The Crude, the Mad and the Rusty Ride Again!

From left to right: The Tinman, Oxy O'Cetylene, Gore, Blood, Spikes Harvey Wotan and Skrag the Slaughter.

I have been busy over the last day or so completing this group of models. Well, I say completing -three of these were already painted before I started and have only seen mild touch ups (steady Chico!) while the remaining three have been painted from scratch. Can you work out which ones?

Skrag the Slaughterer is the oldest painted model here having been completed by me way back in 2012. He has been rebased for this little collection and his armour has seen a tiny sort out here and there too. Oxy and the Tinman were completed quite recently and you might well have read the post I did about them a few months back. The two chaos goblins, Blood and Gore, were finished off today, along with the wonderfully named Spikes Harvey Wotan.

I think I explained then that Oxy and the Tinman, though an '80s Limited Edition blister pack, were also connected with a little known Warhammer scenario published in White Dwarf '88: The Crude, The Mad and the Rusty. 

Like a career criminal (which he may well be, incidentally) Skrag the Slaughterer has a fair bit of previous, as can be seen in the advert atop. Here he is advertising his wares in White Dwarf 79 alongside the scrabble friendly Lovecraftian, Hrothyogg. Interestingly, this advertisement is one of the few published references to our old friend Malal and here the renegade god lures Skrag towards a lump of starmetal and encourages his to persuade some dwarfs to forge it into a giant axe. Great fun! 

I often wonder if the success of these models lead to Jes Goodwin's incredible range of ogres a little later on, as it seems odd to have an entire range produced and then do a colour ad for just two of them! 

Anyway, back to the plot. White Dwarf 83 boasted a 'Free Pull-Out Battlegame' on it's front cover and the prospect of fighting a Fantasy Battle straight out of the magazine probably sounded very exciting for a large number of readers. However, delving into the pages of White Dwarf that month would lead to a strange disappointment, for this was not a battlegame of massed ranks, brutal charges and the ebb and flow of combat - no - it was a few paper cut outs being manipulated around perhaps the worst full colour poster ever printed anywhere in the 1980s. Jump the bottom of this article if you do not believe me!!

It is a well known fact that you cannot polish a turd. And some have accused the Crude, the Mad and the Rusty of being an absolute clunker of a poo sticking to the toilet bowl of wargaming life. They have lain it upon the altar of poor gaming releases (probably alongside Gary Morley's Nagash) and wished it to the pits of non-existence forever. 

I don't agree with them. For there is material enough over the supplement's few pages to polish up a gem of a scenario - if you are prepared to do a little work. 

Reading the story helps understand the scenario a little better. After wandering the wastes and being seduced (if that is the right verb for a huge, sweating ogre) by Malal, Skrag locates the starmetal and forces a bunch of dwarfs to craft the ore into his gigantic axe, and make him a huge suit of armour to boot. In thanks for all of their hard work, Skrag promptly slaughters (yes, that is why he is called that) the lot of them and consecrates his new found weapon in their blood. Charming chap! 

Unfortunately for Skrag, he leaves a single witness. A solitary Khornate chaos dwarf by the name of Spikes Harvey Wotan (whether this character is inspired by the chap who appears in Judge Dredd's Cursed Earth series, which included Ronald McDonald executing customers for spillages, has yet to be decided) who, rather understandably, swears an oath to track down and kill Skrag in vengeance. During his travels, Spikes meets another crazed dwarf, Oxy O'cetylene, and persuades him to construct a deadly tinman to take on the Slaugheter one on one and picks up two Khorne worshipping chaos goblins named Blood and Gore along the way. 

So far so good really. It is wacky, zany stuff just like Warhammer should be. Once you start looking at the rules it all starts to fall to pieces, a bit like if the scenario was written on the back of a fag packet after a particularly boozy lunch one Friday afternoon. Things start well, with a D6 roll to determine Skrag's initial wounds, halving the result and adding 2. This makes sense in several ways, firstly to add a random factor to help vary the way the game is played (it is obviously trying to be one of those quick scenarios you might play through more than once) and secondly to represent the damage done to Skrag during his dwarf rumble earlier on.

