Oldhammer undead - early 90s skeletons, wights and Vampire Lord

The terror is real this weekend as I sit upon a grizzly chair, in a horrifying room, surrounded by the most dreadful creatures of the night ever cast in lead - yep, it must be some classic undead fresh from the painting table! 

These guys have been a real treat to work on - there's a lot of character in these old models - I've painted them to match my Vampire Counts, which I've been working on revamping (unintentional undead pun), for about 2 years alongside many other fantasy projects. 

For some reason, I really love Wights! Something about those dorky helmets and overblown armour just screams 80s metal album cover art. The old wraith isn't far behind. I painted him I the early 90s style with a bright robe and some patterning like the good old days. I also added red for the weapon shafts for thrse models as it's a nice way to get a nostalgic splash of colour on there. 

The models were actually given to me by my bother who was recently gifted a treasure-trove of old models from someone looking to given them a good home. These guys have been restored and will soon be headed to the battlefield again, so will be seeing action the way they were intended in plenty of games of old fantasy.

While working on these guys, I also dug out one of my personal favorite models of the era - my old Vampire Lord. He was always my general in the 90s Vampire Counts army and has seen so much play, I can't even begin to recount it. Multiple games a week for a good few years. During that time, he killed thousands - probably the most blood drenched model I have in the entire collection. In fact, when I striped him for painting, the metal underneath was tarnished a dark black that cloud never be restored - which I'm taking as evidence of his dark and naughty history! 

Anyway, here he is all back in shape and ready for action. Many years ago, he always was equipped with the Frost Blade and Carstein Ring, so in honour of that, I've painted his sword in a magical icy blue. It's not the best photo I could do, but everything is packed away for an impending house move, so the light is what it is and his Cape is a bit obscured.

To top it off for some rare warhammer stuff, these photos are shot in the proper citadel graveyard that I bought to go with the army when I built them back in about 2000 maybe. Up next is hopefully the Black coach and some Grave Guard with halberds. 

These old skeletons are great though - all armoured as well. They go back a long way - some time in the 80s and long out of print before I ever started I  the hobby, which is rare to find. I just wish I could get my hands on a few more to fill up the unit! 

 

Lizardmen - Oxyotl the Chameleon Skink

 

A classic model I've been painting since last night. Finished him this morning and thought I'd post him on the blog as I've been neglecting to post much lately... again. 

Lizardmen were my first ever Warhammer army. Back then I couldn't afford the armies book at first and I remember leafing through it in my local games store and coming across the art for this guy and being blown away! Immediately I wanted one, but there was no model, so I set to work on a series of terrible conversions with old plastic skinks as the base - then dutifully painted them up in garish colours inspired by Buzizima the Chameleon from the PS1 classic fighting game Bloody Roar 2. Thankfully, some years later, the actual model came out and I bought him. 

As an old sculpt, he stands the test of time very well - I like him a lot more than the other iterations of chameleon skinks that came out later. Actually, I consider pretty much everything done to the Lizardman range after 5th edition to be pretty heinous to be honest, but that's probably a story for another time.

For a bit of fun, I used a coat of Vallejo transparent orange on his skin over a white undercoat which interestingly worked a bit like a contrast paint in terms of making a nice vibrant base. The little tree on his base was a bit of an experiment too, and is made of wire twisted together and coated with milliput. 

That about rounds it out on this guy. Interestingly, he seems to be worth about £40 at the moment on eBay - possibly attributable to Warhammer Total War, but as I've never played it I can't say. Either way, if you have a spare one, you're sitting on a small fortune!

Horus Heresy Blood Angels Army Showcase - 1150 points

After a week or so of posting photos of everything individually, it's finally time to unveil the army photos. In the week since these were shot, the force has actually grown with a unit of 10 assault Marines completed.

I first put paint to model for this force on 22/06/22 following the release of the new edition of the Horus Heresy game. It's now 10/08, so that puts this at about 6 weeks ish of progress. As I've said there are another 10 finished models now that aren't pictured, so the total miniatures painted is 47, which is pretty good. The pictured force is about 1150 points, and now the completed total is 1350. A good start and there are plenty of troops for a nice solid core. 

I've said it before, but returning to old fantasy changed the way I paint hugely and upped my output of quality models massively. Fantasy uses 20 man units most of thr time, so I had to master batch painting to get an army together at all, which was what made all the difference. 

I'm happy with the old school look of these guys that was heavily inspired by rogue trader and second edition. I even managed to sneak the old metal scouts and ancient rhino in there. Taking inspiration from older versions of warhammer really makes quite a lot of sense stylistically as well as there are a large number of heresy units that draw inspiration from older models for the look of things like guns, helmets, armour marks and even tanks. 

