Bring out your Lead: The First Oldhammer Weekend

Well, the last die has been rolled for the first Oldhammer Weekend. 

The heaps of beautifully painted lead have been safely squeezed back into their foam trays and carried back to wargame dens across Northern Europe.  And if they are anything like me, their bags are groaning with purchases from the Foundry's incredible range of 'toy soldiers'. 

Thinking back, its rather a challenge to try and put the weekend into a coherent series of paragraphs and recount all the things that occurred for those enthusiasts who were unable to attend. So I am actually going to say very little and let the series of photographs that I am presenting below do the talking for me. Before we move on to those, I just need to thank the Ansell family for all the support they gave us over the Saturday and Sunday. I have been to many a wargames show and tournament over the years, but I have never visited such a friendly and supportive venue. They provided us with a bar, sausage sandwiches, and just when we were all dithering about where to go for eat in the evening, a choice of meals cooked for us in the Foundry itself! Marcus, Diane and Bryan were all very approachable and friendly and chatted with attendees for hours. They had even cast up the old Dogs of War Citadel range from the 1980s for the event! 

So if you are after a venue to run an wargaming event, I can wholeheartedly recommend that you choose the Foundry to do so. We ever much hope to be able to return to the Foundry in the not to near future to take part in an even bigger event!

Big thanks must also go to Gaj from Warhammer for Adults who helped organise things from day one and to one Skarsnik, who lead us through the streets of Nottingham and helped ferry Oldhammerers to their hotels and carparks! 

The Realm of Chaos Warband table on Saturday morning as players set up their forces. Dan and I had discussed how to run this and opted to GM throughout the day, but the Oldhammer spirit quickly raised its head and the game just ran itself! No easy feat, considering how complex Slaves to Darkness can be. 

Beastmen of Slannesh in all their perverted glory.

A lovingly painted Khorne Warband takes to the field. They were all ultimately destined to perish over the course of the game.

More followers of Khorne assemble on the field. Dice lay waiting...

Jeff's Khorne Warband which some of you may recognise from the Facebook Group through the distinctive shields on the orcs. 

The smallest warband of all, just four models. A lovely painted ogre. 

The forces of Slannesh make ready, including one the author's own minotaur models. 

Warlord Paul's Warband of Lord Savage. Those crossbows reaped a mean harvest. 

Martin and Paul move their models forwards in a early Slannesh movement phase. Note the tower scenery piece, Bryan told me it was originally built by Nigel Stillman.

The forces edge ever closer to one another.

The minotaur of Khorne rushed across the field to engage with the Troll, Throgg. Incredibly, after years of failing stupidity tests he passed with flying colours and promptly vomited all over his enemy. 

Nico's Marvellous painting was exhibited in one of the many cabinets of miniatures. Seeing his stuff online is impressive, but seeing Nico's paintwork for real is mind-blowing. He is incredibly skilled and has hordes of models painted to this standard. 

Tony Hough holds court with his portfolio of original artwork. Guy Carpenter can be seen with the earphones in the centre of the picture. His artwork was astonishing to behold. Still trying to persuade the wife to let me buy one!

The Warbands game in full swing. There are models everywhere. But did anyone spot where my d10s went?

Slannesh Warbands advance across the sunken lane. 

Erny, Garth, Steve and other Oldhammerers, Oldhammering away. I don't think that many copies of the Third Edition have been in the same room for over twenty five years.

Garth's famous undead models as seen on Warhammer for Adults. I loved the paint job on the Plague Cart!

Harry's beautifully painted miniatures. I originally saw these on Warseer and they inspired me to start my own old school painting. 

Thantsants' Orc's Drift. It was still being fought as Dan and I left.

Beautifully painted Slaan. 

Even more beautifully painted Slaan.

Even, even more slaan. 

The Foundry's display cabinets were packed full with a small fraction of Bryan Ansell's collection. Recognise anything. I spent quite a while identifying Andy Craig's work here. In truth, you could spend hours peering through the glass and still not see everything. I drifted back over the course of the day and spotted new things every time. 

Competition time. Who recognises this model? It appears on Bryan's wargames table in the Third Edition Rulebook and beyond. We used it as an object in the Realm of Chaos game. 

Always nice to see The Lost and the Damned being used in a game. 

This blog's author beneath the original Harry the Hammer painting by John Blanche that graced the cover of the first edition of Warhammer.

