Trolls!

 Hello again,

The plan was to get three Trolls painted up before the end of November in an effort to keep up with painting 200 points of Oldhammer a month.

Well I buckled down and painted eleven Trolls! Plus tidied up another five or so. That makes for a nifty unit of 16 Trolls plus a hanger on.

So lets take a look.

The big bad Troll gang... ere we go ere we gooo...

First are the three oldest fellas. 1984 models I believe and quite nice. The Squidward looking guy in the middle came out the best. I was surprised by the little details on these guys from mushrooms growing on the ones head to all the little skulls and charms.

A C20 marsh troll, marauder troll, C20 Hill troll and another Marauder troll. I painted the one purple on a whim and he came out surprisingly well.

Another C20 marsh troll and a C20 cave troll. These guys I painted in the mid-2000's

Four more marauder trolls. I believe that makes for a complete collection of marauder trolls.  These are old paint jobs. Originally painted by my brother in the early 90's.  I acquired them and dry-brushed them in the early 2000's and just updated their bases. A bit rough looking but serviceable.

The same marsh troll as seen above plus another hill troll. I actually have four more hills trolls on the back burner for now, two of the same models in the unit is enough.

A couple of D&D style trolls.  The one on the left is Ral Partha AD&D 1988 line and the other is a TSR Troll from 1984.  I'm not sure what the deal is with D&D trolls, they have kind of a swamp thing/vegetable vibe. I guess they're just your garden variety trolls...  Although the Ral Partha one is a beautifully crafted sculpt I don't care for him much. I do however like the TSR troll (kind of an Andre the Giant look) and he fits it fine for now with the rest of my trolls.

And last we have their leader. I nice battle troll from Knightmare games. I picked him up through the Greenskin Wars kickstarter.  He's a good blend of Oldhammer and Middlehammer and fits in perfectly imo.

So that's it for November.  I managed to paint up 11 new trolls at 65pts each totaling out to 715 pts. 500+ points over my goal.  Plus I fixed up half a dozen old paint jobs putting together a unit of 16 trolls at 1040 points.  I doubt I'll ever field that many trolls at once but who knows.

Since I was all about trolls this month I also re-uploaded my troll tapes to youtube. (I lost the creds to my old youtube account and had to create a new one). I also added another one I forgot last time. Its even got a nice holiday jingle just in time for the season.

For next month I'll have to take it down a notch. I'll probably try finishing off my spear chukka war machines -already moved to the painting table. You can also see my four remaining hill trolls in that pic, they'll be retired for a while until I figure out what to do with them. I'm happy to trade a couple of them if anybody has the C20 warrior troll.

Hopefully another update next month-

Bye for now,

My Orctober showcase!

So it looks like this Orctober has been a banner month for me. I think I've painted more this one month then I have in that past two years.

So here's a quick review of what Ive finished this month.

First up an Orc hero. One of my favorite Orc heroes I might add. He's got everything you'd want from an 80's Orc- leering grin, gangly limbs and an awesome helmet.

 

Next up is an Orc champion. Originally intended to be the leader of my Orc crossbow unit but  usurped by another.

A mighty unit of 28 Orc Crossbows.  Hopefully I'll have more pictures and an actual story to go with them coming up next month or so.

I ended up using Mr pointy finger as their leader. I figured crossbows are a bit complicated for Orcs and they'd need a disciplinarian with a whip to keep them on task. But honestly this is one of my least favorite Orc models, he's a bit static and the modern looking books and big shoulder pads look a bit too 40k, he may end up being replaced at some point.

One of the odd ball models in the unit. I believe he's from Citadel Ad&D line.

A quick pre-slotta Orc. Didn't turn out too great, the skin tone makes him look frog-ish. One of the crossbow orcs was pulled from the pre-slotta The Ol' Rusty Axe Gang so I need to paint up a replacement.

Last off I finished a couple Orc villagers that have been pushed around my desk half painted for a couple years.

So that's it for this month. November is an extremely busy month for me so I doubt I'll be able to get much done and I'll probably go dark for at least the next three weeks.

