Category Archives: OldHammer

Wolf Time Orks

24 Monday Sep 2018

Posted by in OldHammer, Wolf Time

≈ 19 Comments

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Greetings Terrans, how goes it? It has been a busy couple of weeks, with lots of building, sculpting, and general hobby ‘admin’, but not much in the way of finished stuff to share! That said, I do have another unit of ‘Ork Warriors’ finished for the Wolf Time campaign, (30 down, 72ish to go). As with the ‘Red Skwad’, these guys are all armed with Bolters and Bolt Pistols, and will lurk in Gov’ner Kulo’s inner sanctum (fnaar fnaar). This time, I’ve gone with a rather fetching orange as the squad spot colour:

 

These guys were slightly slow to get finished, mostly because I had a ‘small’ terrain project jump the painting queue last week. That project hit a bump & won’t be ready to show until next week, but here’s a teaser for you:

Hmmm!!! Mysterious, no?

 

I’ve also been prepping the next round of Orks to paint, which necessitated some more Greenstuff shenanigans. Here’s a sample WIP of some Ork Teknishuns wot all needed Greenstuff swords & pistols to go with their Plasma Guns (of course…):

Ok, so I know some of these are actually flamers, but fuck you internet – I’m calling them Plasma ‘because Orks’ 🙂

 

Speaking of ‘pain-in-the-arse’ non-existent minis, I’ve also been thinking about the remaining Orks that I need to sort out – all of which have few or no ‘official’ models… You’d think that Skumbos (sword & pistol), and Ork Guards (Bolter, Chainsword & Power Armour), would be plentiful and easy to source, but they are not. I’ve already moaned about the complete lack of power armoured bolter/chainsword combos in a previous post, but you’d think that at least the Skumbos would be plentiful enough, right? Er… no. There are about 5 ‘official’ Rogue Trader RT02/4402 pistol & sword minis of the right age… and I need 25… *sigh*

My current plan is to use fantasy Orcs of the correct vintage, but, of course, they’ll all need converting to some extent. With that in mind, I’ve been playing around with press-moulding bits so I can produce the correct weapon options for these sods… I have had very little success so far, but I will persevere… You can say what you like about this sanity of tackling this project with such strict self-imposed restrictions, but it is definitely developing my hobby skills!

Until next time people – have a great week 🙂

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Organised Chaos

17 Friday Aug 2018

Posted by in OldHammer, Side projects

≈ 28 Comments

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Greetings Terrans, I hope this finds you all well. It has been a hectic time in Leadballoony-land – the idea of running the Wolf Time campaign next year has got me motivated to paint some Greenskinz that I have been hoarding for far too long… I’ve been examining the campaign (in the Book of the Astronomican) to get an idea of the forces needed – and the answer is ‘bloody loads!!’ Quite a few can be re-used between games, but the effort of matching models to stat lines is quite the challenge… I’m determined (for now) to stick to late 80’s lead where possible, and to apply the WYSIWYG principle. I have the first raft of Orks based, primed and ready to take on holiday for a spot of al fresco painting, and I’m super excited about it because the bulk of this lot is made up of RTB02 Space Ork Raiders…  Thing is, the RTB02 boxed set was my first ever Warhammer purchase, and Thrugg Bullneck was my first ever ‘proper’ paint job, so I’m really going way back to my roots with this project, and boy, does it feel good! Here they are, ready to enter the carry-case dropship to painting Valhalla:

I’m going for a general militaristic desert theme for these guys – Wolf Time happens before the idea of Ork clanz Is firmly established, when Orks were really more like savage humans than anything else! As such, I primed them black, and then gave them a light zenithal coat of Zandri Dust – the perfect (and quick!) start to any desert scheme. The theme itself seems like a good fit for the minis – it isn’t particularly novel, but it works for the pre ‘red-era’  period of the Book of the Astronomican, and they’ll fit nicely with my Praetorians too… (Last Stand at Glazers Creek anyone? 😀 )

It hasn’t all been preparation though – I also managed to paint a thing this week! He’s a chaos warrior from the Pantheon of Chaos range, and I absolutely love this mini. I keep having the urge to do a chaos warband one day, and he has been primed and ready for painting for quite some time, but I never seem to actually get around to doing anything with him! This week, I had some time to paint but didn’t want to start anything big – long story short, I picked him up and gave him a tickle with my hairy stick:

