Oldhammer: Treeman

This is a very special miniature in my collection. It is a Treeman, but you will not find it in any of the Citadel catalogues. It is completely scratch-built from real twigs, all cut-to-size and made-to-fit, glued together, embellished with plasticene for the eyes, mouth and nose, painted and drybrushed, and mounted on a proper 40x40mm base.

Scratch-built Treeman

 The backstory is as follows:

During the late eighties, early nineties, our gaming group was heavily involved in Warhammer 3^rd edition. We mostly played standard 3000pts battles, on the ping-pong table in the verandah of my parent’s house. As befitted a group of young gamers, we each had our own army. Mine was Skaven, but High Elves, Dwarfs, Orcs, Undead and Wood Elves were also part of the mix.

The standing agreement was that you could field anything, as long as you had miniatures that more or less resembled whatever it was you wanted to include in your army. And although we were quite liberal in our thinking, we were not that liberal that a goblin could stand in for a dragon. At least for the bigger and special monsters, some faithful depiction was expected.

Now, getting Citadel miniatures in Belgium during that period was not that easy. They were only sold in a few selected shops, and quite expensive. Infrequent shopping trips to London supplied us with the occasional Regiment of Renown, and direct mail order was considered a somewhat risky business transaction (students on a budget and all that …). As a result, each of us had a pretty good idea what sort of “special troops” we all could field, and this was taken into account when designing our army prior to battle.

So it came that one summer afternoon, we had agreed to fight a battle between my Skaven and the Wood Elves of my long-time gaming buddies Dirk and David. Since I know that they didn’t have too many Wood Elf miniatures between them, I was pretty confident I could predict what sort of army they would field. Sure, the Wood Elf army lists in Warhammer Armies allowed Treeman in the army, but this was a hypothetical choice, since no-one in our group had a proper Treeman figure, let alone we had ever seen one in a store. The closest we came to a Treeman was a picture in White Dwarf or in one of the Citadel flyers.

The Treeman entry in the Wood Elves army list in Warhammer Armies

It was therefore a huge shock to me that, when the armies were deployed, a couple of Treemen were suddenly put on the table. Not less than four Treemen were pulled out of a box, 3 as part of the army, and one spare to be used as part of an illusion spell to create mirror images of units under your command. I gazed in awe at these figures. Did David buy them? I had never seen them in any of the Citadel catalogues or in White Dwarf? Were they from some other brand, Ral Partha maybe … ?

It turned out that a few weeks before the battle, David had started to scratch-built these four Treemen. It was meant as a surprise, and what a surprise it was! He had collected various branches and twigs from his garden, spent a few nights cutting and fitting them together, and painted them up. A spectacular sight!

The Treeman next to two old Citadel miniatures, one fighter, and one old wizard carrying too much adventuring gear.

If I remember correctly, the Treemen only participated in that single battle. David gave them away to gaming friends, including me. I don’t know what happened to the other three, but mine is still in my collection, and is one of the most original figures I own.

Is this Treeman a proper Citadel miniature? No, of course not. However, for me, it reminds me strongly of the spirit in which we played Warhammer 3^rd edition during the late eighties- early nineties. And in that sense, it embodies the Oldhammer spirit very well …

Addendum 1 (May 2017)

When cleaning up some archive boxes, I found old pictures from the particular game involving the treeman. The pictures below show 2 different treeman, one of them is the copy now in my collection.

Addendum 2 (January 2018) 

Another scratch-built treeman joined the ranks -- see this blogpost.

Antares 2401: Action in the Zingara system

... some more (unedited) pictures from our latest game in the Antares 2401 campaign (see label below for previous post and campaign philosophy).

4 squads took part, with a new squad (Eta squad) being recruited into the ranks of SpecOps.

A scifi special operations campaign is the ideal vehicle for putting lots of different figures and scenery items (WW1 barbed wire, WW2 bunkers, dinosaurs) on the table. Much recommended :-)

Antares 2401: Aboard spaceship Odessa

Some pictures from a recent Antares 2401 campaign game (see label below to track previous posts and read up about the campaign philosophy).

This time, the game was played on the floorplans on a large spaceship. I used the excellent Modular Rocketship plans from Dramascape - available through Wargamevault.com.

Oldhammer: Eternal Champion

I still remember the time when I first starting buying wargaming miniatures. This was during the late 80s, when Warhammer 3rd edition was published. For me, this was my main vehicle for acquiring new wargaming stuff, and naturally, I was drawn heavily into the Citadel range of figures. I sort of knew other figure ranges were available, but I only moved into historicals around 1997. For me, Games Workshop was my entry point into miniature wargaming, due to its availability, but also because the tone and nature of the games that came out of Nottingham during that period struck a certain chord with a geek still at university. (For the record, I started with wargaming much sooner than that, but during high school, was mostly involved with board wargames such as those from Avalon Hill, SPI or International Team).

