Bryan Ansell

Through various wargaming forums, I heard that Bryan Ansell passed away yesterday.

Although I never met or talked to him, he had a large influence on me when I was starting out in wargaming during the 80s. As a Games Workshop afficionado during those days, his name was very familiar to me, most notably because he was mentioned as first author on my very first miniature ruleset I ever bought, Warhammer 1st edition.

He also was featured with his chaos army in Warhammer Armies for the 3rd edition, in a very iconic photograph.

Thank you for everything you did for the wargaming hobby!

Horn of the Dragon (2)

After a first playtest of my homebrewn fantasy rules, I decided to set up a second battle. When testing new rules, I always like to go for what I would call "unusual situations". After all, most wargaming rules operate within a specific set of assumptions: density of troops, density of terrain, etc. But they also operate under scenario assumptions - whether the game is a straight battle or whether roleplaying and other story elements are part of the scenario.

So for a second playtest I decided to set up a classic scenario, based on Thistlewood, an article that appeared many decades ago in White Dwarf (issue 45) for Warhammer 1s edition, and written by Joe Dever. It is the type of fantasy battle that drew me into fantasy wargaming: a combination of battle and certain elements of roleplaying, which is also something I would like to see  in my own Horn of the Dragon rules.

(There is a whole series of blogposts on Thistlewood on the BroadSword and Beasts blog).

But first, the original article. I still have a complete run of White Dwarf 1-84, so it was easy for me to look it up.

 

Then, the setup. I do have a decent collection of late 80s fantasy figures and scenery, so to remain in the spirit of Thistlewood, these were drafted once again in service.

An overall view of the battlefield. I tried to recreate the original map as close as possible, but some interpretation is always necessary. It doesn't make much sense to recreate maps to the millimeter, but it's more important to capture the spirit of the scenario.

The Village of Thistlewood. The houses are cardboard houses from the old Warhammer Townscape set, and originally made available through the Warhammer 2nd edition scenario packs.

The Wizard's Tower. It's a resin model by Gedemco, and 80s Belgian wargaming company.

Since my rules are unit-based rather than figure-based, I had to translate the figures given in the text to a number of equivalent units. Nothing too complicated ...

Orc units and Pack Wolves.

More Orc units, the Wyvern, and Ugrash Ka, the hill giant leader of the Orcs.

The King's Army.

More units of the King's Army. I used some of my old chaos centaurs for the Royal Centaur unit.

More units of the evil forces. Trolls as well as undead.

Another view of the troll and undead units.

Now the only thing left to do is to play the game :-)

Nurgle Chaos Warriors

A finished unit of Nurgle Chaos Warriors:

The figures are the Chaos Warriors from the old Battlemasters game. The figures are a bit blocky and simple, so I used a rather simple block painting style as well.

The banner was photographed from my copy of Realm of Chaos: Lost and the Damned book, printed, and attached to the miniature. This reminded me of something I also did many years ago: carefully making a color copy of coloured pages in the Warhammer Armies rulebook (color copies were hugely expensive back then, so slecting one or two pages to copy was crucial), cutting the banners out, and using them for my own units. These days, this is all so much easier and cheaper to do.

That same banner can also be seen here.

Another new book

Last week a new book arrived in the post. Not really new, it's an old book, but it's new to me.

The book, "Heroes for Wargames" is well-known in circles of Oldhammer and Citadel/Games Workshop afficionados. It was pubished in 1986, and highlights miniatures, artwork, painting, modeling, ... at the GW studio during the golden 80s.

I first saw this book in a bookshop in Vienna, when I was spending a few weeks there during an internship in 1987. Of course, being a student meant you couldn't afford a book such as this one (it meant not eating for 3 days or so ...), and it sort of slipped my mind. But I saw it being commented on on various Oldhammer blogs over the years, and decided I needed a copy as well. To my surprise, it wasn't difficult at all to find a 2nd hand copy at a very modest price, so after 30 years, I finally have this book in my collection ...

A conversion project

The academic year at my university has finally ended, so I have some time to relax, work in the garden, but also do some wargaming stuff. Or at least, that's what I hope for!

One of the little projects I want to complete is a conversion for our Antares 2401 campaign. The campaign has been dormant for a while, but I think we should start it up again. The campaign puts each player in control of a squad of StarMarines, with the GM controlling the opposition. The general commander of the StarMarines is Bacchus Mahoney, who has only been mentioned in the campaign reports so far, but does not have a figure representing him.

