Painted Figures: Older Citadel and GW Miniatures, A Song of Ice and Fire TMG and more

 I was intrigued by the A Song of Ice and Fire The Miniatures Game (ASOIAF) for some time. I had read the books before the TV series came out and they were generally very good and the way that they are written with different chapters from different characters points of view helps to give the overarching narrative a much wider vision. As with another author, Patrick Rothfus, Martin is a little late! on actually finishing the book series off.  The series was generally very good as well, some bits were not great but that has been dealt with elsewhere. The main point was the story more or less worked up to where the show runners departed from the established story and timeline. Not their fault as Martin had not finished it but the difference in quality was evident. Anyway I had been aware of the Miniatures and that they were for a wargame for some time but had not looked at them in any real detail. After the 2024 release of The Old World and the debacle on stock then I was looking...

There are a number of warhammer armies that I have been collecting since Warhammer began really. Having moved house this was an opportunity to get some of them out of the attic and view them in more detail. The armies in my collection are Wood Elves High Elves Dark Elves Spotting a theme! Empire Chaos Warriors Skaven Dogs of War With significant collections of dwarves and orcs/gobbos. Plus lots of models I got just because I liked them. In terms of 40k Dark Angels (Main collection) Eldar Imperial Guard Chaos Marines I'll try and lay some out so I get more of them up, but this post is just about one unit. Wardancers I have only done half of them here, as I need to get the photography set up with a tripod for indoor work. Anyway, they follow the basic theme for my Wood Elf army, quite a bright green for most of the units with some being a bit more russet. Half my Wood Elf Wardancer Band Colour scheme is a lighter flesh, with bright green and bro...

Welcome back after a bit of a break ahem. Anyway have a bit of treat for you today as we have a very old Warrior of Chaos to show off. This was one of my brothers miniatures and I remember when we got, Games Day down in London probably in 1982. Caught the train from Birmingham to London and along with a number of goodies  we came back with two of the new boxed sets. I had Dark Elf Patrol and this guy is Braxus Dwarfbane from the Speciality Set 1 Champions of Chaos (info courtesy of the excellent stuff of legends ). Braxus Dwarfbane Speciality Set 1 was an amazing set as it came with nine bodies with 12 interchangeable heads and shields, so you create your own unique Chaos Champion. In this case whilst it is the body of Braxus Dwarfbane it is with the head shown on Goron Widowmaker on the body. The figure above is pre slotta and so is rebased on a 25mm base with the standard method that we used to use which was to surround the normal base with milliput and build up to...

 Above is the leogolas miniature from Games Workshop as I got him through an ebay purchase. Badly painted with green hair, glossy boots, thick paint obscuring detail, and a poorly clipped base. Below are three shots of the finished figure. I did not strip the figure just painted over the original paint. Again this will not win prizes or possibly rate that great on cool mini or not, but it is finished to a good gaming standard so that he can partake in some scenarios from LOTR strategy. His hair is a more decent colour, there is some highlighting, inks and shading and the detail has been brought out as much as possible. the paint scheme has also tried to match the characteer from Peter Jackson's films. finally a more decent base with some highlights and static grass.

 Have now finished the Warrior of Rohan, above was the starting point, big slaps of paint roughly in the right place on the Games Wrokshop miniature. No base, and the flash lines and sprue marks had not been removed. Below are three shots of the same man of rohan, the flash lines have been removed, the decorative base has been added, and there is some basic highlights and shading. The shield design of the intertwined horses has been given as much detail as I could. Metallic highlights drybrushed onto the scalemail armour and the helmet. Again this is not Golden Demon standard but a good gaming standard for LOTR. I now have about 30 other Warriors of Rohan to work on!

As mentioned earlier I picked up a number of Games Workshop Lord of the Rings Rohan figures on Ebay. As with many of the figures these were not painted well and it was a case of trying to bring some of the detail and quality out of this warrior of Rohan figure. Now he is a foot soldier and so there is not the problem of painting a horse, which I must admit I do find difficult. The first stage as with the Legolas figure was to repaint with a decent base coat so that the model could be used in a game. Also this figure would sort out for me which colours I would use on the other Rohan foot soldier models. In this case I used solely Foundry paints for the base coats. The shield has a nice horse design which is complety destroyed by the paint and hard to see, so I went over with a thin black wash so that I could try and see the detail. I used the Army painter Regiment brush and this worked very nicely. so far so good. Below you can see the before and after shots for this Rohan Warrior and a...

