Fantasy Tribes Orc FTO 13 Wyverns, and Fantasy Tribes Dwarfs.

 I've been busy painting again, making good progress with the old pre slotta fantasy Tribes Orcs, and also a few Dwarfs.

As I have mentioned previously on my blog I am basing the miniatures on regiment sized bases, and taking a more tabletop look to the painting (but still taking care), which I have found is helping with batch painting. Both of these things are quite enjoyable and also mean I am making a lot of progress. I already have another three Orc regiments nearly finished on the painting table, and there are some Goblins there too!

Anyway, I have painted two Fantasy Tribes Orc Wyverns. These were sculpted in the early 1980s by the Alan and Michael Perry. There is a useful link to the whole Fantasy tribes range here:
https://www.collecting-citadel-miniatures.com/wiki/index.php/Orcs_-_FTO_Fantasy_Tribe_(solid_base)

I have two of the three version of the Wyvern, versions 1 and 3. As for the Orcs, like all of the Fantasy Tribes range there are a myriad of different versions of the the same basic body sculpts (something I quite like). I have versions 8 and 13 of the riders. I didn't have any of the spears which they were originally supplied with, so I used a pair of pole arms from by bits box.

In addition, I have painted a few Fantasy Tribes Dwarfs. I am basing their army on the 'Dwarfs of Horrorwell' army list from the 1st Edition Warhammer supplement 'Forces of Fantasy'. I have painted these as an aside to the Orcs for the time being, more as an experiment, but I shall be returning to the army soon.

Enjoy :)

FTO13 Orc War Wyvern with Orc variant 8.

FTO13 Orc War Wyvern with Orc variant 13.

Alternate view.

1st Edition Forces of Fantasy supplement.

The Dwarfs of Horrorwell, a sample army from the Book of Battalions.
I have been collecting enough Fantasy Tribes Dwarfs to complete this army, and I shall be painting some more of these as and when.

Dwarf Crossbowmen from the Horrorwell Garrison, led by Captain Harfin.
As I was reading the background to the whole Horrorwell army it stuck me that it kept referring to the Dwarfs as being conscripted into the army. This gave me the idea of the Dwarfs joining an army very much like a 20th Century or modern army, where the conscripts and recruits are supplied with standard uniform and equipment. To this end I have decided to paint most of the dwarfs with the same (army looking olive green) uniform. Only the shield colours are different, to designate different regiments.

Rear view.

The Grimditch Garrison entry.

Part of the The Grimditch Garrison.

(The slightly ineffectual!?) Captain Perriwinkle Buryman and his Troopers.

The Grimditch Garrison crossbowmen.

Rear view.

Orcs advance on elements of the Horrorwell Garrison.

The Orc battle line closes in!

Next update will be more Orcs, and maybe some Goblins!

The army grows: More Fantasy Tribes Orcs.

 I've had a busy Christmas and New Year. Apart from working through most of it, I have spent a lot of time painting more Fantasy Tribes Orcs and basing them on the regiment sized bases. I even re-based and tinkered with the paintwork of the pre-slotta Harboth and the Black Mountain Boys Regiment of Renown which I painted some years ago. It appears I have accentually started painting up an army!

After my last blog post I discovered that the Mantic Games rules set Kings of War encourages the idea of regiment sized bases. In addition, many other people have adopted this idea, as well as basing their miniatures with a frontage of five miniatures and a depth of four. So I have adopted this look from the infantry regiments, although it might be disadvantageous for rank bonuses when playing Warhammer. I have retained a five by two base for some archer units, but these I can double up if necessary for other wargames rules. I have done this because I am planning to recreate some of the old armies from sample armies in 1st/2nd/3rd Edition, and some of those units were ten strong. So consequently I have re-based the regiment from the last blog post.

I have had a lot of fun painting these. It's nice to get back to painting some Goblinoids, and trying my hand at hand painting some banners (not my strong point). My aim is to paint most of the miniatures in this, and my other armies, to a good wargames table standard, with a little bit more care and attention taken with heroes, individual monsters, banners, and some of the random things I might end up painting. I want to make a concerted start on tackling my many fantasy armies, and so think this is the best approach. I'm a good table top standard painter, but not really Golden Demon or Cool Mini or Not level, and so I don't want to get too bogged down on hyper detailed painting miniatures which will largely be for the tabletop.

