2nd Longdrop Regulars

Project Beast-people is on a temporary hiatus. The electrics have blown in my painting cave due to it being a 'orrible damp oubliette. I got a sparky to take a look, but he was having none of it, because it's a 'orrible damp oubliette. Bugger! Then I was going to sort it out myself, but Mrs Hob was having none of that either, just because I have no idea what I'm doing. Chicks, eh? 

So, while I figure out illumination which doesn't require mains electric, here's one I found in the archives; half a unit of fodder for Turnip28 that I kitbashed and painted for a buddy a couple of years ago. They are the 2nd Longdrop Regulars. I can't quite recall whether I used Perry or Victrix sprues, although I seem to remember using French bits for the arms, legs and backpacks and snipping the shakos from somewhere else, so the answer may well be both. The heads and torsos are 3d prints from free stl files hosted by Turnip's creator, Max FitzGerald. Then it was just a case of hiding the joins with green stuff, tufts and muck. I think they came out pretty well.

 Hopefully, the normal erratic service will return soon. Right then, I'm off to buy some candles...

Grashak Kra Lives!

It's not been the most successful Orctober. I had a chunky Citadel Fantasy Tribes orc bruiser prepped and ready to go, but he just didn't get a look in. I've been completely distracted painting beast-persons. Here's my output for the month:

The minis are predominately RuneQuest broo, from various boxed sets and blisters.

The guy who sold me these three told me that they use to be part of his dad's warband from when they played together back in the '80s. He said the the guy in the centre was the warband's leader; a nasty piece of work called Grashak Kra. I absolutely loved this. I tried to match the colours of the original paint job (most of the paint had flaked off, but there were patches of colour to use as a rough guide) and he shall be Grashak Kra in my games too. I was also stoked to acquire Four Arms (on the right). It's one of the few times where I've tried to pay more than the asking price! 

I had wondered how the Perry's had managed to knock out such a large range of broo for the blister packs in such a short space of time. Now I've got my hands on more of the minis I can see their canny reuse of sculpts to build the range. The torso in the centre is from an earlier iteration of the broo where you had a choice of heads. In this case, two new unique heads were sculpted for the blister release.

I've also painted a couple of beastmen from the C27 range. The fellow on the left is Fang Head, the slotta version of a miniature from the original pre-slotta C38 Chaos Beastmen range, which famously launched the career of Trish Carden. The little guy on the right is Face Maker. I have other C27 beastmen in the stripping jar where I also have a broo that was used as a base for the sculpt. 

So, what started out as a bit of a pallet cleanser has escalated quickly. I've really, really enjoyed painting these. I also feel that I've finally hit on a tabletop standard of painting that I can replicate reasonably quickly and that I'm happy with. I think I'm going to attempt an old school chaos beastmen army. 

For starters I aim to paint 2x units of 24 beastmen each with full command. Obviously, I would need a fair few more than this for a WFB army (which would be the goal), but even if I were to stop there that would still give me 4x units of 12 beastmen for Dragon Rampant or 6x units of 8 beastmen for Midgard. That's the first milestone, anyway.

Rechgrindle - Chaos Knight

Due to life stuff, I missed last year's Golden Gobbo painting competition, over on the Oldhammer Forum. I've got in early this year just in case. It's a fun opportunity to paint something just for the hell of it. I recently picked up a few Citadel pre-slotta chaos warriors on a whim and had already decided that I'd paint one of them for GG '25. So, without further ado... 

Rechgrindle - Warrior Maiden of Dim Ponn the Unholy Grimace from Specialty Set SS3 (v2) The Knights of Chaos (1983).

I smashed this one out over a couple of evenings, which is incredibly quick for me. She's not going to win (there are some awesome painters over on the forum), but I'm really pleased with how she turned out, especially the pallid flesh. Remember kids: Chaos worship is bad for your health!

The Knights of Chaos set was sculpted from designs by John Blanche. Although the sculptor/s aren't credited, I've been told that the majority of boxed sets from this era were sculpted by the Perry twins. Having handled a fair few from this set, they certainly look like Perry sculpts to me. 

Big John's designs for the SS3 crew. Rechgrindle is top right. From Heroes for Wargames (Paper Tiger, 1986)

The boxed set came with an insert, penned by Rick Priestly, which gave fluff for each of the knights, the chaos gods they followed and rules for using them in Warhammer 1st ed. The extract below is borrowed from a scan of the insert from the Eldritch Epistles blog.

Beastie Boys

Here's a couple more Citadel broo from the RuneQuest box set 4(v3) from way back in 1983. Apologies that the photo's a bit naff, but the light is rather poor today. Anyway, that's two more done and dusted and I can move on to the next thing.

