Eeza Ugezod's Mother Crushers

These were always one of my favourite of the original Regiments of Renown but as I never saw them in the old Diceman, the only gaming shop in my home town of Dublin when I was a kid, I never got to own any of them. Well now I'm happy to report that I have a full regiment of these wonderful Nick Lund figures. To celebrate this momentous occasion I have placed them first and foremost on the workbench.

So far all I've done is clean them up, undercoat and pre-shade them and prepare the bases but I thought I'd show the progress so far anyway. This way if I slow down I can be publicly harassed until I finish them.

First up is the big man himself Eeza and four of his troopers

 Next up is Ognir his percussionist and another bunch of troopers

 The standard bearer and four more troopers

And finally the Champion and the last of the troopers

I'm going to go back to the original colour scheme for these guys and give them a dark brown or greenish brown skin tone - they are Black Orcs after all. If I can I'm going to give them a more 'realistic' look using mainly natural colours for the furs and leathers. Hopefully it'll all work out somewhat like the image in my head.

I have more plans for these guys. As is obvious from the photo the standard bearer is not entirely genuine, the first one I got my hands on was broken so I sculpted my own flag pole and flag from green stuff. I was going to replace him when I got the proper one (thanks Thantsants) but I kinda like him so I've decided to gradually collect a few more of the troopers and have a large enough force to field wither two regular sized regiments or one huge Juggernaut.

Where Are They Now? Men-fish

Having mentioned these in the last post I realised I had never heard of them before, nor seen the miniatures. According to Warhammer 1st edition they are a 'strange synthesis of man and fish, humanoid but scaled and capable of living underwater as well as on land.' They are equally at home in the sea or fresh water and mount night raids on the fishing villages of any of the other races whether human, elf or goblin. (No I didn't know goblins could fish either)

Stats:  Move     WS    BS   Strength Toughness Wounds Initiative Attacks

           3/3.5     3       2         2              B          1          2            1

Special Rules

• Men-fish FEAR fire and direct sunlight
• Men-fish have NIGHT VISION upto 30"
• They can move through or over water and boggy ground at normal speeds

According to the rules the figures were available as C22/3 but the only ones I could find were released as in the Fiend Factory as FF65-2 Ferocious Man-Fish (various) in December 1982. Not the greatest figure ever and not really that ferocious if you ask me.

(Picture from CcnWiki)

That's about as it good as it got for the poor old FM-F. They had vanished from the Warhammer world by the time 2nd edition rolled around never to be seen again. I guess with a stat line like the one above they just couldn't survive or maybe global warming caused had a sever affect on their habitat - who knows? Now I'm off to e-bay to see if I can find any. 

Old School Randomness

One thing I like in a set of wargaming rules is the inclusion of some element of randomness that takes the certainty out of a players turn - whether this is diced movement as in the Lardies games or the Blunder! roll in Black Powder. Browsing through the Fighting Fantasy Battles volume of the old 1st edition Forces of Fantasy supplement for Warhammer I found the following optional rule that dealt with terrain and hidden monsters.

The idea was that whenever troops entered a piece of terrain for the 1st time in a game they ran the risk of encountering hidden monsters. A percentile roll was made on the following table and the resulting monster placed on the table presumably under the control of the GM although in the absence of one I'm sure it could be controlled by the opposing player. This roll was only made on the first occasion that troops entered the terrain.

I think it would certainly add a bit of fun to certain games, perhaps not scenarios but certainly encounter type battles. The table could easily be modified to whatever random giant animals/ monsters are in your collection.

Wolf Riders

I was originally going to talk about some of my side projects but the comments after my last post got me thinking about orc boar riders and goblin wolf riders both in terms of the quality and price of the figures.

First up the range of orc boar riders - I hate them, absolutely detest them. I think it was probably the first thing GW did with the orcs that I didn't like. The old Chronicle N15 wolf riders were fantastic intimidating characters very much as I imagined them while reading Tolkien. These were eventually replaced by the Orc Boar Riders and I'll apologise here to anyone who likes them but there is just something wrong with them. They've lost that inherent fierceness and it has been replaced by something else. You can have up to 40 boar riders in the 3rd edition list anf given that the Chronicle riders seem to be as rare as hens teeth they are not really an option - although if I could get 10 of them for the elite cavalry I might splash out.

The Goblin wolf riders on the other hand are one of my favourite ranges. Unfortunately they seem to be very popular and as mentioned in the comments go for silly prices. A quick glance at e-bay and you'll find individual riders for £5.50 or 5 riders and wolves for £25. Eventually I want up to 50 of them that's at least £250 plus postage which is way too much for my budget.

What's the solution then? Well I had a browse around the internet and found a few alternatives. These chaps are from Ral Partha's fantasy armies range and retail at £7.95 for 3.




Alternatively they also have lesser goblins with hand weapons or bows, which retail at £6.95 for 6
  

I'm not sure about the quality of the lesser goblins but I'll order a pack of each to get a closer look.

