2017 In Review

It appears to be popular to have a year in review post, here is my go at it.

2017 Goals-My biggest goal for 2017 was to simply get back into the hobby.  I felt like I had been lurking/trolling the Oldhammer blogs for far too long and needed to get active.  The easiest was to pick up the paint brush again and start knocking out my ridiculous amount of unpainted lead.  I wasn't nearly as productive as I had wanted to be.  I will take a little bit of the blame but I'll also pass a little bit of the blame on buying a new house and moving.  I have to apologize to Orlygg, when he fell of the blogging horse for awhile due to a house purchase I was silently a little indignant.  I mean whats the big deal, all you did was move.  Yea, it turns out that moving is a very big deal!  I'm not sure what his situation was but I had 22 years of stuff to go through, and I'm fairly confident that my wife and I never threw anything away!  It has literally consumed me for the last 6 months between finding a new house, getting the old house ready to sell, getting everything packed up, moved, and while we are in the new house we aren't anywhere close to getting unpacked.  But I've been hard at work on the new hobby room/man cave!

Productivity wise it looks like I managed to get 32 posts in this year which is close to my weekly/52 posts goal, at least better than 50%!  So I'm pretty psyched with those results.  Painting performance was not as productive but still better than nothing.  I managed to get a few old hammer figures done, particularly a Jes Goodwin Ogre, some of the Oldhammer inspired Eru-Kin mins by Diehard Miniatures, and a few Rogue Trader mins.  I'm very disappointed that I didn't get a chance to partake in Orctober or Deadcember but these were right in the middle of all the house moving.  On a positive note it gives me a goal for 2018.

2018 Goals-  First and foremost, getting the hobby/gaming/man cave set up!  Good news is that I've already done a lot of work on it so the paint should be flying soon!  A shout out to Chico who has inspired me to jump into the WW2/Weird War 2/Konflikt 47 with some Warlord Games and Dust Tactics miniatures.  I also have a large pile of Oldhammer chaos champions to get into.  And lastly some Sci-Fi mins from several companies.  Lets hope that 2018 is productive!

Is that an Earthquake? Nope just an OGRE!

Well Christmas has come a little early to the new house, I received a package on the front steps Saturday.

For those that didn’t partake, this is the OGRE plastic miniatures Kickstarter that Steve Jackson Games did earlier this year.

I’ve always loved this game and still have my original plastic pocket boxed set with the original chits.

Being a miniature enthusiast, I was thrilled when Ral Partha announced they would be doing a metal mins set for the game.  I think these were actually released by Martian Metals first and then re-released by Ral Partha.  Some if not all were new sculpts.  I cannot say I remember ever seeing the Martian Metals in any of the Hobby Shops I frequented as a kid.  Unfortunately, the Ral Partha release didn’t last long due to a falling out between the two companies.  The line abruptly stopped.  I have a couple Mk V's painted up but I cannot seem to find any pictures of them and who knows where they are in the mess of hobby moving boxes!

Then SJG did the miniatures themselves and released them in the innovative VHS tape boxes.  A cool idea but not very practical since you couldn’t put the Ogre’s in without removing the towers.  I picked up a few over the years but didn’t dive in like I should have because this line of figures went the way of the Dodo as well.   

I’m kicking myself for not picking up a MK VI or a Ninja!

When I saw the Kickstarter I had to jump in.  Would have been nice as part of the Kickstarter to have more Ogre only options, I did manage to get several of the glow in the dark Mk III and V add-ons.  I've already committed to the 2nd set Kickstarter, they have me hooked.  Can’t wait to get the painting desk set up and get started on these guys!

To slotta tab or not, is that the question?

A while back in one of my Mining for Warpstone installments I mentioned my semi obsession with collecting all the Khorne champions from the classic 1991 Catalogue page.  I haven’t been psychotic about this goal and it certainly isn’t as ambitious as trying to collect the McDeath set of figures or the Lichmaster set but it fit my “need to collect” addiction so off I went.

I’m now down to just two, the first guy first row and first guy last row.  They seem to be relatively available and I was about to buy one of them and noticed that the slota-tab was missing.  I would assume that it was removed for better basing options.  My question for the community is this; is that missing tab a big deal?

I’m more a painter than an investor/collector so the “pristineness” of the figure isn’t a major concern for me.  I don’t have to have one in the Mint In Blister condition.  For that matter it doesn’t have to be bare metal either.  I’ve even purchased a damaged miniature or two for conversion work, you know that model you would love to do a weapon swap on but cannot bring yourself to clip off the original.  For some reason the missing tab caused me some pause.  Could be due to my reliance on the slotta-tab basing method. I honestly haven’t based but a meager handful of figures in any other way.  That will soon change with my recent Space Raiders purchases but they a several weeks if not months away from that stage.  So it begs me to ask for input and discussion amongst the group to make sure I’m not losing touch with reality. 