I have the vague recollection that this guy is supposed to represent Malal – a mysterious anti-Chaos chaos god from the pre-Slaves to Darkness era. I don’t know much of the lore personally, but Orlygg has put together a brilliant piece of research on the subject – you can find it here. From this research we can learn that Malal is all malicious and insecty, that he despises the other chaos gods, but that he isn’t a friend of the ‘good guys’ either, and that black & white skulls is his vibe… As such, I kept the palette restricted, but I did try out a thin wash of violet over silver to give a rather pleasing metallic purple on the armour. I have never tried this technique before, so I’m dedicating this to Azazel’s ‘Technical August’ challenge 🙂

Anyhow, that’s all for now – I’ll be off the grid for a couple of weeks, but hopefully I’ll be back with a decidedly big green bang in September! Peace out dudes, and be excellent to each other  🙂

BOYL 2018, and a belated Space Bastard

10 Friday Aug 2018

Posted by in BOYL, OldHammer

≈ 27 Comments

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Greetings Terrans, wow, what a week! I had all the fun & mayhem of BOYL last weekend, so three days of solid oldhammer gaming, shooting the breeze with friends, checking out amazing minis & gorgeous terrain, and generally soaking it all in. As always, the Ansell clan were hosts beyond peer, and all those who make the event possible were superb. Also as always, I have a photo dump for you to pick through, so here we go!

Friday: First up, a great game of Rogue Trader (i.e. Warhammer 40k first edition) with my pal Titus (of gameoftravel fame). He pitted his newly painted and stunning Imperial Fists against my also newly painted & very bright Eru-Kin. I used Slaan rules from Rogue Trade, and loaded up on high tech kit, while Titus used a contemporary Space Marine army list. We set out some objectives, and also included some RT psychic powers on both sides. It was a cracking game, with the Marines taking a brutal toll on the Slaan, but the Slaan being more focused on their objectives. Highlights were the Slaan hopping all over the place thanks to their displacer fields, and the pivotal moment where my Slaan mage changed the allegiance of the Marine Dreadnought. Awesome game:

 

Next up I got involved with a classic WFB campaign, and played Terror of the Lichmaster. Wojceich (Frugelhofennews) had been working on collecting and painting all the correct buildings and minis for the campaign, (including some very rare and collectable pieces), but had only recently discovered the UK Oldhammer scene, so made the BOYL event at very short notice. It was a genuine pleasure to see how much he enjoyed his minis used in the campaign, and hopefully we’ll see Wojceich again next year for Revenge of the Lichmaster!

 

Saturday: I spent most of the morning hanging out with the WIPster posse – Axiom, Cheetor, Asslessman, Whisky Priest, AntiPixi and Airbornegrove, plus event-guru Garth and a few folks I am less familiar with. Collin (Whisky Priest) ran a game of ‘What a Tanker’ – kind of World of Tanks for the tabletop. It’s a neat game, and great fun to play – even with the chaos of managing 11 players! It was really good of the guys to fit me in at the last minute, even though it made for an odd number of players and skewed the game… they really are an awesome gang of Orky tankers 😊

 

The afternoon had the Space Bastards game happening on the Helsreach board, expertly handled by Curtis. The basic idea is a small unit of Marines (or a single Marine plus human henchies) warp in to Helsreach, and kick up as much mayhem as they can. Points were available for killing, graffitiing, boozing, and one or two less salubrious activities. The whole idea came off the back of a conversation last year about how awesome Marines used to be when the fluff had them as genetically engineered homicidal maniacs, and how well this would work when said Marines were on shore leave…  Even the goody-goody Ultra Marines were sociopathic bastards back in the day  😉

Here is my Bastard (finished the night before I left), and his henchmen, :

During the game, I ended up having my spree interrupted by Hambry and his gang of Helsreachers, so a right good ding-dong took place between my mob and his. By the time the game finished, I had almost wiped the impudent locals out, and had a hefty kill tally to show for it, (plus some graffiti here and there). And here they are in action:

 

Late afternoon I was lucky to be included in another WIPster game – this time Jon (Axiom) was running a bounty hunting skirmish, which was fast paced and very funny. Jon had thoughtfully created stats for a huge number of eclectic minis from his collection, and it was awesome to see them assembled in one place for a game. I ended the game with a pleasing number of credits:

 

I also managed to jump on another bandwagon on Saturday evening, and took part in a classic Rogue Trader scenario – the battle of Jadeberry Hill. It is designed as a follow-on to the famous Battle at the Farm scenario from Rogue Trader, and pits Crimson Fists against Orks. Aiden had provided the board and the Orks, while Drew provided some gorgeous Crimson Fists. I joined a few turns in, and helped Jesper with the defence effort. We managed to hold out long enough to get the escape signal, enter the tunnel and reset the demo charges before the swarm of Orks overran our position. Several heroic Marines sacrificed themselves in this effort – a flamer guy who held up the Ork advance to allow his brothers time to escape, and a single trooper who intercepted a pair of sneaky greenskins on the verge of slipping through the net, heroically killing both in melee before getting shot to pieces.