The overall tone of the campaign is more Rogue Trooper/Strontium Dog/original Rogue Trader 40K, rather than the gothic version 40K has become today. So I don't feel constrained at all to use figures as I see fit, and to make up some fun but perhaps weird combinations.

Anyway, this is the project:

Bacchus Mahoney will be represented on the battlefield riding an alien-like mount, which fits in with some of the characters that already saw some action (K'z'r'x, a drafted mercenary, represented by an original Tyranid/ Hunter Slayer miniature).

• The mount is a Raptor from Harlequin miniatures, and was originally intended as a steed for Shadow Elves.
• The rider will be an old 40K chaplain on a jetbike. I already removed his right arm, and will replace it with a plastic original Mk 6 Space Marine arm, most likely the pistol, since that will give him a more dynamic pose.
• I already filed away some of the skulls on the figure, but still want to work on the banner a bit, probably replacing the skull on the banner with the imperial eagle from another plastic banner. The skulls on the kneecap also will be removed.
• Some smaller items (also from the original Mk 6 Space Marine box) will be used to embellish the model here and there. 

I think it will turn out to be a very cool figure, and it might turn our attention back to our dormant SciFi campaign.

An Early Warhammer Review (2)

As I was entering issue 8 (January 1984) of Miniature Wargames into the database, I came upon a reader's letter by Rick Priestley, responding to the review of Warhammer published in issue 6.

Interesting to read!

An Early Warhammer Review

I was adding issue #6 from Miniature Wargaming (published November 1983) to the Wargaming Magazine Index (now counting over 4000 entries), and suddenly came upon this review of the first edition of Warhammer. Since Warhammer was first published in 1983, this must be one of the earliest reviews of Warhammer available.

Knights of the Cleansing Flame

A recent acquisition ... an unopened blister RR10 (Avenging) Knights of the Cleansing Flame, one of the Regiments of Renown for Warhammer back in the 80s. A nice addition to my Oldhammer collection.

These are the type of figures I drooled over when I was a young wargamer, studying every detail of them in Citadel catalogues and flyers, or in White Dwarf.

Here you see the original advert, in my copy of WD 66 (June 1985):

A full history of Regiments of the Renown, and the different releases and packaging, can be read on the Stuff of Legends website.

Oldhammer: Treeman (3)

In a previous blogpost, I told the story of how a scratch-built treeman became part of my wargaming collection (see here and here).

Through some good fortune, my long-time gaming pal David recovered one of his original scratch-built treeman in his pile of old wargaming stuff. This particular one was still unpainted. David was so generous to trade the model for some old Magic cards I had lying around.

The unpainted model:

Of course, I wanted to paint him. My first thought was to paint him in a brownish colour, to match the treeman already in my collection. But then I had the idea to give him a somewhat special appearance, and I decided on trying to paint him like a birch tree.

I spraypainted him black, then drybrushed him with various shades of grey, ending with white. Then I added fine black horizontal stripes to provide the birch tree texture. The result you see below.

And here are my two very special and unique treeman, engaged in conversation:

And no, there are not for sale!

Oldies

More old miniatures ...

I acquired these as part of a larger trade (along with some 75 1980s Norse Dwarfs from Citadel) with a long-time gaming buddy. He wanted some old Magic cards, I wanted some old miniatures. No money was involved. Those deals are the best!

So, what are these?

• Citadel Giant "Nine Fingers" - advertised in White Dwarf 94
• Citadel Fimir - advertised in White Dwarf 86
•  Citadel Night Horror Vampire
• 2 Citadel Fighters - Knights of the Empire Sword 25 & Hammer 4
• Grenadier "Fantasy Lords 504 Pet Dragon"
• Ral Partha Dragon -- 11-482 White Dragon
• Grenadier "Fantasy Warriors 51016 Undead Troll"
• Citadel wizard

Game for Crisis 2017: Oldhammer WFB1 scenario, Ziggurat of Doom (7)

Finally, we ran our Oldhammer 1st edition game at CRISIS. The raw photographs are shown below.

We followed the original scenario "The Ziggurat of Doom" quite literally, although each side rolled a D6 at the start of the turn for reinforcements. A natural 6 resulted in an additional monster, by drawing a card from the deck. This was a gimmick to bring out some of the old monster miniatures, but was quite fun.A Balrog could also appear from the depths of the Ziggurat, ending the game immediately.