Is a slotta-tab really a part of the miniature?  Is it still mint if it is missing the tab?  Do you use them or cut them off.  What are your thoughts!

The Waiting

“The waiting is the hardest part
Every day you see one more card
You take it on faith, you take it to the heart
The waiting is the hardest part” Tom Petty The Waiting.

Thanks to Tom and the boys for the intro to this blogg post, his talent will be missed.  I mentioned earlier that we are in the process of buying a new home, that was supposed to be wrapped up a week ago and due to a variety of issues will now not happen until later.  To be honest I’ve been too tired/lazy to get back on the painting horse since I still have a portable paint bench set up with a few miniatures.  I motivated myself a little and tackled a couple of items on the painting table and got them "greenstuffed" along the seams and primed a couple but nothing worth posting.  Thus this is a very light post, more of a look at what I picked up.  Once the move is complete I should get some painted posts going.

First up are a couple of the original LOTR Urik-Hai that I picked up at a reasonable price.

Along with some Marauder Chaos Dwarves to add to the ever growing collection.  I only needed the middle guy in my quest to complete the set but I love the other two sculpts so much I just had to!

Been chasing this C23 Jes Goodwin Ogre for awhile and grabbed him off ebay for a steal.  Looking forward to getting the hobby area set up so I can get some paint on him.

WIP/Prep work and Moving Woes

Getting prepared for a house move has caused some interruptions to my Mining for Lead series and my hobby life in general.  I still have a few more posts to get out with Humans, some Beasts of Chaos and a few odd mins before I wrap it up.  In my rush to be proactive and start packing up the house early I have come to realize that most of my miniatures are boxed up and in a storage unit and thus not readily accessible for blogg pictures.  Good news is the new house will have an incredible area for me to use as a painting area and gaming room!  So I'll just have to put some of those posts on hold for the next month or two.  I'll switch gears to my prep work for my recent Diehard and Space Raiders miniature buying sprees from their very successful kickstarter campaigns.  I finally got off my butt and ordered some green stuff, picked them up on Amazon due to a gift card birthday gift.  Decided to pick up a very inexpensive wax carver/dental pick set as well as a Messerschmitt Me 262 A-1a in 1/48 for my Dust/Konflikt/Bolt Action forces.  Came to less than $20 for the lot.  As a side note, wow the greenstuff was very fresh!  I guess I've been using very old stuff as of late given how much softer this new tube is.

First up is a batch of Eldar Dreadnoughts, yes I know they call them Wraithlords or whatever now a days but they were Dreadnoughts back in the 80's.  I had some joint filling to do since I put them in more dramatic poses than the static "at attention" from the catalogues and WD ads.

The next grouping are some of Diego's Space Raiders figures, the space fimir and cyber Minotaurs.  Just some basic gap filling here and there.  I'm looking forward to getting some paint on them!

More to come as well as I jump back into the Dark Future/Car Wars work with a semi tractor trailer and some other cool car bashing and painting!  The move should be done by the end of the month so I hope to be back with some paint work.

Mining for Warpstone Chaos Demons/Deamons Part 6 Ooooh that Smell

Ooooh that smell, Can't you smell that smell, Ooooh that smell, The smell of death surrounds you!  Much thanks to Lynyrd Skynyrd for that perfect lyrical intro to my Nurgle miniatures collection.  Taking second seat to Khorne, Nurgle is my next chaotic power patron of choice.  I’ve always liked their design and the range in general.  I don’t have much painted for old Papa’s army but I do have a few miniatures.  First up is another of my favorite pieces, my demon prince conversion for the rotted one.  I originally thought that this guy was a special conversion that was featured in the Troll.  

For those uninitiated, the Troll was a was a fanzine type sales brochure published by the GWS mail-order department back in the day.  Not sure if they did it across the pond but it ran for a number of years here in the US and was included with WD subscriptions.  It was much like an upgraded sales flier.  As I did some research, I dug through my collection of old Trolls and couldn't find it in any of the conversion corners.  

I'm guessing that it must have appeared in a WD then.  The original conversion was a single set of arms.  I expanded upon it and added another set of arms trying to get that six legged insect look.  It consists of an old Greater Demon of Nurgle head, 2 sets of forest dragon arms, possibly another set or at least a set of forest dragon feet, a 4th/5th edition Demon Prince body, and some ROC era Nurglings including the legendary one flipping the bird! 

I stuck with earth tones and putrid colors and added the purple later as an accent for the claws, I think I was going for a poisonous look.   

It was a lot of fun converting and painting.  That’s it for painted figures, everything else for the lord of rot is bare lead and given my recent Leadly Sinner confession I won’t post any pictures of these unpainted figures.   

I have a Palanquin, a few bases of ROC nurglings, several of the ROC Nurgle champions, and a few Plaguebearers which I think are actually more like 4th/5th edition figures.  The one thing that I really like about the multiple versions of Plaguebearers is that they, out of all the chaotic powers lesser servants, seem to have kept a fairly consistent design.  To the extent that you can readily mix and match them without creating a major eyesore of a unit.  A unit made up of the 4 versions of Bloodletters would just look hideous.   

