Bargain Boxes and the Citadel Troll

I was rummaging around my parents attic and found this little jem.  Yes its just an empty box.  But what caught my attention was prophetic yet ironic allegory on the back.

I picked up three or four of these boxes probably no later then 1990' so at the time the miniatures contained therein would not have been more then a few years old.  But I believe the little back story can be appreciated more so by today's collector.

In case you had trouble reading the fine yellow on read text:

As far as the eye could see, stretched dune-like landscape of 25mm figures. Something shifted. An arm appeared above the sea of metal, green and scabrous. Then a foot. Finally a head. At last, a severely bruised Citadel Troll pulled itself free.

‘Cor’,’ it mused, scratching one of its heads, ‘what `it me?’ It looked around cautiously.

Figures,’ said one head to the other. ‘ `Undreds and undreds of `em.’ It scooped up a handful and let them run through its fingers like sand.’

`Old, too’, said the other. ‘Rare. Be worth a fortune these days. Don’t make ‘em like this no more.’ Both heads nodded sagely….

`’Ere,’ said the first head. ‘Worth a fortune, eh? If nobody knows they’re `ere…’

`Only, them what’s under `em,’ put in the second head.

`Then maybe we could….’

‘You mean just us?’

‘Well, they do need shiftin’, an’ no mistake.’  Suddenly, the dark dungeon was flooded with a harsh multicoloured light.

The troll cowered in terror against one wall. ‘Cripse!’ said both heads, almost simultaneously. ‘It’s `im!’

 `So this is where the timewarp hit,’ said a harsh, echoing voice. ‘You!’ –the troll cringed- ‘Break out some Bargain Boxes and get this lot shifted!’

‘Well,’ said the one head as the troll began to shovel the ancient figures into boxes. ‘Just goes to show what a good idea it was if  `e `ad it at the same time.’ The other head glowered.

‘Shaddap an’ keep shovellin’,’ it snapped.

Oh what I would give to be a two headed troll buried in lead!

 

Ol’Lund Dartfinger and the Knuckledragger gang

I finally managed to get the Nick Lund Orcs updated and took some quick photos.  I'm also making an attempt tie them in with the ongoing fluff I have rolling around in my head, which is what I originally envisioned this blog for though its taken a few odd turns.  Maybe in a year or two I'll be able to re-organize this thing into different categories like I see in some of the fancier blogs out there.


Using the old Regiments of Renown format I present Ol'Lund Dartfinger and the Knuckledragger gang.

Cave Orcs-
The mountains surrounding Mordro Valley are filled with a particularly hardy breed of Orc often referred to as cave Orcs for their habit of residing in the shallow caves and abandoned Dwarf mines in the higher reaches of the mountains.

Years of cramped confinement through the harsh winter months of the high peaks, these cave Orcs have developed a more pronounced stooped stature with hands nearly reaching the ground. Its said they can bound down their low ceiling-ed corridors on all fours as fast as a man can sprint.

Ol’Lund Dartfinger and the Knuckledragger gang-

Having perfected the art of chopping Dwarf limbs with their great choppa’s, Ol’Lund and his Knuckledragger gang have made their way down to the greater valley to try their hand in the raiding and pillaging alongside rest of the boyz of the valley.  Though rumor has it they are actually fleeing the wrath of a young dwarf captain Baelrik Tillurideson and his avenging troop of warrior miners.

    Armament: In emulation of their leader most of the Knuckledraggers carry great two handed choppas and mix of crude bludgeoning weapons, axes and swords.

    Dress: A mix of dirty rags and furs to protect them from the cold mountain air.

   Battlecry: The usually cacophony of swearing, though when confronting stunties its usually a string of insults regarding the length of their mothers beards.

    

   Leader: Ol’Lund Dartfinger.  Ol’Lund is a master with the two handed Choppa and suffers no penalties for using a double-handed weopon.

    Deeds:   After several weeks of deadlocked siege during the battle of Leadrock Mine, Through the use of some colorful verbal abuse, Ol’Lund managed to persuade the Dwarf commander foremen Tilluride Forkbeard from his barricades to a challenge in single combat.  Ol’Lund duly split Tilluride in twain with his great two handed choppa.  The Knuckledragger gang made short work of flushing the now demoralized Dwarfs from their mine.

 A  few examples of minor conversion, mostly head gear, to help break up the monotony.

ol' Nick Lund Orcs WIP

The ol' Lunds are coming along nicely. Hopefully another week and they'll be done.

If you haven't noticed about half the unit is old grenadier models while the other half is Citadel (Eeza Ugezods Mother Crusher RoR troopers).  The old Ugezod troopers have pretty shoddy paint jobs so I'm doing a lot more work on them.  While I'm at it I also decided to try and break up the monotony of having so many with the same pose by adding different head gear to some, I'll do a few weapon swaps as well.

In my opinion no two Orcs should look the same so I always do my best mix as many models as possible and try and paint the duplicates differently to help break them up a little.

The original musician I had in the unit, although a grenadier model, was not a Nick Lund sculpt.  A lucky find on ebay has remedied that.

