The Tim Pollard collection: unreleased Space Marine with guitar

It is not known if this Space Marine was ever intended for release, or if it was simply an in-house cast. The front of the tab is labelled "MARINE" and the rear "GW 1987". I've looked through my back catalogue of Rogue Trader era Space Marines and I can't find any obvious candidate for a donor figure, so it's possible that this is a completely new sculpt. If anyone spots a potential donor then please leave a message. Slaanesh had their Noise Marines - is there anything in the fluff of the period that mentions Space Marines wielding guitars? Not that I'm aware of.

So here he is: pretty crude, but great fun!

The Bryan Ansell collection: Daleks and Cybermen

This week saw the 800th episode of Doctor Who and Matt Smith's final appearance as The Doctor. Although "my" Doctor will always be Tom Baker, I think Matt's performance has been up there with the best, if not the best. I for one will miss him, but I have faith in Matt's replacement, Peter Capaldi. Here's to another 800 episodes.

To celebrate Matt's time in the Tardis I thought it fitting to show these Dr Who figures in Bryan's collection. They are plastic Cybermen and Daleks, and made their appearance in a boxed set in 1987. The figures below are the ones that appeared in an advert in White Dwarf 89, and if you look closely at the colour schemes of the Daleks you can see that they are still ranked-up in the same way as in the White Dwarf 89 advert. You will also see, if you look closely, that the painting is pretty crude: they certainly looked much better in the advert!

The Bryan Ansell collection: Skarloc's Wood Elf Archers and Elven Attack Chariot

Seeing as it's Christmas I thought Elves would be the most appropriate focus for the season. OK, tenuous links aside, here are some pictures of the Elven Attack Chariot that appeared in White Dwarf 88, and the Regiment of Renown Skarloc's Wood Elf Archers from White Dwarf 92. These figure sets now reside in Bryan's collection. Enjoy (oh, and Merry Christmas!).

Elven Attack Chariot

The Tim Pollard collection: unreleased multi-part Space Marine metal kit

Back in the Rogue Trader era Games Workshop produced the RTB01 Space Marines, a boxed set of multipart Space Marines in plastic. They were and still are today a very popular kit. Multipart kits of Space Marines following the RTB01 model with multiple options of heads, bodies, arms, guns, knives, backpacks etc were only produced in plastic, right? Well it seems not. At least one multipart Space Marine set was produced entirely in metal, but was never released. Fortunately it was discovered in Tim Pollard's collection:

My latest John Blanche acquisition

I'll just leave this here...

As featured in "Ratspike"

The Tim Pollard collection: Dark Future and Rogue Trader vehicles

Last June the excellent Realm of Chaos 80s blog posted an article about Tim Pollard, former stalwart of Games Workshop back in the glory days of the 80's. This blog post, together with a subsequent one, revealed the incredible painted miniature and original GW artwork collection in Tim's possession. Tim revealed during the course of the blog post that he was involved in the advertising of GW minis back in the day and remarked that "in order to advertise the minis I got sent at least one of each to photograph, and then I got to keep them". This raised an intriguing possibility: if Tim still had these miniatures in his possession, could they include some previously unknown rarities? Not being one to miss a potential opportunity to mine for hidden treasure, I got in touch with Tim and he agreed to let me trawl through his collection of castings (which was very kind of him given that Tim is incredibly busy being Nottingham's official Robin Hood and that he is about to become a proud parent!).

Tim was initially concerned that he might not have anything of note in his collection of castings, other than a large number of general release figures. As it turned out he didn't need to worry! The first thing I was presented with on meeting Tim was a large box of mainly preslotta figures of mixed manufacturer. I immediately spotted some parts of the Citadel Giant (you know - the Citadel Giant) lying in the box. Nice, pretty rare, but OK not an eye-popper. But then my attention was drawn to a metal vehicle lying amongst the figures. It gradually dawned on me that I was looking at a metal casting of a prototype Dark Future Interceptor (production castings were plastic). Here is a view of Tim's metal prototype followed by a plastic production casting:

The Dave Perry collection: Chaos Space Marines part 2

In my first review of former 'Eavy Metal 'eavyweight Dave Perry's Chaos Space Marines I focussed on his Plague Marines; this week it's the turn of Khorne and the Iron Warriors. Bloooood! Deaaaaath!

