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

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. 

SQUATED!

The time has come to sell on my dear old squats.

I've mentioned before that I fell back into wargaming playing a 15mm FUBAR campaign with a couple of mates. This was great fun. We jointly created the back story for the planet we were fighting over, and we would take it in turns to GM/host games (so the players never knew their opponent's mission objectives). Each game was designed to move the narrative along. There were many memorable battles; a brutal shoot out between tech-ninjas and fascist goons in a labyrinthine downtown slum, a scramble for an alien artefact in the jungle zone causing a stampede of toy dinosaurs, a Seven Samurai-style defence of a mining facility where the defenders could move through underground tunnels to ambush the attackers... 

My whistle had been well and truly wetted. I'd enjoyed painting the 15mm guys and fancied having a go at some 28mm minis. And of course, being a contrary sod, I picked a totally dead faction! Considering I didn't have a clue what I was doing, and was using Tamiya paints with wood stain for shading, they actually came out OK (albeit with the classic 'fried egg' eyes).

Sadly, their unpainted comrades were sold on to help pay for new break shoes and the project came to a grinding halt. In the last several years I've used them once - for a random game of Stargrunt - so I think it's now time that these venerable warriors were enjoyed by someone else. But before they ship out, I thought I'd take a few snaps for posterity.

The first 'Space Dwarf' release for Rogue Trader was the RT03 range (1987) sculpted by the Perrys. From left to right: Lewis Gunn, Colt Stoner and Smoothbore Sten.

These were followed in early 1988 by the first release of Bob Olley's Iron Claw Squats. A lot of the sculpts still had that early-RT space pirate vibe going on. From left to right: unnamed (and yes, that is a shuriken catapult), Lt. Yarvin and Gulbar.

The majority of my little force are drawn from the second Iron Claw release (1989). These coincided with the release of the RTB10 Space Dwarfs plastic boxed set and have the same classic aesthetic of lasguns, flack jackets and helmets with blast visors.

Finally, we have Gunner Keif from the RT9 range (1987) packing a conversion beamer and a squat medic (1988). I believe both are Perry Twins sculpts.

Cheers

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.

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.