Gaming Memories - Dark Orion

Not so much a gaming memory as a hobby one; Dark Orion is a classic bit of Oldhammer goodness.

 

I'll cut straight to the point; my old armies were hideous. Yes, unsurprisingly I wasn't born a good painter, and back in the day even my best works passed for terrible mutilations in the right light. It wasn't until later when I started putting more thought into the hobby than trying to win the game that I started to actually get some decent results!

 

The reason that I still think back on this model so fondly is that he was the first miniature that I actually painted a proper highlight on. You can see in the pictures that his black skin has a layer of grey added to highlight some of the muscles. At the time it was really revolutionary as before that I was all about basecoats, washes and dry-brushing. He was also one of the first models that I actually based properly as well, as it was still the days when a coat of plain old Goblin Green was in style.

 

I still like the colour choices though, especially when you look at the old "Orion King in the Woods" models. I did a few treemen at the time that pushed the boat out too. Ironically though, they never really saw any action again after they were painted as it was in a time between when I was playing Fantasy as a kid and when I picked up 40k as a student at uni.

 

Looking back at this old model makes me want to slap him on a round base and head down to my local games store to challenge some kids to a game of AoS. They might even be impressed with my old style mad skills (or just horrified that he weighs so much - good old white metal!)

 

P.S. Does anyone else remember when White Metal came out and there were those "Now in White Metal" signs on all the boxes. I'll be honest, it was a better material than finecast by a long way! (notice how straight Orion's spear thing is!). If you remember that, you might even remember the original tutorial on how to pin a miniature from the Battle Book in the old Fantasy box set that used this very same model!