TA1 Golgoth, Lord of Balrogs.

 ..an arcane Daemon from an earlier age... 

I'm still not getting enough time to do some serious painting, but I have been sorting through miniatures, and decided to paint an old Daemon which has been lurking in the shadows of my windowsill: Golgoth, Lord of Balrogs.

Golgoth is a Greater Demon miniature from Citadel, released in 1984 as part of Tony Ackland's Arcane Monstrosities range. The range was released in 1984 (the Orc Catapult released in 1983), and was largely sculpted by Tony Ackland, although Chas Elliot sculpted the Chaos Battering Ram. Golgoth was only released for a few years before being replaced by the TA1 A-Angor Demon King.

The miniature itself, well, isn't miniatures really! Just like the rest of the range, he is quite large (the clue to this is in the ranges title really) being 13cm long, 8cm tall, and 10cm wide. Being made of the old lead mix he is quite heavy. The advert (see below) had the old 'For advanced modellers only' symbol on it, and whilst it's is not complicated to assemble in itself, drilling and pinning of the wings is advisable. The sculpting is very much what you would expect of the time, being good and full of character, but not as crisp as perhaps the contemporary GW miniatures. This is something I don't have a problem with.

When it came to painting I wanted Golgoth to have a dark aspect of the shadows. It would have been easy to just paint him black, but that would have been too flat. After a black undercoat, I lightly dry brushed more prominent areas in a mid red, and then less so with orange. I didn't want Golgoth to look too red, is was just to stop him from looking too flat by bringing out some of the detail. It was a very basic paint job, but something which I wanted to do. I didn't want an overcomplicated look to keep in with the idea of him from shadows. In the same vein, I kept his eyes, mouth, and claws black, to suggest a creature of the abyss rather than burning infernal flames of Hell. 

Enjoy :)

The original advert.

Golgoth advancing.
I have kept the base basic and plain for the time being, only painting on the Citadel Agrellan Earth. This is because Golgoth will end up as part of one of the Slaves to Darkness Daemon Legions, and I haven't quite decided on how to decorate the bases yet.

Left hand side.

Front view.

Rear view.
Look at the size of the solid lead wings!

Head details.
I think he has a slightly cat look to him.

Tail detail.
It looks a little like a scorpion tail.

Scale photograph, with a Citadel Bloodletter on a 25mm square base for comparison.

Next update might be some Chaos Renegades, as I have been sorting through those, as well as my Daemon Legions.

The Bears of Kislev and the Tigers of Ind, and other stuff besides.

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 :)

Bear riding Boyars.
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'.

Tsar on a bear.
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'.

Standard Bearer.

This is a converted F7 Feudal Cavalry miniature, with a head swap from an F8 Viking/Norse miniature to make him look less Western and more 'Russian'. I have gone for a huge banner in the old 1980's style for the fun of it.

Boyars.
In the centre is a C01 Fighter 'Brigand' from 1985, and either side of him are two F8 Vikings/Norse.

The Tiger Lords of Ind.
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.

For the leader is chose another Pan Tang range miniature, Jagreen Lern.

Standard Bearer.
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. 

Tiger Lords.

From left to right, C13 Heroic Adventurer Luyt'Ama Rah'slyn; another ME71 Corsair, with an old Citadel metal shield; and a C01 pre-slotta Fighter.

C32 Slann Slave.
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.

The above Eunuch will take the place of the rare Eunuch Champion in my RR6 Mad Mullah Aklan'ds Death Commandos Regiment of Renown.

I actually have two Regiments of these. I don't have enough room in my Araby Army for them, so tone will go to the Ind army, the other to my Southlands army.

Baboons.
I have been collecting these on and off for a while. They are the Runequest and C22 Creatures range Baboons.

Elephants!
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.

I have a big bag of model making matches and so I set about making a howdah. 

I added some plasti-card for added strength.

'Finished'.
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.

Next blog update should be the goblins, but I am getting distracted by other things a lot!

Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3rd Edition Goblins - 'The Stuntie Spikers': part one.

After painting Agrat the Goblin Fanatic last month as test model I thought it would be good to start painting a Goblin regiment.

Over the last few months, years really, I have been sorting out my miniature collection into 3,000 point armies based on the lists in Warhammer Armies. Some of these armies are based on armies used in scenarios and sample army lists. One of these is the Orc and Goblin army used in the Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3rd Edition scenario 'The Valley of Death', found in White Dwarf #97, January 1988. 

Without going in deep details (which I will do at a later date) the scenario consists of four armies, two Dwarf, one Orc, and one Goblin, all meeting up for a jolly good time (well, bloodbath really!) in a valley. Like all the Warhammer scenarios of the time the forces involved have a colourful back story and details.These armies were not designed to do anything other than be the forces involved in the scenario.

Now I have had the idea of converting many of these armies, some from 1st and 2nd Edition, into usable 3,000 point 3rd Edition armies. For many this isn't difficult, and only really requires the addition of a few extra troops or magical items. By combining the Orc and Goblin armies in this scenario straight from the pages, you end up with a 2,565 point army. I have been doing this for several armies, not just Orc and Goblin ones. So I am making a start with the Stuntie Spikers. If one is to start anywhere, I feel Goblins are the best place to start. :) 

Enjoy :)

White Dwarf #97.

The Valley of Death.

The Stuntie Spikers army list entry.

