Rescuing Some Old Orcs

I’m continuing to plough through a selection of old Citadel C series Orcs and have know almost painted up enough for two 20 strong units of orcs to form the core of my Oldhammer army. The miniatures have mostly come from eBay with a few from other second hand dealers. Collecting old OOP miniatures can get expensive, especially from eBay sellers who sell individual miniatures already stripped, I certainly can’t afford to be paying £10-15 per miniature for grunts to fill up units. To get more bang for your buck the best deals are the multi miniatures lots usually covered in a, 30 year old, layer of badly applied, thick paint. Inevitably these lots come with a few miniatures that are damaged.

Commonly on, old, soft metal miniatures, of this era it’s the weapons that are broken followed by snapped legs. All the miniatures below had damaged or missing weapons but I didn’t fell like that needed to be terminal. I broke out the bits box and found alternatives or converted them in to standard bearers (of which there was a surprising lack in the early 1980s citadel lines Harboth’s boys having the only pre-slotta orc standard miniature made) I used my Pin vice and some steel rod and made sure I pinned any new additions.

1. this orc originally came with some sort Plumbata ( a military throwing Dart popular in late Roman armies) and interesting choice of orc weapon. mine had the ended snapped off so he got a nice spear instead.

2. Another Orc that once had Plumbata (I can only assume the Perry twins were collecting a late roman army at the time they sculpted these orcs) This one had a damaged hand so in the end I removed it and replaced with hand holding a Falchion. Surprisingly other than the dart this orc had no other weapons so now he has something to hit people with.

3. This old armoured orc once had a massive mace the head of which was missing. As I already had a second complete version of this miniature I decided to give this one an axe head from my bits box.

4. This is another old armoured orc but this one was missing his hand axe I thought the pose would suit a standard bearer so I fashioned one from some spare steel spears the banner is hand painted in what I hope is 80s Oldhammer style.

5. This last orc was supposed to have a halberd but again the business end of the weapon was missing leaving him with just a stick. The pose seemed perfect for a standard bearer so I cut out the old halberd drilled out his hands and added another steel spear banner. Again I hand painted the banner using a classic orc motif of a bad moon.

I’ll finish of with a group shot. I’m pretty pleased with how these guys turned out with only a little bit of work they are ready to “Pulp some Stunties”.

Notlob’s Orcish Bolt Throwing Engines

Carrying on with my efforts to build some Green skins to use with 2nd (or 3rd) edition WFB I give you Notlob and his bolt throwers. You can read all about about Notlob here

http://www.solegends.com/citrr/1rr14notlobs/index.htm

I have read, though I don’t know how true it is, that GW staff named Notlob from Monty Python’s dead parrot sketch. and lets face Bolton is quite an apt name for an Orcish engineer who likes bolt throwers.

My unit actually has two more crew than the original regiment and uses the later C22/27 bolt thrower models the early version of the bolt throwers being far simpler models. The story with Notlob’s and the latter C22 orc bolt throwers, as far a I can work out, is that the Perry twins sculpted the original regiments miniatures in 1985. Later in 1986 Kev Adams was given the job of updating the miniatures using the Perry’s original models as a base at this point the bolt thrower models were also updated and the bolt throwers and crews were then sold as C22/27 Orc Bolt Thrower

http://www.solegends.com/citc/c022orcboltt/index.htm‘

Interestingly, something of a rarity for a Regiments of Renown, Notlob actually had some special rules, in 2nd edition WFB, which make him and his unit rather decent.

“Notlob himself is an Orc Major Hero. He is also an extraordinary engineer, and counts as a full crew of 3 when firing a war-engine. In addition, any other engine in his unit can +1 to their normal ‘to hit’ score with war engines.”

Return of the King…

….. No not that woose Aragorn but the most famous Goblin king (and his Guard) the Known world has ever seen Grom! Continuing my quest to build an Orc and Goblin army for WFB 2nd edition I’ve painted up these original 1984 solid base version of Grom’s Goblin Guard which you can find out more about here

http://www.solegends.com/citrr/1rr03groms/index.htm

According to the the original Regiment of Renown description there is no uniformity among the regiment so I’ve tried to paint them that way with a mix of skin tones and shield designs. I still need to source the units musician hopefully one will turn up on eBay at some point.

Finally I have to give out a shout to the regimental standard bearer for the most ludicrous (see picture 6) standard design ever….

Geriatric Orcs Get a New Lease of Life

Nostalgia can be a powerful thing which probably explains why I’ve recently ended up buying several batches of 1980s lead on eBay. In this particular case is was some citadel C series/Fantasy Tribes Orcs circa 1983-1986 see the links below from stuff of legends.

armoured orcs

Slotta base orcs

I had several of these miniatures the first time around (when they cost a massive 50p each) but back then I couldn’t paint for toffee. These days, while I’m no pro painter, I can at least get the paint in the right place so I was keen to slap some paint on these old minis in a way my 10 year old self couldn’t manage. When you first view these old minis in the flesh you could be forgiven for thinking they aren’t up to much. Once you get some paint on them you release that despite their age they are really nice sculpts which shouldn’t be a surprise when you release these are early Perry brothers work. Anyway here are my painting attempts.

Being Dragged Back into the Grimdark’

A little while since I last posted I have been doing hobby stuff I just hadn’t really done much I thought was worth posting. I’ve recently been trying out painting miniatures in oil paints so hopefully I’ll do a post on that soon. However the last few weeks have seen me get back into one of my first gaming loves warhammer 40K thanks to the, recently released Imperium magazine. I’ve started painting 40K miniatures again and I have to admit I’m loving it so much so I’ve resurrected my old 40K blog as a place to show them.