Khorne

The Bryan Ansell collection: Bob Olley's undead

There are many figures that Bob Olley produced for Citadel/Iron Claw back in the day that I absolutely love, and are among some of my favourite figures from that time. But there are also some which I...don't...quite...like...so...much...These undead fall into that second category. But hey, each to his/her own and it would be wrong of me not to post these just because of my personal tastes. So here goes:

The Bryan Ansell collection: Night Horrors (Citadel Miniatures)

The "Night Horrors" range is one of my personal favourites and was released in the late 1980s, presumably to tie in with Games Workshop's Call of Cthulhu games license. It is one of those ranges that is very difficult to complete, partly due to the number of figures it includes, but mainly due to it having a small number of figures which for one reason or another are very difficult to acquire.

The range appeared in various adverts and mail order flyers but has never been seen painted. To date I have managed to find approximately a quarter of the range in Bryan's collection, some of which have very imaginative colour schemes!

Mining the Ansell horde: unseen unreleased Eltharion the High Elf

Following in the footsteps of the unreleased Rogue Trader adventurers, the latest previously unseen unreleased figure in Bryan Ansell's collection dates back to the early 1990's: Eltharion the High Elf. This figure is still available from Games Workshop but was originally a Marauder sculpt. Here's the advert for Eltharion riding Stormwing from the Citadel catalogue 3 (the Green Catalogue) from 1992 (image from the Stuff of Legends):

The variant I've discovered in Bryan's collection is a variant of Eltharion himself; Bryan's Stormwing figure is identical to the released version. The unreleased Eltharion is missing the high-backed "saddle" but gains a rather magnificent cloak:

The Bryan Ansell collection: Warhammer 40k Epic scale Titans

Unless my memory is failing, it occurred to me that I haven't as yet blogged about any of the painted Epic scale figures in Bryan's collection. I'll start setting that to rights today with some of Bryan's Epic Titans. I've also included images from back issues of White Dwarf that illustrate these Titans in various battle scenes or adverts.

The Bryan Ansell collection: Rogue Trader Eldar (Citadel Miniatures)

Last month I blogged about the wonderfully-painted Eldar in Dave Perry's collection, many of which date back to the original Eldar of the Rogue Trader period. This months kicks off with yet more Eldar, this time some of the ones from Bryan Ansell's collection. I number of these figures appeared in the Rogue Trader rulebook and the Book of the Astronomican.

What I particularly like about these Eldar is their colour schemes, which really "pop." You will notice that some of them are clearly unfinished, having had just a base coat applied. I'm guessing that these figures either formed part of a step-by-step painting guide, or else were part of a larger force destined to be photographed, with time pressures meaning that they faded into the background and didn't need to be finished off to high standard.

Unreleased Rogue Trader Trooper: another mystery solved

Last week I reported on the discovery of an unreleased Rogue Trader era "Trooper" sculpted by Bob Naismith. I also reported previously on a further mysterious figure that can be seen lurking in the background of an image from the original Rogue Trader rulebook. Well, a couple of sharp-eyed readers of this blog have left comments regarding another mysterious figure in the this image, which I completely missed, the "8 ball head", circled below:

It is of course none other than the "trooper" that came to light last week! So a big thank you to those of you who pointed this out; no idea how I missed this one...

The Dave Perry collection: Rogue Trader Eldar part 2

Here is the second installment of Dave Perry's superb Eldar collection. I particularly like Dave's deep and rich oranges on the Fire Dragons. Enjoy!

PS - I've started inserting "read more" breaks into my posts, which I think makes for scanning multiple posts easier. Any feedback would be appreciated.

