On the Boil: New Oldhammer Blogs

Rogue Trader Space Marine - by Quindia Studios

Good morning all! Now as many of you know, from time to time I like to share some of the great Oldhammer blogs and groups I stumble across. In truth, I haven't actually done much Oldhammering lately, largely due to the re-emergence of another long time interest of mine - classic Dr Who (I am watching all of the old episodes in order on DVD) as well as me tinkering once more in the world of Skyrim. 

But the following publications have made it through the fog and I think that readers of this blog may well be interested in these other sites. 

Stro'Knor Macekiller: Oldhammer and Rogue Trader by Quindia Studios

http://macekiller.blogspot.co.uk/ is the new blog from the character behind Quinda Studios, Clarence Harrison, focuing on just his old school collection. Now anyone you have previously checked out Harrison's work will know just how good his painted minis are. They perfectly capture the 'feel' of the age they were created yet often exhibit more modern painting techniques. 

The brilliant (proper, in my book) space marine that opens this post can be found here alongside a number of other fantastic and familiar models from '80s Citadel.

Here, have a look at this one... 

I love the mushrooms, don't you?

Or these classic Bob Olley beastman sculpts with modern shields. These days, its fashionable, not to mention faster, to paint models in a uniform way, and sadly this rule is even used to work up creatures of chaos - who are supposed to be chaotic!! The mix of schemes and shield here really meshes the unit together and though the colours vary, they seem to be coherent unit. 

Just follow the link above, or reproduced here to check out some more excellent models from Clarence Harrison. 

http://macekiller.blogspot.co.uk/

He of Three Names

http://heofthreenames.blogspot.co.uk/ sees Bulldoglopez launch his new blog. It is really very early days here, with just three posts at the time of writing but there is some real potential at work. Clearly the focus here is not straight painting but encompasses more of an Oldhammer lifestyle approach, similar to this blog. 

Check out these WIP dark elves!

I am really impressed with this scheme, and though not yet complete, the chosen colours really lift the detail on these miniatures and give the unit a military feel. There are, of course, whiffs of Slaanesh about the pastel shades, but worship of that particular god is always welcome with these types of troops. 

As I said, there is not yet much to see here but hopefully with a little bit of support this blog can grow and become another must-see stop off on your Oldhammer journey. 

http://heofthreenames.blogspot.co.uk/

One Hundred and Fifty One Reasons

http://151reasons.blogspot.co.uk/ is another VERY new blog in the Oldhammer Community.  It is written by the a gentleman who wishes to be known as Frocker151 and appears to be focusing on Rogue Trader and 40k. You see, its not just fantasy around here you know? 

There are some lovely painted genestealer classic models up here at the moment but at the time of writing just TWO followers. I am sure that readers of this blog can do something about that, can't you?

Orlygg

On The Boil: Curtis Fell's RoC Warband Experiences

Curtis's Tzeentch warband in all its glory. 

One of the more rewarding aspects of being a blogger is interacting with your readers. Its always a pleasure to read the emails you send me or the many Facebook messages. Occasionally, these discussions and communications are worth sharing with a wider audience - hence the creation of the 'On The Boil' articles I put on on this blog. 

Today we hear from Curtis Fell, who is probably well known to many of you through the Facebook Community group. We got chatting at BOYL '14 and Curtis agreed to send through a missive concerning his recent endeavours with his gaming group. Now, I feel that was Curtis has to say is a perfect example of 'Oldhammer Gaming'. That its a mindset not a ruleset that defines us. I must admit that I did not feel this way in the early days, back then Oldhammer was for me playing Third Edition Warhammer with period Citadel miniatures. But I am not self obsessed or arrogant to suggest that 'my version' is any better or any worse than anyone else's 'version' of the Oldhammer experience. 

Curtis has his own personal ideas of what he wants to achieve, and very much like the best of us, just gets on with the business of collecting, painting, interacting and playing to worry about writing long pseudo-intellectual wafflings. What follows is a really clear explanation about how Curtis' group used the rules they felt most appropriate, alongside the models they were keen to use, to create a positive outcome. It makes a jolly good read...