I also have an original tentacle headed slug Beast of Nurgle.  In my most humble opinion the best version of one of Papa's pets.  I’d like to mold up it up to create a unit of Plagueriders but that is a few months if not years off.  Does anyone know if they ever released an actual Plaguerider unit with rider and beast?  The current version is great, plague bearers on giant flies, I hope to pick up a few someday.

Mining for Warpstone Chaos Demons/Deamons Part 5 Release the Hounds

Part 5 presents the Hounds of War, or better put the Fleshhounds of Khorne.  I’ve rambled on about the multi-part metal miniatures now for a couple of posts. 

As you can see from the old catalogue page there were multiple parts providing a variety of combinations.

A pretty good variety, not sure I have all the heads but certainly I have all the possible body and front leg/ruff combinations.  The purple ruff fellow is supposed to designate the unit leader/champion.

Mining for Warpstone Chaos Demons/Deamons Part 4 Giddy up!

Part 4 of this series stays with the lesser demons and gets them some wheels, or better put, hooves.  I read about the Bloodcrusher unit in ROC but I honestly don?t remember every seeing Juggernaut models packaged with anything other than chaos warrior riders.  

The 1989 Orange Catalogue has the ROC Juggernauts of Khorne listing but doesn't show any Bloodletter riders.

The 1991 Red Catalogue has a different listing titled Chaos Juggernauts.  As you can see from the picture a different mix, one less head, one less banner pole, and three Bloodletter rider bodies.  To be honest these look very similar to the regular bodies but I do have to say the stock numbers are different.  And surprisingly enough, no listing for the upper torso's for the chaos warriors!  Not sure if anyone can confirm that they were packaged together here in the US.  Regardless I had to have some so I set about collecting Juggernauts over the years and grabbing the odd bloodletter or two as riders.  Eventually I ended up with the requisite eight to form a unit.

I went a bit over the top with the conversions on these guys.  The leader is actually a conversion with the head from a 2nd version leader.  I still have some work to do on them like adding pennants and flags but these are one of my favorite units that I've ever worked on.  

One thing I would like to ask the community about.  I have all the possible combinations of Juggernaut parts except for this head from the Orange 88 catalogue.

Again, not sure if it was ever released in the US but I'd like to get my hands on one.  If you have one or a whole model I would love to discuss a possible trade just let me know!

Mining for Warpstone Chaos Demons/Deamons Part 3 Little Guys

Deamons Part 3 is about the little guys, the rank and file lesser demons and deity aligned beasts.  As a devout flower of Khorne I liked the dichotomy of the Bloodletters.  They had a skinny, frail, distorted look to them in their initial release yet their deity was all about violence.  They are almost Geiger-esque with the elongated heads like everyone's favorite killer alien! I snatched up a few blisters and ended up with a unit of 16.

 

 
These are very early paint jobs by me in my late teens/early 20’s.

Not bad given the state of paint and inks, or lack thereof, at the time.  These figures were re-worked for their 2nd iteration into what I refer to as the “Arnoldletters”, muscle bound brutes.

The 3rd version was a departure in a couple of directions.

The “Goatletters” took on a goat head like look and they swapped out their swords for axes, they are still interesting figures but they don't hold quite the same appeal for me as the originals.

With the 4th version they reverted back to the big headed, skinny body model and they got upgraded (or downgraded depending on your opinion) to plastic models.   I’m an original type of guy and prefer the first version, they were some of the first multi-part metal models released and provided you with a ton of combinations.  My goal is to have at least an 8 man squad of each type in the future.  The 1st and 4th edition are taken care of now for the versions in between.

Mining for Warpstone Chaos Demons/Deamons Part 2 Pride and Joy

I broke this chap out on his own.  He is one of the half a dozen or so miniatures that I am proudest of over my years of collecting, converting and painting.  This is the 2nd version of the Bloodthirster model and my pride and joy.

He has the distinction of being the only miniature that I have ever entered into a Golden Demon contest.  It was back when they held them in Chicago, I managed to coordinate attending with a visit to my brother-in-law in the area.  I even left the ID sticker on the bottom of it!

I was incredibly proud of this beast,  and still am, but I was quickly humbled as I registered it and got to look at it beside the competition.  I don’t think he made it past the first cut, but I’m still glad I had the nerve to enter him.  I did some minor conversion work on him and re-positioned the arms, added a 2nd ax, and worked up the base.   

I'm most proud of the veins that I did on him.  Based up the skintone, then highlighted them light blue, then did some more skintone layering on top to blend them in.   

Here are some additional figures, 1st versions of Scyla Anfingrimm that I intended to represent his flesh hound pets.  I’d like to attach them via chains as if he is taking them for a walk but haven’t gotten around to working that out yet.  I hope you enjoy him.