Unreleased Rogue Trader era Trooper (the Bryan Ansell collection)

This is the last of the five unreleased Rogue Trader era adventurer types that I've discovered in Bryan Ansell's collection:

The Bryan Ansell collection: Halflings (Citadel Miniatures)

The majority of these bad boys (and girl) were designed by the Perry twins and Trish Carden (Morrison) and appeared in an advert in White Dwarf 97 from 1988:

Adeptus Administratum: latest unreleased Rogue Trader Citadel Miniature (Bryan Ansell collection)

The good news about the latest "new old" unreleased Rogue Trader figure in Bryan Ansell's collection is that we are able to positively ID it from its base tag: "Administratum":

Heavy Metal - Mighty Fortress metal master

I can see I'll have little time for too many in-depth posts this week due to work commitments, but I'll try to post something each day even if it's brief. Today I bring you a metal master for the Mighty Fortress plastic set of the 1980's (from the Bryan Ansell collection):

Yes, it is as heavy as it looks. Can you imagine what the full set weighs...

The Dave Perry collection: Chaos Space Marines part 1

Some old classics here. I particularly like the Nurgle marines and in my opinion Dave has given them the colour scheme they deserve. I've never really clicked with the Night Lords: a bit too cartoon-y for my taste but I can't fault Dave's painting of the figure.

Unreleased Rogue Trader era adventurers and a mystery solved (Bryan Ansell collection)

There's a mystery that's been bugging me and fellow Citadel collectors and Rogue Trader enthusiasts for some time: who and what is the figure on the top left of the image on p. 11 of the Rogue Trader rulebook? Is it even a Citadel figure?

Wargames Foundry: unreleased orcs and some painted orcs and dwarfs

During a recent visit to Stoke Hall to see Bryan Ansell I took the opportunity to photograph some of his beautifully painted Foundry orcs and dwarfs, including a couple of orc greens that Bryan believes never went into production. A number of the dwarfs below are unlisted (thanks to Kev at www.stunties.com for confirming that). With regards to the orcs, I'm afraid I have no idea of their status - they could be unreleased, unlisted, or previously available! Whatever their status, it's a pleasure to see these very characterful figures brought to life with such vibrant painting.

Foundry don't currently list any of these figures on their website but it's my understanding that they will be on there at some point (not sure about the two orc greens).

Unreleased Citadel Rogue Trader era Adeptus Arbites in the Bryan Ansell collection

It's not unusual for images of previously unseen unreleased Games Workshop figures to appear on the internet, and probably the best overall source for these is the Collecting Citadel Miniatures wiki. What is unusual, however, is for new figures to appear in older ranges that might previously have been considered to be completely documented; I recently discovered two figures in Bryan Ansell's collection that fit this criteria.

The figures below are labelled "Arbites" on the front of the tab and "GW 1987" on the rear of the tab. So here I present two unreleased Adeptus Arbites from the Rogue Trader era:

The Dave Perry collection: Rogue Trader Eldar part 1

Dave has quite a few of Jes Goodwin's Eldar in his collection, harking back to the very first Rogue Trader releases. So many in fact that I've decided to divide his Eldar between two posts. Notice Dave has decided to keep the edges of his bases black. You may recall that Fraser Grey did the same thing - simple but very effective.

These particular Eldar are an absolute riot of yellow - Dave has done Eldar in colours other than yellow as you'll see from the next post! In my limited painting experience yellow is a particularly difficult colour to do well, and Dave's results are stunning.

The Bryan Ansell collection: Kev Adams' Slann and Banner

Some of the mounted Slann in Bryan's cabinet painted by Kev Adams in the early days of Citadel:

Wargames Foundry: the unseen master moulds

In September I blogged the response from Bryan Ansell to the question of what ex-Citadel figures may yet coming marching out of the Foundry factory. Bryan's response was:

"I'm afraid that the sad truth is that we don't really know. When we gathered up the various discontinued ranges that had become redundant at Citadel, we had no idea that anyone would ever attach any great significance to any of them. They were never properly catalogued. We do have over 5,000 old master moulds here at Stoke Hall, but they have never been fully catalogued either."

You may recall that this was prompted by Foundry's release of the old Citadel Mercenaries range.

