Friday 22 July 2016

Not a one trick pony....

hi all

I guess this is a bit of a blog filler post as I'm waiting for bat reps from the rest of the "Nerd Herd" regarding our recent  Saga day at Chris's (they're very late!). After the Saga posts which will probably  go over two weeks, I will be going down to one or two posts a week rather than the three that I'm currently putting out. No my enthusiasm for our marvellous hobby hasn't diminished at all, not even a little bit, but next year (academic not calendar) will be my last year of my degree before I qualify as a paramedic and as you can probably imagine it's going to be very hectic especially as I work full time and teach a weekly class to St John volunteers as well ....sheesh! 

All this adds up to an overload and something has to give and that means the hobby has to be scaled down somewhat until I qualify. Of course I will do my best, but no guarantees. What I am hoping is that some of the Nerd Herd will step up and contribute some posts in my stead, I know Rich has some photos of his recent Waterloo trip etc that he wants to blog about and the others may want to showcase their own work as well.  I will still be gaming and painting and blogging about it too just not so often and I hope you understand the reasons why and yes I will still be attempting to catch up with all my favourite blogs and commenting as much as poss...

But all of that is for another day, in the meantime I shall explain the title of the post. Recently I've been posting almost exclusively Bushido related articles with a little Saga sprinkled about, but like most gamers I tend to have a few interests that I bounce between and unlike my blog buddy Steve G - from "The Gamers Cupboard" blog (for those of you who think you live the hobby try this blog, written with great depth and passion for our hobby, read it, you know you want to!) I haven't had my epiphany moment where I streamline these interests (I'm getting there though Steve). This means I have various factions, armies and warbands in various states of completion in da Grotto, waiting for a lick of paint and some TLC. As I currently have no Bushido minis to paint I thought I would revisit an old ongoing favourite of mine which I dip into and out of between projects - Greenskins!

Now those of you who consider GW to be the antithesis of hobby wargaming with their aggressive expansion tactics, try not to click off in protest, I too disagree with lots of their decisions in recent years but it looks like they may be turning a corner and trying to re-engage with their "veteran" gamers bringing back games like Blood Bowl, which had to go underground for a bit (haha not just for the DungeonBowl) and Necromunda, Battlefleet Gothic, man O War etc all of which I own and have been waiting for this day!! anyhoo I digress....

I have been a Warhammer Fantasy Battle enthusiast since i was 14 years old (i'm now 42) I have collected and given away more armies than I can remember, covering pretty much all the races except, rather ironically considering my blog name, yes you guessed it Greenskins. What?!? I mean I've always loved the O&Gs so why the hell not? I guess the answer really was because I couldn't face another "horde" army, having painted over 5000 points of Skaven. Yes I know O&Gs can have an "elite" type force with Big Uns and Black Orcs but where would the fun be in that? Without hundreds of Gobbos running around I may as well just collect Elves for my elite army (oops did that....).

BTW just to clear things up I don't subscribe to Age of Sigmar as being part of WFB, no sir, no I do NOT! i don't mind people using AoS as a skirmish set of rules and that's ok, but lets not destroy a world I have spent decades exploring and loving and always wishing it would be expanded into those far eastern continents of Nippon and Ind (and planning on doing it myself as fan fiction...) oops I digress again....

Anyway that changed recently when I was scrabbling around in my bits box for some parts to convert a model for a different project (I never did find what I was actually looking for) instead I found some broken old parts of a lead model I have had in my bits box since the 1980s.


Yeeeessss!! look at this bad boy, one of the most iconic figures of the day.  Now I had put it together back in the day and covered it in thick paint and it looked dreadful and the parts were unpinned, heavy and never really stuck together well, he was covered in putty and just was awful, which is why he languished unloved in the bottom of my box. Seeing him looking so pitiful ignited something in me and I searched high and low for the rest of the bits, finding most but sadly not all, plus I started rounding up any straggler O&Gs (come on everybody has them!).  Enough were found that I could construct the Wyvern and give him a new rider (no idea if he came with the box set or if he's an old boar rider model...) and I built this out of it..






I have had to sculpt new horns as these were missing and built a base for him as the little lead one that was moulded to the figure is totally inadequate.  I wanted a more dramatic base so modelled the wyvern talons punching through the armoured corpse of a High elf.  I pinned all of the joints and sculpted them with milliput using the last 20 years worth of experience to finally do the piece some justice.

I do apologise for the lack of WIP pics for this guy and the one below as I started the figure over a year ago but never completely finished either...

Talking of which I have also just finished the leader of my Spider Riders, although I don't think he read the brief....




