3rd edition Warhammer Norse army update

Way back in pre-history (1986), a 13 year old version of me started a Warhammer Norse army. I bought it one blister at a time, using the money I earned from my friday morning paper round, and I think I managed to build it up to quite a respectable size. I've no idea what happened to that army, it probably got lost (along with my entire White Dwarf collection) when I left home, but the Norse always remained my first Warhammer love, and I've always enjoyed 'low fantasy', pseudo-historical themed armies as a result. I think its because Warhammer started out using as many miniature ranges as it could, whether full-on fantasy or straight up historical, and mashing them all together into a world full of familiar, yet fantastical tropes, giving that period a certain gonzo charm I've wanted to recapture for quite a while.

Fast forward to late 2013, and I decided I'd make an effort to collect that Norse army again, and this time to do it full justice. I'd be using the 3rd edition Warhammer army list from White Dwarf 107, building up a core of 'sensible' units before adding in the last few truly fantasy units (such as a giant, wolves, Were characters, eagles, that sort of thing). I even posted about it on this very blog! I wanted to keep that low fantasy/pseudo historical feel, so decided I'd be using primarily historical miniatures, but with things like banners sourced from a range of Warhammer kits.

Now, its mid-late 2018 and I can feel the project nearing completion, so I feel justified in showing it off (which will also give me the impetus to finish the job off!)

The Kyning and his army standard bearer, leading a unit of Huscarls. The banner is inspired by the art on the cover of Warhammer Armies!

A Bondsmen unit..

A second unit of Bondsmen.

Berserkers.

A second unit of Berserkers.

A Sorceress, from Citadel.

 A Wizard (also Citadel). Both wizards will be Elementalists, with a focus on weather magic, as is appropriate to a Norse army. I keep characters that won't be joining units on round bases, as I think its looks nicer (inspired by Warmaster and Warhammer Historical).

Next Up

So that gives me a solid core to the army, and even as I type this I'm working on some skirmishing Bondsmen Archers (three units of ten, on round bases), which should make for a good battle line. I've collected a big (20 strong) unit of Ulfwernar made of Black Tree Design miniatures, and a second of Foundry Bearclad Berserkers. I have two more 10 strong units of Berserkers assembled too, plus associated characters, as well as a Viking-styled Giant by Reaper.

The last few things I need to buy are some Wolves from Ral Partha Europe, some Giant Eagles (from the Citadel Lord of the Rings range) and then some loot pile terrain pieces to serve as the obligatory (in 3rd ed Warhammer) baggage wagons.

Only when I've painted the skirmishers will I allow myself to actually play the army though, and I already have a game lined up with an opponent who plays Dwarves with Norse allies. I'll be sure to post pics of the game, as its been many, many years in the offing!

Some recent additions to my (Gadge's) Rogue Trader collection.


First off my Sensai Knight is doubling as an Imperial Noble of a 'safari on the edge of the imperium' with some loyal retainers in our 'inquisimunda' campaign.

The Graf Von Bek (sensai) takes his siblings Baroness Scarlet and Lord Tode on a hunting trip.  With them a gun servitor (for bagging a brace of orks) which is actually a pre Rogue Trader citadel Robot, A kroot 'native scout' (an unreleased playtest kroot very much in the spirit of citadel sculpts of the 80s) and a second human 'native guide' (this ones an old 'adventurers' range model) who has his own tracking hound (a D&D range 'blink dog' painted to look like my old dog lulu!)

Many of these models i've had painted for a while but the new ones are here.

While I've not done very much painting recently I did manage to finish off a 'Fire Angels' support squad that was lacking a missile launcher i couldnt find anywhere (it had fallen behind a desk).

Also in the spirit of bulking up forces I added a war droid 'combat model' in the same camo  scheme as my previous 'sniper droid' as the two 80s pre RT era war droids are essentially the same pattern, the 'sniper' just has an enlarged torso with some sort of jump pack and a rifle.

Last but not least an old citadel vampire Night Horror that i intend to use as the 'power behind the throne' on a rebel feral world game i'm planning to run for TFTM

(and a Wargames Foundry priest and wolf that got the 'ghost' treatment to practice it before trying it on my 80s citadel ghosts)

Thats all for now.   Later this week I'll post up more pics of the Fire Angels force as quite a few of you seemed to like them.

