Oldhammer 40K: One More Ork

Painting in 15mm has revitalised my interest in miniature painting. But I have to paint 40 Saxon spearmen before I have finished that contingent of the army - plus 14 irregulars for the two 'horde' elements, two skimishers, and the four housecarls that that make up the general's element. I'm 20 spearmen in, and need a break. So what is in the lead-pile? 

A Rogue Trader-era Ork...

He is meant to be part of this gang of old metal space-greenies... which I last put to the brush TWO YEARS AGO!

(I have found a great new place to photograph my minis - on top of the microwave directly underneath an LED downlighter. This usually has the mundane but essential task of illuminating the kitchen worktop to help my late-night sandwich making, but it serves quite well here.)

After painting 15mm tall realistically proportioned little men, this guy was a breeze.

As you can see, he's a bit lighter than his buddies, but then he is prone to walking about topless, and who knows what the effects on light from a red giant does to an Ork's complexion. Maybe he just needs a green wash... and possibly a touch of metallic paints - the earlier models were painted when I used metallic paints more heavily.

I'll be back at the Saxons the next time the paints come out. That's THE hobby project (not just for this month, but for the summer), and I know 'the game' that I will be playing with my Saxons and Vikings. By contrast, I'm not sure what I'll actually use these guys for. I don't think that I have the stomach for current 40K, and I while I have Rogue Trader - and leaf through the book regularly - I'd expect that I'd find it too fiddly these days. I am taken with adapting (or stealing an existing adaptation of) one of the Songs of Blades and Heroes variants for some real quick-play skimishing, but not sure if I'll have the players.

But he was fun to paint... Orks, and Orcs, are easy!  

Captain, My Captain? (Oldhammer 40K Marine squad, part two)

Well, I haven't made much progress on those Oldhammer 40K Marines. And boy, are they are bastard to put together; the way the arms fit into the shoulders means... no, sorry, the arms don't fit into the shoulders even in the single pose that is 'possible'. It does make you realise how well engineered most of the current plastic kits are, whatever their other faults. After putting together my 'test' marine I decided I needed to use a blob of greenstuff inside each shoulder pad. And using some conservative Saudi-style converting - cutting the hands off a few Marines (and sticking them back on again, of course) - I managed to create a modest variety of poses. Which leaves me with eight Marines as so:

Upright with the aid of blu-tack - I've taken to painting their legs separate from the rest of the body.  

I decided to go for an orange colour scheme because... I forget. I didn't want to paint the squad as part of any of the 'major' chapters, so I skimmed through the more obscure marine colour schemes in Rogue Trader and the Compendium. I thought about using one of the crazy 'alien terrain camouflage' schemes... And then painted them orange, go figure. Actually, the 'test' marine was a bit of a disaster. The glue didn't hold, I put a black ink wash (why?) on before the 'magnolia' undercoat had dried, leaving the model a mess of dirt grey. A catalogue of school boy errors would be a generous description. I gave the model a quick clean and undercoated using 'Macharius Solar Orange', a Citadel 'foundation' paint, and then used 'Blood Red', 'Blazing Orange' and 'Golden Yellow', with the metallic equipment painted with 'Greatcoat Grey' (a Privateer Press paint), 'Codex Grey' and 'Pig Iron' (another Privateer Press paint). Nothing fancy, and the results aren't too fancy, either!

I've achieved a much cleaner look on the second Marine. He didn't have a dirty, aborted base-coat, of course. They both still need a few more details - I'm thinking of adding some wings either side of the bull's head - not quite Blood Angles, but the Flying Buffalo Chapter?

But now for my Space Marine Captain. I was going to pick up a classic metal model, but instead I have these:

Finecast! Well, this will be my first experience painting Finecast. And of cleaning the 'flash' from Finecast! What I did find amusing that my first Finecast miniatures have the dates 1990 and 1991 stamped on the slotta tabs. In other words these sculpts are from the same era as my Oldhammer 40K Space Marines, even if they are made from new-fangled whatchamaresin. At £20.50 for five miniatures, they're not quite the bargain the e-Bay Marines were, but at just over £4 per miniature these are pretty competitively priced. Especially when compared to the cost of a single Finecast 'character' miniature (£10+ apiece). In fact, nearly all my Games Workshop purchases in the past couple of years have been from their 'Collectors' and 'Specialist Games' ranges. As much as we might moan about GW, hidden away on their website are some classic miniatures and, while 'forgotten' games such as BloodBowl, Necromunda, and Mordheim might not get much support in the way of new stuff, the range of miniatures still available for these 'abandoned' lines is impressive. Snap them up before the moulds break!