I'd also like to mention that I was not able to join the Oldhammer Army Painting challenge as I previously had posted, so ignore that. Apparently I didn't squeak load enough to enter.

However I do like the idea of painting 200 points worth (3rd ed) a month and I will continue to endeavor to do so.

November being tight month I'll give a shot at finishing these nice classic trolls which rounds up to 200 pts.

Bye for now-

Crossbow Orcs almost done

I'm still plugging away at the Orc crossbow unit. Just wrapping up the leader and the standard so hopefully by the weekend I'll be done.

Several years ago I fancied collecting all the Orcs from the 1988 catalog with the exception of the Orc villagers which I deemed too collectable to collect. Partly inspired by Mr Chumley Warner's endeavor to collect ever Empire mini: http://warhammer-empire.com/theforum/index.php?topic=36445.0
I actually accomplished it quicker then I would have thought with only a couple odd ones taking forever to show up on e-bay. I even managed to acquire at least one rare gem.
As I paint through my Orcs over the following years hopefully I'll manage post corresponding painted examples matching the catalog.

So for now here are the crossbow orcs from the 1988 catalog (or catalogue if you prefer) and their painted counterparts:

Bye for now,

LA's Totally Awesome follow up.

So yeah this stuff is great, at least when compared to Simple Green.

I actually checked on Ugezod after only a 3-4 hours of soaking and could see the paint was already blistering.  A little scrubbing took it off with just a bit left in the crevasses. This is already better results then I get with Simple Green which needs a couple days to soak and a lot of elbow grease in scrubbing.

After 3-4 hours paint easily stripped off:

The other three I left in over night. Much of the paint had actually dissolved on its own.

Before and after:

So that's it, it may look like piss in the bottle but its definitely my replacement for Simple Green.

Bye for now.
   

Step aside Simple Green

For the past several years Simple Green concentrate has been my go to choice for stripping miniatures. Unfortunately I think they must have changed the formula a few years back, I've been really putting in a lot of work scrubbing the miniatures after they've soaked for several days and the results just aren't what they used to be.

Somebody on some forum or blog mentioned stuff they picked up at a dollar store, I don't know if this is the same stuff they were referencing but the other day I picked up a jug of LA's Totally Awesome concentrate cleaner at my local 99 cent Store. I wish I had documented my first trial but wow so far so good!

I soaked these goblins for about 48 hours and the paint literally sloughed off and they cleaned up with a minimum brushing. No paint left stuck in the nook and crannies.

So I'll try and document my second test here. Ive got a couple more goblins and a heavily painted space marine. I'll give them a day or two and post the results.

It turned very milky after soaking the first two gobbos so I'm a little concerned about how re-usable it is. To that end I've dropped an old Mighty Ugezod (sorry no before pic) into the used stuff and the other three into a new pour.

OK, I'll be back in a few days with results.

1000 Point Army Challenge: WIP crossbows

Some work in progress shots.

Five crossbows and a couple command.

I couldn't find the original crossbows even though I must have at least a couple dozen around somewhere. So I used a few crossbows from the old Dwarf plastic set. They look pretty good IMO and to be consistent I strung a bow string on the one old crossbow and will likely do the same with the rest.

I'm also working on their chief.  Almost done, just need a little more work on the shield sculpting.

 


Bye for now-

1000 Point Army Challenge: The core

So here's what I'll be working with for the first couple months.

The first unit choice was actually quite easy. This is the perfect opportunity to finish a proper crossbow unit. This Orc troop choice is unique to "Oldhammer". I believe by fifth edition these guys disappeared as a troop choice all together.

I painted about a dozen of these guys maybe 25 years ago but they're in need of a re-paint and proper basing plus I've added about another dozen that need painting. Add a couple command models and here's a nice 25 orc crossbow unit for me to chew on for the next few weeks.

Next is about 25 Boyz. Just regular old Boyz looking for a fight. A nice mix of classic citadel Orcs.

And I'll need a nice hero to lead them. Judging from the size of his hat he's at least a Lvl 10.

Fluff incoming...

