Benjamin & OLLEYQUEST - Leader Month takes an unexpected turn

January was going to be a breeze. Despite moving house, having lots of stuff on at work, family visits and a trip away - just four figures was going to be utterly achievable right? RIGHT?

WRONG.

But it was fine. I can just reorientate, maybe even retire peacefully, and use all that free time spent not doing OWAC to do some much needed housework and catch up on deadlines.

WRONG.

So what went wrong THIS time?

The Bob Olley bitz box brims with potential

I had managed to claw a day or so and a few evenings over the past week to crack on with these guys. The fab four. I'd even made a few creative discoveries along the way.

Painting the elf first, I'd stumbled into quite a nice palette, shading recesses with a blue, then highlighting with a pink. It was great. Simple, sophisticated - and guaranteed to work on everything else right?

The elf finally felt cool...

WRONG.

For the life of me I've just not been able to replicate it. Either it's the complexity of other models (the dwarf is extra fiddly) - or I just need more time to pull it apart and codify it into a new process to apply to everything else. Who knows.

The Forbidden Tizer

The Barbarian and Wizard have had another dettol bath. The Dwarf is awaiting his THIRD if you can believe that. My plan is to keep the elf as he is, but repurchase all the parts from Essex Miniatures to recreate him - just incase the style of this project goes the other way.

So gloomy 😞

So in short no heroes this month.

So why are you still here Benjamin?

Well dear reader. Gentle support and peer pressure to keep going.

The ultimate backup to completely fluffing your time management on OWAC it seems, is to just paint ONE LEADER. However in this case, in the absence of the heroes, this really wasn't going to fly. The gargoyle is still in the bits box, and the chaos sorcerer, well is he really a leader?

Who else could suffice?

Ah yes...

The Old Man

So I had flirted with the idea of making Zargon/Morcar/Mentor/Guy-from-the-box for the Wildcard month, as I was going to make the dungeon, and it is HIS dungeon right?

He chiefly comprises of a random Essex Olley dwarf head with an undead bishop guy from Reaper that was originally going to become a beastmen shaman last year (I'd stupidly already taken the feet off!🤦‍♂️).

Until this afternoon he looked like this.

Well at 4pm on Jan 31st the sculpting began - and gosh darn it if you're in this position blasting greenstuff with a hairdryer and leaving it for a few seconds to cure can really do wonders.

Still a bit green and gummy

And then with some paint...

This guy has the worst basement.

From start to finish he's taken about 8 hours, sculpting, painting, and eating tea.

So there we have it. Leader month, from the precipice. Olleyquest is still alive. ALIVE.

Benjamin & OLLEYQUEST - The second coming of Bob Olley

Again?!

Oh boy! Has it been five months already? Yeah.

Bloody hell.

So I guess that's a year since we were last introducing ourselves and our projects?

Damn.

So what's happened since then?

Well I've not written a single blog post so this one is particularly unnecessarily large and rambling.

A brief recap...

Just over a year ago I wanted to create a classic hairy horde of beastmen using just Bob Olley figures, but that was totally topped by the opportunity of doing that as an OWAC challenger.

The young fool.

Getting through the challenge was fantastic, and was itself topped by the various interactions and support from the OWAC community.

This itself was topped by just finishing the thing, which itself was topped again by being voted by such fine company as a winner.

I'm really missing the July heatwave.

The toppest of topped bits was then getting a fab painting of Korag himself by the talented Lissanne Lake!

The coolest damn thing I've ever seen.

I'm quite literally topped out.

So what now?

Well this year is very special as you may have heard as OWAC is opening itself to many other game systems and projects.

I was really divided on what to do. Mordheim was my first real love, but then I could try chucking Korag through six successive mini games, or maybe all those Talisman characters.... or maybe there was something else?

Ah yes. The greatest game in the universe...

Les Edwards, and humanity, at its peak

What makes it so great? Well aside from a very compelling argument here, it's one of the few games that my friends (who are not inclined to obsess over fantasy tabletop gaming) can really enjoy and engage with, even when a bit drunk. It's got great replayability, and decades worth of house-rules and expansions that really add whatever flavour and dynamic your group needs.

The only twist is I'm not going to be touching my battered first edition. That would be sacrilege.

No. Instead I'll reach for a familiar gimmick.

Bring out the Bob

I get the impression Bob Olley can be a little divisive as a sculptor. The needless over detailing, the strange armour and clothing patterns. That jawline. He's the closest pewter can get to tasting like marmite - you're either all in or all out. No other series of miniatures seems to inspire either such wonder or revulsion as the Essex Miniatures Q Series.

If anyone knows of any other adverts please let me know!

These were some of his earliest works, packed with unruly and primordial unhinged details that seem to trickle through in his later ranges. They also have MASSIVE heads.

Maybe because of this controversy, Essex Miniatures website does its best to not tell its customers about how great this range really is. It's hidden away with other fantasy ranges, and the very best models are not even photographed. The upside is they're priced like it's 1999 still - so you can have a binge and STILL pay the heating bill. I'd encourage you all to go check them out.

See no image!

And look how the curious wargamer is rewarded! Gold.

The plan!

High Adventure in a World of Pain

So you can probably see where this is going. I'm going to be getting the Essex Q series off my chest a bit. Just like last year - a bit of a "what if" project, where this style and approach is applied to a game system, which in this case is the Heroquest core game.

All on silly modular bases!

This won't be exclusively from the Q Series. A large portion of the model count is from the very similar Iron Claw range, or bits from Ral Partha, Reaper or the Bob Olley bitz box. But it'll all be big and chunky - with lots of essential converting.

I'm also really REALLY into how the Amiga Heroquest game looks. It's not just a fluke - it just looks incredible and has a really great palette. I've been trying to imitate it for years and really got nowhere, but maybe now is the time.

The music is also incredible.

In other personal news I'm buying a new house - which is a bit of a project in itself - so I'm going to pick each month as it comes and not necessarily do it in this order..

LEADER MONTH - THE HEROES

• The Barbarian, Elf, Wizard & Dwarf.

UNIT 1 - GREENSKINS

• 12 Orcs
• 12 Goblins
• I've also got some Goblin Shamans and Orc Shamans, and various archers that might get chucked in too.

UNIT 2 - THE UNDEAD

• 12 Zombies
• 12 Skeletons
• 6 Mummies
• And maybe some personality models for flavour...

UNIT 3 - THE FIMIR

But Bob Olley never sculpted a....

Aha!

Well I've figured it out. And there will be 6 of them.

UNIT 4 - CHAOS

• The Gargoyle
• Chaos Sorcerer.
• 6 Chaos Warriors.

WILDCARD - THE DUNGEON

This is a real stretch - but I want to make the dang dungeon too. But we'll see how it goes!

...and Sir Ragnar.

The Overlord Offering

It seemed appropriate to present the Lord of OWAC with an undead king. It was also super fun to paint.

Spill yer guts

TL:DR

So the greatest game reinterpreted with the greatest miniatures ever sculpted? What could go wrong? Watch this space to find out...

Oh here goes.