Well I had a fair idea of the construction and units in the various Mordor armies from Legions of Middle Earth. I have always liked the Minas Morgul theme so will probably base something around that. As mentioned in an earlier post there is no buy button anymore for the Mordor sourcebook amongst others and having seen very few turning up on Ebay I decided to buy one. I went with Maelstrom Games as they are coming out cheaper than the standard Games Workshop RRP and with free delivery and loyalty bonus, plus extra summer discount. So have a variety of orcs, warg riders, a troll, and some Morgul knights to work with so far. As well as the odd Ringwraith of course. You can't keep a good Nazgul down. Have two more ebay orders to come in one for a Mordor force and one for a rohan one. So I'll draw a line under the bidding then and take stock of where we are. Oh forgot the new Mordor army included Sauron.

Well we are coming along way now with painting Legolas to an acceptable standard. Maybe even the Pro Painted term so abused on Ebay. All of the major shading is done, with highlights on most areas as well. I have not added much to the boots at all, as they are so dark in the Lord of the Rings films anyway. I have added a photo of the original starting point. The green hair has gone as has the strange multi coloured green jerkin. I have painted the central portion and shoulder pads of Legolas in a darker green as per the costume. There are still some finer details to finish off such as the arrow feathers, his two long knives, backpack straps etc and to provide him with a scenic base. Now this might be a bit tricky as he fits on the Mines of Moria scenic base depicting the fight in Balin's tomb. But I will probably paint the bases with an outdoor effect with scenic grass. Possibly try and sell the base back to Ebay and get some money back on the deal. I'll go throu...

I had the great fortune to be in New Zealand whilst the Lord of the Rings Films were being released and went along to the exhibition that was held at Te Papa the main New Zealand Museum. The LOTR exhibition was fantastic and you really got to appreciate the level of detail that had gone into making the films. The leather work and inlay was what really impressed me. What Games workshop had to do was to try and reproduce this level of detail in a small miniature. Talking to a Games Workshop staffer the other day apparently the actors got to sign off on the 3 up miniatures that were produced for accuracy. Now that is what is so frustrating with buying many Ebay Games Workshop figures is that the level of detail is completly ignored and run roughshod over with a paintbrush that looks like a size 3 decorating brush. S lets see how Legolas is getting on. First up going over the whole figure with new base coats. I have a variety of different paints. Some very old games workshop ones. I have...

Well got some of the first figures in from Ebay for the LOTR strategy battle game. They are a mixed bag and I am always amazed at how badly painted and prepared most of the figures are. It is as if no one has ever seen White Dwarf or the Games Workshop website and haven't a clue. Learn how to use a brush. The most overused and innacurate statement on Ebay for Games Workshop figures is Pro Painted! Anyway this is the first example, I am going to tackle, our little pointed ear friend Legolas Greenleaf, prince of Mirkwood and son to Tharanduil. He appears to have green hair in the figure that I have got, so much work to be done to turn him into a decent figure again. I got the whole Fellowship on their presentation stand as one of my first purchases and I will go through the reasons for which models I got in a future post.

Right, trying to understand the workings of Games Workshop in relation to their Strategy Battle Game is a bit tricky for an outsider. The current offering has the One Ring on the Cover and a box set called the Mines of Moria. This is the same turn based strategy based system. They then have the War of the Ring System, this takes your strategy models with their round bases and puts them on to trays, so that they are square. With a different set of rules, I presume, this allows you to play something similar to Warhammer with your LOTR figures. But there are also a number of sourcebooks for the Strategy Battle Game, this is unclear if for the Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and the Return of the King that you need the One Ring rulebook. Because these were also printed in the past as the films were being brought out it is unclear if older versions of these contain the rules to allow you a shortened or simpler form of the game. For example in the One Ring rulebook there are rules ...

Well, I don't get much time to paint these days but I thought I would give the LOTR strategy game from Games Workshop a try. I didn't get into this when the Peter Jackson films were out as it seemed such a work in progress. The Fellowship of the Ring wasn't really enough for a proper figures game and even by the Two Towers, the different powers of Middle Earth were not really developed enough, so it is only in hindsight that you can pick a decent army or two to play. Otherwise you are just ending up with the standard goblins and Minis Tirith men. In the early days then the boxed set seems to have included Eleves and Men from the Last Alliance, which is really that satisfying. Are you playing something from the end of the Second Age or from the Third Age and time of the Fellowship. Obviously not going to pay the outlandish prices of Games Workshop which also have to pay the pockets of New line Cinema. I don't mind paying the Tolkein Estate at least they have some link...