Rick Priestley shared some amusing stories about a life in wargaming and the perils of having long hair along with John Stallard. Rick told me that he is working on the Gates of Antares, among other things, at the moment and wants to produce a new set of fantasy rules sometimes in future. 

The author of this blog with the Mighty Avenger himself, Bryan Ansell. 

Bryan and Tony signing Third Edition rulebooks. Claus is very happy!

Some of my Khorne warriors advance on the forces of Nurgle. Overlooked by an ancient piece of scenery. Have you found it in the old rulebooks yet?

Slannesh forces murder Nurgle followers. Nice shields there.

Action on the Realm of Chaos table. 

Padre and co playing the Rumble of the Jungle. Harry had just run off at this point looking for his viking helm. 

Harry's lovely Bloodbowl stadium.

Selkie's beautifully painted goblinoids. 

Slambo stands above the Wanted poster for the Perry Twins. Funnily enough, we saw them and Aly Morrison drinking in one of the pubs we visited. 

Dreamfish leads Slaan to victory.

Some of the artwork on display. Ian Miller originals. 

Orlygg

A Stormtrooper Solution! Marcus Ansell Explains it all...

Spam.

The popular chant and foodstuff of the Monty Python team and a contemporary pest. 

As some of you may know, my inbox has been plagued recently, not by spam itself, but by Hotmail assuming that anyone not in my contacts must be a vile piece of malware and should subsequently be condemned to the trash can! So, from time to time I check my trash can and occasionally I find an email from a new follower of Oldhammer that has failed to run the gauntlet of my anti-virus software and go astray. Imagine my surprise when I see the name 'Ansell' appear among the peculiar names who are begging me to send them my banking details so they can transfer millions of dollars into my account from overseas...

Marcus, the son of the great Bryan Ansell, had contacted us at Realm of Chaos 80s with an invitation and a answer to a mystery that we have been discussing in recent months. Here is what Marcus emailed...

Marcus Ansell: Greetings from Wargames Foundry. 

We've been enjoying your blog for some months now: and we thought that we would get in touch to say that if you want to use the Foundry as a venue for any events that you might plan for Da Golden Gobbos (or anything else miniatures/gaming orientated); then we'd be very glad to have you here. We are in central Nottingham and we have plenty of space (also tables). We would be able to sort out basic refreshments.

 I'm sure that my father would be happy to bring along stuff from the late 70s and the 80s.

How incredible would that be, eh? With esteemed members of the community such as Gaj and Thantsants trying to gather momentum for an 'Oldhammer Day', how wonderful would it be to meet at the Foundry? Third Edition rules, 80s models massing under the multi-coloured gaze of rank on rank of Bryan Ansell's collection, would be a dream come true for many, no, all of us. 

Well its now a real possibility...

Now such a gathering needs discussion among other interested parties, both here on the blogosphere as well as on the many forums that include retro review and comment. But my 'two pence' into the discussion would be thus:

A summer/late autumn event at the Foundry in celebration of Slaves to Darkness' 25th Anniversary/Third Edition 
Encouragement of interested parties to build characterful warbands linked to RoC
A third edition bring and battle 
Old School Painting Competition.
Swap Shop - bring in your unwanted lead and, well, swap it for stuff you do want...

Embryonic I know, but its a starting point! What do other Oldhammerers think?

Citadel Stormtrooper Mystery 

This miniature was also a bit of a mystery to us. Familiar to many, either from the collection of Billy Bunter or from the Collecting Citadel Miniatures archive, little was actually known about this sculpt. Thankfully, Marcus has been able to shed some light on this model, including its sculptor. 

Marcus Ansell: Apparently, Citadel/GW were approached to do a licensed range of Star Wars models in the late 80s or possibly early 90s. My father said that as he was only interested in making models with Citadel's customary pleasantly inaccurate physique and proportions, he knew that it was unlikely that they would really want Citadel to have the licence, but he didn't want to seem rude so he asked Jes Goodwin to sculpt a prototype in the Citadel style. Back then, my grandfather was running Foundry, and Foundry was doing a lot of the master moulding for Citadel. Foundry made the mould for the Stormtrooper. We still have it here (the mould, that is), it never left Foundry. Only a handful of the castings from the mould can have gone out: almost all the models out there must have been pirated from that small group of original castings. There only was that one sculpt during my father's time, so the various variant types out there are just fakes. 

"Aren't you a little heroically proportioned for a stormtrooper?" 

Many thanks to Marcus for clearing up that little mystery for us. 

Orlygg.