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 :( 

Wilbur & Sal

Here's a couple more muties from Eureka's brilliant (and reasonably priced) Chaos Army range by Mike Darpa. First up is Wilbur the Wild. He's more beastman than Bosch, but I think he's a great little sculpt.

Joining him is Unstoppable Sal. There are so many neat little ideas in this design: the swollen, bandaged feet (I suspect they've gone squirmy), the weird tusk skates (whatever the hell they're for), the tentacles and the look of slack-jawed horror on her face. But perhaps my favourite bit is the old saucepan for a helmet.

I've been knocking these out at pace, as and when I've had the opportunity, and as such I've probably rushed Sal a touch. It would have been nice to lean into her patchwork clothing ala the Marauder giant. As it was, I lazily used the same colours as Wilbur. But that's OK. You see, they're best mates and they were together when they stripped the corpses wearing the green and black uniforms. Or something...

Here's the gang so far.

Cheers

 

The Hounds of Hell

For gamers of a certain vintage 'Chaos' will always be synonymous with Ian Miller's iconic artwork for Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness. From the writhing body horror of the page borders to the full page illustrations, Miller's art gave the wargaming supplement the look and feel of a forbidden, blasphemous tome.

I was already familiar with Ian Miller from his Fighting Fantasy gamebook covers and his work in the Tolkien Illustrated Encyclopedia (more on that below), but Realm of Chaos era Miller blew my teenage mind. I don't think another artist has captured the vibe of chaos so well. Chaos should be weird and Miller turns the weird up to 11. The pieces are also beautifully realised, with dense engraving-style linework making all the grotesque, misshapen wiggliness incredibly detailed. It's like Durer on a seriously bad trip. I absolutely love this stuff.

So when I saw that John Robertson/Myriad Miniatures was doing a third collaboration with Ian Miller, this time based on his chaos illustrations, I got very excited. Check out some of the sculpts on the Osmoticmeld: The Hounds of Hell Kickstarter page. They are wild!

The scope of the Kickstarter is ambitious. There should be enough options to build a full army. I doubt my fun budget will stretch to a whole set, but I'm particularly taken with the followers and knight sculpts that I've seen so far. I will definitely be picking up a few odds and sods.

I did something similar with the first Osmoticmeld Kickstarter. I was a bit skint at the time, but when I saw the sculpt for Signum, based on an uruk hai from Helms Deep (1979), I knew I had to get him. I'd first seen the piece in the Tolkien Illustrated Encyclopedia when I were a lad and it made a lasting impression.

I'll be honest. I was intimidated by this sculpt. Where to even start? Eventually, I committed to painting it for the Golden Gobbo over on the Oldhammer Forum and I made a bit of a hash of things. I was aiming for the red and silver gear in the original artwork, ballsed it up badly and then tried to cover my crime with bronze. I was chuffed to bits to get a 3rd place, but I wouldn't have personally put this paint job in the top 5. I think I may have picked up the odd vote purely on how cool the sculpt is.

So where did I go wrong? I think the wheels started coming off at the undercoating stage. I went for a matt black undercoat with base coats applied immediately on top. The detail is so fine I think I would've been better off giving the undercoat a white or grey drybrush to help pick it out first. I also think I should maybe have started with a mid-range colour and used inks to get into the nooks and crannies, rather than starting with a base colour and trying to work sequentially outwards. Finally, I can see where I was in a rush to finish towards the end. So, not my best work by any stretch, but good enough to find him a place in my orc army. 

A couple of years on, my confidence with painting has improved and I have a few more tricks in the bag. I'm looking forward to getting hold of some of these new sculpts and challenging myself to do them justice. I may even pick up another Signum and see if I can can make a better fist of things second time round.