Fighting Fantasy Characters (Warbands Part 5)

My love of Fighting Fantasy has been evident in quite a few posts now and this one takes it a little further - using some of the illustrations from the Trolltooth Wars novel by Russ Nicholson and some of the text which I recently re-read, I've created a small warband based upon the main characters of the story. Firstly I had to source the miniatures and as you can see from the photo, they are a combination of Citadel and Otherworld Miniatures. Can you guess who's who though?:

Our intrepid adventurers assemble in the town square, ready to adventure. From left to right we have; the Mantrapper, Gareth Yaztromo, Nicodemus, Chadda Blackmane, beast of burden and the Chervah

Walking across the town bridge, heading into the unknown. But not just walking; also pointing, waving or loading weapons or just testing out their lanterns or raising dead spells.

Approaching the entrance to Firetop Mountain, our adventurers decide to investigate to see whether the layout is the same of yore. They turn to page 42.

Exploring the dungeon rooms, the adventurers take it in turns to lead and incessantly re-arrange themselves into different positions within the group. The lantern is working and casts some long shadows. Nicodemus' spell takes an age to raise a full zombie. The mule waits by the entrance.

They feel like they are being watched from above as they admire the not so carefully placed dungeon scenery

With the adventuring done, they all retire back to the studio for a quick photo-session, ensuring they show their best sides and line up in a roughly symmetrical way. "Most important character in the center" - they hear the photographer bark at them. The Mantrapper being not best pleased at being the symmetrically opposite of the mule.

So the individuals, first up; Garth Yaztromo.

A slither of descriptive text in the novel provides an insight into his age, beard and attire ie. a slightly faded red cloak.  From the illustrations and other Fighting Fantasy references, he of course has his familiar, Vermithrax the crow; which is a plastic bit (unsure from where) that has been added to the base here. An Otherworld Miniature wizard was acquired as the sculpt seemed to perfectly match the description; in fact I'm sure it was pretty much sculpted to be Yaztromo; the face, beard and garments all allude to the images of him from the books. Therefore an easy choice of miniature and a straightforward paint scheme. I used several thin glazes of red over a flesh colour to create the faded robe effect and a little bit of osl from the lantern. I also had this illustration from the cover of Shadowmaster (the third and final book in the Trolltooth Wars trilogy) to help me out with the colour red and blue colour scheme:

Some other reference images I found that helped inspire me:

For this warband to work in the Frostgrave format, I needed a wizard and apprentice and decided that the Otherworld model I chose for Yaztromo had a slight apprentice like feel to it, i.e, just not as powerful and dynamic as the next model I wanted to use (even though he's not in the Trolltooth Wars). A peer of Yaztromo - yes Nicodemus:

 Now this Mordheim model (actually named Nicodemus itself) has been on my painting wish-list for some time, so this seemed like a perfect opportunity to paint him up. I decided to keep the rising zombie from a previous aborted project as I can imagine Nicodemus being powerful enough to control the dark magics without them affecting him. Although it could be imagined that he does appear to have a slightly darkish side from this iconic illustration of him from the City of Thieves:

I think there is more than a passing resemblance in the miniature and in the drawing. Obviously the illustration came first. To add to this dark side I imagined for Nicodemus, I decided to paint him monochromatically which also provided a contrast with the slightly more garish attire of Yaztromo and the rest of the warband. The grey tones also provide a nice contrast with the yellowing, fetid zombie rising from the floor.

Next up is Chadda Blackmane.

I spent some time contemplating which model to use for this brooding character; in the novel he is described as knightly; armoured, broad-shouldered and stocky, with the usual courtly and garish outfit. Obviously he has dark skin and jet-black hair which I could paint onto any model... But in the end I plumped for the old Valten model- perhaps not the most appropriately dressed for the role of Darkmane, but certainly dynamic and heroic in pose and with a mane of hair waiting to be blackened by my paintbrush. Also again, a model I have long since wanted to paint. I like dynamic poses. I went for the fashionably quintessential blue and white striped trousers and strong complementary greens and reds to make him feel quite well dressed. I was tempted to add some insignia to his garments, but decided it would be too difficult and may clutter the model too.

The Mantrapper is described as an elegantly dressed gent, but a lethal, strpping swordsman.

I again returned to Otherworld Miniatures and found a bard which had a moustache, some nice robes and a foppish hat. I removed his lute and added a greenstuffed knapsack to his back to indicate that he is a mercenary and likes to collect gold and jewels (this is certainly referenced in the book and his greed is his demise). In lieu of not painting patterns onto Blackmane, I decided that the Mantrapper must be even more elegant, hence the diamond/stripe pattern on his strides and the circular motifs on his jacket. I went for nicely polished, jet black boots (working with a bit of gloss varnish here) and a light, plain neckerchief.