Orlygg

"When I got back to the UK about 8 months ago I wanted to play some games. Where I live in Nottingham is a really cool bunch of gamer guys. The ones I end up playing with are into old school gaming, most are mid 20s-30s and have been playing for 10 years or more. They also helped me playtest Nuclear Renaissance, so I think they are good and fun gamers. They do tend to lean towards the beardy in terms of power gaming, but in a really fun way. They do put the right models on the table, sometimes even finished! So the game we agreed to play was Realm of Chaos, using the Rogue Trader rules.

I always play Tzeentch so generated an appropriate champion and retinue. I got ridiculously good rolls! My champion started with a horrible 3 chaos attributes, but they all rolled up amazing profiles. Chaos Lord is obviously an awesome mutation. I got a nice suit of mithril as the magical item Tzeentch champions get. However, the headless attribute means you can't wear armour. So a powerful character but with a cool weakness: no armour allowed!

Beautiful painting on these beastmen figures.

I think I then rolled some Dark Elves, some Beastmen and a Hydra, so that was the initial warband. The troll came later as did the harpies. I still have the 5 Dwarves to finish. 

I guess I should step in with a bit of an exposition on house rules at this point.We allow any roll on the retinue table to be swapped for a roll on the Universal creatures table (my second favourite table, after the mutations!). One guy rolled up dragon on the list, I got a Hydra, but you usually end up with a low level human. 

We were playing warbands using Rogue Trader (RT), and the equipment chart and rules are a bit ropey to say the least. We agreed to only allow assault cannons on terminator armour, as they are beastly wepons. 

The champion model is an imaginative conversion. This figures need to be unique, though use of vintage Citadel is not a non-negotiable.

Vortex Grenades were out, but we agreed that once a grenade was bought, your character kept it for the entire campaign. Grenades are a paint to use anyway, but have really fun results. The toxin and virus grenades being the most deadly. We fiddled a bit with the rules on saves vs virus and toxin. In the rules you get basically no save against them, and no roll to wound, so we gave breathing masks a save and sealed suits a better one. We also over turned the rule that jump packers could drop grenades willy nilly. Also the blind grenades meant you had to invest in photo visors and such like!

We allowed players sell equipment that thier followers have and buy new stuff. We started by letting players sell the items on the fantasy table, then buy new equipment on the sci-fi table, but this quickly degenerated into the idea that you could buy anything from either table. In RT armour stacks, so mesh and flack is fine for a 4+ save. But then we allowed it to stack with plate, chain, power and shields. Ridiculous, but when one of the other champions was wielding a deamon sword with a deamon prince in also wielding a deamon sword with a deamon prince in also wielding a deamon sword with a deamon prince in or virus grenades you start to not worry about a minus 3 or up save....

Dark Elves - or Dark Eldar I suppose!

The models I managed to scrouge up were a bunch of Lord of the Rings plastics, necron arms, a heavy bolter, back packs and bits of plasticard and house hold detritus. The disk is a washer. 

The champion is an Ubashi I think from the tomb kings range. I cut off his head as the champ has the headless mutation. I used the head as his las pistol (lazer eyes!). Its a cool model, I just had to sculpt the hand. 

The Hydra is an incomplete tyranid carnifex. I sculpted the tentacles, saggy bits and a strange human mouth to be suitably Tzeenchian. 

The troll is totally scratch built. I didnt get a good photos of his back, but he has a grafted on frenzon dispenser, which the champion has a remote control for. This means he is no longer subject to stupidity as he is frenzied all the time! Hurrah for the future when we no longer have to suffer the inane whims of stupid trolls!

Scratch-built Disc of Tzeentch

The harpies were the most fun to do. My friend Lex is a jeweler, but also plays alot of board and card games, so is quite into models without actually wanting to do it as a hobby. So I gave her a bunch of bits, some putty , sprue and a sculpting too and persuaded to get her to make one. I then used equivelent bits and made my own version (mine is the one with the jump pack, hers the wings). I love her model as its coming from a person who is really talented at small sculpting work, yet never tries to make odd, figurative fantasy models from the 80s! What a cool result I think, and fits in with my totally strange warband.

