Stargrave - Skaven are even out here?!

On the galactic highway that is outer space the crews of various ships and cruisers seek adventure, loot and a snazzy stone for warp travel, maybe.

Veer-Myn artwork from the Deadzone game.

Oh my how long has it been since I updated this blog!! what have I been up to? Well summer never lends itself to painting for me, to much to do outside and other activities. Have I painted anything you may ask, and the answer is yes but it hasn't been overly oldhammer. The most recent off the paint table are the miniatures from The Thing Board Game and Cosmic Frog but I'll save those for another day. In the meantime...

Welcome to Stargrave and my crew. A game of mercenary bands or group of disparate folk trying to get by in the unfriendly cosmos. As you can see my crew is a morphed conversion of genestealer cultists and skaven minatures.

The crew line up, loot maybe nearby to steal!

Early painting ambition and setting realistic goals.

*Note this is an old post updated with new photos and thoughts.

 It occurred to me the other day that a lot of what I see on the internet in regards to painted miniatures is often excellent and amazing. Images of hand-crafted spawning pools of chaos daemons rising from the blood pits or incredible detail on a Dwarven Lords runic hammer and armour. 

Wonderful looking clash between Tzeentch and Empire forces.

Which is great, I love being inspired by such artwork. I remember when I first got into this hobby and looking at White dwarf or a codex Eavy Metal page and going 'Wow' to myself. You know this kind of thing:

Always liked that Eldar Warlock.

But despite wanting to paint something like that myself I have never been as skilled or patient enough to get anywhere near that kind of result. So this post is more a display of hope for any aspiring miniature hobby painter that no matter what you do it can only get better and we have all had to start somewhere. Indeed welcome to crudely painted Space Crusade 1991 Space Orks.

Gold skinned orks with black teeth have yet to really take off :)

These four fine chaps have now gone to the dettol dip to be cleaned up but I thought I should take a photo of what young me thought you could do with citadels paint. 

(On the main page? Click to see more 😎)

Galvanise the memory cells with Eavy Metal!: Part 4 (White Dwarf 148)

Been a little while since we went down memory lane. Let's jump in to White Dwarf 148 and look at some of my Eavy Metal highlights that can be found within.

Another nice cover for this months magazine. That fire wizard sure knows how to boost up a sword for killing orcs. 

So after the 'making a river modelling article' we get our first Eavy Metal section with some miniatures painted by Adrian Wild. Although there are plenty of miniatures here to look over I find three that really catch my eye.

First we have the Dire Avenger Exarch one of my favourite models of all time and this one is very nicely done. Alongside a Rogue Trader Traitor Terminator. That Daemon Sword is really cool and looks like it is made of some space crystal!

Speaking of models I really like we have this Eldar Warlock with Witch Blade. I have this mini and he is a real gem. Heck I think I've used him as a Farseer he looks so good. The defiant and yet arrogant pose combined with such a slick paint job.

Next we have some Epic Space Marine coverage focusing on the Chaos army and the Daemons. 

These Chaos engines always fascinated me so many claws and scale-wise immensely large skulls. I'd be curious to see if modern 40k would reach the dizzy heights of bringing these to a 40k table (maybe forge world).

Next more Marauder Dwarves get a showcase, again they have so much character.

The bottom row of crossbows is a great little unit, all with there own unique poses and quirks, love 'em all.

We get an ad for a Games Day but it includes this nice alternative take on the Bad Moon Ork Warboss. Never really considered bad moons in orange but this really works. Also that base is really fun with the moss on rock or dead coral?

The next section features a Battle Report of the new Empire taking on an alliance of mostly Wood Elves and Dwarves. Somewhere there are a bunch of dwarves sitting around a tavern table muttering loudly about the not in my day, that young'uns are ruining the old ways and that grudges shouldn't be forgotten.

The really interesting thing about this army for me (apart from that war eagle riding elf lord) is the dwarves on the left who are painted in a black and white monochrome colour scheme. They really stand out from the much more flamboyant elves in this dubious alliance. I was hoping for more close up shots of them in the battle report but unfortunately the dwarves are not really the focus.   

So that's it for this White Dwarf, some good stuff especially if you like Empire or Chaos in Epic.

Until Next Time :)

Tzeentch Bird Demon attempts to scare an Ogryn and a Gretchin

Spring sunshine is here! I hear bird song, wait is that screaming?!

Once there was a series of greater daemons. The Bloodthirster of Khorne, canine fury with axe and whip drenched in the blood of numerous corpses. The Keeper of Secrets, seduction and terrifying beauty in the the name of Slaanesh. The Great Unclean one, Nurgle's bloating virus laden puss bag. Which of course leaves last the Tzeentch greater daemon, The Lord of Change

Bring forth the Easter Mini Eggs or suffer my wrath!! 

