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”.