I want to again stress that I was just moving and so my model making kit was stored or in transit. I had to beg up the models off the gaming group and then buy the cheapest paints and brushes to do the job. I live near a large Hobby craft, and so bought their cheap acrylic. I bought black, white, yellow, very dark blue, day glow pink, day glow blue and a light gold. There were awful paints! They really lacked pigment, so were really thin and watery. The metallic was the worst of the lot, containing very little actual metal pigment!  I also got a pack of cheap brushes. They are great! About £3 for a set of 3. They hold thier point well and are just the right softness.

Beautifully modelled harpies. Outstanding, don't you think?

I had to work out a method of painting that would work on the miniatures, while still being in the style of figure painting, but with really strange paints. What I ended up doing was drybrushing the bare models white. THe champion was already undercoated in black, so the white went over that. Most of the other models were grey plastic or grey putty (ProCreate). I also used a tooth brush to start building texture at this stage. I flicked on some white.

When this was dry, I then went onto using the pigment-poor paint as a glaze to colour the gray to white tone I put on in the first stage. A glaze is a bit like a wash, but you try to get the paint to spread evenly and thinly. This stains the area in your glaze colour. After this I applied more white,  and again another layer of colour glaze. I also painted on several layers of the metal colour on the metal areas. Again, this shows the white through, so gives tonal range.

A gruesome hydra!

After this stage, I went a bit crazy with the tooth brush, splattering everything in pink and blue splatters. Great fun and adds a weird other world texture. When dry I carefully painted in all the lining and shadows with the dark blue. 

The final stage was a pass with the white highlights again and paint in all the details. 

The campaign didnt last for a huge amount of time, maybe a couple of months. However, towards the end there was a huge disparity between the warbands, with some being really weak and others (like mine) very powerful. However, I think the game still works. I played alot of warbands when it initially came out, so have been playing it for many years. To play a game means to have a fun time, and I want to field this warband in a ways that make it fun for my opponents. An easy way to do this is to only go into games with a part of my force. Another way is to play games where there is an objective that weight of numbers or hitting power does not factor in.I intend to continue with this warband for the foreseeable future. I'm well up for some 40k realm of chaos if anyone wants to have a go!"

A troll!

Curtis Fell

On the Boil: New Oldhammer Blogs and Miniature Swapping!

Back so soon you are asking? Well, that is because in recent days we have seen a explosion in the amount of good and potentially good blogs out there and as ever, I am keen to support them and encourage as much as my readership to join them as possible. 

Painted Lead Miniatures

First up the new personal painting blog of our good Oldhammer friend, Marcus Ansell. His blog has not been up for long but it already has plenty of interesting stuff worth exploring, most notably this excellent rendition of the classic Talisman Minstrel. 

Painting with the Foundry System (alongside a few W&S inks his dad gave him) Marcus produces bright, sharp models which 'pop' with detail. Obviously, working at the Foundry and living on top of the most exciting collection of toy soldiers in the world means that this blog is certainly one to watch. After all, who knows what might be posted up next?

Hopefully, some more Talisman figures. 

http://paintedleadminiatures.blogspot.co.uk/

Oldhammer Melbourne

Nathan Firth has been a regular contributor to the Facebook Group for some time now and he has recently started up a blog. He has even gone as far as accepting my challenge of coming up with his Ultimate Oldhammer Moment. He is clearly grappling with the system, though his photography is rapidly improving and I can share with you some of his chaos miniatures below! 

Check out Nathan's blog here http://oldhammermelbourne.blogspot.co.uk/

As with all of the blogs I try and promote, please do visit and if possible click the Followers link (either the old one or the newer, Google+ thing) as traffic, comments and page views really do inspire our colleagues to paint, play and collect more. Its in our own interest, as then the Oldhammer blogosphere is permanently full of exciting reading for us all to enjoy! 

