Have you ever seen a Sphincter Beast?

Well you have now:

Sculpted by Rick Priestley, who comments:

Ah - I think that's a Bouncing Vrubee (or some such) sculpted for Asgard back in the day - pre-dates RT by quite a few years - not sure if it was ever officially released though as it's not on the Stuff of Legends site.

This one is in Bryan Ansell's collection.

Go on, admit it - you NEED one of these...

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!

Nico's Oldhammer Realm of Chaos army

Over the next few days I'll be making a series of posts about last weekend's Oldhammer event at Foundry, and I couldn't resist by starting with a series of pics of Nico's stunning Realm of Chaos figures. Those of you who follow Oldhammer are probably already aware of Nico's figures and games reports on his Realms of Chaos blog; indeed, many of the figures below have already been seen on his blog and elsewhere. But if you love this guy's work as much as I do you're probably quite happy to see these figures again.

As an aside, you may notice a chaos dwarf juggernaut in this lot - Rick Priestley insists that some rules were produced for this war machine, and were packaged with the machine itself. I've never seen these but if you have, please leave a comment below.

It was great to finally meet Nico in person and to chat about his figures. I make no apologies for the number of pictures that follow, or for my obvious obsession with his mounted units in particular - his conversions are among the best I've ever seen:

Citadel box set scenarios: useful Oldhammer inspiration

Back in the early 1980s Citadel Miniatures produced a number of box sets of figures, several of which came with insert sheets detailing specific scenarios and/or character stats designed for use with the associated boxed figures. This post presents, to my knowledge, all of the inserts together with a review and a discussion of their use in Oldhammer. If you do have any inserts which I have not covered I would love to hear from you.

There are quite a few inserts and it might take a little time to read them all in detail. If you are an Oldhammer devotee and are short for time I would recommend you read the Chaos Marauders insert first, which is a great example of the ethos of what it meant to play Warhammer at that time.

The Oldhammer ethos permeates many of the inserts, which I've tried to highlight in my introduction to each, and I've also picked out some of my favourite features of the various scenarios and character profiles provided. I've been deliberately vague about the details of the various scenarios, in case those reading wish to play them for themselves. The inserts can be seen in detail on a Scribd link I have provided at the end of this post.

(Note that "Toughness"  in early Warhammer was designated by letter, and not number, in case you get confused).

The  inserts are from the following sets (the contents of each box can be see on the excellent Stuff of Legends):