to plonk on my doormat for many, many years was this classic Fiend Factory figure. How I enjoyed the thrill of tearing off the postage material! How I lamented that model inside didn't reek of THE DETTOL. That means I'm going to have to clean it up myself. And the figure itself was in a poor state. Clearly mis-cast back in the early '80s he had quite a few blobs of lead and other grot about him. I cut away as much as I could be found the going tough. It was pretty much solids lead. Filing some of it down worked for a while but I was still left with lumpen masses around his crown and a jumble of something hanging down from his cloak near his mace. In the end I just incorporated the flaws into the model the best I could.
Is it noticeable?
This model saw his first release in 1982 as part of the Fiend Factory range. You may recall me painting up both the Winged Demon with Sword and Whip and the White Wizard in recent times which are also part of this series. In truth, I don't know much about these models are they were well before my era of GW. I was only three years old when they were initially released and they certainly didn't appear in any issues of WD that I read as a child. So discovering many of these models now has been fantastic especially considering that link to everyone's favourite CRPG with a 3 in the title.
Fiend Factory models were produced from around 1979 to about 1983. Many of them being designed by readers of White Dwarf as well as many well known enthusiasts of the time. Ian Livingstone created fiends for the range, as did British writer Charles Stross. Among many achievements, Stross created a creature or fiend he named the Githyanki. I for one had no idea that this now famous fantasy race saw their debut on the pages of the embryonic White Dwarf! I wonder if that is a fact known by the modern 'managers' of the magazine?
At that time, GW held the license to publish Dungeons and Dragons products in the UK. The editor of much of this range was Don Turnbull and it was planned to publish the famous Fiend Folio in the later half of 1979 as the Second Monster Manual. Many of the monsters in this book were based on submissions from White Dwarf. Though Turnbull completed the manuscript with plenty of time to spare, legal wrangles and business squabbles kept the publication of the supplement on hold for nearly two years. The Fiend Folio was eventually released in August 1981 by TSR themselves. In fact, this helped them launch their own division here in the UK.
As I said earlier, Much of the material in this book, numbering 128 pages, was drawn from submissions from White Dwarf. The Assassin Bug, Grell, Giant Bloodworm as well as drow, kuo-toa and firbolg were all included along with many others. An unforeseen consequence of the legal wranglings was that Citadel Miniatures, who possessed the contract to produce gaming miniatures based on White Dwarf articles, had to pass the copyright for the Fiend Factory models back to TSR, who themselves had a contract with Grenadier models. So the 'Factory' style models disappeared from the Citadel shelves.
With slotta-bases only a few years away, these old solid based classics were soon to be replaced with their more dynamic cousins. The earlier ranges fell away as Citadel grew larger and larger and started working on its own internal written material and background. It is interesting to note that the First Edition of Warhammer was released around this time too.
Still, The FF2 Lord of Darkness remains a classic of the 1980s fantasy scene. He was clearly a very popular figure judging by the number of copies of him turning up for sale today. If you like preslotta miniatures, and even if you don't, it is well worth the time tracking down one of these wonderful figures. I don't know about you but I think he'd back a great statue for a scenery piece somewhere?
I plan on including him in my undead army somewhere once those skellies are finished. I had three on the painting table right now but can't stop myself being drawn away by other more intriguing models. Apologies!!
Speak soon,
Orlygg
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