The 40 little Goblins themselves.
They are 40 Goblins with spears, but on armour. In order to keep the spikey/hedgehog look of the unit I have moved the Standard Bearer and Musician back into the middle/rear of the unit. In theory this negates their usefulness in the rules, but hopefully I would play someone who appreciates aesthetics over rules pedantry!

Spikey!

Converted standard bearer.
I have converted the standard bearer from an old broken Goblin Fanatic.

Spears!

A very rude Goblin. :)
One of the Character in the scenario is a Goblin Hero named 'Zitpicker'. He has no specific miniature to represent him, but as he has light armour and spear, and he's a character model, I thought this Goblin would fit perfectly.

Another Goblin hero is 'Blackhead'.
Both he an 'Zitpicker' are known as the spot brothers, due to their awful complexions. Blackhead is mounted on a wolf, and so I thought I would make him look more characterful by mounting a normal wolf rider Goblin on a spare 1980s Lord of the Rings range Warg. He is a WIP, but I thought it would be nice to see him so far.

Next update will be Goblins!

Agrat the C27 Goblin Fanatic.

 Goblins...
...ah yes, Goblins. Got to love them (well, I do anyway). I have shamefully neglected my Goblins for some time, and that's not a good thing to do. So here is the first of many I have an intention to paint.

And by many, I mean MANY.

This fine fanatical fellow is a pre-slotta Goblin Fanatic from 1984, sculpted by Alan and Michael Perry.  He was one of six sculpted, all with the separate and distinct identities.

He was very straight forward to paint.
I chose to paint his flesh a different colour from Goblins which I have painted in the past, and different from the standard GW studio green. It was a simple Citadel Deathworld Forest base over a black undercoat, highlighted with Straken Green, and then Straken Green/white final highlighting. The whole Goblin was then given a very thinned down wash of black paint.This is the same technique I used for painting the Big Hat 4th Edition Chaos Dwarfs, but don't tell the Goblins that!

Whilst I like the colours I have used before, I will be shortly embarking upon a major Goblin painting project and so I wanted to have a lot of the Goblins a standard flesh tone, with some varieties of course. I chose this as whilst it's green, it's not the strong green of the GW studio style, but more akin to the 1st and some 2nd Edition Goblin tones.

As a side note, I have broken my Goblinoid collection down into a series of 3,000 point [3rd Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle] armies. Two of the armies, the Tribal army of the Broken Nose Goblins, and Gnasher Goreslobber's Orc and Goblin army, will both feature more 'traditional' green Orcs and Goblins.

One last thing to note. I mounted Agrat on a 50mm round base. This is the template size for a Goblin Fanatic in 3rd Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle, and so instead of having to use multiple templates I thought the base would look better. I chose the lipped base to differentiate to them from other miniatures bases on the table. 

Enjoy :)

The C27 Goblin Fanatic Range.

Side view.

Front.

Rear view.
I love the patches on the cloak.

My C27 Goblin Fanatics.

The rest of the Goblin Fanatics (excluding the Marauder and Iron Claw ones).

Next update might be more Goblins as I am sorting them into armies at the moment (well I'm sorting everything out at the moment).

Last batch of 4th Edition Warhammer Chaos Dwarfs (for now).

This is the last update of my on/off 4th Edition Chaos Dwarf army project for a while. I have lots more to paint, but for the time being I would like to re-orientate my focus back to my 3rd Edition Warhammer Fantasy armies. I am currently undertaking a sort of stock take of my 3rd Edition armies, which entails sorting out all of the miniatures into their respective and prospective 3,000 point armies, as well filling in any gaps and adding those one or two miniatures to an army which I have always wanted to buy. This is a very large task, something I have been doing in the background for the last few years, but only now am I starting to near completion.

...and there will be goblins. Lots and lots of goblins. :)

Returning to the Chaos Dwarfs, I have painted a few more Blunderbuss fellows, as well as a most of their Command Miniatures. In addition I have also painted a Lord miniature. All of these are in the continuing industrial wasteland colour scheme which  I have chosen. I also had fun converting up a musician miniature. As noted, these are the last for a while, and I am nearing the completion of the third and final blunderbuss regiment, with only a few more left to paint. This will give me a nice group of three regiments of 20 Blunderbuss armed Chaos Dwarfs, including command miniatures.

Enjoy :)

Chaos Dwarf Lord.
I do need to think of a suitable name for him. I have added an old Marauder miniatures shield to give the idea of a Daemon shield. I haven't added the back banner poles as I don't intend using them for any of the Lords. I painted him with a coloured beard, which I will do for all the Lords/Mages (different colours for each one). I think it looks a little like an octopus, or Davy Jones from the Pirates of the Caribbean films.

Side view, showing the shield.

Standard bearers.
I have converted the middle one, as the banner pole had snapped off, to have him resting his banner upon an Orc skull. At some point I will add actual banners to the poles. The banner poles and axe shafts add a little colour to the more mutated and drab paint scheme.

Drummers.

Officer and converted/repaired plastic axeman.
The mace head is an old plastic GW one from the 1990's.

More Blunderbuss-ers. 

The first regiment of Blunderbuss.

The second regiment of Blunderbuss.

The third regiment of Blunderbuss, still a WIP.

All three together.

Converted gong playing musician.
I converted him from an old Chaos Dwarf Blood Bowl miniature, and a gong and hand set from the 1990's plastic Goblin Regiment box set.

Next update will probably be a Goblin. :)