1000 Point Army Challenge: 1000 point dilemma

-Disclaimer-
Likely my rambling thoughts are nothing new to the old guard of real Warhammer, so please forgive me if this post (and the posts soon to come) seem a bit trite and superfluous.  I've been out of the  hobby for well over a year now and this is meant more to help me refocus my hobby energies back to old Warhammer. In that same vein of keeping me focused I plan to post a couple times a week whether I really have anything worth posting or not.
-end disclaimer-

So the challenge is to make a 1000 point Oldhammer army over the next six months or so. As I'm going over the Warhammer Armies book I'm faced with a little conundrum (although not really).

You certainly can't squeeze everything you want into a 1000 points. The main problem is the mandatory troop choices eat up your points. Old Warhammer troop choices wasn't based on any percentage so in theory if there's minimum choice such as for Orc Boyz 20-100 then you need to field at least 20 Boyz in your army regardless of point size.
So in the case of an Orc and Goblin army I suppose you're supposed to have at least 20 Boyz, 20 Arrerer Boyz, 20 Stickas and 20 Gobbos at minimum before you can start looking at other troop choices.  This of course means about half the army points are already spent by default.

So how do I get around this?

One is to ignore it, this is real Warhammer and the rules were always meant to be a bit open to interpretation hence the strong recommendation in the old rules for using a GM. Warhammer Armies is more like a really good set of guidelines to follow rather then a strict set of rules to be adhered to. Keep that "RAW" crap to your age of whatever nauseating edition.

Alternatively if I feel I need to stay a bit "competitive" then I could cut the minimum troop choices down by half or so. Flipping through Warhammer Armies it appears all the example army lists are based around 3000 points and although I haven't come across anything explicitly saying so I suspect the army choices were intended or assumed to be built around 3000 point armies.  So I think you could reasonably shrink the minimum requirements accordingly.

But I think what I really have to keep in mind is this is real Warhammer. We don't build real Warhammer armies by choosing the best most effective troops, wasting hours of time looking for that rules loop hole or perfect combination to defeat everything. We build armies around a narrative, a story line and personality.

Now that said, in the case of my 1000 point army I'm building (at least in my mind for now) everything I said above is actually pointless since I happen to love the mandatory troop choices for the Orcs and Goblin army.  I can't image an Orc army leaving home without a few dozen Boyz and their gobbo lackeys. Though I could probably do with out the Arrer boyz. So oddly I strongly suspect I will be following the army book as written for the most part.

Anyways, build your armies as you see fit is what I say.

Oldhammer In The New World: Army Challenge

Hi all, long time no see.

So the fellas over at Oldhammer In The New World are organizing an army painting challenge.
Look pretty simple so far: Paint a 1000 pt army at 200 points a month for six months with a start date in November (I'm not sure if that's the start date of the challenge or the date to finish the first 200 pts)...  Although that doesn't quite math out that's OK its Oldhammer.

So will this finally pry me out of my hobby slump? Things haven't exactly slowed down at the  Nelson compound. For every DIY project I finish around the house two more pop-up and November is an extremely busy month for me with deer season and holidays and all.

But I'm in!

I've shuffled my crate full of Greenskins to the top of the pile. Notice I have had to add plywood boards between each box as the weight of the lead was crushing them.

Like prying the lid off the Ark or the Covenant revealing all the holy green goodness.

Now to sort through the lead goodness for some choice troops.

That's it for now. Hopefully I'll be back shortly.

Photobucket fail...

Well it looks like I have my work cutout for me over the next several weeks trying to restore my pics.

I'm not surprised by photobuckets decision, their service has been failing for some time and I have been half expecting them to implode anytime.

We'll maybe it will re-invigorate my hobby interests.  The same 8 Heartbreaker orcs have been sitting on my desk for over a year now.
 http://oldorcsneverdie.blogspot.com/2016/03/heartbreaker-orcs.html

We'll just got to get a few more room remodels done and a shed built in the backyard then maybe I can get back into the swing of things in earnest .


The hobby stash has been migrating from room to room.  Here's just a sampling of what I've got left to paint. At least 8 bins of metal there.