However, once the rules for the Tinman are introduced things start to unravel quickly. The table describing what happens to the machine once the fuel runs out is great fun, and introduces a little more random fun to the proceedings. It states that the player needs to decide how much fuel to give the Tinman at the start of the game, up to six units with each unit providing enough energy for one turn, but no reason for this choice is given, nor does it seem to make a difference how many units you choose to use! In that case, every player will always choose 6 units as it is the maximum available and gives you the best chance of killing Skrag. Surely, there should be a penalty for adding more fuel to create a little tactical thought before hand?

So there is work to be done there!

The second issue that raises it's head is the total lack of Oxy in the game. Why include him in the backstory and provide a miniature for him and not include him somehow? This looks to me to be a terrible oversight and one that needs to be corrected. 

Casting your eye over the malfunction rules helps restore faith in the scenario. Again, they are zany, fun and suitably random as all '80s roll charts have to be. I also like the character trait of Wotan's, though it isn't very Khornate at all, of using your underlings to soften up Skrag so you can move in for the kill! In fact, that is the ONLY way of winning the game if you are the chaos dwarf player. You have to time your attacks perfectly and kill Skrag yourself if you wish to emerge from the battlefield victorious. Anyone else doing so will put the game into a draw. For Skrag to win, he just has to survive and kill anything that is foolish enough to come at him.

Simple stuff. 

Also, nearly every character is subject to frenzy! Ahhh! 

As I said earlier, the 'battlegame' came with a pull-out battlemap and it is certainly 'interesting' on the eyes looking at it now. 

Still, having now collected all of the figures in this small scenario set and got them painted, this scenario offers something quite intriguing to the Oldhammer player. Could the rules be tweaked to produce a more workable game AND somehow include a way of including Oxy O'Cetylene? I like to think so, and it is something I intend of thrash out in the coming weeks. So, hopefully you will see a battle report based on this game coming your way soon. 

Does anyone have any advice or ideas to help me on my quest? Or even better, have your actually played this scenario before and can offer some tips on play before I start?

I am ever hopeful.

Orlygg.

A Tale of Four Oldhammer Gamers: Plague Skeletons

It is Sunday as I write this. Tomorrow brings the first day of half-term and the joyous realisation that I do not have to go to school for another whole week! I have a serious amount of painting to try and get in over the next week as a number of projects draw to a close and others spring up anew from the depths of my lead pile. 

As you will no doubt be aware, Paul, Steve, Ringo and I are all attempting one of those monthly 'Tale of Four Gamers' things, in the hope of joining up at the next BOYL and doing battle with the forces we raise. You will probably recall my post last month about my recently completed plague skeletons. Well, it has taken me ages to get the remaining troops finished and fit for the table, but with all the natural light flooding into my conservatory today, I managed to get them completed.

Looking at the three models above, I can see how very different they have come out. I painted the converted standard bearer first, using a broken figure as a basis, cutting off the staff and replacing the missing hand. Adding the banner pole was quite simple; I used a pin-vice to drill through the raised hand and just pushed some fairly sturdy wire through the hole. 

The heavily armoured chap on the right followed. A sense of deja vu came over me as I worked on this one, as this dolly saw a lot of action across the 1980s and numerous model variants exist. In the past I have struggled to get a decent finish on the chaos versions, so stuck to a very simple drybrush and highlight method on the armour, which covers most of the figure. The haft of the axe needed to contrast with all the nearby metals, so I chose an earthy brown to pick that out. using my smallest brush, I highlighted a grain effect like I usually do. The skull and hair where done as normal, using the excellent Foundry triads for both. 

The final model was the central one. This one is also a variant, though perhaps a more famous one. He is, of course, another version of Mordini from the Nightmare Legion. Considering he is supposed to be in a Nurgle army he has come out a little, well, purple. My reasoning is thus; he was a Slanneshi or Tzeentch Chaos champion who was killed by the Plague Lord's forces and resurrected as an undead champion - in thrall to a hated master. I am sure Nurgle would find such a situation most amusing. 