The Chervah was the most problematic model as his description in the text and from the illustrations is pretty clear.

 I should have taken some time to sculpt a head onto a goblinoid figure, but was starting to flag on this project and decided to choose a model, paint it and move on. I delved into my Citadel lead pile and found an old goblin, with moustache and decided that some garidh colours would help define him as a courtly man-servant. Given the inclination I would have sculpted some pointy shoes, a large, round head and some ruffs too.

Finally to complete the group of adventurers (and even through it's not mentioned in the story) I felt that they needed a beast of burden to carry all the assortment of weapons, provisions, spellbooks etc as they wandered around adventuring.

This model is another Otherworld sculpt and fitted in perfectly with the group. I imagine the Chervah to be in control of the mule. I did a little bit of research on colour and pattern choices for the mules coat and decided that a reddish tanned colour contrasting with an off-white underbelly would do the trick:

I'm currently reading the subsequent novels to the Trolltooth Wars; Demonslayer has Gan the smith's apprentice as a pivotal character, so he may well make an appreance in the future to add to this band of Fighting Fantasy adventurers...

Oldhammer and Fighting Fantasy

For me there is an intrinsic link between the Oldhammer movement, Citadel Miniatures and Fighting Fantasy. Regular readers may have noticed it in other posts, but specifically my last one on painting banners for my miniatures.

As a kid my entry to all things Fantasy were the brilliant and unique books by Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson. I cannot recall how I first stumbled upon the series, but I do remember going to the public library after school (the school library did not stock them for whatever reason - perhaps they were not deemed "real" books, or perhaps the Fantasy genre was frowned upon) and loaning out 6 different Fighting Fantasy books at a time. The maximum number of books I could have on loan was 7, so to appease my parents and also my desire to read other things, my final book was some sort of novel. Eager to devour these Choose Your Own Adventure Books, I would leg it home, the Sainsbury's plastic carrier bag containing the books banging against my legs, eventually getting home and composing myself to start the process. I nicked two dice out of some old Snakes and Ladders board game (always returning them to the tatty box), and grabbed a pencil (with rubber on the end) and some paper. I realised soon into my Fighting Fantasy journey that I would have to draw out maps to help me, but also I also enjoyed doing it too. And what a joy that experience was. Hours and hours and hours with fingers aching from being used as temporary bookmarks at those important decisions/crossroads, whilst at the same time trying to turn the pages, draw an accurate map and write down my collection of found objects. It very rarely became tedious. And I would return to the library a few weeks later to return my books and head over to the section which housed those distinctive green spined, Fighting Fantasy tomes. When I had read (but not always completed - I especially remember Creature of Havoc being a bitch and becoming my nemesis) the library's entire stock, I would ask for them to have others delivered from another branch. Not all the books were great and I would soon work out which were a bit duff. Interestingly the internet now agrees with those adolescent opinions of mine.

Back in the late 80's I remember telling my mates about these books and we started to share our books, our journeys and decisions and soon we were all hooked on them and forming some sort of club at school lunch times. I remember myself and two mates also tried writing our own version - we started off drawing out a large map of the city our story was played out in (I cannot remember it's name now, but it was a very detailed map). We actually began the process of writing the book and allocating passages of text to different numbers and I even completed a few little sketches to break up the passages of words in the manner of the originals; but something stopped us from going much further - the discovery of Games Workshop. Oh and a "grown up" book called Lord of the Rings that also helped shape my love of Fantasy.

After my early days of FF came my first planned visit to GW. I had a chance meeting with one prior to this when I was about 10 (1986) and on a school trip to learn about the Vikings in York. During an excursion into the city center to spend some of our pocket money, a fellow schoolboy saw the GW shopfront and told us how cool they were as his brother had some of their models. In we went and straight away I was in awe of the extent of models on display. I had messed around with Airfix models and plastic glue and enamels, so I was already into model making, but I had never been into a shop that was so entirely dedicated to models and an entire miniature world. After much searching around I bought my first ever blister pack - some Slaan troglydytes, my purchase decision being based purely upon models that looked evil and monster like (and within my limited budget):

I had no idea at the time of what they were, but when I got home I opened them up, affixed them to their slotta bases and slathered them in a range of wonderfully smelling, glossy enamel paints. They were soon forgotten though and lost in the mists of time. I digress.

It was all about this first planned trip with a fellow Fighting Fantasy fanatic, on the train to GW Reading, where it all began - the devouring of White Dwarf magazines, the endless lists of what I would purchase on my next excursion, the slowly growing collection of Orc and Goblin models, paints, primers, scenery etc. It became obsessive. There are great similarities now. I was soon hooked; here were models that were full of character, that resembled the descriptions of monsters and adventurers as written by JRR Tolkien, they were familiar in pose and dynamism from the illustrations of the various Fighting Fantasy illustrators AND I could play with them to recreate scenes and narratives from Fighting Fantasy and on a larger scale, always the hope that I could scale up to army size in the style of Lord of the Rings. It was a perfect collaboration and still, to this day is.