Enjoy :)

The army so far.
There are three Regiments of Orcs with Halberds, one regiment with hand weapons and shields, two crossbow regiments, Harboths regiment, and Notlobs Bolt Throwers, and an Orc Wizard.

Harboth and the Black Mountain Boys Regiment of Renown.

The first of the halberd regiments.
For all three halberd regiments I have adopted a yellow colour for them so the tie in together. I have based the shield design, a yellow moon on a blue background, on the shield from the artwork on the cover of the Warhammer 2nd Edition Fantasy Battle box.
The above standard is a lose copy of one from the 1st Edition Fantasy Battle Forces of Fantasy set.

The second of the halberd regiments.
The standard is another copy from the Warhammer 2nd Edition Fantasy Battle box.

The third of the halberd regiments.
The standard is my own variation of a style of banner I have seen over the years, with a mix of random made and 1st Edition Fantasy Battle Forces of Fantasy ones.

The orcs with hand weapons and shields from my last blog update.

Orcs with crossbows.

More orcs with crossbows.
To give a little variation I have painted these in  brown/olive green flesh tone.

Notlob's Orc Artillery.
Although a little later than the Fantasy Tribes Orcs they are still of the same era and seemed to fit in well. I have based the whole bolt thrower team on a 60mm round base as I think that they look better in their mini dioramas. I have based Notlob separately to act as an independent hero to the Artillery battery. As a note, they are all the old Notlob era bolt throwers rather than the last 1980s one.

Orc wizard.
This miniature is actually Mormo Jabberbinder from the BC4 Mighty Ugezod's Death Commandos box set. The tip of his staff is missing, and he was languishing in a box for years looking for gainful employment, and thought he would work well here. The Fantasy Tribes range of orcs didn't have any orc wizards, so here he is. I wanted him to stand out without being too much, so opted for muted brown clothing with a bright red pointy hat, and re flowers on the base to balance the whole model.

On the painting table: Fantasy Tribes Orc Wyvern riders.

More from the painting table: Fantasy Tribe Dwarfs!

Next update shall be more Fantasy Tribes miniatures.

Fantasy Tribes Orcs on regiment sized bases.

At the same time as painting the 40k Iron Claw Squats I am also painting some of my pre-slotta early 1980s Fantasy Tribe Orcs. I am alternating between the two projects, painting some of each as I go. I have a lot of Squats still left to photograph and so I thought I could spend a little time on the Orcs. Anyway, back to the Orcs.

For a while I have had the idea that I would like to base some of my miniatures, primarily the pre-slotta ones, on multiple bases, as was sometimes done in the early 1980s, and is often done in historical gaming and some other fantasy games, Hordes of Things is one which springs to mind. I didn't want to base the miniatures in two's or three's as it seemed a bit of a nuisance trying to fit the bases together. As I was looking online I saw that some people have based whole regiments on a single base, and made little dioramas of them. I like the look of this idea, and I think it also allows for a slightly more realistic look to regiments as the miniatures can be posed in more interesting ways, and more of a horde in the case of Orcs, which I plan to do.

Of course there are drawbacks and limitations. Changing formation isn't really an option, and if I want skirmishers I will have to keep them individually based. However I did decide to try it out and commissioned a local plastics company to make a few dozen bases as a trial. The Orcs below are on 100mm by 125mm bases, simulating a regiment of 20 miniatures on 25mm square bases.

My original idea was just to do this for my Mithril Orc army, but I decided to try it out on the pre-slotta miniatures first. I have gone by the idea, maybe a little cheeky, that each base counts as 20 miniatures, where in fact there may be anything between 16 to 20 something miniatures, plus any scenery, pack animals, etc. I am only planning to do this with my 1st/2nd edition armies, which are largely pre-slotta anyway, and keep my 3rd Edition Fantasy and later armies individually based. I have also considered that given the fragile nature of some of the Fantasy Orc range, the regimental sized based might stop any damage they might receive if individually based.

Finally, one thing has struck me is how enthused it has made me to start sorting out and painting the pre-slotta armies. I painted the Orc regiment in two evenings, and the old style Orc banner was great fun. I am quite way through painting some more Orcs at the moment, and have an eye to paint some Fantasy Tribe Dwarves, and maybe even some Goblins too (finally!).

Enjoy :)

Orcs on the regimental base.

Left hand side.