 

 

Sunday morning was a very groovy affair – I had the pleasure of setting up and GMing an impromptu game of Rogue Trader, with Jesper controlling my Praetorians, David running the Eru-Kin, Nibbel with his Scavvies, and Hambry with his Inquisitor and retinue. Titus also joined the party late with his Imperial Fists. I set up a small settlement and civilian population, and gave each general a set of goals – most of which clashed with at least one other player. It was my first time running a game this big, and it was certainly a challenge, but I really enjoyed the experience, and I think my players did as well. Trouble is, I was so busy, I forgot to take many photos! It ended closely, with a number of objectives achieved by most players. David nicked it in the end, with his surgical precision, strategic acumen, and cold-blooded xenos focus on his objectives.

 

And that was it for another year! Man, I had such a good time, and can’t wait for 2019. A bunch of us are already planning and scheming, with some great ideas bubbling away… I’m thinking of trying to run Wolftime, and I even hear whispers of a Slaves to Darkness warband challenge! Awesome 🙂

Olivia Neutron-Bomb

19 Thursday Apr 2018

Posted by in Fembruary Challenge, OldHammer

≈ 38 Comments

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Greetings Terrans, I hope you’re all well, and that life is being kind. I have a quick post to share with you today – ‘Olivia Neutron Bomb’ is the BOYL 2017 event mini, and is a beautiful sculpt by John Pickford, organised & designed by Old Hammer stalwart Axiom. Most intriguingly, she is closely based on this classic bit of Rogue Trader art:

I actually had Olivia based and primed as part of my Fembruary effort, but I didn’t get around to painting her because she didn’t quite fit the post-apocalypse gang that I had going on. However, she is such a brilliantly strong female mini, so I knew that I wanted to include her somewhere…  Then I remembered these guys from 2016, and I figured that Olivia would be the perfect unit leader for this bunch of reprobates. I broke out my Kantor Blue and started laying down some colour, keeping to the same palette that I used on the older minis but opting to follow the RT artwork rather than freestyling it quite as much as I did on the original guys. Here she is, in all her glory:

The trousers were a real pain – I wanted to keep close to the artwork, but also use the same palette as for the rest of the squad. I think I got there in the end, but her snazzy pants took a few iterations. Otherwise she was a joyful thing to paint – she’s a really lovely mini with such a great story. Here she is leading her team of ultimate bad-asses through the streets of some backwater shithole planet:

So that’s it for now folks, I hope you’ve enjoyed my take on Olivia! I’ll be going dark for a couple of weeks, (a lot of work & life stuff coming up), but I’ll catch you all soon enough. Have a good one 🙂

Decembruary painting challenge completed!

19 Friday Jan 2018

Posted by in AoS Undead, OldHammer

≈ 26 Comments

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Happy Friday folks, and I’m happy to report that my super death-dragon monster of deathly death is finished, thus comfortably getting me over the finish line for Azazel’s Decembruary painting challenge. As a reminder, the challenge was to paint a ‘big thing’ that has been put off for a while, and this certainly matches that brief – I’ve had this project in mind for months, but never seemed to have the motivation to roll my sleeves up and get cracking… You can probably see why – this was a complicated and intimidating kit bash to represent Arkhan The Black in an OldHammer stylee, and is based on the venerable Death Dragon from Grenadier, (still available from mirliton.it as ‘Arkor the Eternal’). This is what I ended up with:

So let’s talk a bit about the build… First things first, this old girl is a big lump of lead, and I made it more complicated by deliberately ignored the ‘correct’ pose to make her a bit more dynamic… much pinning and filling was required to make sure she was rock solid! I used an old GW skeleton cavalry mini to represent Arkhan himself, with some minor conversion work to swap the (MASSIVE) head, add a right arm, add a tilting shield, and sculpt a saddle & banner mount. He also got some manly man-chains to steer the bugger. The base got quite a lot of attention as well – Arkhan gets a bunch of spirit host attacks in AoS, so I wanted to represent this on the model. The banshees from the Mortis Engine kit fitted the bill nicely, while some trees & scatter filled in the gaps and added a third point of stability for the dragon. One final thing to note – cleaning the mould lines off such a big model created a lot of lead shavings and off-cuts. I glued all this gash to the base and used it as texture, thus avoiding any thorny issues with responsible disposal. I even managed to sneak the rider’s original massive head in there – waste not, want not!

