Citadel pre-slotta C13 Goblins and Ral Partha Giants.

Another quick blog update. 
I have mainly been re-basing again (well, mainly refurbishing the house, but that's another story!). I'll update on the basing progress a little later. What I have also done is re-based some of my old C13 Goblins, and a couple of old Ral Partha Giants, for Midgard. I also brightened up the paintwork on the goblins, giving them a bit more of a greener skin. 

Enjoy :) 

Goblins and Giants. 
What could go wrong!

Four bases of Citadel's pre-slotta C13 Goblins, with an old style banner. 
In Midgard I will count these as Hordes, possibly with the Brittle and Impetuous Traits. 

Goblins lurking around the banner. 

Goblins.

Well, more Goblins!

Even more Goblins, because Goblins often arrive in great numbers! 

Ral Partha 31-208Armoured Cloud Giant. 

Ral Partha 01-109 Cloud Giant.
 My original idea was to use him as a treeman, hence the paint scheme. However I changed my mind after painting him but liked the look so much I didn't want to paint strip him. 

My next blog update should be a lot more organised. I am planning to post photographs of all of the 1980's Regiments of Renown sets. 

An audacity C48 Gargolyes.

 I have always liked the Gargoyles. Growing up in Southern England Gargoyles were always around on the churches and cathedrals, and so seemed a very relatable fantasy creature to me. Citadel's C48 Gargoyles fitted that idea well, but strangely I never got around to collecting them all until the end of last year when I was building up my independent daemon army (that's another blog update!) and required more lesser daemons. 

The miniatures are lovely. They come in two parts, a body and a random set of wings, which allows for a certain variation. Separate plastic shields were also required. For painting I chose a stone colour to suggest, well stone really! I did consider a more sandstone colour to suggest some of the local churches, but I opted for a more Caen stone seen on a lot of local Anglo-Norman churches. The bases are the base design style I am going to be using for my Chaos Daemons and much of my 3rd Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle Chaos miniatures. 

They were fun to paint. I like them and would like to pick up a few more, although my available money for miniatures is being directed to my 1980's Middle Earth project which I am currently basing. 

Enjoy :)

The C48 Gargoyles range. 
These are slotta based, and I think they date from 1985 as they are post pre-slotta, and appear in Citadels Compendium 3. 

The full set.
The collective noun for Gargoyles is an 'audacity'. 

Ahkensdab.

Rear view showing the feathered winged set. 

Zhted.

Rear view with the more stone looking wings. 

Bld'Ngor.

Rear view with the bat wings. 

Gotalot.

Rear view.

Sld'Eth.

Rear/side view.

Znt'Raht.

Rear view.

The next update could be on anything. I have been rebasing a lot of 3rd Edition Fantasy Battle miniatures, and I have also started painting some 1980s LOTR ME range Orcs. 

The March of the Ents: Citadel's 1980's LOTR ME-85 Treebeard- Mighy Ent.

 Continuing with my organising and painting of my Citadel Miniatures LOTR ME (Middle Earth) range, I have painted a few Ents. Now these are the basis of a Midgard 400 point Ent army, so I'll probably have to add a couple more, but here's the first three (so not much a of 'March' really!).  

As stated,these miniatures were part of Citadel's LOTR range from the 1980's. They only released one model which represented Treebeard himself. The model itself comes in three parts, the head, torso, and legs. There was only one sculpt of each of these parts, however this model seems the basis for the later Treeman sculpt for Warhammer Fantasy Battle, and for Blood Bowl. 

Painting was very straightforward, with browns and greens, except for Treebeard himself, which according to the Lord of Rings had "The lower part of the long face was covered with a sweeping grey beard" (Page 484, The Two Towers). So I painted Treebeard's beard grey. The other two I painted with slightly different shades of green beards to differentiate them. Any others I'll paint in the future will have different coloured barks and beards. Anyway, these were fun to paint and base, I'm pleased with the verdant look of the bases. 

Enjoy :) 

Three Treemen. 

March of the Ents! 

Treebeard. 
I positioned his arms as per the photograph in the Citadel Catalogue (see below). Personally I think it now looks like he's on a red carpet waving to his fans, but there we are! 

Another Ent. 

The third Ent. 

Ent with aa Orc on 25mm base (which needs finishing!) to give and idea of scale. 