Revamping the ol' Nick Lunds

I'm having trouble finding the time to sit down finish painting the pre-slotta base Orcs and now my attention has been slightly averted to my old unit of Nick Lund Orcs.

The paint jobs are fine for the most part, despite having been painted 20 years ago or so, but their bases are in pretty bad shape.  So I've decided to give them a little update and revamp their bases and maybe do a little touch work here and there.

I know its never a good idea to have more then one project going on at a time but I just gotta do it.  Hopefully this will be something I can do in my spare time while at real work while continuing to work on the pre-slotta citadel boys after work.

Anywho, hopefully in a week or two I'll have a pic of the rebuilt Nick Lund unit posted up.  We'll see though, I'm also in desperate need of a new camera.

Hungry Troll and Gobbos.. ere we go er we go ...

I seem to have had a upsurge in followers today thanks to http://old-hammer.blogspot.co.uk

My current pre-slotta Orc unit is still in progress, about half way done.  Hopefully in the coming weeks I'll get the completed unit up.

But I did "find" some oldschool tunes for you all.  Enjoy a little GW goodness from the late 80's.

John Blanche did it

Ok as Im painting up these old Orcs I just couldn't get over the nagging feeling I'd seen them some place else.  That sent me routing around my old warhammer literature and I rediscovered my old copy of Heroes for Wargames by Stewart Parkinson (I actually have two copies).

Despite the generic title the book itself is a window into the machination of Games Workshop/Citadel miniatures circa 1986.  A must have for anybody into that nostalgic Golden age of Citadel miniatures.

But I digress.  Within its hallowed pages they have several concept drawings for miniatures... and there they are the Armoured Orcs by John Blanche.  No wonder these little guys have such a different feel to them.  This is one of the rare occasions were John's imagination actually made it past the concept board and allowed to live as something more then just a bizarre painting tucked in the footer of an Army Book.

John Blanche is a bit of anomaly for me, I can't quite grasp what he does at GW.  As far as I know he's been the head art guy down at GW since forever.  You would think more of his influences would be noticeable on the Warhammer world but yet I just can't think of much, at least not outside the 80's.  His art is chalk full of bizarre and exaggerated landscapes crazy and exotic looking peoples. He can leave nothing well enough alone, if you ask him to draw a Warhammer horse he'll turn out a steroid laced zebra breathing fire.  But yet at the end of the day after all the imagination spent the only thing that has trickled down from him to main stream Warhammer is the leering Evil Sun and the servo skull.  Its as if all his ideas are processed, scrubbed, neutered and made sanitary for public consumption. We only get the occasional glimpse of his mad artwork sprinkled in rulebooks and White Dwarf, presented as 'artwork' when it should be presented as the reality of the Warhammer world.

Oh dear I ranted I'm not sure where I was going with that.


Anyways at the end of the day all things warhammer were just so much cooler back in the 80's.

Here's a bit of John's concept art for the Armoured Orcs.

Thoughts on the old boyz.

I thought I'd offer a few thoughts on these pre-slotta base Orcs while I'm waiting for myself to finish painting the Ol' Rusty Axe Gang.




These guys seem to belong to two different series; half seem to be from the old Fantasy Tribe's while the other are from the 'Armored Orcs' all of which were sculpted by the Perry brothers I believe.

Character and charm gets tossed around a lot when describing old miniatures and these guys are certainly packed with loads of it.  Nothing says charming like a couple severed heads hanging from your belt! The faces all display a myriad of expressions from stern to malicious joy. What really makes these guys stand out is all their little oddities especially on the armored Orcs.  The armor itself has an exotic quality and forces your mind to wonder off imagining where these dirty Orcs acquired such fine armor… no doubt torn from the corpses of defeated warriors from exotic and strange lands… but who were these strange warriors with helms sporting avian beaks or with curled horns and nautical crests?

Here is an example of the more basic Orcs. Obviously they are variations of the same body with heads swaps and extra bits of armor added here and there.  The one on the left is the worst of the bunch, his head is angled awkwardly and his right arm looks almost as if it’s in a shirt sleeve but he has no shirt on under the chain mail, a bit of a rush job by the looks.  But still only the one bad apple out of the lot so I shouldn’t complain.

Now back to painting…

Did I say Old Orcs?

Well here I was thinking I'd be posting weekly updates to this blog and no sooner then I left my first post when real life caught up... Halloween for the kiddo, hunting trip, water pump on the Jeep blew out, and now the wife says she wants the railing for the stairs remodeled by Dec 7th. Given the unskilled labor I use (me, myself and I) the remodeling project is going to take a lot longer then that but I better make an effort or catch hell.


So not much going on in the hobby world at the moment. I did manage to gather up my old pre-slotta Orcs. I think these old guys will be my first foray back into the Orcs and Goblins. I just took these quick picks and and they are now relaxing in a Simple Green bath. Hopefully this weekend they'll be ready to be painted.

I'll call these guys the Ol' Rusty Axe Gang.