Anyway, 'Captain, My Captain!' Which of these should be the Space Marine Captain for my Oldhammer 40K tactical squad? Here's my thinking. The Marine in MKI armour (the one with the open face and plume) should probably be a Rogue Trader in antique armour. According the article by Rick Priestley in the Warhammer 40K Compilation (p19-25) - to which these miniatures are the partner pieces - the legs of the MKI suit are unpowered! What does that leave Marines wearing this with, Move 1? The Marine in the MKII armour - the one on the same sprue as the MKI - I'm thinking of using as a Chaplain, with the faceplate painted up as a stylised skull. The MKIII - the one with the Chainsword and Plasma Pistol - now that, I think is my Captain. The MKIV and the MKV - the other two on that sprue, from right to left - will probably end up as Captains of other, future Oldhammer 40K squads, though I might need to find some new arms and weapons as these guys are all armed with Bolters.

Now all I need is an Oldhammer 40K Marine with a Rocket Launcher.    

Oldhammer 40K Marine Squad, part one.

In preparation for this Coop's Rogue Trader Space Marine tactical squad free-for-all at this summer's Oldhammer Day being hosted by Foundry Miniatures, I thought I'd scour eBay for some 'beakie' Marines. I had considered using the something else - even thinking of assembling a bargain squad using the miniatures from Space Crusade, but I figured, 'hey, it's just 10 miniatures, I'll pay a little to get the 'right' models. So I run a few searches, watch a few auctions, and I manage to pick up 4 sprues - enough to make 8 Space Marines - of 1991 vintage plastic while at the same time defying the trader-inflated prices for old gaming material. Earlier in the week I had missed out on a Bugman's Cart that went for £11 (it was hidden in a bunch of other unidentified stuff), all because I was having a conversation with my wife and so forgot to 'snipe'. Priorities, man! So winning these was a nice way to get my Oldhammer 40K Space Marine 'warband' up and running.

   

And for £5.50! £5.50! All I need now is a vintage metal Captain and Heavy Weapon Marine and I've got a squad, probably for about £10. Vintage gaming is budget gaming!

Oldhammer's Alive!

Orlygg has organised an Oldhammer day at Wargames Foundry in Nottingham, most likely on 24th August. I may well be going; I know a couple of other people planning to make the long trip from the Celtic wilderlands, and so a lift up there should not be a problem. The problem, as always, is choosing (or rolling), collecting, and painting, my warband.

A very dark (and not in a good way) photo of some random (but not random-ised) Chaotics

I have decided to declare 'Oldhammer's Alive!' and collect all new miniatures for my warband. Naturally, I'm only going to choose those that capture something of the classic Warhammer aesthetic, but I'm not going to be bound by this. I am taking my lead from the OSR here; while the old models and books are cool, and are great if you can get them, making the movement about out of production models and books limits participation and makes it a hobby for collectors and old-timers. In the OSR, it is the retro-clones, and the second generation of OSR games that have taken their lead from older play styles (whether near-clones such as Lamentations of the Flame Princess and Crypts and Things, or new games such as my new love, Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG), combined with the ease of publishing that .pdf and print on demand (PoD) offers, that have made Old School gaming accessible to anyone who wants to get involved. Flint-eyed eBay scouring, searching for that Rules Cyclopedia, is not required.

So I have set myself the task of building an perfectly [un]acceptable Realms of Chaos (now, if only Games Workshop would release that as a PoD product, or even as a .pdf - come on, look to dndclassics.com) warband using only in production miniatures. I could trawl eBay, I could rummage through the white metal that is hoarded here, there, and everwhere in our house. But I do not think that the OSR is/should be all about nostalgia, and I do not see why Oldhammer should be either. I will, of course, post pictures of my progress as I acquire the miniatures, and as I slowly and crudely paint them.