Miniature Swapping

What do you think of this beauty, eh? Its a Elf wardancer and looks like it was painted by me doesn't it? But you would be wrong, its a gift from a Spanish Oldhammer friend of my, Luife Lopez. We have carried out a 'miniature swap' and its something that I would like to do again with as many people as possible really. 

The premise is simple. You paint a model for a Oldhammer friend, putting all of your skill into it, and post it off while at their end they are doing the same. The result, a new miniature in the collections of two Oldhammerers. Talking to Andy Craig over the years has shown that this was once common practice within the famous Design Studio and among the elite '80s painting circles - Fraser Gray etc. 

As a bonus he also sent a few extras. Namely a modern plastic Plaguebearer and a Psychostyrene Dwarf. The dwarf has a rather expertly shaded shield which has inspired me to try out a simple technique on one of my own. That is the beauty of swapping models with other painters, you get to really study their ideas and techniques, which in turn inform your own. 

If anyone else fancies doing a miniature swap please get in touch and we can arrange something. they really are great fun and worthy of your time! Email me at realmofchaos80s@yahoo.co.uk. 

As a final bonus, Luife also included a sculpted Tzeentch disc for me! It was something that I was not expecting and was a real surprise when I opened up the packet this yesterday! 

On the Boil: Emails, Gifts and Great Links

The summer is nearly over and the stark reality of having to return to work looms large. Actually, I have already been into school to work with my colleagues on our classroom as well as sorting out a few details with the other teacher, Catherine, who I share a Year 2 class with. I also teach a day in Year 5 and a day in Year 6, and I was pleased to be reminded that most of these children will be away on the School Journey for the first week or so at school, leaving the remaining children with a project to complete. The school has chosen Australia as a topic and after the Site Manager scavenged some 44 high quality tiles from the skip I decided on teaching the children to create aboriginal style artworks on them. 

What that and a two week mini project with the Year 2s about the dinosaurs I can imagine myself being pretty busy in the coming weeks. You may have noticed a sharp increase in the amounts of posts I am putting out (but perhaps not in actual quality (: ) as the holidays provide plenty of time. Sadly, things will slown down from here but I will try and blog at least a couple of times a week. 

Something else that I often cannot find time to do, largely because I check them just before big, is respond to the many emails that I receive from you readers. I read them all, but sometimes struggle to respond to you all, so I have decided to do an irregular posting of the best of my emails in an attempt to answer you personally, and to share many of the stories that can past on to me. 

I also hope to use the opportunity to share the other bits and bobs of Realm of Chaos 80s news too, that would be otherwise too small to share in a post of their own. 

Long term students of White Dwarf may also recognise the title of this post and I hope it amuses you!

Right, to the emails first!

Dear Orlygg - 

Just a little while ago, I read on Realms of Chaos 80s that you would consider reviewing new Oldhammer blogs. I'd be very happy if you'd take a look at my new site -- it is:

www.oldenhammer.com

Any feedback that you have would be much appreciated - I'm pretty new to the miniature blogging business and am still figuring a lot of things out (hence the recent posts on miniature photography). I'm just about to start a series about my Oldhammer orc army.

Incidentally, I wanted to thank your for your site. It's a real service to the hobby. It's especially true for all the interviews you've done with the greats from Citadel's past. It's a true oral history of the hobby. As someone who lives outside of Britain and doesn't get a chance to meet any of these guys at conventions, it's a real pleasure to get these insights and memories.

Matthew

Thank you Matthew for those kind words of support and I am glad you enjoyed the interviews I have done. I am just in the process of completing a new one with Oldhammer favourite, Tony Yates, who has a collection of models to rival Bryan's, with many of them originals that he has made himself. So look out for that in the coming days! I would also love to interview Bob Naismith and Nigel Stillman, so if anyone knows of their contact details please do send them on to me! 