Yesterday I visited Bryan at Stoke Hall and was delighted to be given a glimpse of these 5,000 moulds that have not been fully catalogued, which I would like to share with you:

Great, eh? I couldn't resist asking Bryan if I could take a peak into some of these moulds. The very first mould appeared to have the impression of something like a large ogre or minotaur (I think it had cloven hooves) but only the lower body and part of the torso was present on the mould. Bryan didn't recognise it and I didn't recognise it as something that had been put into production by Citadel, so chances are it's an unseen Foundry figure (or at least one that hasn't been in production for some time). A good start.

But...the next few moulds appeared to have various Darkest Africa, Saxon, and Seven Years War figures inside. If you're a Foundry historicals fan you may be jumping up and down at this point, but I was seeking more fantastical fare.

Some of the moulds were quite a bit larger than the others and Bryan suggested these may have ex-Citadel in them. So I grabbed at one and opened it up to find - a giraffe. Arrrgggh!

I guess at this point I'd opened around 10 moulds, and given that my my next port of call was to photograph some of Bryan's figures I decided to call it a day with the moulds. But I hope to return...

So, what did I see at Bryan's yesterday? Well, all will be revealed but suffice to say I'll be publishing pictures of unreleased Citadel figures that have never been see before. I also took photographs of what Bryan believes are unreleased Foundry figures; time allowing I'll be uploading these pics tomorrow.

Bryan Ansell's Rogue Trader Space Marines: part 2

Back in July I published the first pics of some of the Rogue Trader era Space Marines in Bryan Ansell's collection, and focussed on some of the earliest Space Marines that went into production. Today's post concerns some of the figures in Bryan's collection which made it into the Space Marines Painting Guide, which appeared in White Dwarf 119. I've added a link to the Guide at the bottom of the post.

Have a read of the "Medic's gesture of respect to his fallen Brothers" under the Salamanders' section of the painting guide; could someone please tell me what the following means: "he used his left arm to hold his carnifex". It makes no sense to me!

As per usual, if anyone can name the painters of these figures please leave a comment. Thanks!

The Dave Perry collection: Realm of Chaos Champions and Renegades

I am delighted that Dave Perry, former resident of Games Workshop's Design Studio/'Eavy Metal team, has allowed me to display photographs of his fantastic painted miniatures on my blog. If you dipped out of the hobby in the 1980s and have only recently returned to it you may have missed Dave's stint at GW, but he's provided a comprehensive and very amusing bio below. Please note these are not my words - I want to emphasise that because I certainly don't agree with the "Never truly great, Dave’s painting was, I suppose, sufficient" comment!

Over the coming weeks I'll be showcasing Dave's work, organised fairly roughly into categories. This week it's the turn of Realm of Chaos era Champions and Chaos Renegades.

Biography

Unreleased Foundry Victorian in Steam Powered Armour

Foundry have published pictures of a couple of unreleased Victorians in Steam Powered Armour over on their Facebook page. The last time I was at Stoke Hall I snapped a pic of one of these figures, and here he is in all his glory:

A wonderful figure blessed with a fantastic paint job! I'm not sure if these figures are on general release yet - best way to find out is to give Foundry a ring (0115 841 3000).

The Bryan Ansell collection: Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader Adventurers and Forces of the Imperium

These guys were produced in 1988 and made their appearance in painted form in White Dwarf 99. Sadly Bryan's collection does not appear to be complete; the remainder may yet to be found in his collection, or may have been scattered to the four corners of the galaxy.

The Bryan Ansell collection: Talisman Timescape, Talisman Dungeon and Chainsaw Warrior figures

Bryan Ansell has the majority of the painted figures that appeared in the Talisman White Dwarf adverts in issues 94 (Talisman Dungeon) and 100 (Talisman Timescape). Unfortunately I have been unable to find the Talisman Dungeon Sprite, Dark Elf and Scout figures, but as a bonus I have included the three non-Talisman Chainsaw Warrior figures in this post (an additional Chainsaw Warrior was included in the Talisman Timescape set). Stupidly, I completely mixed up the figures in taking the pics below!

The Bryan Ansell collection: shields up!

The last time I saw Bryan he presented me with a cardboard box about the size of a brick, which was full of old Citadel metal shields. Bryan offered me the opportunity to take a sort the shields for variants, a challenge I duly accepted.