Here is the completed unit for my Nurgle force. As I said before, I wanted to make each skeleton different but not feel the need to make them look like a Nurgle unit. These are the raised dead that have fought against my army, not followers of the Father of Flies. I had fun with the different shield designs and with the paper banner. Keeping things a bit generic helps me in other ways, as adding some of my other painted skeletons (completed way back when in the early days of this blog) creates a ten figure unit for my undead force. 

Take a look! 

What do you think of my skeletons?

Orlygg

More Excellence from Pantheon of Chaos

You wouldn't fancy meeting these two lads down a dark alley? Though, I am certain the chap on the left buys his ale at our local supermarket. As promised, here is my second post about the goings on over at the Pantheon of Chaos. Diego sent me a load of WIP shots the other day and I am more than a little excited to share them. Time draws near (fingers crossed) to the Kickstarter too, and you can be sure that I shall help spend the news of it's launch when time. 

Perhaps you are wondering what the rest of this mutated masterpiece looks like. Well, scroll down to find out...

Sculpted by Diego, this two headed thug reminds me of the famous Realm of Chaos era beastman of similar design. Though the resolution of the photograph is not great, you can see that there is plenty of textural detail on the model, as well as a tiny nod to Nurgle on the mace head. The brace of daggers on the front of the chest are also a nice touch. 

Alessio has been working on this armoured chaos hobgoblin recently. Though I am not a fan of the impossibly sized morning star, the baroque chaos armour really floats my boat, so to speak. I love painting the details on the little faces GW's '80s designers adorned on some many a chaos warrior, and it is pleasing to see the trend continue in the 21st. 

A mighty nose on him as well! 

Speaking of hobgoblins, I think I reported before that Kev Adams has produced a single model for the project, with hopes that he can contribute more in the future. Again, there are the faces, not only one the 'two heads' but all over the armour too.

Diego gave me a little bit of background about this model, and a few of the others. 

DS: It represents a chaos hobgoblin champion ready to command the hobgoblins regiment. However, the figure turned out so well that we will write a special character profile for him, probably. The best thing about Kev is that after 30 years the style still there, frozen in time, so it's perfect for a "oldhammer" style project like this.

And having had the pleasure of watching Kev at work, I heartily agree. 

DS: This is a Chaos Champion of Fire and was sculpted by Christian (our beastmen guy) and one of the things I like the most about it is the Bob Olley style in the complex armour detail and overall pose. Let me explain a bit aabout the "fire" term. In Pantheon of Chaos the dark gods will be trying to return to the mortal plain by filtering through the very basic elemental forces which affect the natural order of things, like fire and water or even Life & Dead or emotions like Hate or Anger.

DS: This demon was sculpted by me. Following the explanation about the elemental forces and emotions, as you can see this big boy has no eyes. It's called a "war demon" because it can be summoned or just appear in places where a huge slaughter has happened, or is going to happen shortly. The growing concentration of rage and hate of the oppossing forces is what feeds them and serve as a guide for them. They can "smell" these feelings and hunt following that track. The more destruction on the battlefield the more powerful they get.

It seems the more we see of this project, the more exciting things become. Look out for more updates here in the future.

Orlygg

A Warhammer Bestiary: Minotaur

Minotaurs are some of my favourite models to use in Warhammer Third Edition. I love the rules that accompany them and I love many of the Citadel ranges available - bar the truly hideous 21st century plastic ones.

Here are my favourite of favourites...

Now these models date from the mid to late 1980s are were sculpted by a number of different GW personalities of that time. Their hybrid creation isn't what interests me though, it is the curious fact that this range of minotaurs are designed to sit on a 25mm square base. They are slightly smaller than the more well known minotaur lords put out around the same time, and have these amusing detachable heads. With ten bodies and nine heads 'out there' they are really quite easy to use to create interesting variants too. 

As you can see in the photograph I headed this blogpost with, I have just completed work on yet another of these models. There wasn't much light today (I prefer to work in pure natural light) but I manged to grab and hour or two to complete him this morning. Despite doing his best to destroy the lampshade behind him, he is standing proud and ready to pound his enemies into a soggy mess. And what a pounding a minotaur can give in Warhammer Third Edition. Let's have a look at their rules...