Overall, the game ran pretty smooth, although we were a bit surprised by how clunky some of the mechanics are compared to modern tastes. E.g. at the start of of every turn, we had to roll for stupidity of troops, roll for Jabberwock effects, roll for going into or out of Frenzy, etc. It was all very entertaining though.

The best part of the game was that many older gamers passed by, and started chatting about the "good old days of fantasy wargaming" and "games were so much better when we were young". Although this is nostalgia at work (and one tends to forget all the boring games we had back then as well), it is exactly one of the effects a game such as this is aiming for.

We also had some younger players passing by asking how this is different from 8th edition and Age of Sigmar. To which my non-informed answer invariably was: It's still the same set of rules! :-)

The pictures - all taken with my iPad:

General overview of the table.

... another general overview.

Thorgrimm Branedimm is defending the gate to the Ziggurat.

A few of the quick referene cards, to facilitate looking up statistics.

The vintage miniatures drew the most attention. We tried to have miniatures that were all pre-1983 (and thus would have been available when Warhammer was first published), but a few dated from the mid-80s.

The origin of each miniature was also listed on its reference card. The Treeman is scratch-built (see earlier blogposts ...)

Although I brought only a small collection of my Oldhammer monsters, I aimed for the most iconic ones that would be recognized by most veteran gamers.

Guthnog Bristlenose charging in a Frenzied mode Sigrud Slendershank, one of the Dwarf defenders.

One of the random reinforcements, a Jabberwock, came to aid the goblins, We found out during the game that under the original rules, a Jabberwock is invincible.

Goblins storming th Ziggurat. The dwarf player could choose the direction from which the goblins entered, so he choose the side where the Ziggurat had no stairs ...

A giant eagle lurking in the woods.

More action around the Ziggurat.

Guthnog Bristlenose fighting with Thorgrimm Branedimm on the first level of the Ziggurat. This run of the game ended after Guthnog was slain.

Game for Crisis 2017: Oldhammer WFB1 scenario, Ziggurat of Doom (5)

As part of the "Ziggurat of Doom" scenario during CRISIS 2017, my plan is to pimp the scenario a bit and allow for the appearance of random monsters, which can align to either side. I selected a few of my 80s-era miniatures, which also have entries in the WFB1 rulebook.

The cards listing the statistics, and which will be used during the game, are shown below.

Game for Crisis 2017: Oldhammer WFB1 scenario, Ziggurat of Doom (4)

In preparation of our Crisis 2017 game (a replay of the scenario "The Ziggurat of Doom"'using Warhammer 1st edition rules), I decided to make some cards as a quick reference to the various statistics of troops involved. SInce the whole idea is also to use vintage miniatures, a photograph and some info of each of the miniatures is included on the cards as well.

Below you see the cards for the Goblins that will attack the Ziggurat.

Game for Crisis 2017: Oldhammer WFB1 scenario, Ziggurat of Doom (3)

A few more paintjobs have been finished for our CRISIS 2017 game.

The idea still is to play the Ziggurat of Doom scenario from Warhammer 1st edition, using vintage miniatures that were available during the early eighties, and could have been used to play the scenario when Warhammer 1st edition was published in 1983 or shortly thereafter.

Earlier, I already reported on 12 Minifigs Forest Orcs that were finished.

Fellow wargamer Wim VdB (check out his blog) has now finished the dwarves (including Thorgrimm Branedimm), and some goblins and orcs.

First, we have the dwarves:. These are pre-slotta Citadel, and you can see the Thorgrimm Branedimm model as well.

 Next we have Chronicle Orcs:

And finally Ral Partha Orcs:

Game for Crisis 2017: Oldhammer WFB1 scenario, Ziggurat of Doom (2)

A little follow-up on the previous post about our upcoming Ziggurat of Doom convention game.

One of my wargaming buddies reported he did find an original Thorgrimm Branedimm figure in his collection. How cool is that?

Here's the picture - a pre-slotta original  Thorgrimm Branedimm. So, we will probably have an original Thogrimm Branedimm at Crisis.

I also noticed Stuff of Legends has some more images of this renowned dwarven figure.

Oldhammer: Treeman (2)

When I was cleaning out some old archive boxes, I came upon photographs from a Warhammer 3rd edition game we played over 25 years ago, involving the infamous scratch-built treemen. I didn't remember we took pictures from that game, but here they are, quickly re-photographed.

See the full story here (blogpost August 2014).