All of the above still apply, I love FF and if not so much the GW of now, then certainly their elder, distant relative. Now as a 39 year old bloke, this is in large parts, evidence of misty nostalgia, but they do remain excellent books, that engage me through the writing, the story and my involvement in making decisions. I can't wait to share them with my son and I hope he becomes an avid reader too and that he can appreciate a good illustration. Because they are wonderfully illustrated by a range of artists, their styles becoming synonymous to the artist chosen to illustrate and those styles became more and more familiar as I thumbed through the pages of different books as a teenager. The the cover art too being iconic, but to a greater degree the illustrations of the monsters, the scenes and those lovely little motifs which interspersed the chunks of texts.

Which brings me to the crux of this ramble. I now combine these two inspirations of mine (Fighting Fantasy and Citadel miniatures) to create an Oldhammer vibe and this is largley through recreating miniature versions of Fighting Fantasy illustrations using, on the whole old GW miniatures. I see this as my more mature relationship with the hobby, I certainly have more developed ideas as to what I want to do with my models and my more evolved modelling/painting skills! So here's an overview of how I've combined these influences over the past 18 months:

Bob Harvey's great inside cover illustration for Talisman of Death.

Which I used for the banner on my Cultists.

Ian Millar's iconic cover  illustration for Freeway Fighter

And here's my recreation using an 1;43 model car and some Heresy miniatures

Ian McCaig's classic illustration from Deathtrap Dungeon.

And here's what I created with a Mantic skeleton and some balsa wood

Brian William's lovely little illustration that is found on multiple pages of the Trial of Champions, breaking up the text

And here's where I used it on the banner for my bitzbox warband

And some WIP's:

Russ Nicholson illustrated the FF novel, The Trolltooth Wars and here you can see the main characters from the story.

The five figures I'll be using to create the main characters from the story, plus beast of burden. These will be used for both Dungeon exploring and then expanded into a Frostgrave warband. 

Ian Millar's familiar style (and of course a tree) which was the cover art for House of Hell

And here's the start I've made on recreating it, with a GW plastic tree (to be heavily converted with plastic bitz) and the sorcerer model which I think bares a passing resemblance to the creature in the illustration...

I've seen lots of people discuss what Oldhammer is and some people becoming quite protective and defensive about their opinions. Ultimately we all have a different perspective, for me it's quite simple. I have a hobby which  I love (it takes up way too much of my thinking time - for example I was thinking about this post soon after I was awake this morning and whilst my wife was going through some early morning logistics with me - no that's not a euphemism!) and never enough actual, practical, making and painting time. It's fun, it's nostalgic and it helps me connect with others through the amazing Blogging/Facebook Oldhammer community. I'm not great at that in real life. In fact you guys know more about this passion than anyone else - it's become a bit of a secret affair. My wife's aware but not in any way interested and my current friends have very little knowledge of it at all. The friends I shared my hobby with as a kid - well we've lost touch. So the point of this post? Well I came to a realisation that my passion for this hobby is deep-rooted in my youth and has been re-awakened in my late 30's. The things I've been creating have been deeply inspired by my love of the Fighting Fantasy books, and the Oldhammer community's love of using our favourite models from back in the day to capture that zeitgeist. And of course, in all honesty it's also a chance to create another blog post to show off my achievements with lead, plastic, glue, paints and whatever other bitz and pieces I've needed to create the images of my younger and current imagination and maybe inspire some others too.

Trolltooth Wars - Blackmane, Mantrapper, Yaztromo, Chervah (and mule)

Another new idea to disrupt the best laid plans for my ongoing, multitude of projects.... Having just finished reading the Trolltooth Wars novel for the first time since I was a young teenager; I've been inspired by the descriptions (and the wonderful illustrations by Russ Nicholson) to recreate the main, and slightly odd-looking adventuring party of the book:

Three of these miniatures are from Otherworld Miniatures, a company upon which I recently discovered, and their figures are absolutely incredible in terms of the detail, crispness of sculpt and character of personality. The mule, wizard and mercenary (he's actually a bard with his lute removed) are from their catalogue and the goblin and central figure from Citadel. Can you tell which represents who from the novel?

 I based these choices of models on the wonderfully evocative descriptions and illustrations from the novel itself. Chadda Darkmane is described as "broad shouldered", "shaggy haired" and "more of a barbarian than a knight". In the novel's illustration he is lavishly dressed and is armed with a sword and often a dagger:

 For me, as I read the novel, I imagined him less well coutured than the image above. After rummaging around my lead pile I rediscovered an older Valten model who would suffice. I've removed his dual hammers and replaced with a sword and dagger. I may well add a cloak as a nod to his status and refined dress sense.