Old School Photoshoot

For me, one of the appeals of this hobby is creating set piece scenes that invoke the sort of wander I felt as a kid flicking through the pages of White Dwarf. To that end, I really enjoy setting up my old school inspired miniatures and taking some shots. The results are amateur at best, but fun nonetheless!

Here's a few I've done in the last few days.

Above, a pair of Rogue Trader Dominators (they were in fact prototype Tyranid Warriors, sculpted by Nick Bibby but they feel like a species in their own right).

Space Slann, one of each, an unreleased one and a conversion.

Not Rogue Trader miniatures, but I hope in the spirit, some desert dwelling Technomads.

In the Cluches of Chaos project progress!

A few months back I posted here how Paul of the most excellent Sho3box old school wargaming blog and myself had concocted the idea of a conversion exchange, wherein we each decide between us on a theme, convert a suitable model and exchange the results, going on to paint the model we'd received and then use it in a battle report to be featured on our own blogs.

Well, I converted my piece and sent it to Paul - it has yet to arrive with him so I won't reveal what it is (I'll let him do that on his own blog). Paul's piece for me has arrived though, and I wanted to show it off, and express my thanks to Paul - its a wonderful conversion and very much in line with the 'captured by Chaos' theme we'd agreed upon.

The Sho3box Daemon unleashed!

I hope to get it painted in the very near future and then I'll put together a scenario and run a game, the results of which I'll publish here. I'm already thinking the game should involve the Cultists I've been working on, plus an old school Ordo Malleus, Realm of Chaos style Inquisitor. It would be especially grim and brooding fought in the confines of my Zone Mortalis terrain set too, so look out for that!

Once again, many thanks to Paul and I'll post a link to the Sho3box blog when he announces his end of the project is progressing.

Clutches of Chaos Crossover Project

Greetings people of Terra! 

So, a week or two back I was reading through some old blog posts pondering how my promise to update more regularly has turned the interwebs into a den of unspeakable falsehood, when I came across some pictures of a Realm of Chaos warband I'd converted up, followed by the comment that I'd decided to re-do them as the Citadel Dark Vengeance set had at that time just been released and I really liked the look of the plastic cultists in that set. That coincided with my mate Curtis of Ramshackle Games fame prodding me for a game of 1^st ed 40k, something we've been meaning to do for ages. So, I rolled up a new warband and got converting, and here's what I came up with.

Its a Slaaneshi warband, and the leader is a Navigator Major Hero with the Face of a Daemonette and Resilient (+1 T) rewards. Her crew consists of 11 humans, all with bolters, plus a missile launcher and a lascannon.

As these things will, this all coincided with a chat I'd been having with Paul, who runs the Sho3box blog. This blog is really worth checking out and to be honest everything I wish I had time to do with Tales from the Maelstrom he's doing better than I could anyway, so go check it out. Anyway, we got chatting and decided we'd do a conversion exchange, inspired by the fact that we're both starting our own 40k Realms of Chaos warbands. The plan is to each convert a model and post it unpainted to the other, who will then paint it and use it in a battle report to be posted on their own blog. As Paul hasn't revealed the exact theme we've agreed on I won't either, but suffice to say its inspired by the choice we've both made of Chaos Patron...

Click on Rogue Trader Ramirez to be transported to the Sho3box blog...

So then, we've agreed a rough deadline of Easter 2015 to carry out the exchange, so we hope to have our warbands completed by then so we can both present our battle reports at around the same time. I'll post my progress on my warband as I go along, and in fact I've started painting the models shown above since I took the pictures, so I'll have more progress to show soon and hopefully spur me along the way.

Until then, cheers!

Rogue Trader Retro-Rebuild Ordo Malleus Inquisitor

Here's the finished retro-rebuild (I just made that term up, maybe it'll go old school viral!). Hopefully there'll be more along soon (Inquisitors are like that, you wait for ages for one then loads come along at once...)

Realms of Chaos warband pressgangs more crew

The first of two squads of Space Pirates/Chaos Reavers, plus a Chaos Navigator.

Renegade Rogue Trader WiP

Evening all!

Just a quick work in progress pic of the leader of my Realm of Chaos warband (see the post of a couple of days ago). I rolled a starting profile of Rogue Trader, she follows Slaanesh and has the Bestial Face and Tail Gifts. Being a Rogue Trader she has access to all manner of wargear, and using the tables in the Rogue Trader rulebook I rolled up a las pistol and power sword as basic kit, plus four digi-weapons, a stasis field, displacer field and all manner of other weird stuff. She's based off of Reaper's Hellborn Sorceress miniature, and the arms and shoulder boards are recently released by Victoria Miniatures.

