Female Adventurer with Sword and Shield

In amongst the assorted figures that were in the box when I "opened the cupboard door" (see my post here ) was this damsel, looking very distressed -

I have to admit her paint job was pretty bad even by my standards way back when. So even though she had been given some paint already compared to the majority of the models in the box, I decided she would be next in the painting queue.

So after a bath in the paint stripper, the paintbrush came out and "Bridget" was given a makeover -

Female Fighter by Citadel  Miniatures circa 1983

As she is a girl (well it's not hard to tell is it?) I thought I would put some flowers on her base courtesy of my new mininatur tufts acquired at the Carronade Show.

I don't like painting eyes but I gave it a try on Bridget as her face was quite open and not covered by a helm or hair and I thought she would look silly with her eyes closed.

I guess Bridget must come from a warm realm giving her lack of over garments

I had thought at one point, after painting her hair, of calling her Red Sonja but thought this might incur the wrath of the copyrighters. Plus by that time I had painted her cloak blue.

The title of this post came from her obvious assets - her shield and her sword

I then remembered that Bridget had a sister -

Bridget and her sister - Fidalia Ailadif (that's a "F" rune on her helm a la Tolkien's Tengwar Runes)



Unlike, Bridget, Fidalia, has seen a lot of action (why does that phrase sound so terrible?) Fidalia was a NPC (that's a "non-player character" for you non-roleplayers reading this), in the Dungeons and Dragons Campaign that I ran for a few years in the mid-80's and as such faced such terrors as Kobolds, Goblins, Orcs, Trolls and an Owl Bear. See what you missed out on Bridget?











Have Cart, Will Travel (and end up getting lost)

Well as promised in my post last week "Opening the Cupboard Door" I have made a start on the old minis in the box.

First up is Citadel's Adventurers' Wagon. If you recall it did look like this

But it finally has got a coat of paint 28 years after I bought it -

"Oh Bugger! I seem to have taken a wrong turn somewhere!"

All good Dungeon Adventurers need a cart to take away their hard won loot from their latest dungeon. So when Citadel released this model back around 1984 I knew I had to get it for use with the AD & D Campaign I was running. And for many adventures, it would appear on the table, to show when the Party were on the move. But it was always either in bare metal or with the half-hearted attempt to start painting it as shown in the first photo.

I did debate whether to try putting reins on the model between the Wizard's hand and the horses's harness, for about 30 seconds and then decided against it. After all he's a Wizard and can just cast a Spell on the horses to obey his commands (actually that's probably a Druid Spell!)

I thought painting the Wizard's Hat and Tunic a light blue would help break up the monotony of all that brown on the cart, the goods and the horses.

"Now Horseys, don't drink from that water!"

(First attempt at using the Vallejo Still Water Effects)

Some of my new Mininatur tufts which were acquired at the Carronade Show

"A Wizard is never late. He arrives exactly when he means to"

 (but maybe not always in the right place)

The sign post is a spare part from the Citadel Plastic Giant kit.

And the barrel of ale, purely for medicinal purposes only, of course!

But there's no point of having a Cart if you don't have any Adventurers to take it places, so next post should be of the Female Adventurer



Opening the Cupboard Door

Like most wargamers, I have a cupboard (well actually several cupboards, cabinets, chests of drawers) in which I keep my collection of games, books and figures both painted and unpainted.

After my recent post about My First Metal Miniature (and thanks to all you commented there or on the TMP thread ), I started to get a wave of nostalgia about the early days of my gaming hobby. So I opened the door of one of my cupboards and took out these

This box of figures are from the very early days of my wargaming hobby and include some of the figures that Santa brought in 1979. And, as is pretty obvious from the photograph, they haven't been painted.

Amongst them you have

"Goblin of the South Swinging Axe" from Ral Partha's "Wizards, Warriors & Warlocks" range.

And his buddy

"Goblin of the South with Spear"

The date on the bottom of their bases in 1976, so they were already 3 years old by the time I got them. The WW&W range were clearly intended by Ral Partha for use in Middle Earth, although for copyright reasons they couldn't say that but it was pretty obvious who this guy is supposed to be

"Guard of the Citadel"

For their generic Fantasy Range, Ral Partha had their "Personalities and Things That Go Bump In the Night" range

ES10 -"Large Hill Troll Attacking with Club"

This was an early Tom Meier sculpt. Pretty basic by today's standards but it wasn't long before he started producing figures like these

"Giant Goblin with Sword"

"Sea Elf Striking with Axe"

These were from Ral Partha's "Collectors Series" range and were some of my favourite figures. I even managed to paint a couple of those!

From Citadel Miniatures, I have a number of these guys from their Fiend Factory range

FF23- "Goblins Advancing with Spears"

I always thought these were based on the guards from the Wicked Witch of the West's castle in the "Wizard of Oz". Actually I think these were redesigned figures as I'm pretty sure the original "Goblins Advancing with Spears" carried their spears in front of them and they were like naginatas than the bill hook type weapon this guy carries.