Anyway, I never gave away or threw out any of my Citadel miniatures. After 25 years, they not only hold a nostalgic spot in my gaming experiences and they much defined my early miniature gaming, but I still use them! Our Scifi Antares campaign features Mark6 Space Marines (beakies!), and I still have dozens of unpainted Citadel miniatures lying around. These days, they are becoming fashionable again -- cfr. Oldhammer.

Browsing through old catalogues, I sometimes regret that I didn't buy more of those classic Citadel miniatures from the 80s. That's why now and then, one gets lucky. Looking on a 2nd-handsite, I suddenly discovered someone who was selling the boxed set "Eternal Champion". Not only were the figures unpainted, but still in the original (opened) box. A real treasure - also because Moorcock's Elric stories inspired much of the Realm of Chaos backstory back in the day.

I even drove to the seller's house, to make sure I picked up the figures myself and they wouldn't get lost in the post.

I know that the Elric range of Citadel figures was much more extensive than just this box (see this page on the Collecting Citadel Miniatures wiki), but it is a start. When collecting old figures, I have learned that one must be patient!

My new wargaming room (part 3)

A few people let me know that it was difficult for them to judge the size of my wargaming room, based on the previous pictures (here and here).

Therefore, I tried to take some more pictures with my rather limited camera, now from outside the window. I hope this gives a better impression :-)

The game on the table is an ACW 28mm game.

 The last photograph is a close-up of one of the cabinets, displaying a collection of 100-year old flat figures, alongside my copies of Little Wars and FLoor Games by HG Wells.

Oldhammer: Undead

When re-organizing some of my drawers full of miniatures, I decided to take a few pictures of one of my old Warhammer Armies. The undead below are mostly Citadel figures from the late eighties, early nineties. A few more recent figures snuck in, and here and there there might be an old Grenadier or Reaper figure, or some other figures of unknown make. The pictures are not of the best quality, my apologies.

Some figures are painted suboptimal to my current standards, being painted over 20 years ago. However, I never repaint any of my figures. I think they are a testimony to my painting and playing style from long ago, and as long as I have unpainted lead, I see no point in repainting already painted ones.

Overview of the entire army.

Plastic skeleton archers; the undead war catapult in the background; the plague cart on the left, accompanied by some undead riders. In the foreground some night horrors: spectres, a vampire, and a ghost with his head under his arm.

More plastc skeletons. Plague cart visible on the left, chariot on the right.

Skeleton cavalry. Note the use of cardboard flags, something I would definitely do different today. On the left an undead rider is mounted on a staggering horse. I used this figure quite often as commander for the entire army. The mounted figure bottom-left is from Reaper, one of the four horseman of the apocalypse.

More plastic skeletons. Note also the Death Elemental in front, as well as the wraith riders in the back.

Some mummies - the only unit mostly consisting of non-Citadel figures. I remember mummies were hard to find, so I used some Heroquest mummies instead. Both leader figures (skeleton monkey and Pharaoh) are non-Citadel.

My new wargaming room (part2)

Since the last post on my new wargaming premisses (link), a number of games have been played, and a few minor changes have been implemented.

The south-east corner, with a number of decorations added. A framed version of the poem In Flanders Field, bought in Ypres; a framed cover of the French magazine La Guerre Documentée 1914-1915 showing a Bersagliere and Zouave, and bought in a Parisian bookstore; and a small frame depicting Donald Featherstone with his signature (page from one of his books - I cut it out and framed it). The rank insignia above the light switch are my own, from my old regiment - 1st Grenadiers in the Belgian Army.

The north-east corner also has some additional decorations: a couple of 1960s winebottles originating from Germany with relief figures; a framed picture of me wargaming in my parents house decades ago, and some various other small pictures that somehow relate to my gaming hobby. The whale once featured in a game we ran at Crisis 2009.

The west wall - mostly books and toy soldiers. Also note that I have added half-hexes to the Kallistra terrain. On top of the toy soldier cabinet my old officer's cap, and some beer jugs from various places. Trophies from various wargaming shows also visible in this cabinet.

The cabinet with part of my collection of non-wargaming toy soldiers. The bottom shelf shows a large number of old "flats", dating from the late 19th and early 20th century.

Another cabinet with mostly books and empty whisky bottles. In the middle a number of stereoscopic WW1 photographs.