The next update might be on some of my current WIP's, as well as some other things. I have just finished re-basing my 1980's Regiments of Renown as well. 

The Nine: 1980's Citadel LOTR ME 64 Black Riders - Ringwraiths.

 

"The Nine are abroad again. They have crossed the river secretly and are moving westward. They have taken the guise of riders in black"
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, page 274.

One of the things I have been doing recently is sorting through and re-basing my old 1980's Citadel Middle Earth (ME) range of miniatures, released from 1985 until 1987. I have been sorting these into armies based on the multi-figure  based Midgard system, and into 400 point armies. I like the Midgard basing as it doesn't require hundreds of miniatures for armies. One of the things which put me off collecting many of the old ME range was the Warhammer need for lots of regiments of 10, 20, or more miniatures, which would have been too time consuming, not to mentions expensive. 

Now Citadels old ME range was, in my opinion, very characterful, fun, and not too realistic in the sculpting, being more of a comic book/artistic approach. I shall do a blog update on the range at a later date, but for now I will concentrate on the Black Riders. 

The below miniatures, with the exception of the Witch King, are the two variants of the ME 64 Black Riders - Ringwraiths, blister pack. Both packs (and the Witch King) consisted of one mounted, and one dismounted miniature. Whilst the dismounted miniature was the same in both ME 64 packs, the first released mounted miniature was wielding a dagger and riding a solid based horse (1985), whilst the later one was on a slotta based horse with a different rider and armed with a sword (October 1986). I have mixed both types in here.

The Witch King I have based separately. There was only one sculpt of him, again a blister pack of a mounted and dismounted miniature. He was coded ME63 Lord of the Nazgul.

There's not really much you can do with these miniatures if you intend to paint them up as Black Riders, as the black cloaks are largely all of the miniature, and they are described as being mounted on black horses. I did however try out something. I gave all of them a very light white highlight, and then a wash with red ink to give a slightly faint, perhaps Mordor induced, red glow. They were fun to paint, unsurprisingly quick, and I enjoyed basing them with a verdant base to emphases the dark blackness of the riders themselves. 

Enjoy:) 

The Nine. 

Moving in column. 

ME63 Lord of the Nazgul.

The first base of Nazgul. 
The two on the edges are the first release, the two in the centre are the second release. 

Side view.

The second base. 

Side view. 

The next blog update might be some Ents. 

Citadel C20 Trolls.

I have been 'sneaky painting'. 
Whilst I have been very busy with things outside the world of miniatures (and Christmas as well!), I have mainly been re-basing lots of Oldhammer era stuff in my remaining spare time. However I have felt I really wanted to paint something, and so have been sneaking some time to paint some relatively straightforward models when time allowed.  Hence 'sneaky painting'! 

I have chosen, amongst other things, Citadels pre-slotta C20 Trolls, from about 1984. Of course, they are full of quirky detail and character, and were fun to paint. I wanted to give the impression that they were Stone Trolls, and they they were almost born from the rocks around them or at least had an affinity to them, in a similar way to Tolkien's Trolls being created from stone. I did this by painting them the same colours as the rocks on their (40mm square) bases.

Enjoy :) 

C20 Trolls. 

The C20 Stone Troll coming down from the mountains, looking for trouble. 
Yes, I should really have ironed out the backdrop! 

Hobol Firebreath. 
Armed with a big stone hammer, and big stone nose. 

Rear view, although it's unwise to get downwind of any of these Trolls! 

Grog Stuntychrusher. 
Armed with a boulder, quite suitable for a Stone Troll

Side view showing his lolling tongue. 

Davogrod Gutsucker.
Armed with a knuckle duster, and really big nose!

Rear view.

Shakined Bone Bender. 
Shhh, don't say it too loudly, he can hear you from a mile away, but he's armed with enormous ears, and a bone! 

Rear view. 

Skuttlescree Soresmear. 
Armed with both a stone club and a big nose.

 He appears to have somebodies skull in his left hand as well! 

Rear view showing a captive pig. 

Rattlebones Bowlegs. 
He's not really armed with anything other than the usual Troll attributes of brutal strength, strong stomach acid, and a lack of personal hygiene. 

Rear view. He's captured some birds along the way. 

Next update date maybe some C48 Gargoyles which I have been painting.