Now I know that I should be painting Goblins, however I have also been sorting through a lot of my other 3rd Edition Warhammer armies. Two of the armies are my Kislev army, and the army of Ind.
Neither of these armies were official armies at the time, nor did they have a 3rd Edition army list. The Kislev did appear as a Mercenary Contingent in the 2nd Edition Ravening Hordes book, and is mentioned in entries in both the Old World Ally, and Old World Mercenary contingent lists. Both were however mentioned in the background, and a few miniatures which could be used for either were produced more in the earlier C01 Fighter range than anywhere else.
For those of you unaware, Kislev was the Warhammer version of (Western) Russia, which was later expanded a lot more in later editions of Warhammer. Ind was the their version of India, which at the time, and since, has received little or no official attention, and very little from fans (there is an unofficial Army Book somewhere online).
So anyway, as part of my grand sorting though of my collection I am building a Kislev army, and an Ind army, amongst many others in my as 'it would have been' in 3rd Edition. This means only using Citadel and the associated miniatures from the 1979-92 'Oldhammer period'. I will explain more of the details of each army once I come to spend time competing them, but for now here is a taster of some of the background work and collecting which I have been doing.
Enjoy :)
I wanted to have bears in my Kislev army somehow as it seemed fitting. I owned two of the old 1987 Wood Elf Beast Masters bears, and I was going to just have one as a mount for the general (Tsar), with another as a summoned bear for a host. Then I luckily won an e-Bay auction for another two, so buying a fifth bear for a small mounted elite cavalry unit to accompany the general seemed a good idea.
All of the riders were originally dismounted miniatures, which I have converted to be mounted.
As I am using the Empire army list for the Kislev, and will count these as 'Temple Ritterbruden'.
I have used the F2 Lord of Battle miniature 'Otto Wolvesbane' as he is heavily armoured and has fur trim around his helm. The sword blade was quite delicate and broke whilst I was converting him, so I replaced is with a plastic one from the Fantasy Regiments box set. It will be used as a 'Frostblade'.
In the centre is a C01 Fighter 'Brigand' from 1985, and either side of him are two F8 Vikings/Norse.
The Tigers are the EC04 Pan Tang ones from Citadel's Eternal Champion range.
I have sculpted saddles onto the tigers, but they are still a little WIP as I want to improve them.
With all of the Ind troops I have tried to select miniatures close to 14th to 19th century India as possible, but given the 1979-92 time frame, some of them might lean more to the Araby style, although some Indian warriors look did.
He is a converted ME71 Corsair of Umbar. I have fixed the larger standard to the back of the saddle to rather than have the miniature holding it. I did this to keep the dynamic pose of the rider waving his sword over his head.
This on had to top of his spear snapped off so I replaced it a spare Drastik Plastic scimitar blade to create a Eunuch Guard for my 3rd Edition Araby army.
I have been collecting these on and off for a while. They are the Runequest and C22 Creatures range Baboons.
These are for use with my Ind army. I spent a little time to collecting the old style Brittains elephant which would have been the ones used in the 1980s. These, and the much larger African elephants (of which I also have a a couple) were used in conversions at the time (usually with Orcs crewing). There is even a mention of them in the 1st Edition Forces of Fantasy book suggesting purchasing Brittains Elephants for 'Men of the east' armies.
Well, sort of finished as I intend to added more milliput to the elephant to create the cloth covering, and to the howdah to decorate it.
Great conversions and creation of the armies Lee, the models you've used look very fitting, and the elephant with howdah is excellent. A quick way to do leather straps is get a strip of masking tape slightly longer than needed, then fold along the centre of the tape, creating a long length that has texture both sides, then cut to the width required (I always use the folded edge as my top edge as less likely to come apart) and then stick in place, can be a lot quicker than making with putty
ReplyDeleteThank you Dave.
DeleteI wanted to keep the miniatures as close to a 1980s idea of Kislev and Ind as I could, and using 1980s miniatures. I have several other less well covered armies in the pipeline: Cathy; Nippon, Ind; Kislev; Steppe/Dolgan Raiders; Southlands; and Araby, all with the same approach.
I will give the leather straps idea a go, thank you.
Great to see some alternative armies using Citadel's varied range of minis back in the day. I particularly like figure choice for the Ind. I haven't seen the Baboons before.Looking forward to seeing some painted.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
DeleteI am working on a series of different armies for various nations/races, and I didn't want to neglect some of the less considered ones. It's been a great deal of fun figuring out what might be in their respective armies, and searching for the right miniatures.
The baboons are lovely miniatures. They were released for Citadels Runequest range, and also released in their main range as part of the C22 Creatures range. I wanted to collect them as I always liked the idea of some more advanced monkeys, the Baboon King in the Sinbad film 'The Eye of the Tiger', and I thought that they would fit nicely in the Southlands army.
A flurry of truly original ideas: there is plenty of choice! We have always found that the world of Warhammer is very stimulating because it was created gradually over the years by many different authors, leaving large gaps. And if an author like Tolkien for Middle Earth is intimidating, I think Warhammer fans have much less hesitation about adding elements and ideas to enrich that world, perhaps drawing by analogy from history or other fantasy universes. So welcome the regiment of baboons or the elephants in the army of Ind! The decision to limit the choice of miniatures for armies to Citadel and the Oldhammer years makes the challenge more difficult, but also more original. For example, we find that your tzar and Kislev group of boyars is less obvious than that of later versions of Warhammer, with a Viking component that could recall the Varangian guards of medieval Russia. We wait to see how the goblin pikemen proceed, but after these previews we are very curious to see other exotic armies become a reality!
ReplyDeleteSorry for the delay in replying, I have been working over the weekend.
DeleteThank you, I have a lot of different ideas which I am working on, both for well known, and lesser known armies of the Warhammer World. You are correct, where there are gaps in the background, Warhammer gamers are willing to add. This was something Rick Priestly commented on when he wrote 40k (Rogue trader). He said if you leave gaps, it allows players, and future GW writers, the room and freedom to invent.
I just had to have elephants in the Ind army, and wanted ones the ones which would have been available in the 1980s. Originally I wanted to have a Beastman army of Baboons as a themed army. However, as they are increasingly difficult to acquire, I decided that a regiment (or two!) in the Southlands army would work nicely.
As for the Kislev army, I wanted the old look from the artwork and background of the 2nd/3rd Edition Kislev lists and background. This does equate to the early Rus/later Viking period of Russian history, the 10th to 14/15th Century, so a more Mediveal/Viking/Rus look worked. The Varangian guard look would be about right, minus the Anglo-Saxons exiles of the 11th Century!
Keeping to the 1979 to 1992 era miniatures is a challenge, but I do think it fits the feel of the armies when building 3rd Edition Warhammer armies. It is also something I would like to do as this was my formative period of Warhammer. I started in 1986 with 2nd Edition, and played 3rd Edition from it's inception in 1987 until it's end in 1992.
Sadly I haven't as yet made much progress with the goblins. I have been distracted with sorting through my collection, and the house renovation.