The next adventuring character we meet in the novel, is his manservant the Chervah. Described as "short and slim, with dark skin and a large face' with "wide apart eyes and large pointed ears" my immediate thought for a model would be a gnome of some description. However the pointy ear reference led me more toward a goblinoid.

 Again he is dressed all fancily, so i took this into account with the goblin I chose. I will sculpt some pointy boots on and will probably remove the goblin's teeth. You may ask why I have chosen a model with a bow, well later on in the novel the Chervah tries to slay a skunkbear with a crossbow, but I don't own a crossbow goblin and may well convert him with the addition of a plastic one. Of course being adventurers travelling around Allansia, the manservant will need to have a mule for all his provisions.

Next up is the enigmatic mercenary Jamut Mantrapper who is first encountered in a tavern. He is described as a "well-dressed man... with broad shoulders... owning a sword with an ornate hilt hung by his side". In addition the illustration shows him sporting a tash:

Finally we meet the last adventurer Yaztromo (although he never leaves his tower in the story) but every party needs a magician. When first encountered he is described as an old wizard, "his clothes were well worn, even bordering on the ragged. His red robe had holes in the elbows and faded streaks down the creases" (this excerpt will certainly help the painting stage). He is illustrated here in his tower with all the party together:

He also owns a crow named Vermithrax, which I may well add to the model's staff (I have one from the mounted Nurgle Lord somewhere).

So totally inspired by the novel, I've given myself another project to undertake. It may be on hold for a little while as other projects are more pressing, but I've made a start with collecting the necessary miniatures. These will all be based with flagstones, so as to fit into my dungeon tiles.



ps. an illustration of how addictive I find this hobby. My mind starting wandering to other adventuring parties which I could create, again based on characters from my youth. I ended up researching He-Man and his mates and now have some miniatures earmarked (in fact on a wish list) from Heresy Miniatures and some conversion ideas noted onto my iphone! I've had to have a word with myself and promise that I won't buy them/start them until this adventuring party is complete... Do I have the discipline I ask myself??

Thanks for reading and as usual, watch this space...

The addiction: holiday hobby purchases and how there's just not enough time

I've been away on holiday in Kefalonia for the past two weeks, which means a complete break from converting and painting, but of course not from planning and collecting, which may be the more time consuming part of the hobby anyway... In between reading books around the pool and testing my engineering skills when building sand castles and moats on the beach with the kids (and once without the kids),  and all the other usual family holiday shenanigans, I occasionally logged onto a weak and intermittent wifi connection and accumulated some stuff, ready for my return home to wet England....

And on my return I realised that I bought a whole lot more than I usually would over a fortnight period and that the excesses and addictions of my hobby are never more apparent than when I'm away from the physical models themselves.:

My trove of Oldhammer hobby goodness. I found it harder to keep check of my purchases whilst on holiday (the same goes for the amount of meals we ate out etc), my natural inclination to reign in any superfluous spending just disappears on holiday. The only saving grace is that these were all pretty cheap purchases and I console myself that there will be many future hours of enjoyment from them, even if storage for my hobby is becoming rather tight..

A blast from the past for me here; back in the day I borrowed this from the local library (as I did for most of my reading and I used to use up all of my maximum of eight loans - usually at least one of those would be a fighting fantasy book!) This purchase was entirely inspired by the excellent blogging at Somewhere the tea's getting cold where the narrative of the book have been recreated in a skirmish battle. How fuckin' cool and pure Oldhammer is that!

And even more background reading. The cover art reminds me,; I must try and get hold of that mohawked ogre. The wife's away for a few days next week, so this will be my bedtime reading and I n her absence I won't have to worry about funny comments about my reading material or awkward page turning of a larger book.. Can't wait to get stuck into this though..

Some detailed scenery for my dungeon tile project - these are all from  dark-art-studios and on display here are some sarcophagi, treasure chests/piles, barrels and skull piles. Really looking forward to painting these up and adding some character and narrative to my dungeon.

5" Greek cake pillars obviously. These are also for my dungeon project, I'm intending to use these in the throne room , some of them will probably become ruined by chopping and cutting. I'll likely get some smaller ones too and add models on top to make statues.

A .99p Goblin. It's one that I had leading my Gobbo unit back when I had my original 80's army. Obviously I needed him back, perhaps to lead a warband (which would then obviously lead to me re-purchasing my entire 80's O&G army... must stop my project ideas...)

However I'm also excited by the promise that these purchases provide, there's a whole load of hobby projects just waiting to be worked on here, mostly for my dungeon tiles but also just for some background reading too. Oh, but I'm back at work on Tuesday :( , so I guess they will all be joining the backlogged and lengthening queue then as term time comes around again and my new teaching job starts. Yikes, which distracts from which??