For me as much as I like Tzeentch the daemons of the chaos god are an odd bunch. The Flamers got all the cool abilities with the bounding leaps, jets of eldritch flames and bizarre models (I prefer the old mushrooom looking ones over the bird heads or whatever the pure magic looking new ones are supposed to be). The horrors are amusing as they divide in two like really a strange bacteria performing binary fission. Whilst the disc come across as the best form of transport for tooled up sorcerers. Yet the Lord of Change is bland rules wise (well in 3nd edition at least), just causing terror (like all the greater daemons) and having the ability to fly. Of course it can cast all the Tzeentch spells but I felt they missed a trick and could have given it something of it's own for it to stand out on it's own a bit. Like a hypnotic gaze or some sort of chameleon effect from it's feathered body

Anyway the original miniature is the last of the greater daemons I acquired. Although not the last to be painted. When it arrived from ebay it was in bad shape. The leg had broken off at the ankle and I don't know what paint was used on it but the dark navy blue colour would not shift easily.

The only photo I have of it's original condition, low quality as I had to scavenge it off the ebay sale.

Once that was all sorted out and it had an undercoat it was time to choose a colour scheme. For me it had to be mainly blue which meandered into purple, that's just how I relate to Tzeentch, but as I had been watching The Dark Crystal TV series (the cancellation is a crime) I took some inspiration from the Skeksis, particularly the Chamberlain for the head. The yellow beak and purple to red skin shading.

 hhhhhhmmmmmm

I found the model to actually be a lot of fun to paint as a bird like creature isn't my usual area of painting, all those orks get in the way. The thing is the actual pose of this Daemonic Bird is kind of surprised which can make for interesting photo options. Thus instead of the usual photo stylings the photos here will be the Bird interacting with other miniatures I have painted up.

You are under arrest for crimes against the Emperor! 

As you can see he's a loony looking bird daemon, especially on his left side with that big eyeball. I tried to go with a more eagle bird of prey looks for the legs. The mushroom on the base was just some spare green stuff I needed to use up. As you can see we also have a Frateris Milita chap with an autopistol I have painted. I have no sisters of battle army for him but I have use for him in Stargrave so he got a lick of paint recently. 

Keep going, click the 'read more' there are many more photos.

Chaos Ogre from the Northern Wastes

Hey oldhammer fans, it is time for another classic ogre to get a showcase on my blog. This is the first Jes Goodwin ogre I obtained many moons ago off eBay but it always came across as quite an intimidating figure to paint up. Mostly down to this particular ogre not being painted up much if at all in the pages of White Dwarf.

The Chaos Ogre is an interesting miniature, clad in some sort of armour with that massive face being the focal point of the miniature. Also this ogre has an added of challenge of needing a shield. A large shield at that.

Gonna smash those humans right out of that fort!

One issue I had was what paints I was even going to use on this ogre. With no particular theme to my band of ogres/ogryns I decided to go a bit mad with reds, greens and metals. His actual clothes beneath the armour is a leathery dark red. The armour started out as being just a classic silver/grey but this looked a bit drab so I started adding a bronze and metallic green to parts of the plating. 

Ogre artwork, not a huge amount out there but this one is fun.

The real fun was the face. The horns were simple enough but in the end I went for a violent furious looking red with some golden orange hair for the face itself.

Bring forth the Giant!

Winter has come and the light begins to fade in the early afternoon. On the horizon a huge shadow looms out of the murk!

Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an elaborately armoured ogre?! 

Holy crap it's the Marauder Giant!! Yep despite being firmly a Warhammer 40k painter, I do occasionally dabble in the fantasy side of things and this is one of the few models from the fantasy side of things I acquired in the 90s that didn't have something to do with Orks, Chaos, Eldar or Tyranids.

I do have some marauder trollslayers, perhaps they could be painted soon.

Look at this wonderful model. I think anyone who saw this back when it was released surely must have wanted one. The sheer amount of metal makes the giant a hefty model and the features like the barrel and the small sword and shield are great features.

A blurry shot of what the original painting was like for him.

The original paint I gave the giant was an all navy blue tunic and a very red haired face, it was kind of basic but I liked what I did at the time. As my skills increased painting wise I always though I could do better so I decided to redo the Giant. 

“HAIL TO THE KING, BABY”

There is a series of horror movies (and a tv show) that hold a special place in my heart. They are not super scare fests or serious, but they are very entertaining, full of gore, splatter and funny. I am naturally talking about the Evil Dead franchise.

Over the course of three* movies and a TV series Ash Williams (played by the icon of B-movie cinema Bruce Campbell) gets dragged through hell and back after reading from The Necronomicon: The Book of the Dead. These films urged me to find a suitable miniature version of Ash, whether he gets used in any game is neither here nor there. I was looking forward to painting him up either way.

Ash in Army of Darkness

On searching I found Hasslefree miniatures did an excellent Ash model called Oakley. It comes with the as required 12 Gauge and chainsaw for a hand but if you wanted he could be equipped with a samurai sword or an axe. Not that I was giving him anything but his chainsaw hand so they went straight in the bitz box.

Paint scheme wise this wasn't going to be a surprise as I wanted to stay faithful to the films and show.  Which means a blue shirt, brown trousers and red chainsaw.

"Good, Bad, I'm the Guy with a Gun"

The real question was do I add blood splatter or not? Although it could be fun I decided against the gore for my Ash. Those Deadites haven't found him just yet. 

“Alright you primitive screwheads, listen up! See this? This… is my boomstick!”

So there we go a bit of Evil Dead / Bruce Campbell / Ash to start 2022. Groovy!

Until next time :)

*I'm not counting that remake that came out a few years back.