That about rounds it out - the photos probably get a bit repetitive as I dumped the lot on here. More future posts at some point when I can be bothered to get the camera, lights, scenery and models out... so could be a long time.

 

Horus Heresy Blood Angels Legion Outriders

I've always liked space marine bikes - the only problem with heresy bikes is that at the moment the only option is to buy them at the extortionate prices that forgeworld are charging (currently a little over £20 a piece). I was never going to pay that when I had a set of old ravenwing bikes just waiting for a new marine project.

The problem I had was that they weren't really heresy, so I did a bit of conversion work for both the bikes and the riders to rebuild both the front and back of the bikes and then move the bolter to the side like the official outriders. I'm sticking with Mk6 armour for the Marines, so went with with corvus helms again. 

Unfortunately, their rules are pretty bad right now- this unit comes out at around 100 points, but in the current edition of heresy bikes have no more protection than ordinary men (no additional wounds or toughness). If you run you get shrouded, but it's not a whole lot of protection. Worse of all, they seem to be unable to take melta bombs now which ends the time honoured tradition of dunking tank rear armour. Talk about tactically limiting!

That said, I do intend to build a few more to see if I can make something of them yet! 

That about rounds out the look at these guys. I think it may be time for some army photos now. I have some individual shots of thee Rhinos, but will probably post them later on. 

 

Horus Heresy Blood Angels Indomitus Terminators

Another unit for the heresy/2nd edition inspired Blood Angels today - Indomitus Terminators. I'd actually had the Terminators sitting around in bits for years - part of a starter set I never got around to doing anything with. Handily, they're usable in heresy, and look very nostalgic painted up in their 90s colours. 

One thing I learned from painting these is that painting hazard stripes on rounded power fists is hard to get right. Other than that, I continued the same scheme as the Marines, but I did adjust a few things - like moving the blue to the crux terminatus on their shoulders and going full yellow on the helms. 

They were actually quite a quick unit to paint in the end. There are a lot of flat panels on them which took to the freehand well. 

They give me a lot of old Space Hulk vibes too which is nice. For my army's aesthetic, they actually match better than some of the heresy patterns, but maybe I'll add some at some point. 

A preview of o e of the army photos now that I've shown a couple of units:

A shot of them in combat facing down a Night Lords assault squad.

 

Horus Heresy - Blood Angels Scouts

Everybody loves scouts, they're classc. I'm happy they recently jumped ship into heresy. I think that the new primaris ranges basically ate their lunch in 40k and they had no other option, but that doesn't matter as here they are!

Part of the reason I sound so ecstatic is that my Heresy Blood Angels force are second edition themed, and this was a chance to get some real bona-fide 90s metal right up in the troops department. It's possible the other reason I'm so ecstatic is lead poisoning from handling their heavy asses, but we won't worry about that.

As long as I'm delirious I might as well also take the opportunity to point out this scenery they're on that I also painted up recently- in part to match the army and to inject a bit of colour into the field 

Plenty of photos here. I have little else to say about the work on them as they're pretty much painted up to match the army. I do rate the metal sculpts a lot higher than the plastic ones for quality and character. They're cheap as hell on eBay right now too, so if you're playing heresy I'd pick some up. 

The final picture below is from a game. I'm running them with swords and pistols like the models, but taking melta bombs and using them to try to dunk some tanks! So far I've only used them once, but they managed 3 wounds on a Deredeo, so not a bad attempt. 

 More Blood Angels to come....

Horus Heresy Blood Angels Praetor 30k - complete!

Today's update is my completed Blood Angels Praetor. This guy took a while to paint - he's pretty large for an infantry model and there was a lot of detail to get to grips with - actually the biggest factor slowing me down was deciding which colour to put where. 

If you missed my three previous posts about the army, I suggest going back to the front page and reading them! (Go ahead, I'll wait... no really...)

My heresy blood angels are taking strong inspiration from 2nd edition and rogue trader art, and this guy continues the theme proudly with some hazard stripes and black flames. 

He does have a name too - Del'Ragius! Named after the legendary hero Eugene Del'Ragio (an imperial guard sergeant from my youth, there is an article on here about him somewhere). Suffice to say, the hairstyle, eyebrows and blue colour ended up making my Praetor look a bit like him, so I decided it was high time to revive the legend! 

Actually, the cloak was a lot of fun - an excuse to have a go at the equally old school yellow on black flames! 

Layering the yellow to a smooth finish was a bit of a pain in the ass, but  it certainly makes for a nice bold feature. 

That about rounds up that post, I still have to post the Rhinos, terminators, bikes and scouts, so chances are one of those units will be up on the Blog soon!