Beasty boy

This one has been in my undercoated pile for a little while, and happens to be one of my fav beastmen of the classic Realm of Chaos era. A classic Jes Goodwin sculpt.

Foundry's forthcoming Kev Adams Beastmen...and some orcs

These have not yet been cast! I wanted to put this disclaimer in right at the start so (hopefully) nobody gets confused and calls Foundry to order a bunch because these have not yet been cast!

I called in on Wargames Foundry yesterday and took the opportunity to see the line of chaos beastmen that Kev Adams is starting to sculpt for Bryan. These will probably be released under the Warmonger Miniatures banner once the time is right, but I'm afraid I don't have information as to when this might be. Bryan is still pondering how to approach the release, and he may go the Kickstarter route; he hasn't decided yet. I don't think the name of the figures themselves is set in stone either: although they are clearly "beast men" they may yet end up with a different title.

Kev has sculpted a bunch of heads, and is now starting with some bodies. As you might expect from Kev the quality of the work is stunning, with bags of character and a "proper chaos" feel. Currently the heads are mainly of the "goat man" type (which he has executed brilliantly I'm sure you'll agree) but he assures me he will also be sculpting mutated beastmen, so there's a right mix to come - exciting stuff!

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.

Bryan's cabinets of chaos 5

Today's glance into Bryan Ansell's cabinets of chaos reveals some of Dale Hurst's chaos conversions. Issue 135 of White Dwarf featured an article by Dale on converting and painting some classic (well, contemporary at the time!) chaos figures for a Tzeentch warband. Dale's warband is heavily focussed on beastmen/minotaur/spawn with a solitary chaos champion and his familiar. To date I have managed to locate the beastmen and minotaur/spawn in Bryan's collection but the champion and familiar are yet to be found (sadly they are possibly among the "disappeared" as is often the case with Bryan's figures).

Personally I think Dale's article is a great inspiration for those (such as myself) who are relatively new to converting and painting, and is also a useful model to follow for the forthcoming Realm of Chaos Warband Mega Game in August's Oldhammer Weekend. In summary, simple but creative modelling and colour schemes, and a small number of models. I'll leave it to Dale to set the scene:

Beastmen unit for Oldhammer weekend

Here is my current WIP - a beastman unit for Oldhammer weekend.

I'm putting together a Khorne unit, with 5 Bob Olley "goatmen" and 5 Jes Goodwin "dogmen." The unit champion can be seen front row on the left.

Here is a cloe-up of one of Bob's goatmen, a lovely figure:

I've gone with traditional Khorne colours for this unit. My new best friend for this particular painting exercie is the old Citadel brown ink, which gives a fantastic depth of shade:

I'm currently building up a narrative for my Oldhammer weekend chaos force, built on the stats I rolled, which I'll cover in more detail in a future post.

Bryan's cabinets of chaos 2

So the good news is that I've got loads more pics of Bryan Ansell's figures, enough material to keep this blog going for a good few months!

Today's post will be taking a closer look at some of the figures from Bryan's now famous chaos army that appeared in the Warhammer Armies (1988) book. Bryan is currently homing the majority of these figures in his display cabinets, but there are remnants scattered in his figure drawers that have yet to make it to display. By the way, he's hoping to bring this army to the Oldhammer Weekend.

The exact figures from Bryan's army are scattered among other chaos and non-chaos figures from the period. If you are feeling particularly beardy why not get out your copy of Warhammer Armies and see how many figures you can spot?

In this post I'll be showing some pics of the main bulk of the army, the Broo (plus some preslotta beastmen), plus some of the army characters. I've taken pics from slightly different angles: my photography skills aren't great but I hope these pics are good enough for you to get a feel for the oldschool charm of the figures. The Broo figures are derived from the following Citadel ranges: C38 Beastmen; Runequest Broo (loose/blistered figures); Runequest Broo Box 3 (v2) Attack of the Broo; Runequest Broo Box 4 (v1) with separate heads and weapons (a great set for conversion possibilities); and Runequest Broo Box 4 (v2) with fixed heads and weapons.

Bryan's cabinets of chaos

In my last post, private wierd (check out his blog if you want to see some truly inspiring Oldhammer battle scenes) asked if I could post some more pics of Bryan's chaos army from the Warhammer Armies book. I couldn't find any more images from the Armies book on my PC, but I did find pics of some of the chaos units currently on display in Bryan's cabinets, which I'd like to share with you. Bryan's display cabinets - as I'm sure you can imagine - are seriously impressive.

(Incidentally, if you're planning on getting married then you could do a lot worse than hire Stoke Hall as a venue. If you're now wondering, "Where the hell did that comment come from?!" - Stoke Hall is Bryan's home and its where these cabinets are on display, which wedding guests are able to view.)

A couple of shots, mainly of beastmen, to start with. Not all of the figures on display here are Citadel but most are:

Paint your beastman

Over in the B.L.O.O.D. forum and across the bloggosphere, ascendent chaos captains are beginning to nail their colours to the mast for the forthcoming Oldhammer Weekend over at Wargames Foundry. Will it be Khorne? Will it be Slaanesh? Or will you - ahem - swing both ways? In true chaos style you may choose to rebel and align yourself to one of the other Great Powers - some putrescent Nurgle perhaps? Or if you really can't decide then Tzeentch may be the one for you... Whatever chaos god you choose to align with, a staple troop choice of many a chaos warband will be the humble beastman. There's a 30% chance you'll acquire some beastmen each time you roll on the retinue table, if that's the route you decide to take in generating your warband.

OK, let's assume you've decided to stick with convention in this Slaves To Darkness anniversary year and go for Khorne and/or Slaanesh. What will be your colour scheme? According to John Blanche (and let's face it, he's the man in the know):

"A livery mainly composed of the martial colours (red, black and brass) suits the followers of Khorne perfectly, whereas Slaanesh has pale skinned followers bedecked in pastel shades, offset by shiny black leather and studs."

If you decide against these colour schemes, then good for you - your place in the pantheon of chaos will be assured. If, however, you decide to follow tradition and John's suggestions you'll be following in the footsteps of the great and the good. Let's take a look at some of the colour schemes evident in Bryan Ansell's collection.

First up is Khorne:

Kill, kill, kill, kill...