More pictures can be seen in "My new wargaming room (part 3)"

Oldhammer: Chaos Dwarfs

We continue our series of some old Warhammer miniatures. Below are some chaos dwarfs. Not the "new" ones with the top hats, but the ones from around 3rd edition or earlier. All of these miniatures were painted somewhere during 1989-1992.

For a more in-depth treatment of Oldhammer Chaos Dwarfs: http://realmofchaos80s.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Chaos%20Dwarfs

The two pictures below show chaos dwarfs with various mutations such as wings, a skeletal face, or one leg. They come from the range pictured here on Stuff of Legends: http://www.solegends.com/citcat1988/cat1988p039-02.htm (1988 catalogue) or http://www.solegends.com/citcat1991b/cat1991bp286rcchdwfs-01.htm (1991 catalogue).

This picture shows a chaos dwarf war machine, the so-called Tenderiser. Full details here: http://www.solegends.com/citcat1988/cat1988p033-02.htm

The last picture shows 4 chaos dwarf swivel guns. See also: http://www.solegends.com/citcat1991b/cat1991bp291rcchdwfwms-02.htm

Wet palette

Up until a few weeks ago, my painting 'palette' was an old ice cream box lid - initially chosen because it was white, but after more than fifteen years of use it is now covered in sedimental layers of paint in every hue imaginable. My modus operandi while painting was to take some paint from its pot, put it on the palette and add some water (never use paint undiluted, unless you want paint relief to feature in your paint job). During a painting session I would occasionally add more water to the paint on the palette (I use de-cottoned cotton swabs for this), especially when painting on a hot day. This also meant that when I was called away from painting (a phone call, children or cat crashing into something or each other, ...) the paint blob tended to have dried out too much to be of use when returning.

I was aware that there exists such a thing as a wet palette, but had never been inclined to use it as I had formed the impression that it was mainly used to enable the painter to easily mix two colours in various ratios and have all the mixes available while painting and one of my most important army painting shortcuts is that I never mix paint anymore (using the Foundry system helps in that regard, but even in my Vallejo days I had my no mix colour combinations).

A wet palette is basically a palette that somehow (capillarity, permeability and possibly some osmosis actually, if you want the scientific explanation of 'somehow') automatically adds water to the paint on it (hence the 'wet' bit), in a hopefully controlled fashion. There are undoubtedly hideously expensive 'professional' versions of this, but the basic DIY version is a plastic box with something moist (a sponge, towel or kitchen towel), covered with a semi-permeable layer like grease or baking paper. You put your paint onto the top layer, and water wicks up into it and dilutes the paint. If you get the amount of moisture and your type of semi-permeable layer right, the rate of evaporation of water from the paint and the rate of water flow (I guess 'seepage' would be a better word) into the paint reach an equilibrium which keeps the dilution of the paint at just the right level for your painting style and method.

So far the theory. Here's how, on a whim, I decided to put it into practice:

My wet palette matches the above DIY description to a lick. I took a plastic box (fake Tupperware - nothing but the best in my household), added some moist (not dripping wet) kitchen towel and put a single layer of baking paper (which is normally used to put cookie dough and such on before chucking it in the oven) on top. And that's it. Here's a picture of the kitchen towel underneath (with a spot where I accidentally poked through the baking paper so paint leaked through):

And it's really as simple as that. Although I never saw the use for me in this before, I have now become a fan. I can now easily paint just a little bit at a time without having to waste paint (as it used to dry on the palette when not fully used, and once paint is on the palette, you can't put it back in the pot) and when I close the box with its lid, the paint stays usable for days (unless I poke a hole through the grease paper - then the paint on the grease paper there dries out quicker because you lose the semi permeable layer which controls the rate of seepage). I do occasionally have to add some more paint to control the dilution a bit, but it is a lot less than having to add water every few minutes. So count me converted.

One final note: in the first picture it is obvious that the paint tends to seperate into pigment and solvent (the grease paper and the water act as a sort of thin film chromatography machine) when left overnight. This is not a permanent seperation however - a quick stir with a paintbrush quickly mixes it back to a usable state. 

Some Warfare Miniatures GNW

Some time ago, Warfare Miniatures owner Barry Hilton was kind enough to send me (and some other potential interestees, if that's a word) some samples of figures for a new range he is building for the Great Northern War (in which I happen to have a more than passing interest). I received two figures—a Swedish ensign and a Russian Streltsi officer.

Here they are painted:

The Swedish ensign was painted up as for the Kronobergs regiment (in the siege lines of Poltava itself at the time of the battle), while the Russian officer is painted up as a generic (vaguely Moscowish) Streltsi officer.

For the interested, the range is not yet available but coming soon, and if the figures live up to some of the pictures I have seen of them, I predict an upsurge in popularity for my favourite period!