Judging from the Blanche concept art, I think the tail on the big lad is supposed to part of the pelt he's wearing as a skirt. I decided to paint it as if it's his own cute little goat tail, though. Ah, bless.

All-in-all, I've really enjoyed painting these. They have bags of character and they're not too fiddly. I'll definitely be painting a few more in the near future.

Knowing Me, Knowing Broo

Aha!

These two chaps are broo (the OG beastmen) from Citadel's RuneQuest range, which were produced under licence between 1982-3. The inclusion of 'Chaos Beastmen' in WFB 1st ed. was, of course, so you could use Citadel broo miniatures in your armies. Bryan Ansell certainly did (see Warhammer Armies, 1988). When Ral Partha acquired the miniatures licence in 1984 it brought the end to one of the finest beastmen ranges ever produced. To be fair, the same year Citadel launched their C38 Chaos Beastmen range, the first range sculpted by Trish Carden, which is chock full of weirdness and features some absolute classics.

These guys are specifically from RuneQuest boxed set 4 (v3): The Broo 2. Miniatures from this particular set seem to be more common and less insanely priced than the broo released in blister packs. That said, given the short time these were in production, along with miniatures of this vintage being prone lead rot, they're still hard to snag for a reasonable price. I'm not sure my pockets are deep enough for a large broo collection.

I couldn't find the sculptor credited anywhere (they did a really nice job on these). But certainly one of the reasons that the Citadel broo are a notch above the Ral Partha range has to be because they were based on concept drawings by Big John B.

EDIT: The Perry twins sculpted this set (thank you to Hobgoblin over on the Lead Adventures Forum for the info).

Broo concept drawings by John Blanche, reproduced in Heroes for Wargames (Paper Tiger Books, 1986)

Painting-wise, I've not done anything too fancy. The grey skin tones are a tip of the hat to the bestmen hordes featured in the Mighty, Dark-Winged, Avenging Lord of Chaos' Mighty Avenging Chaos Army in Warhammer Armies.

Yes We Khan

The hobgoblin horde (literally dozens of 'em!) need a khan to lead them in battle. I thought maybe the Ghazak Khan miniature would fit the bill. I believe he's from WFB 5th ed. and sculpted by Michael Perry. As this wasn't my era, I've only recently clocked the 5th ed. hobs. They seem to share more aesthetically with their venerable 2nd ed. ancestors than they do with the ghastly 4th ed. chorf hobs. I like them.

I got this mini for a bit of steal, but it was missing the bow and quiver and the sashimono pole. I looked for replacement bits on eBay but they were going for the same price as I'd paid for Ghazak and his wolf chum! Screw that. So I filled in the pole-hole in Ghazak's back with a wee bit of green stuff and moved on with my life.

For a replacement bow and arrows, I had a dig around in my bits box and found one I'd clipped from a plastic goblin sprue back along. Looks like a decent fit to me.

The mini came with it's original plastic shield, but I opted to use a metal one from a Vendel Miniatures orc. It does make Ghazak look a little like a waiter bringing over the main course... but it also provided an opportunity to paint a freehand face shield. These are always fun to do.

All in all, I feel I made a decent fist of this one - a good tabletop standard.

I bought a handful of his mates as well, but I'm still trying to decide on mounts. The GW plastic wolves just look like fat dogs to me. Maybe I could use Chronicle wolves instead? I'm still chewing that one over.

 Cheers.

Frothlip & Friends

I have very nearly cleared the backlog of draw goblins (minis that have been prepped to paint, but live in a draw so that they can't guilt trip me). From left to right we have Dwarf Maimer (Chronicle N12 Hobgoblins, 1985), Sileth Frothlip and Kudra Stunty Smasher (BC4 Mighty Ugezod's Death Commandos, 1985), all sculpted by Nick Lund, Standard Bearer (DL2 Aly Morrison's Hobgoblin Warriors, 1984) and Hobgoblin Champion 1 (Oakbound Studio, 2023), sculpted by Paul Hicks. 

In case folks were wondering where they might find reasonably priced Oldhammer-style hobs, I thought it might be useful to have a comparison shot with the Oakbound chap and some classic C36 slotta hobs. I think he scales rather well.

The backlog of hobs left to paint is still ridiculous. I've really let myself drift with this one, with a couple of year-long breaks where I got distracted by other shiny things, and with no clear end goal. I think it's time to go full Stillman on this lot. Ideally, I'd like to complete a playable hobgoblin force before the end of 2025. As with the latest lot, the target is acceptable tabletop standard and to grind through them in small batches. Well, that's the plan. Gods know, I hate batch painting :(