The giant scorpion used to be part of a conversion I did about 15 years ago for a Skaven army and had a ratman rider, however i never used him in games and it was to be fair a bit shit.....  After finding my Wyvern and getting some O&G mojo, I hit eBay and bought loads of used and cheap greenskins including two boxes of spider riders (by accident, I only wanted one!).  I wanted something a bit special and standout so "Niblit Snotfeather" and his faithful mount "Stinga" was conceived.


So thats it, turned out to be bit more than a filler post and I hope not too boring for those who aren't fans of the evil empire of GW (I only consider it a filler post as i no longer really do much WFB).  But for those of you who are interested in how the project is going I will periodically update you on it's progress.  To give you an idea of how slow it's going I started these models about a year ago and finished them totally last week... I've only completed 2 other units..... no so much a WAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!! as a wooo....hahaha

hope you enjoy
dGG

20 comments:

  1. Excellent, much of what you say rings very true to me. Love the Wyvern. I used to have the previous version but lost it in a house move

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    1. It's been in pieces at the bottom of my bits box and deserved better!

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  2. The hobby that keeps on giving! What a great find and resurrection - love it!

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  3. Very nice work, Andy. I cold so easily go on a rant about how much I hate GW and why, but I too, grew up with their games and figures and a lot of what they produced was really good. So, I'm pleased to see you sticking with old school Warhammer and rejecting AOS. Orcs and Gobbos are fun and I can certainly see the attraction in wanting to collect them. Great work on your two conversions. The best bit, for me, was seeing the High Elf corpse. I used to collect Dark Elves, which is why I always think a dead High Elf is a good High Elf!

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    1. True Bryan, my long love affair of all things GW took a beating in recent years and most systems have been put away. That said the Oldhammer movement has gained so much traction and holds a lot of appeal to my sense of nostalgia so I'm happy to dip in and out of these projects when I find the right models at the right price.

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  4. Wow excellent job... I remember the old GW models

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    1. Thanks HW. I much prefer the smaller but more characterful older metal sculpts than the oversized and really complicated newer minis

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  5. Wonderful Oldhammer post Andy, a pair of lovely minis which really bring back a lot of memories (clearly even for a GW grouch like Bryan ;-) )!!

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    1. ive had that wyvern for 25 years and this is the first time it's managed to stay together for more than 5 mins! Lol

      I must admit Simon it's galvanised me into finding more "oldhammer" minis that bring back that nostalgic love for Citadel figures. I've got some more O&Gs to paint up and some lovely Mantic command figs to add character:-)

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  6. Ahh, I enjoy the nostalgia of oldhammer, too bad GW left the hobby business. While the models may not look as good as new shiny modern ones, (some of them at least) have a definite aesthetic that I like. I was more of an undead fan, but the orks and dark elves were great as well. Ahh the good old days of disposable income! :)

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    1. Disposable what now?? :-)

      I've been meaning to collect a Dark Elf Highborn retinue and never quite started one off, mostly cos I read the Malus Darkblade novels and they're deliciously dark and evil...

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  7. Epic Is coming!! Adeptus titanicus won't be long. GW is back

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    1. Stop trying to get me to spend my money Rich!!!

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  8. No matter what anyone thinks of GW, they've producd some really beautiful models over the years. You've done an excellentjob resurrecting these and should be justifiably pleased with your efforts.

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    1. They definitely have done that Joe, these are good examples of the quality miniatures they have produced in the past. I think my main objection of the more modern stuff is the size and complexity of them. I like the simple doesn't fill up the whole table with a single model sized minis

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  9. Nice job, Andy. I started wargaming via Games Workshop, but was more interested in 40K than WFB, so if not for them, I wouldn't be a wargamer. Obviously, they went a bit off the rails for a while, but I've heard encouraging noises recently, so will wait and see.
    As for 'old' GW figures, I've repurposed some of the original Skaven as Nezumi for Oriental Fantasy, including the original (and nicest) Rat-Ogres, so you'll be seeing them fairly soon>

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    1. The original rat ogres were ace Jez! They would be perfect for Nezumi too. I've got so many Skaven it's ridiculous as I was fascinated by them.

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  10. Awesome! I to started out with GW and I have just out grown them in my tastes. They do still make some cracking models. If I had my time again I would of bought all the LOTR stuff and kept them as they are still fantastic models imo.

    Love the classic miniatures they are highly nostalgic and its nice to see them getting some brushlove and repurpose :)

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    1. I think we all started out as GW didn't we? I think we all forget, in our haste to bash all things GW, just how influential they have been over the years ;-)

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