Here are the results: 61 different variants in total. Are you a fan of these old shields?

Mystery Citadel/Ral Partha Troll or Ogre - can you help identify?

***EDIT***: interesting news from Tom Meier:

"Yes, that's one of mine. It was one of two pieces, there's a troll-child being dragged along by the hand that goes with it and  fits into her right hand.""

So, have you seen the troll child? Please get in touch if you have!

---

Previously I posted this:

I have a picture of a mystery troll (or ogre) marked "Ral Partha 1983" under the base. Its not in any of the catalogues of the time - Citadel or Ral Partha (Citadel were distributing Ral Partha back then). I'm guessing it's a Tom Meier sculpt. Do you recognise it?

It's a wonderful sculpt! I'd love to get a positive ID on it, and even better, if you have one going spare let me know!

The only other place I've seen it is an example painted by John Blanche in White Dwarf 116:

Coming soon: the Dave Perry collection

I'm such a tease...

Ivan Bartleet's Honour Guard of Chaos: Mike McVey's Greater Demon of Nurgle found

Back in April I blogged about finding Ivan Bartleet's War Altar of Chaos in Bryan Ansell's collection. I pondered on the whereabouts of the remainder of this chaos warband, which can be seen gathered together on the back of White Dwarf 128:

Well, the Greater Demon of Nurgle, bottom left of the above pic has been located in Bryan's collection, and is presented below in all his pustulent glory. The figure is actually painted by Mike McVey (thanks Stuart for alerting me to that!):

What a wonderful and sickly contrast between the dark green and pink!

Bryan's cabinets of chaos: mystery beastmen

When I started my "Bryan's cabinets of chaos" series of posts it became evident that scattered among his ranks of old Citadel beastmen and broo were a number of figures of uncertain origin. Some were identified as conversions but others remain a mystery. These figures were on display at the Oldhammer Weekend at Foundry, so I took the opportunity to document them for the record. Bryan has no real memory of what these are or where they came from, but thinks that some may have originated in the USA (Bryan recounts that a number of American miniatures companies rose and quickly fell back in the early days).

Do you recognise any of these figures? If so please let me know.

Foundry ex-Citadel and more: Bryan Ansell shares some thoughts

Bryan Ansell kindly left a comment on one of my recent posts regarding the content of the "Foundry archive"; given that some people may have missed it had they already read the post, I thought I would post it again:

I fear that there is very little fantasy stuff, as my father (Clifford Ansell: for who Foundry was originally set up as a retirement job) was never interested in having anything at all to do with fantasy.

The sad truth is that......

In the late(r) 80's my father did quite a lot of mould making, master casting and such for GW. I believe that odds and ends of residue from that period may survive.

Of course, Alan and Michael Perry went from their old C26 Citadel medievals to ranges of compatible models for Foundry: the Foundry models are just a touch bigger and more carefully sculpted.

The C26 range of men at arms was Citadels best selling Fantasy range for three years. (I just threw that in here for a bit of Oldhammer colour).

There will be a scattering of Perry models that never made it into a pack.

There will be loads of Human Manikins: with and without heads, faces, arms, genitals etc. Many of them will never have been used: you can't stop a sculptor making yet another manikin. Plenty of naked horses, other naked animals. Scabbards, swords, muskets, hats and weaponry of every kind. Shields: variants of every possible shape of shield. Strange things that sculptors or members of staff made for their own amusement. Nick, the caster who came with us from Guernsey made some interesting things. Tony Yates made a number of very fine items.

The seven sculptors that worked at Foundry for me a decade or so ago all worked from home, this generally results in the larger-than-usual-number-of-models-that-are-left-over-because-we-cannot-make-up-a-full-pack syndrome manifesting itself: so there will be a fair number of those.

There are a small number really old moulds from the period we were casting Asgard and Citadel (and Ral Partha) simultaneously. Unfortunately, I don't think there is anything terribly rivetting on them. Simple conversions for playtesting Laserburn and suchlike. We have shown the laser-armed Fishmen to the world already. I suspect that these were converted by either me or Rick, and that I must have made the mould, but I have no memory at all of the event.