Banner!
I copied the skull and runes from one of the 1st edition Forces of Fantasy books.

Next update may be more Orcs or Squats!

Action Force Space Force Bob Olley Iron Claw Squats.

In 1982 until mid 1980s in the UK, there was range of toy action figures produced by Palitoy which were based loosely on the Action Man toy. At first the range was generic 20th Century historical based, but  little later they produced toys based on five different factions. These were produced until the later 1980s when Palitoy replaced the range with at first a more Americanised range, and then the American GI Joe range.

The factions were 'Z Force', which were a green camo NATO army style, with a passing resemblance to the UK forces of the time which had been involved in the Falklands War only a couple of years earlier and so were in peoples minds; the 'SAS', which were black and grey in colour (this was only a few years after the Iranian Embassy siege), with similar looking sculpted figures to Z Force; 'Q Force', which were sea/aquatic based force (in a tasteful mix of yellow, red and blue!); 'Space Force', which were, well, space based; and finally the Red Shadows' who were the bad guys.

Now all this is very interesting and nostalgic, but what has this to do with the 1980s Iron Claw range of Squats? Well I have been collecting a Rogue Trader era Squat army (based on the 1989 list) composed of solely the Iron Claw range on and off for a number of years, and I had been looking a suitable paint scheme. The original scheme in the Iron Claw adverts was a mix a green, brown, and camo, which was ok, but not inspiring. I have experimented with several camo greens and browns, and even with some tartan. I also tried ice world white, a slightly chaotic red (I have now started a different red Chaos Squat army), grey, and desert khaki. All of these didn't quite work, and ended up in the paint stripping Dettol.

Anyway, I was thinking about the 1980s and remembered my old Action Force figures and thought it might be a good idea to investigate. I discounted the Z Force as another camo green scheme, and it didn't seem right to have an SAS based Squat army. The Red Shadows didn't seem to fit either, and again, returning to a red scheme I had already tried. Q Force looked really interesting, but I couldn't stop giggling at the thought semi aquatic soggy Squats trying to swim with stubby little legs and water logged beards! So Space Force it was.

I like the schemes colours, and it's fun to paint. From the action figures themselves there are several schemes within the whole look depending on the figures roles. Some had blue boots, orange limbs, grey torsos, whilst others had reverse limb torso colours. I opted for the blue boots, orange limbs, grey torsos of the Space Force Security figure (numbers 27 and 28 in the poster below), with some of the Hearth Guard with the pilot scheme (number 26) of orange boots, orange torso, grey limbs, and the Warlord in the Commander scheme (number 25) or grey torso and legs, white arms, and a orange hat and belt). As I started  painting I have mixed up a few of the colours, but kept to the overall grey, orange, blue, and light orange/yellow. For the weapons I have mostly painted them blue, although I have added little different colours to some of the special and heavy weapons, but I have avoided any camo green so as to keep them looking more sci fi looking, and less gritty and 'real life'.

Overall, I wanted to give the Squat army a very bright, retro sci fi look. Some of the sculpts have a slightly camp sci fi look about them, almost a mix of 1930 Flash Gordon and 1950/60s pulp sci fi feel. I had the idea that they are perhaps a culture with roots and styling in what the Imperium considers the Dark Age of Technology, but was hinted at in the Rogue Trader era as a lovely Sci fi future which did eventually go wrong. With that idea I also considered that they might be more open minded to (some) aliens, and so I decided to included some of the Iron Claw Pirate range in the army. I wanted to paint and use these for something and thought that added them here and there would add a little quirk. I am  not too sure perhaps how the Inquisition would view this, but maybe this army is pre Imperial contact, or too far away to be in trouble?

Here are the first few which I have painted and photographed. I have painted a lot more which I will be photographing soon. I have five Brotherhoods of Squats, each consisting of one Warlord, four Hearth Guards, and three combat squads of eight Squats. In addition I have three Squats I an using a Living Ancestor. I have already painted two complete Brotherhoods, and I an halfway through the third.

Enjoy :)

Action Force release post, 1984.
There were a lot more in the range, and I still have an original poster, as well as some Space Force figures, somewhere!

Space Force.

Space Force Squats.

Orange limbs, grey body/helmets, blue boots/gloves/weapons/equipment. 

Rear view.

Second Squad, painted in the same way, but with an added alien.

Ooglorg the Cruel.