Blood-greed is one of my preferred rules. I love fielding minotaurs and then rolling to see if they become so infatuated with flesh, that they begin to rip apart the corpses of the dead rather than fighting. Foolish is the foe who disturbs them too, as a frenzied minotaur is even more deadly in combat. 

Mind you, the dice gods have never really looked on my with kindness when I am put in this situation, or in the heat of battle, I forget about the rule entirely. 

Still, they are some of my favourite models in the ranges. 

Orlygg.

Malignancy of Malal: Fancy fielding a Greater Daemon?

It has been something I have been badgering several people for over the last couple of years, but at last someone has delivered! A full scale Greater Daemon of Malal based on the original concept drawings discovered in Tony Ackland's collection. Pantheon of Chaos have come up trumps again, with Diego Serrate sending me a wealth of material late last night for fans of the project to gawp over. 

The Greater Daemon was sculpted by a relatively new addition to the Pantheon, Boris Szuster, and you can see that he has done a great job. The model certainly looks imposing!

Diego went on to stress that the green you see here is a mix between the two drawings we have seen before; the original '80s Ackland original, and the second digital concept Tony produced for the aborted Antiquis Malleum project. Both images have been attached here for your reference. Diego told me that he hopes to produce this model with a choice of heads, and include the a design based on the '80s version too. 

No doubt many of you will be contemplating scale. So here is a handy photograph of the new Greater Daemon alongside a plastic Chaos Warrior. By the looks of things, the 'Malal' Greater Daemon is slightly larger than the old '80s metal Daemons and would most likely struggle to fit on a monster base. Not that that matters, of course, unless you are a total scale purist!

Looking at the green from a different angle highlights the beautiful reptilian detail that Szuster has achieved. The hands really strike me as particularly well executed, even unpainted I get a sense of impossibly ancient skin and wrinkled flesh. The face is appropriately baleful too, and the detail on the horns help drawing attention to those blank, soulless eyes. 

Finally, I am sure there are those of you out there wondering about casting. Well, here is a handy shot of the all of the model's pieces broken down. If this is cast in metal (which is the Pantheon's plan) the Greater Daemon will be a weighty beast indeed and will feel very, very satisfying in the hand. 

If you couldn't guess, I am extremely excited by this model and cannot wait to get to work on my own copy! I have several other exciting pieces to share too, and I will be revealing more of Diego's secrets in another post soon. 

If you are new to the Pantheon of Chaos, just follow the link below to find out more. It is a closed Facebook group so you will need to apply to join to uncover the wild and wonderful creations within! 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1438811393089076/?fref=ts

Orlygg

Wayne England

I have some sad news to report. Wayne England died suddenly this morning. I am sure all of you will agree that his contribution to the worlds of Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 (and beyond) was considerable. Thinking back on a lifetime of enthusiasm over his work, the front cover of White Dwarf 110 springs to my mind instantly. An inspiring and iconic image that launched a thousand marine armies in the 1980s. 

But then, Wayne England was an inspiring and iconic figure in the gaming industry. He will live on through his astonishing body of work. 

Thoughts go to his family at this time. 

Orlygg

Things that go bump in the night!

I hate it when a paintbrush goes. You know what I mean, don't you? One minute you are painting away, master of the paint's destiny and the next... Splodge! The point of your brush just doesn't want to co-operate and ends up splitting in two! 

Arrgggthh!

Then comes that period of scrabbling around for a new brush to work with. Getting used to it's quirks and idiosyncrasies can take time and for a while at least, you lament the old one's loss.

That is where I am at the moment. Perhaps I should say, I am between brushes? 

I find speed painting great fun and often urge all and sundry to have a go themselves. Set yourself a time limit and just paint. It is liberating. 

These two nasties were born out of the need to change brushes. I knew I'd only get two or three models out of my current one, so snatched from the leadpile two simple figures that could be completed in a few hours. The first is the Old Hag from one of the villagers/townsfolk releases put out in the '80s while the other is the classic reaching Citadel mummy. 

The light was as dim today as you would expect in England during February but I managed to capture these nonetheless. 

More soon. 

Orlygg