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

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...

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.

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.

This it the Treeman I use in my Wood Elf Warhammer Army. It is a converted Quickbeam figure from Mithril Miniatures . I have moulded his feet more into the base so that it appears as if roots are being pulled up. There is also a skeleton on the base with tendrils draped over him, which was supposed to be the vegetation being alive. Of course GW have made the treeman much larger and brought in the tree kin which is more this models size. But fundamentally I liked the model when I bought it and it still has a nice feel about it, probably 20 years after I bought it. It was cheaper as well. My Wood Elves army is pretty clean with a Lincoln green feel to them. More models when the natural light improves, as it is more or less constant rain here. What summer?

I use this guy as my general for the Averland Empire army. He is one of the Averland metal mercenaries that Citadel made for Mordheim, but I can't see them on the site anymore. He makes a great general since the cut and quality of his clothes is so much better than the rest of the troops. Equipped with a great weapon, he can do some serious damage but is not too expensive points wise.

So I have nearly finished the unit of Averland swordsmen but there is basing to finish off with static grass and tidying up, but these five are respectable. The standard bearer uses a basic Games Workshop swordsmen body (now old style) and I have added a standard bearer arm from the Knights set and a head and pistol arm from the militia set. The size is a little wrong since Games Workshop made them bigger but with two larger arms and a head this is slightly mor balanced. Also its a pretty simple paint job on the standard but with the repeating yellow and black of the Averland Black Fire Pass guard it works well.

Well have just read the May White Dwarf. I haven't got it for awhile since the quality has been a bit iffy, but wanted to see what they up to with the new Deamon army list. I liked the fact that they had articles for both Warhammer and 40k using Daemon lists, and it helped since the 40k used Dark Angels. I have a 40k Chaos list mainly based on Chaos marines and wouldn't be using the new Codex anyway. But the Warhammer list was another matter, and must admit that I was rather peeved by the way that the list has gone, with from what I understand the only option being to have an all Chaos Warriors or an all Demon army list. Well that buggers up my Slannesh army which is based on the Hordes concept, and has a mix of Warriors and Deamons, and I would imagine most of brothers lists who has armies for Nurgle , Tzeentch and Khorne. The Chaos Warriors armies are not characterful enough in my opinion on their own. All you can do is change the colour scheme, whereas with some Demonettes t...

As mentioned before have built up quite a few Games Workshop armies over the years, and one that I have for Warhammer is the that of the Slannesh Chaos Champion Valsav of the Hrud. Yet again since it has been built up over time it has a number of old models in it as well as some of the newer ones. So for example the Chaos Lord incarnation of Vaslav is the latest Chaos Slannesh hero, but the Demon Prince alternative uses the original Keeper of Secrets. I also have some of the first Chaos Warriors from the first box set in there. Below are two figures, mostly finished although the bases need more work. A Chaos Warrior and a Marauder. The Chaos Warriors are using a basic black scheme for speed of painting whilst the Marauders unifying element is the red and white shield design. Warhammer Chaos Warrior Slannesh Chaos Marauder