Now, all of this is fascinating of course, but there's a couple of points I'd like to highlight. The first is Bryan's comment about:

The C26 range of men at arms was Citadels best selling Fantasy range for three years.

Notice the word "fantasy" in there - not the best-selling historical range for three years, but fantasy. Given that Citadel were churning out orcs, dwarfs etc at that time this seems quite remarkable. But if you've ever seen those fabulous old massed-battle pics from back in the day, it's invariably a human force versus a force of "bad guys." So I guess it's hardly surprising that the C26s were in such demand as a proxy human fantasy force.

For my second point I'm going to have to disagree with Bryan's opinion when he says:

There are a small number really old moulds from the period we were casting Asgard and Citadel (and Ral Partha) simultaneously. Unfortunately, I don't think there is anything terribly rivetting on them. Simple conversions for playtesting Laserburn and suchlike.

Nothing rivetting! Laserburn playtest pieces - wow, now that would be fantastic! What do you think about this prospect?

Actually I had been musing about doing a post on these Laserburn playtest pieces - Bryan has lots in his collection. It looks like I'm going to have to write that post sooner rather than later.

The Broken Nose Tribal Army List by Richard Halliwell and Rick Priestley

I'm currently in the process of painting up a small group of 1980's Kev Adams Citadel Miniatures Orcs, and I've been thumbing through back issues of White Dwarf for colour scheme inspiration. In White Dwarf 87 I came across this unusual 'Eavy Metal article - other than displaying images of some lovely old painted orcs and goblins, it didn't really have a painting or modelling component. Instead it focussed on an army list that tied in with the recently published Ravening Hordes.

The introduction to the army list indicates that it "is intended for friendly games not the Warhammer League." I'm not familiar with the Warhammer League - is it an early incarnation of the tournament scene? If it's something you were involved in could you leave a comment and share your experiences?

The back-story to the army list centres around an impending conflict between the goblinoids and the dwarfs at Blackfire Pass, which is a "legendary battlefield" in today's Warhammer. I don't know if this article is the first time we have been introduced to the Pass?

All in all the article presents us with some wonderful and inspirational old painted figures, the usual humorous back-story we have come to expect from the likes of Halliwell and Priestley, and some very entertaining troop choices such as the goblin fanatics, snotlings and lead belcher. I'm tempted to put together a similar force for a future battle: I'm a big fan of troop choices with random consequences!

The Bryan Ansell collection: the "Travelling Players" (Citadel Miniatures C46 Villagers)

The "Travelling Players," sculpted by Mark Copplestone, were a subset of the Citadel Miniatures C46 Villagers range. They are in much demand today by collectors, particularly those who collect old Empire figures. Orclord gives a good summary of the range on his Stuff of Legends page:

The Travelling Players were never designed to be a special set, according to Bryan Ansell, they were just a collection of new c46 sculpts thrown into a particular mail order offer. They have, however, become extremely collectable. There are 2 illustrations of the range, one in White Dwarf 96, page 64 which shows 22 pieces and the other in an October 1987 mail order flyer which shows 25, additionally including the Lute Hero, Flake and the Loudmouth. The names on the ads and on the slottabase tabs are in some cases different, the Flake, Loudmouth, Ruffian and Thug all being marked Gypsy on their tabs. Several of them were slightly modifed and re-appeared in the 1988 Townsfolk release.

Here are the White Dwarf advert and mail order flyer in question (scans courtesy of Tony Mansfield):

Foundry ex-Citadel and more: what lies beneath?

If you read my posts on the ex-Citadel Mercenaries that have recently been found at Foundry and are now for sale on their website, you might be wondering what else from the distant past they have stored away, ready to unleash? A similar question was recently raised on the Foundry Arena Venue Facebook page, and Bryan Ansell himself has given the following response (I added the links to the Foundry's ebay sites mentioned in Bryan's response):

I'm afraid that the sad truth is that we don't really know. When we gathered up the various discontinued ranges that had become redundant at Citadel, we had no idea that anyone would ever attach any great significance to any of them. They were never properly catalogued. We do have over 5,000 old master moulds here at Stoke Hall, but they have never been fully catalogued either.

