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.
They are so very nice.
ReplyDeleteI love them all, as I may have mentioned before.
I do like very much that you tried to honour/immortalise the original Grashak Kra, that is sweet and cool.
I aim to get a few to use as part of a chaos warband, beastmen, some converted townsfolk and or early models as mutants. Maybe a Marauder Miniatures thug as a leader.
Are you playing oldhammer with them as part of a chaos army, or newhammer when they had their own standalone armies?
Thanks Mike. You'll know the feeling yourself: you buy an Oldhammer mini and feel a little sad that a previous owner got halfway through priming it before slinging it in a shoebox for the next 40 years. That's no life for a toy soldier. So to get a 2nd hand mini that had not only fully been painted once-upon-a-time, but also played with, named and considered someone's nemesis - that's awesome. And I can build that backstory into whatever new fluff he accumulates.
DeleteAs to what flavour army, well possibly both. Although you can build an all 'beastmen and monsters' chaos army using the 3rd ed Armies book, I don't remember ever seeing it done. I have a handful of pre-slotta chaos warriors and some chaos knights coming from a Kickstarter. Once I get round to painting them I should have the makings of a classic chaos army as Ansell intended, with the beastmen as the footsloggers. That said, I am taken by the idea of an all beastmen army, maybe with some Realm of Chaos-era centaurs as cav, some of those lovely old chaos hounds and a few old fashioned gribbily monsters. That would also be cool.
I read an old Stillmania article earlier this year about collecting a 3,000pt WFB army, and Nigel reckoned the best way to do this was by building 3 battalions of a 1,000pts each one at a time. Two big blocks of beastmen, a couple of characters and some miscellaneous chaos nonsense should make a decent battalion-sized force for Oldhammer, Newfangledhammer and much else besides. I can then decide if I want to take the army further or leave it there and move on. I think having milestones for this project will be a big help.
I read that article too.
DeleteI am also re-reading (for the millionth time) one of the early Gotrek and Felix novels, in which a chaos champion leads her beastman army on a bloody rampage, the force is all beastmen save for a few black armoured chaos warriors who are her personal bodyguard. (whilst powerful the beastmen are ambitious and do not like being led by a female, so they are needed as bodyguard, just in case) These chaos warriors also operate the hellcannon.
Could be a good starting block idea?
Have you got the name of that one, mate? I would also recommend 'The Laughter of Dark God' by Bill King as possibly the best depiction of a chaos warband in GW fiction. https://www.podbean.com/media/share/dir-v7k5z-19e8f122
DeleteI've also been working on a bit of fluff for a possible chaos champion - Baldur Meinhof, Champion of Malal - a complete psycho who's believes he's actually the goodie. More on him further down the line.
"Blood and Darkness" Mostly now available as one of the short stories in Trollslayer.
Delete"Baldur Meinhof," That sounds suspiciously familiar..
Nice one. I'll try and find a copy online. I really enjoy Bill King's stuff.
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