Next up I need to make her side kick, a renegade Navigator (for which I'll probably use the new plastic Chaos Sorcerer from Citadel) and then two bands of Chaos-worshipping space pirates!

Me and my Monkey

Thought it might be fun to create a miniature to serve as my 'avatar' on the tabletop, so here he is - Colonel Kane (rtd), spy, xenologist and explorer extraordinaire. Scourge of the Obscura dens of Dread Mandragora sector, translator of the epic 'Transcendental Orbs of the Great God Vaul', and suitor of the Exodite Princess Lak'Shimbai.


He's made from a range of Citadel plastic components, with a head from Black Pyramid Games. I intend to use him in games of Rogue Trader in alien safari type scenarios. His weapon will count as a grenade launcher and he'll be equipped with all manner of unusual kit designed to bag himself some big nasties, especially stasis grenades and the likes.

Deathwatch vs the Wyrm of Porphyria Delta

Just for funs.

Xenos Beasties from the Outer Void

Just a couple of shots of alien beasties I've finished recently. I've been reading a lot of HP Lovecraft of late, so if my hobby output gets a little gribbly he's to blame!

Enslavers, made using the old Grenadier Miniature Beholders (now produced by Mirliton - they were kind enough to sell me six individually.)

A Devourer of Red Arcturus (a Reaper Miniatures Darkspawn Devourer).

New Rogue Trader crew

Another crew(wo)man for the Rogue Trader project! This is Andreah from Hasslefree Miniatures (with a weapon swap). She hasn't been released yet, but will be at the end of the month.

Zoats in Space!

Continuing the old school theme, here's a set of Space Zoats I've just finished, for no particular reason except that out of all the many Rogue Trader era miniatures I think these are pretty much the best sculpted and the most fun.

New additions to the Rogue Trader crew

Hey guys

Just finished a few more additions to the rogue trader crew. From left to right we have a Void Master (White Dwarf subscription miniature), a Seneschal (a Black Cat bases robot) and a Jokaero from Citadel's new Grey Knights range.

Cheers!

Alien encounter

Just finished this miniature - its Reaper's Empress Messalina. Hopefully she'll be making an appearance in a Rogue Trader matinee soon!

Landing party

A couple more of the Rogue Trader crew reporting for duty. The pilot is one of Forge World's event-only miniatures, and the cyclops mutant adventuress is from Reaper (with a weapon swap) - I assume she's a tribute to Leela from Futurama! The shuttle is from Forge World too.

New additions to the bridge crew!

 An Andromadan Bounty Huntress, from Reaper Miniatures.

 The ship's Arch-Militant -the 2004 'Chick Challenge' special edition miniature, sculpted by Steve Buddle, (slightly converted).

An action shot, just for the fun of it!

Rogue Trader conversion

Just finished up a 'Privateer Godwin' from Hasslefree Miniatures, which following a headswap with a plastic Space Wolves Wolf Scout is a Rogue Trader. I hid the neck join using the smallest eagle from the Forge World Imperial Eagles etched brass set, and overall I'm pretty pleased with him! I'm currently working up a retinue of odd characters, including several from Reaper's Chronoscope line, so hopefully they'll make an appearance in a battle report soon.

First Contact

I ordered myself a little treat this week in the form of a set of Smoggers from Moonfleet Miniatures (via Black Cat Bases). I plan to use these as Jawa-type scavengers in our Rogue Trader games, as I imagine the scum and villains living on the Imperium's frontier worlds would tolerate the pressence such xenos. Hopefully we'll be playing a game next week, and I'm cooking up an interesting scenario involving these guys.

Future Warriors Techno Savages

Just finished off a bunch of classic miniatures from the early-mid '90s, in the form of Mark Copplestone's Future Warriors Techno Savage. These miniatures were part of a larger range Mark released, all of which feel to me very much part of the old school wargaming ouvre. To me, they fit right into the old Citadel Rogue Trader range, so I've almost meant to get hold of some and include them in our campaign. The range is still available, and at very reasonable price, from EM4 Miniatures, and I intend to get the whole lot in time!