There will be ten or more items on each master mould, so it is likely that more interesting and/or strange stuff will eventually appear. I know that we have old Rick Priestley odds and ends including some rather worrying sphincter beasts that date back to the Asgard days. Also some tremendously characterful models from Tony Yates.

We will be in a better position to sort through the really old and characterful stuff when all the ranges that were sculpted and cast, but not released during the last decade by the Pinfold/Fletcher team have seen the light of day. There are also SF models by Terrifically Tim Prow that deserve casting up. We have been casting the more obscure models up and putting them on ebay either on Flyte of Fantasy or Casting Room Miniatures.

I'm pretty sure I have one of those sphincter beasts (seriously). So, 5,000 master moulds that haven't been fully catalogued? Very intriguing!

If any more ex-Citadel emerges you can be sure I'll post it here as soon as I hear the news.

The Bryan Ansell collection: Blood Bowl (second edition) Citadel Miniatures

Today's dip into the Bryan Ansell collection uncovers some Blood Bowl (second edition) Citadel Miniatures. I've been scouring through old White Dwarfs to discover who painted these figures, and although many of them are illustrated in 'Eavy Metal articles I can't find any indication of who painted them. Any help would be appreciated.

Big Guys

Rumble in the Jungle: Oldhammer gets down and dirty

The Rumble in the Jungle is a Warhammer 3rd edition scenario that took place at Wargames Foundry last weekend between four heavyweights of the Oldhammer community: Harry "Harry", Chris "Norse", Tom "Hetz" and Richard "lenihan". It was penned by Paul "Padre" with some additional (and as it turned out quite insignificant!) encounters generated by myself.

This post isn't a battle report in the traditional sense - I'm not going to go through the battle blow by blow, partly because I didn't record it in that much detail and partly because I still have not refreshed my memory sufficiently with the rules for a report to make much sense to me or to a reader. So instead I've provided a series of pics that illustrate some key memories of the scenario.

I've lifted the marvellous background directly from Padre - if you want to read the full background and ruleset then its available on the Oldhammer forum:

Bryan's cabinets of...Oldhammer!

Bryan Ansell provided a marvellous selection of figures to display at the Oldhammer Weekend at Foundry, all carefully arranged and displayed by his son Marcus. A took quite a few photographs, some of which have appeared previously on this blog, others have not. I'll let the pictures do the talking, but see if you can spot the Blanche-painted Runequest Troll...(hint: it's not in the "Blanche" section).

Undead

Fimir - fawsends of 'em!

OK, maybe not "fawsends", but I reckon 100 - 150 at least...

I've just been browsing through "Fantasy Miniatures" 1988, and while reading the write up on "The Great Day" i.e. the Golden Demon Awards 1988 I spotted a rather interesting battle scene.

You can see the scene in question on the bottom row, centre, above. I love pouring over old pics of battle scenes like this, and on closer inspection I realised that every single figure in the army facing the camera is a fimir! There must be at least 100 - 150 of them, and those are just the ones in the shot! Here's a close-up of the scene - feel free to drool over it:

What do you think the fimir are facing? Skaven? But that dinosaur-like thing in the centre towards the bottom is a bit of a mystery. Any ideas?

Citadel vs Foundry ex-Citadel mercenaries: comparison pictures

In response to a number of requests I decided to take a comparison shot of some of the Citadel slotta base mercenaries versus the Foundry ex-Citadel mercenaries (Foundry on the right in each pair):

Hopefully you can see from the picture above that there has been no shrinkage, and quality has been unaffected. In fact, in response to Marcus's message in yesterday's post that due to advances in casting techniques the figures should be chunkier and crisper, I can vouch that this is indeed the case, which is quite remarkable really! It's probably quite difficult to discern this from the above pic, but if you look at a comparison pic of the sack that one of the figures is carrying it should be obvious (and in case you are wondering, the Citadel figures came out of a blister pack, and are not recasts):

Citadel figure on the left, Foundry on the right.