The Broo! (2)

 

Crikey! I've only gone and completed a boxset! Here's my take on Citadel Miniatures' RuneQuest Set 4a: The Broo! (2), sculpted by one or other of the Perry Twins and released in 1983.

Cheers

Manoceros

Just a wee post of the latest beastie. He's 'Zolkor' from the Citadel CH4 Chaos Beastmen range (1987). The range was sculpted by Kev Adams, Jes Goodwin and Mark Copplestone. While it's not 100% clear who sculpted what, I reckon Zolkor is probably one of Kev's.

The shield was half-inched from a Vendel Miniatures orc. The motif is a modern GW transfer. While I prefer freehand shields, I think this one works OK.

Broo Rescue

Look at this poor little fella. Not only is his spear broken, but some mongrel has cut off his horns! Who would do such a thing?

He was also going cheap on eBay, so I decided to rescue him and see if I couldn't fix him up.

I am far from competent with greenstuff, but 'good enough' horns were fairly straight forward. I decided I would convert him into a standard bearer, so scanned eBay for a suitable totem. The criteria was a) skulls and b) not too expensive. I found this one which had an appropriate number of skulls and a severed head (the broo has another severed head tucked under his shield). I wasn't sure where it was from so I asked on the Oldhammer Forum. Apparently it's a Chaos Space Marine Icon (1997) sculpted by Aly Morrison. I've been calling it the Evil Spaceman Thingy. 

I drilled out the spear hand to take a banner pole. For my  hobgoblin standard bearer I used a bulked out wire spear for the pole. This has needed gluing back on several times... This time around I've used a cocktail stick, which seems much more sturdy. I then bulked out the lower half of the spear shaft with greenstuff.

Anyway, here's the finished article, ready for release back into the forests of the Empire. 

Snake Cults and Pig Men

It's been a busy ol' month so far. I have managed to squeeze in a bit of painting time. Not as much as I would have liked, but isn't that always the way?

Anyway, first up we have a classic Jes Goodwin beastman sculpt from the 1988 Realm of Chaos range. I was very pleased with how he came out.

This is from an era where Citadel stopped naming their minis in the catalogue, so he is uninspiringly identified as '022004'. The miniature did. however, feature as a Combat Card (GW's 1992 take on Top Trumps) where he is called 'Gregor-Kurt the Twin'.

Now, it has been said, somewhat unkindly, that the snake-arm mutation looks a wee bit like a sock puppet. To this I say, well maybe it is! Maybe Gregor-Kurt is a worshiper of the Warhammer equivalent of Glycon.

In our world, the cult of the snake god Glycon was founded in the mid-2nd century CE by Alexander of Abonoteichos. Glycon was a large snake with human features and hair on his head, who would whisper prophesies to Alexander in a human voice. Alexander claimed he had discovered  Glycon in Macedonia, brought the snake god back to his home town in Paphlagonia, built a temple and set himself up as a mystical healer and Glycon's oracle. Initially Alexander and Glycon specialized in fertility treatments (allegedly Alexander was quite hands on), but it was when the Antonine plague ripped through the Roman Empire that the cult really got going. Alexander claimed that Glycon had whispered to him a charm that would, for a fee, protect his followers against the plague. In the midst of a pandemic, Glycon's magical protection proved incredibly popular.

Late-2nd century statue of Glycon from Constanta, Romania

The cult spread rapidly. Cult inscriptions have been recorded as far apart as Antioch in the south and Londinium in the north. Emperor Marcus Aurelius even asked Glycon to foretell the outcome of his war against the Germanic tribes north of the Danube. Someone who was having none of this, though, was the satirist and realist Lucian of Samosata. His treatise Alexander the False Prophet doesn't pull any punches. Lucian called out Alexander as a fraud and a grifter, citing frequent examples, and exposed Glycon as an elaborate sock puppet hoax. 

