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.