I know 40K is it not everyone’s cup of tea but if it interests you feel free to pop over and have a look

https://diablocrusade.wordpress.com/

Something a bit different – Sludge

I recently came across a game called Sludge on the internet. In a nutshell Sludge is a post apocalyptic, black powder fantasy game (that covers a few bases). There is a web page here with a fuller explanation here https://relicblade.com/sludge

The background sounded interesting to me but what really appealed was the kit bashing of historical miniatures to make fantasy post apocalyptic miniatures. It looked like so much fun I thought I’d jump in and have a go. First problem was, despite having an extensive bits box, a lack of suitable base miniatures. I eventually found three Foundry Napoleonic infantry men, that had been sent as freebies with my orders over the years, and set about converting them to look more post apocalyptic. A couple of head swaps latter and with some suitably dirty paint jobs and I had these three guys.

These were a fun little distraction, that scratched an itch, and for now that’s enough. I do think with all the plastic kits out there now you could have some real fun with kit bashing Sludge miniatures. So it’s something that has found its way on to, the rather long, things I’d like to do in the future list.

Elephant Grass

Now I’ve got my wargames room back I decided to have a bit of a simple scenery bash, today, and make some new Elephant grass for my African gaming boards. I’ve tried to make Elephant grass before and although I quite liked the results it was a rather involved process which took a long time.

In reality battlefields in Africa, with Elephant grass, are covered in the stuff and you need rather a lot of model grass so I needed to find a simpler way of making elephant grass. As the name suggests Elephant grass is big, growing 12-14 feet high, and battles that took place among such grass saw the protagonists literally fighting blind.

So to represent this giant grass I went for the easy option of gluing, with my hot glue gun, plastic Aquarium grass, supplied by my local pet shop in a a foot square matt for £7.99, to bases and spraying it various shades of green and brown. Then I added some flock to the bases to match my terrain boards and done. You really can’t get a much easier terrain project. I made three decent sized clumps but I think I need to build several more to produce a really big area of grass perfect for ambushes.

My Wargames room – Part 6

After several weeks of work my wargames room makeover is finally finished and it’s time to show it off.

This is my new gaming table a rather modest 5×4 foot but I’ve added under table storage in the form of a book case for rule books and I modified some racking shelves to store scenery on. I added an edge to help keep my terrain tiles firmly in place. I have made two of the sides adjustable with bolts and sliding brackets because on my last table the measurements where slightly off and the tiles wouldn’t fit perfectly. Now I can place the tiles on the table and clamp them in place.

I’ve also re-designed my painting modelling area to give my more space and to make it easier to find things my wife also added a new feature the sweetie box.

Overall I’m very pleased with how it turned out the lighting is much better, the floor is flat again, the new lay out gives my more space around the gaming table and I don’t think I’ve ever had my hobby so well organised. Now its time to start using my room again the first thing I want to do is finish off the other projects from the painting shelf of shame (who now live in a box of shame as the original painting shelf no long exists).

My Wargames room – Part 5

It’s been almost a month since my last post mostly because I’ve been in full DIY mode and the only painting I’ve been doing is walls and ceiling. Still with the help of number one son over a couple of weekends and with time off work this week my wargames room renovations are taking shape nicely.

The 13 year old chipboard floor has been pulled up and replaced as has the water damaged ceiling. I have new LED lights and I’ve upgrade the electrics and moved some sockets. The walls are and ceiling are now freshly painted. Next weekend should see the new flooring go down and then I can start and building a new gaming table and work bench (for painting and modelling).

Anyway a couple photos of the building site that will be shiny new wargames room soon

Portuguese Cacadores for Moçambique

A while back I posted four test models I had painted to represent Portuguese Cacadores in Africa circa late 1860s to the mid 1890s. I’ve now added eight more to make a twelve figure unit. Surprisingly despite Portugal’s long history in Africa, and being a major player in the scramble for Africa in the late 19th century, information, in English at least, is really hard to come by on the Portuguese military forces in Africa. In the end I’ve had to rely heavily on Peter Abbots OOP Foundry book on Colonial African Armies. The internet doesn’t have much info either. If you type in “Cacadores” you get lots of information on the Peninsular War if you type in “Cacadores in Africa” you get lots of pictures of moustachioed, early 1970s Portuguese’s soldiers, with machine guns neither is much help to me.

A few things come up in Abbots’s book that I’ve tried to incorporate into this unit. First the Cacadores battalions in Africa recruited both local Africans, men of mixed race, Portuguese Goans and European Portuguese, and unlike most Europeans in Africa, mixed them all up in the same units. The Cacadores were issued with traditional Brown uniforms, but where also issued with a second white uniform, black leather equipment and kepis or white havelocks. Uniformity in the colonies was very variable though due to supply issues and so men could be wearing both colours of uniform as well as civilian and native clothing. It seems the further away you moved from the coast you went the more irregular the Cacadores looked.

Of course no one makes Portuguese soldiers for Africa (apart from Eureka’s massive three miniature range of 1890s soldiers) So I’ve had to improvise by finding suitable looking miniatures in other ranges like Foundry’s old west Mexicans and Darkest Africa, Copplestone Zanzibari Regulars, Perry Egyptians and Perry War of the Triple Alliance range. For conversions Perry ACW plastic heads and their black soldiers in Kepi head sprues are really helpful.