The Guiding Hand - Pan Tang Officers

After a little break from my Frostgrave Pan Tang warband, I've painted up another couple of figures, this time representing the better fighters or officers. I imagine Pan Tangians to be ruled by a brutal and strongly hierarchical society. The military would be no exception - officers are the word of the gods, as far as their subordinates are concerned, no matter if this results in a soldier being needlessly incinerated by some kind of foul magic spell!

 

Pan Tangians battle Melniboneans - Stormbringer RPG by Chaosium Inc.

 

The two latest additions to the warband are just such men - masters of their own little empires; ambitious, amoral, petty and selfish. Thorkor (on the left), is a junior officer from the Pan Tangian marines. He wears the lighter armour and shorter tunic of the naval forces. Carkan Amit is the senior officer of the Soorkan ul'Kaarna's warband - the most experienced fighter, with a strong grip on the fate of his men.

 

The Sorcerer's Apprentice - Theleb K'aarna of Pan Tang

Next off the painting table are two new additions to the Pan Tang warband I'm putting together for Frostgrave. The background to the warband is that they are set some decades prior to Elric meeting Theleb K'aarna. Theleb is apprenticed to his uncle, a powerful Sorcerer called Soorkan ul-K'aarna.

 

Having already painted up Soorkan, plus a selection of henchmen, I decided it was time to paint the apprentice - Theleb K'aarna himself. I simultaneously painted up another of the warband in the form of a Pan Tang warrior:

 

Theleb K'aarna with hired thug, Tarkesh.

 

Tygers of Pan Tang - The Beast and His Handler

The tigers of Pan Tang are so iconic, that they even named a New Wave of British Heavy Metal band after them. The Stormbringer RPG by Chaosium Inc. states that:

"The tiger is a rare animal in the Young Kingdoms. Tigers roam freely only on the Isle of Pan Tang where it is the sacred totem animal of Chardhros the Reaper, Lord of Chaos...In rare cases they act as a Pan Tang warrior's combat companion."

It would therefore seem pre-destined that my Pan Tang Frostgrave warband would include a tiger (either as a Hunting Dog or Snow Leopard animal companion). Happily, Citadel anticipated my need, and produced a pair of tigers and their handlers as part of their Pan Tang range.

Image taken from Stuff of Legends.

The Rise of Pan Tang

Back in early 2014, I spent a lot of time and energy tracking down the delightful licensed Eternal Champion range produced by Citadel between 1986-1987. After successfully accumulating the entire range, I duly packaged them in a figure case and did nothing with them. Two years on, and their time has come.

In April I will be travelling to Ireland to meet up with some good friends and gaming buddies for a weekend. Among other things, we will be playing a series of games of Frostgrave - you may have already seen cheetor's fledging Oriental warband, The Shonen Knives. Bar the odd figure here and there, I've not painted a fantasy force for anything since about 1991 or 1992. This seemed to be the perfect opportunity to put some life into some of my Eternal Champion figures.

After some consideration, I decided to use Pan Tangians for my Frostgrave warband, for no other reason than they are much less common than the Melniboneans which were later rolled into Citadel's High Elf range, while painted Pan Tangians are rare as hens teeth!

A Sorcerer of Pan Tang blasts his Melnibonean foes (artwork from the Stormbringer RPG by Chaosium).

Imagine Magazine #22 (Jan 1985) - Moorcock & Goodwin Combine

In 1985, I hadn't yet encountered minatures, roleplaying or wargaming. I hadn't even read 'The Hobbit'. In fact, the closest I had come to the fantasy genre might well have been 'He-Man'. My older cousin was very much into AD&D, but we were under strict instructions not to look at any of the books or magazines in his pit of a bedroom. Why am I talking about 1985? Because Imagine Magazine published a Michael Moorcock special edition in January of that year:

 

 

Imagine Magazine ran for around 2.5 years, covering D&D and AD&D for UK readers. While roleplaying is something that's never really interested me, I've long had a soft spot for Michael Moorcock's fiction, and have spent many happy hours collecting Citadel's Eternal Champion range, based on Moorcock's characters.