I kept to the same colour scheme as the Squats, but as I painted the skin blue (as in the release advert), I opted to paint the gun gold to give that sci fi feel. I have painted Ooglorg the Cruel as a Star Trek Andorian as the sculpt has horns which easily be antennae instead.
I will probably consider the gun a Multi Laser. Many of Bob Olleys sculpting concerning guns requires a little guess work.

More Squats, this time a squad leader with a hand flamer, and Squat with an auto gun. They are an example of how I have painted different gun a different colour, but within the overall colour scheme.

Warlord and Hearth Guard.

Warlord.

He has been painted within the Commander paint scheme.

Vaal the Asharian.

Again another Iron Claw Space Pirate.

Rear view.

Melta Gun and Plasma gun.
I have kept the overall gun colour for these blue, although adding that 40k plasma look for the plasma gun.

Flamer.
Like hand flamers I decided to paint the flamer red just to mix up the colours a little.

Next update will be more Squats (with added Pirates!).

Late Rogue Trader era to 40k 2nd Edition Screamer Killers / Carnifexes.

 Whilst sorting through boxes of old miniatures I rediscovered my old Screamer Killer/Carnifex miniatures. I did paint up a couple in a pale colour scheme a few years ago, but thought they needed a little more colour.

Anyway, I opted for a bright, alien looking, red. After mounting them on 60mm bases, I undercoated them Mechanicus Standard Grey, base coated Mephiston Red, washed with Blood Angels Red contrast, highlighted with Evil Sunz Scarlet, lightly highlighted with Trollslayer Orange, and a final even lighter highlight with Yriel Yellow. Of course I left each stage to dry first before applying the next. Basing was with Martian Ironcrust, with a very light drybrush of Game Colours Scorpion Green. The tufts are a mix of Gamers Grass 6mm Alien Neon, Alien Pink, and Alien Turquoise.

Overall I am very happy with the the result. They are a little brighter than planned, but I think that added to the otherworldly alien feel. I wanted a look of something which didn't quite look like it belonged on a green and pleasant planet or urban cityscape.

I am actually in the middle of painting some Iron Claw Squat as well, some of which are in the photographs below. I will do an update on these a little later in the month.

Enjoy :)

Seven Screamer Killers/Carnifexes.

Closing in for the kill!
(Squats for scale, and, it appears, for lunch as well!).

"Do you need a hug?"

Rogue Trader era Dominator, with Iron Claw Squats.
As mentioned, I have been painting some old Iron Claw Squats. I opted for a paint scheme based on the old 'Action Force Z Force' toys sold in the UK in the early/mid 1980s.
I also decide to rebase my Dominator miniatures to match the Squats, and added a Squat casualty to one of the bases.

The other Dominator miniature, all freshly rebased.

The next blog update will be on the Iron Claw Squats which I am painting at the moment. I also have a batch of 40k Zoats on the painting table too.

In addition to the Rogue Trader miniatures, I am looking to start a goblin project. My plan is to revisit my both my Fantasy Tribe Great Goblins/Gnolls and Dwarf armies. The idea is to paint them and base them onto regiment sized bases, rather than individually, or on smaller bases of three or so. I like the visual effect and the modelling possibilities of having regiment sized bases of miniatures to game with, and I think that the Fantasy Tribe miniatures will suit this well. The miniature Company Satanic Panic has done something similar with their miniatures and some old Fantasy Tribe miniatures. But more on this idea at a later date.

Iron Claw Undead.

 Halloween horror!  I have no internet and so I am updating my blog via mobile phone, iit is a brief updat

I have been sorting through my collection of Iron Claw miniatures sculpted by Bob Olley during his time with Games Workshop. Now I never really liked the sculpting at the time,  but over the years I have come to appreciate them more, although I am aware that they are not to everyone's taste.

Recently I have been organising my Iron Claw Goblins, Dwarves, and Orcs, with a mind to paint them together in a Tolkien vibe. The Dwarves have received reinforcement from the Essex Miniatures range of Bob Olley miniatures as well. Which brings me to the Undead. 

For the Undead I like the idea of painting them in ethereal colours to suggest the Deadmen of Dunharrow. I only have five so far, but Ebay and Essex Miniatures will in time add to their numbers. 

Painting wise, it was a white undercoat,  wash with Tesseract Glow,  and then light dry brushing with white when dry .

Enjoy 🙂