In terms of painting, this piece (is it pretentious to call it a ‘piece’??) provided ample opportunity to cut loose and have some fun. First up, I wanted the spirits to look like they were really glowing, so I had loads of fun with OSL. I think it came off nicely, though I think I overdid it a bit on the dragon’s eye sockets… I’ll sort that bit out next time I have some skellies on the table, but otherwise I am really chuffed with how the glow effect worked. Another bit that got a lot of attention was the banner and (to a lesser extent) the shield, and I really got to push the boat out with the freehand here. I am delighted with how it came out – that banner ended up being one of my favourite ‘things wot I painted’ ever! The rest of the paint job was pretty standard – I painted the trees to match my woodland bases, and I took my usual approach making things look tatty and old. A smattering of leaves and tufts of grass complete the base, though I do need to just go back and add some OSL to the leaves, (they got glued on last, and I didn’t want to risk painting on to wet superglue).

Here are a bunch of close-ups from various angles & focus points – I’ve tried to capture all the interesting bits for your viewing pleasure:

 

So, that’s it folks, what do you think?! I’m delighted with how it all came together & hope you like it too 🙂   Huge thanks to Azazel for setting the challenge and motivating me to tackle such a big & intimidating project – it is great to have such a mighty hero to lead my legions, and I wouldn’t have got around to it without this challenge, so high-fives to you dude 🙂

Primaris Marines (?!) and some ‘Nasty Bush’!

08 Monday Jan 2018

Posted by in AoS Undead, OldHammer, Primaris Marines, Side projects

≈ 22 Comments

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Greetings fellow aironauts, and welcome to the first ‘proper’ post of the year on Leadballoony. I really haven’t had that much time for hobbying over the Christmas break – it was a pretty busy time, but I did manage a few bits and bobs, starting with a few jungle bases:

 

This is a continuation of my side project to create some psychedelic jungle terrain, and is meant to provide some really dense patches of bush (fnarr fnarr) with small paths wending their way through. Placing minis on said path is a bit of a bugger, but is absolutely doable. There will be plenty more to follow on this project, so expect to see the odd bit of jungle turning up over the coming months!

Next up we have some unplanned and unexpected Primaris Space Marines… yeah, random! There is an explanation though – my youngest son surprised me a few days before ‘the big day’ by asking for some…  He was quite clear that we needed some real ‘goodies’ in the collection, and that the heroically proportioned and clean-cut Marines were the way to go:

We (I) got them built and undercoated gold over the break, but my boy dictated the weapon loadout & colour scheme, as well as doing all the drybrushing & inkwashing. It was great to see him totally absorbed by the process, and I have a feeling that he might get into the hobby as he gets older:

There is no specific chapter in mind for these guys – my boy wanted to do his own colour scheme, so the purple & gold is very much ‘rule of cool’. I reckon it looks rather smart! I specifically left out some of the finer details, (like highlights on the coloured panels and chapter iconography), just so that they can be improved at some point in the future. No doubt my son and I will slowly grow this small band of brothers as the year progresses, and I’m actually looking forward to doing some more – they are really rather nice to paint! Unlike a lot of folks, I don’t have any skin in the Astartes game, so I was actually happy to see correctly proportioned Marines hit the market… There. I’ve said it… I’m coming out as a secret Primaris fan. Hell, I can even largely ignore the awful & clunky fluff that justifies their existence! As far as I am concerned, this is what Marines look like now – indeed, they should always have been this big, so this as-yet unnamed chapter will be entirely made up of Primaris. Here are a few fun pics of them engaging some wily Eru-Kin on some distant death-world:

 

It hasn’t all been space jungle & giant Marines over the holiday though, there has also been the ‘small’ matter of Azazel’s ‘Painting Decembruary’ challenge… Happily, my version of Arkhan is progressing very nicely – the build is finished and I have started adding colour, but I’m keeping all that under wraps for now so you’ll have to settle for more B&W for the time being:

 

That’s it for now folks, hope you enjoyed the post & catch you all soon!