Reading through your blog it seems to me that you don't really need any help at all. You have a great mix of factual posts and painted material. And that painted material is excellent, and your minor conversions really bring the word of Third Edition to life! I also enjoyed reading the theory behind your approach to painting and its clear that you put a great deal more effort into 'thinking' about the miniatures you paint than I do! 

I am sure that the two teaser pictures I have posted up as headers to this letters will draw plenty of new followers towards your blog. All that is left to be said is 'keep up the good work' and I look forwards to reading your next installments. 

Hi there,

Its a lovely wet bank holiday here in London, and I thought I would send an email to thank you for all the hard work that has clearly been put into your fantastic website - what a great source of information and nostalgia! The interviews with the old GW guys are great.

I got into 40k (mainly painting the miniatures) as an 11 year old in about 1994 (eg the period where everything seemed constantly in transition with all the mixed metal/plastic figures, and barely any variation in poses). An older cousin gave me his copy of Rogue Trader - as well as a few WD's from about 1991 which I have kept ever since, was at the time blown away by it. Despite seeming a world away in style by that time it was of course far more "grown up" and sci fi. Reading it kind of made the current stuff feel instantly far too serious yet also rather childish and I lost interest completely after a couple years. 

I picked up the book again about a year back and thought it would be a lot of fun to start a little collection again only this time with all the models that back in the day were already discontinued. Your site, and a lot of the sites linked from it have been invaluable in inspiring getting back into painting, It had not occurred to me that there would be such a wealth of interest in the old school stuff out there.  

Have built up a decent amount of old school marines, love the original dreadnought model. Perhaps they can be played somewhere one day If I can get my head round the rules again!  Painted them in a (I think?) suitably old fashioned comic bookish style :) Used a mix of the old hexagonal pot citadel found in the loft, as well as some new Coat d'Arms paints which I did not know were available until I read your blog. 
      
Again, thank you for all the effort put into the site - it is excellent.

All the best

Owen

Owen, I think your story is a similar one to many. A brief, candlelight bright period of youthful interest followed by a shift of interests to beers and girls. Once sanity returns, the old interests come creeping back and suddenly you are spending hundreds of pounds a month on eBay on little lead men. You are also right about many people not knowing about the interest in old school Citadel stuff, in fact all of us can probably remember asking the question 'am I the only one left who likes this stuff?'. Having had a hand in the building of the Oldhammer Community I often wonder what it must feel like to spend years in the wilderness collecting and enjoying old school Citadel stuff, only to discover Oldhammer for the first time. Hopefully, the feeling is akin to walking into the fantasy shops of yore back in the 1980s! 

I am also glad you have found out about the Coat d'Arms range from Black Hat miniatures. I use these paints quite often and always spend some time at Salute chasing up the colours I need. I can also recommend the Foundry paint system too, so if your are after a new colour I would suggest trying out their range too! 

Hello Orlygg,

I hope you don’t mind me using your ‘Do you recognize this clock’ mail to contact you. First off thanks for your website and all the obvious love and hard work poured into it. I love reading up on all the old memories and even bought a new Man Mangler to replace the one I sold off years ago, just might turn into another ‘Olderhammer’ person (as soon as I find the time). Also a million thanks for the post showing the original miniatures in Bryan Ansell’s house. That post was just – for lack of a better description – an epic walk through nostalgia.

Anyway, the reason I contact you is your post on the Eldar concept artwork. Your scans are rather bad and I have the issue on the shelf (WD124/April 1990). Since these drawings managed to inspire a lifelong Eldar obsession in me, I thought it might be nice to get you some better scans. Attached are small versions of the scans, you can get a zip-file with the large versions from my Dropbox here:https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/26821718/Eldar%20concept%20artwork.zip. I hope you enjoy this and once again thanks for your website (and sorry for potentially abusing the mail-address mentioned on it).

Best regards,

Merijn Gelens

Thank you so much for the much better scans of these lovely pages. I have shared them here so fans can have a better look and I will change the images on my post shortly. I am glad that you enjoyed the trip through Stoke Hall, and I can tell you that there was an deep sense of awe in all of the Oldhammerers who got the chance to do so. I can say, that the photographs you saw are only the tip of the iceburg when it comes to Bryan's collection. Some of the key pieces have been catalogued by Steve Casey over on Eldritch Epistles and his site is well worth a visit if you haven't already. I am sure there will be plenty more of this collection to admire in the coming years. 