The cult has been revived in modern times by comics legend Alan Moore, who says he worships Glycon as he's unlikely to start believing 'a glove puppet created the universe or anything dangerous like that'.

So, what would a snake cult look like in the Warhammer world? I think we all know exactly what it would look like.

Rexor and Thorgrim from Conan the Barbarian (1982)

EDIT: A buddy pointed out that Warhammer: The Old World has, in fact, just introduced the Chaos Marauder cult of the Slithering Serpent (a proto-Slaanesh warrior lodge, apparently). So I went and had a peek at the models to see if they looked anything like Thulsa Doom's lads. They totally do!

I've also made a start on some command models. This musician is from the first Heavy Metal Hordes Kickstarter from last year, sculpted by Aaron Howdie.

He's a pleasingly chunky fellow named Craic Lyn. He probably scales better with the 4th ed. beastmen rather than their '80s brethren, but the aesthetic is Oldhammer through and through. For those interested in a comparison, here we have (from left to right): Broo (1983), C27 (1985), CH4 (1987), Broo (1983), 3000/6 (1994), HMH (2025).

While I've struggled to find time to paint, I seem to have found plenty of time to buy stuff! I've added enough beastmen to the lead pile to keep me going for a good while. And even though I have PDF versions, I finally weakened and rebought WFB 3rd ed. and Warhammer Armies (I blame Mike from the Warm Ale and Mud blog for this). It's been a particular joy to have a physical copy of Armies again. I loved this book as a kid and it still hits the spot. The previous owner has also carefully inserted the errata from White Dwarf, which is very helpful.

Cheers

More March Muties

 Despite being insanely busy at the mo', I still managed to hit my goal of finishing off a few more Oldhammer Citadel beastmen before the end of the month.

Age before beauty and all that: I've finally got around to basing the Fiend Factory FF68 Goat-headed Ogre (1982).

The next two are from the C27 Chaos Beastmen range sculpted by Trish Carden back in 1985. I was particularly pleased to pick up 'Kiss of Death' late last year and hope I've done him justice.

While there are a load of ram-headed beastmen out there, 'Axe Wielder' is probably the first lamb-man I've come across.

Finally, this is 'Merd', a CH4 Chaos Beastman from 1987. 

He needed a shield so I raided the bitzbox and grabbed him an uruk shield from Ragnarok Miniatures. 

All-in-all, I don't think March has been too shabby for painting beast-people. 

Hopefully more soon.

March Muties

Kicking off March with a batch of Oldhammer broo and beastmen.

I also daubed a few of their buddies in fits and starts over the winter.

From left to right we have: 

CH4 'Braksh'(1987), blister pack RuneQuest Broo (1983), Box 4 (v2) 'Broo' - these are the ones with the swappable heads (1983), Box 3 (v2) 'Attack of the Broo' (1983), Box 4 (v2) 'Broo' (1983), C27 'Cloven Hoof'' (1985), Box 4a 'The Broo!' (1983), blister pack Broo (1983). Phew!

One reason Citadel were able to pump out so many broo in a relatively short time was the canny reuse of body sculpts with new heads (and in some cases reused heads with new bodies). This particular body was used again (with modifications) for Cloven Hoof from the C27 Chaos Beastmen range. 

That takes me up to 20 refurbished '80s broo/beastmen. I couldn't resist taking a progress photo of the herd so far.

Having ranked them up, one thing that occurred to me was the basing looked a little off. I think the mossy tufts looked OK individually, but I'm not sure I like it en masse. I think I'm going to pause basing anymore beastpeople until I've investigated some alternatives. Which means this poor chap will have to wait a while longer. He's a Fiend Factory FF68 Goat-headed Ogre (1982). He may well be the OG beast-guy!

There's plenty more odd-bods in the painting queue (I've got another 20-or-so reeking of Dettol and ready to go). If I can colour in another 4-5 this month I will be well chuffed.

Cheers

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.

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.