As for the orcs the old Grenadier range is available from Mirliton. They are similar in character to the Chronicle wolf riders, definitely a step up from the boar riders and at €9.63 a pair quite affordable.


Plus bulk orders from Mirliton get scaled discounts. I have some Grenadier orcs lurking in my horde already and they fit in quite well. So unless the market in Orc & Goblin cavalry is suddenly flooded with second hand minis it looks like this is the path I'll be taking.

That's it for now

Slán

I Want Them All

When I was a kid I used to stare at army lists and count up how many figures I would need to field every unit in an individual army. I'm sure it wasn't just me right? With the crazy numbers in the 3rd edition lists - 200 goblins and another 200 archers that always seemed unachievable on pocket money (is it just me or does anyone else hate the terms gobbo and sticka, it makes them seem more cartoony and less evil in my eyes but that's a subject for another post?).


Now that I'm an adult, albeit one who plays with toy soldiers, I find myself tempted to do the same thing again. Only this time I'm thinking to myself  'this is actually achievable. Its simple all I need to do is collect one of each Orc and Goblin that was released up to and including 3rd edition. Then add in any other Kev Adams sculpts from various manufacturers and that's that'. Simple really. If I was rich I suppose it would be.


However over time I think it is doable. I already have a good foundation to build on with the remnants of my old collection. Luckily I kept Skullcrusher, Leadbelcher and the Goblin Kings Chariot from the Machineries of Destruction range. I have the Goblin King and Bodyguard  Limited Editions and quite a few Orcs & Goblins as well as those that I have picked up on E-bay recently - including one under priced job lot that included all 8 of the Mothercrushers and another Goblin King & Bodyguard. At the moment all the minis are in various stages between the jars of Evergreen, getting undercoated and based before painting. When I have them all undercoated I'll put up some photos of the fledgling army.


So that's where the main focus of my Oldhammering is going - on fulfilling a childhood dream. Its going to take a while and I'm sure I'll end up taking short cuts along the way but at least it gives me something to aim for.


Next post I'll deal with some of the ideas for smaller side projects that I have rattling around in my head.

To Sell or not To Sell....

As I was sorting through that box of old minis I found some odds and ends that I had forgotten about. I'm pretty sure that these are worth something on the open market but the question is would I regret selling them in the future? These include 2 Chaos Dwarves, the dwarf gyrocopter and 3 or 4 Chaos Thugs and 5 of those wonderful C27 Pygmies (Puff, Umpopo, Ugh, Agh & Og) as well as a dozen or so Bretonnian blister packs.

The Chaos Dwarves I don't really care for although you never know. As for the pygmies, well its quite likely that I would never use them BUT I could see myself regretting selling them if I ever headed off into the jungles of Lustria. The thing is what do you do with only 5 pygmies and it would cost a lot to make any sort of army out of them especially when I have more urgent needs at the moment.

The other alternative is to add a trade page to the blog and see what people might offer in exchange.

Decisions, decisions.

New Blog!

Well, first of all welcome to any one who reads this - which is my first post on my first blog. Already I'm beginning to wonder why I'm doing this or indeed how I got here.


Like many people my age, ie much closer to 40 than I care to admit, I started wargaming in the 80's and then took a long break while I got a life, a wife and a mortgage. Then I started hankering after games again. It started off with Axis and Allies: War at Sea - just buy the minis and play. Likewise with Wings of War. However that just didn't satisfy the old (young) gamer in me. It wasn't 3 dimensional enough, there was no scenery and I wasn't getting to paint anything. Naturally enough I wandered off into the world of historical wargames - 15mm colonial, 28mm Irish War of Independence and 28mm zombies (Well I wouldn't be a true wargamer if I didn't get distracted now would I).


Then this latest addiction began. Oldhammer. It all began when I was looking for painting tips and I stumbled across Dave Kings site. All those beautiful old figures, many of which I had dreamed of owning when I was a kid. Cue disorganised e-bay purchases. From there it was a short trip to Thansants and his Orcs Drift collection. Cue slightly less disorganised e-bay purchases and online searches for scenarios and every White Dwarf I could find. But nothing recent you understand because They Who Shall Not Be Named are now evil as we all know and there current rules are not what I was looking for. 


While wandering around online I encountered the first mention of the Oldhammer Contract and realised this was what I was looking for. True retro gaming harking back to the days when an army could be made up of any manufactures minis and the emphasis was on fun not rules. One trip to my parents attic later and I discovered I still had a complete box set of Warhammer 2nd edition and most of my old minis (speaking of which I now realise I gave away most of the Nightmare Legion and both the Chaos Dwarf tenderiser and whirlwind!).


Right I think that's enough for now. Next post will deal with what direction I have decided to go in. Oh ok then I'll give you a hint - it involves Orcs, Goblins, Trolls, Ogres and maybe Skaven. Did I mention the Undead. But that's it. See I'm much more focused than I was when all this started.


Thanks for reading this.


Just John