With the release of Warhammer in its 8th edition form, then all of the Warhammer Armies need a bit of a revamp. First up is the High Elves, which I suppose is partly in response to their feature in the Island of Blood. Initially just had a copy of Island of Blood and the cut down Warhammer Rulebook. This is a pretty small print size I have to say and not kind on eyes that have been painting small minis for many years. Anyway now have a copy of the main hardback rulebook as well as the latest High Elves Army book. So getting down to reviewing the army list and how it might work was dismayed to see how Silver Helms have gone from must have core to hard to fit in Special choice. So ideas of a 90% all cavalry High Elf army went out the window. The army construction rules which dictate 25% come from core do not work in my opinion, especially with the Silver Helms now relegated to a Special choice. So it looks like a big unit of spearmen and 15 High Elf Archers. I don't have enough of th...

Some shots of my Dark Elf force, this army has been reasonably successful, and this is with it using a Black Dragon as a mount for the Dark Elf General. Depsite putting mega pts into this arrangement it seems to work. The army colours use an antique gold for the helments and extra metal fittings with a purple for cloth. Also have leather details in a creamy leather for that flayed looked. The Dark Elves Spearmen unit uses a mix of figures, there are some older metal figures in there for most of the spearmen, the champion and the musician, whilst there are also a few of the newer plastic figures. I also used a mix of shield designs, some hand painted and some with plastic skulls, but all using the skull motif. The Repeater Crossbow Dark Elves also use a mix of metal and plastic figures, tied together with the same colour scheme. The unit has no standard but does have a musician.

My take on the old style Helblaster, ie metal with crew including the Leonardo type figure and what I think is an excellent Gun Captain and the big feather and flouncy stuff fits Averland style much better.

I have added the Philips Digital Photo Frame page to the online store. There are four pages of Philips Digital Photo frames with a variety of photo frame sizes from 10" to 7" frames. Philips photo frames are high quality products with excellent pixel quality. Below is the Philips 8FF3FPB

Old Citadel Barbarians or Norsemen from around 1986 which I now use in my Slannesh Chaos army as Chaos Marauders. This was before they got rid of the combined Chaos force with the release of Chaos Daemons. Talk about a backward step.

First generation of Empire army with halberdiers which had metal halberds that you had to put in. I think they are from the Medievals range by Citadel, so from early 1980's 2nd generation halberdiers, now painted in clear Averland colours following the release of the first Empire army book which had pics of all the main states. I chose Averland because of the strong contrast and Black Fire Pass Guard, which sounded cool. Also close to the Moot so I could use Halflings and close to the Mts so I could use Imperial Dwarves. I have some of those coming up. From the Battle Masters figures I think. Current generation of Halberdiers and these are a bit old, head swap on the plastic figure to make him more presentable. Metal figure in full flouncy bits and big Averland feather, and a really old Moon Duke. Latest Halberidiers that I have, though I realise that there is a generation after this. But the figures are getting so big. Those Militia figures which came from Mordheim were out of pro...

Having posted on http://www.warhammer-empire.com/ forums with some pics of my Averland General, then someone asked about old figures, so I had a rummage around for some. These are probably some of the earliest that I have that were used in an army when Warhammer 1st edition came out, as opposed to DandD figures. I still have the boxed set upstairs. They were from the Dark Ages range that Citadel Produced some time late 70's to early 80's. Worked as bowmen quite well and probably still could use them as Kislev troops. This is my current Averland Empire Halberdiers (just a sample) with the Moon Duke as champion. Metal halberdier and then a plastic one with a head swap to make him stand out from the crowd.  These are some of my current Averland greatswords. They include one of the F5 Paladins from 1986 (on right). I used a bronze armour on these guys. Rather than a simple steel plate armour.

I have added the new Kodak Wireless Digital Photo Frame, W1020 , into the online store under the Kodak Digital Photo Frames page. This is a 10" Digital Picture Frame and comes with an optimized KODAK Light Management Film to provide a bright, clear display. One of the difficulties of Photo Frames is getting the pictures on to your frame as quickly and easily as possible. This new Kodak Frame uses Wireless technology so that you can access and share the pictures on your home computer with the Photo Frame using wi-fi technology. You can also use leading photo sharing web sites such as Flickr or the Kodak Gallery. You gain access to your photo collection on your PC no matter where you are in your home.