 

Last year, in conversation over at the Oldhammer forums, it was mentioned in conversation that Jes Goodwin had done some illustrations for the Moorcock special edition. It's no secret that Jes Goodwin is my favourite miniatures designer - his Realm of Chaos era figures are sublime; his elves and Eldar are graceful and elegant. He is also a top notch illustrator, having studied Fine Art. If you have never had a look at any of his miniatures concept sketches, you should track down a copy of 'The Gothic and the Eldritch'.

Enter the Sensei - Ekros the Eternal

For me, the best motivation for painting some figures is the probability of joining in a pre-organised event. The Oldhammer Bring Out Your Lead event in August at Foundry is proving to be a fruitful motivator for me - so far I've painted a Brat gang, a Brat biker, converted a Brat car, and am half-way through repurposing a toy crane.

I also got very excited when I read about JB's plans for a Combat Cards based mash-up game; The Rogue Trader Quickening. This game is a bit of a blend of concepts; namely the idea of Sensei from Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness (immortal, secretive children of the Emperor) and the 1980s Highlander films starring Christopher Lambert (immortals who chop each others' heads off because "there can be only one!"). Although The Quickening is planned for Saturday and I can only attend on Sunday, there's an outside chance of a re-run on Sunday...and if that happens I want in! And if I want in, I need to make a Sensei.

So that's what I've done:

Ekros the Eternal; Sensei

 

Friskers Painted

If you've been keeping tabs on this blog, I probably don't need to tell you that over the last 9 months or so I've been steadily collecting Citadel's mid-1980s Eternal Champion range, based on Michael Moorcock's brilliant novels. It is my intention (eventually) to paint up the full range and do a bit of fantasy skirmish gaming.

As part of assembling the collection, I commissioned my friend and ace sculptor John Pickford to sculpt me a little winged cat (let's call him Friskers), who could represent a certain animal familiar to accompany Elric's companion Jhary a-Conel. Citadel's Jhary sculpt already had a very similar winged cat on his shoulder, representing Whiskers from the Elric books. But I foresaw the need for an independent winged cat, hence the Frisker sculpt.

I painted up my Friskers last night - here's the results:

Friskers hunting through the grass!

 

Chasing Unknown Unknowns

When it comes to collecting models, there are "known knowns" - the models that were catalogued, widely produced and put on general release. Limited editions and even unreleased figures could also be "known knowns", with resources such as Stuff of Legends and Collecting Citadel Miniatures Wiki increasing the number of known knowns on a regular basis.

 

 

Stormbringer RPG 1987 - An Inexpert Review

I'll start this post off with a caveat. I'm not an experienced RPG player - in fact it's been 10 years since my last Dungeon crawl, and I think I've undertaken fewer than 10 quests ever.

So why, you may ask, am I writing a post about the Stormbringer RPG, based on Michael Moorcock's 'Elric' novels, jointly published in 1987 by Games Workshop and Chaosium Inc.?

Stormbringer. Cover art by Peter Jones

 

The Eternal Champion Project - Personalities Acquired!

I wonder if there is a truly more wonderful sight than this to a collecter of ~30-year old little lead figurines:

EC05 Melnibonean Personalities. Complete.

The vile Pan Tang

A slightly belated Happy New Year from my first post of 2014. I'm very much looking forward to what 2014 brings for me and my hobby interests, and I currently have a great deal of enthusiasm (obsession?) for Citadel's Eternal Champions range.

I thought you might like to see some of what arrived with me in or around the Christmas period; namely some significant progress in filling out the Pan Tang ranks. Back in mid-November, I didn't have a single Pan Tang figure. Here's how things stand after around 6 weeks of searching, buying and trading (for reference, these figures cost roughly £3 each - it just goes to show that the £30 BIN auctions are somewhat overpriced from the actual market value).

EC05 Melnibonean Personalities
The Pan Tang Officer was mislabeled on ebay as a Citadel Oriental Warrior, while King Urish was in a big bulk lot of models (along with Rakhir the Red, not pictured). The seller agreed to pull the 2 models out and sell them to me separately, which just goes to show it doesn't hurt to ask!

L-R: Pan Tang Officer, King Urish, Theleb Kaarna, Jagreen Lern

Discovering the Eternal Champions

A week or two ago I stumbled on a box of figures on ebay which had never registered with me before; Citadel's BC5 Eternal Champions boxed set.

Classic Moorcock imagery by Rodney Matthews. I idly checked out his website; his original paintings are on sale for hundreds of thousands of pounds!