Hi,

Just wanted to drop you a message of congrats on your blog anniversary.  I started collecting in about 1986, and although I see myself as a reasonably accomplished painter (not quite at your levels, but not terrible either), and also am an awful self-motivator.  Many ideas running through my head for my several thousand models, but never getting around to any of them.

Then, I stumbled onto the Oldhammer Forum, and soon after, your blog.  Since then, I've cataloged my 3rd Edition Chaos stuff (for insurance purposes), and cleaned up/based about 30 of them, ready for priming.  Momentum is building.  The sheer number of models you've painted in 3 years is fantastic and I've realized that I only need to finish a model a week to get a good start on a solid army.

On the topic of Chaos, do you have any specific blog pages you could point me to that would have better pictures of a couple of the models that you show on your shelf?  Namely your Skrag, and the Nurgle Champ called Voight.  I am looking to paint my warriors in plain silver armor, with some chequerboard patterns, and only the Champs being in God colors.  If you have any other models done this way, I would be interested in them also.

Thanks,

Colin

Okay Colin, I have selected four models from my collection that seem to fit your criteria, including Skrag and Voight. Its very tempting to just paint a model silver, wash over with black and then drybrush over the top with a lighter silver, but then I haven't really got a good result out of this method. I tend to darken my base down with black and coat the entire model with this, and then highlight the armour up again in much the same way as I do with other colours of armour. I always save by sharpest silver for painting the extreme edges of the armour plate.

I have also experimented with glaze washes over the top of painted armour. Blue and green inks if suitably watered down can result in some great finishes - in fact now that I am thinking about it, Skrag was completed with a blue glaze.

Have a look at this photo for some inspiration!

Right, next up are some new miniatures for my collection. As you will know, I have but a ban on eBaying until I have painted loads more of my miniatures. Trades are fine, though I shall allow buying essential things like shields, paints and brushes and things like that online. Well over the last couple of weeks I have picked up some interesting pieces.

First of all I would like to thank the fine gentleman who gifted me the model Ambull you can see in the photograph below. We have met at both of the Oldhammer Weekends and enjoyed a great chat but I cannot remember his name at all! If you are the pleasant chap who donated this fine miniature please get in touch so I can thank you properly!

Secondly, I am just in the process of completing a trade with Simon Jones from the Facebook Group. My Chaos Dwarf crossbow unit will be receiving some re-enforcements now, hopefully in time for the Halloween game, with four new models to join the unit. A fifth is undercoated and ready for painting. And finally, I picked up these lovely metal shields for £1.50 elsewhere and the seller was kind enough to include some plastic Marauder shields for free! You have gotta love those old Citadel metal shields!

Finally, I have just received these characterful banners in the post from Spain of all places! They are great fun and would certainly suit a Nurgle champion or Daemonic power and make up part of my 'painted by other people' section of my painted miniature collection. These were painted by Luife Lopez and are the first part of  a little parcel he sent me. Hopefully, the miniatures will arrive in the near future too!

Talking about Spain, I have had a request from Carlos Pantojo Martinez to suggest you all visit his blog, OldhammerSpain in the near future. Its Spanish language but very easy to translate using the Google tool to do so. 

Expect some excellently painted miniatures with an emphasis on classic Realm of Chaos era models, as well as some classic dwarfs! 

Enjoy

Thank you to all of you who have contacted me over the years and I apologise for the tardiness of my replies sometimes. Hopefully, this new 'One the Boil' idea will encourage me to respond a little faster and share your stories too! So if you haven't a blog, don't care to comment but what to share your story, your photographs or some one trinket (no Ray-Bans please) that you think your fellow readers may enjoy. Then drop me a line to the usual place - realmofchaos80s@yahoo.co.uk

Orlygg