One of my favourite early Citadel models, FA24 - "Anti-Paladin"

I've always been fond of Dwarves, probably because, I'm vertically challenged myself. In addition to Dwarven models from Ral Partha and Citadel, I have a number of these stout fellows

"Dwarf with Long Pike" by Asgard Miniatures

I really liked this pose and had visions of painting up a phalanx of them. Never happened. Although Asgard have gone bust, these guys are still available from The Viking Forge in the States. I wonder if they ship to the UK?

Then a new company came on the scene, Chronicle Miniatures, owned by a certain Mr Nick Lund.

"Orc with Sword and Shield"

"Hobgoblin with 2 handed weapon"

"Kobold"

"Ogre"

Citadel, obviously recognising Mr Lund's talent for sculpting, quickly bought the Chronicle range and Lund worked for the Citadel Design Studio for a while, but then he left to join Grenadier Miniatures and the Chronicle models soon disappeared.

In 1983, Warhammer appeared. This, I think, changed fantasy wargaming forever and though it has been through many changes is still with us today. I, of course, jumped on the band wagon and got the rules and with it the poster boy from the front of the box art, "Harry the Hammerer"

Harry - looking more hammered than "Hammerer"

My parents, showed only a cursory interest in the toys that I was buying and didn't pay much attention when the little card boxes from Citadel appeared at the house. Maybe it's just as well when this figure arrived

Oh this one caused a few chortles by having her boobies on display.

Teenage boys, what are we like?

I don't have the heart to count just how many figures are in that box, but I do have a deep sense of regret that they have nothing more than a white undercoat on them (and they were lucky to get even that). Oh they got used, many of them appeared in  the Dungeons and Dragons campaign that I ran for several years, but somehow, I just never got the get up and go to get them painted.

But I want to turn back the clock. If nothing else, they have made me realise that while I like historical gaming, fantasy wargaming was my first true love.

The figures may be a bit small for use with the modern sculpts but I have this hankering to go back to the old D & D days and start doing dungeon adventures and there is absolutely no reason why I shouldn't use these figures to do that. So I've decided I'm going to start getting them painted up. I'll strip off the old paint from those that have any on them and give them a new lease of life. And, of course, I'll post some pics up on the blog to show how, I'm getting on.

As all dungeon adventurers need transport for all their gear, the first model that I'm going to tackle is this one

Have cart - will travel!

My First Metal Miniature

Anne of the Anne's Attic Blog posted some pics of her very first painted miniature last month. She was pretty hard on herself about how the mini turned out (Honest Anne it's really quite good for a first effort!)  but it got me a thinking of the time when I got my first metal miniature.

I've mentioned this chap before - "Jimmy" - in my very first blog post last year and the observant amongst you will also have noted that he also appears as my profile pic.

                                         

It was the September 1979 edition of the Military Modelling Magazine that really started me on the slippery slope that I have been sliding down for the last 33 years.

The much thumbed and read Military Modelling Magazine

And on page 759 appeared the following advert

No there wasn't 759 pages in this magazine, the numbering ran consecutively with each issue starting with the January issue!







In the days before the internet, you sent off a Stamped Addressed envelope to the advertiser, sometimes with a Postal Order, sometime with stamps (Citadel asked for 25p worth of stamps) and in return you would get the latest lists/ catalogue and sometimes a free sample figure and that's how Jimmy arrived. To be honest, if I'd had my choice of sample, I wouldn't have picked FA6 Bard figure from the Fantasy Adventurers range (which is Jimmy) but would have picked a more exotic sounding model such as FA9 - the "Barbarian with Two Handed Sword" or FA14 "Elven Hero with Sword" but Jimmy is what I got and I've kept him ever since.

Compared with today's figures the detail, as you would expect, is pretty limited and my pretty basic paint job doesn't help but I'm too scared to try stripping the paint and re-painting him just in case I end up ruining the model given the age of the metal.

And given the trend for 25mm models to become 28mm and now heroic 32mm in size, Jimmy, unfortunately is just to small to be used with any of the models in production nowadays.

Even with the help of a plastic base, Jimmy is a Dwarf compared to Hector McHoosie

So although Jimmy won't be coming out to play with my other models he will stay on my display shelf as a nostalgic reminder of how it all began.

So Dear Reader, what was your first model? How did you come by it and do you still have it?



Favourite Unit of Mine - No.11

READER HEALTH WARNING!!! - Although I did paint some of the ickle models that you will see in this post I cannot take any credit for the big ones!!

I have been a Tolkien fanboy for a long, long time and I was so pleased with the way the Peter Jackson films turned out, although it's quite scary to think it's now more than 10 years since "The Fellowship of the Ring" was released.

I have also been a fan of the range of models that Games Workshop have released over the years and their rule sets - "The Lord of the Rings - The Strategy Battle Game" ("SBG") and "The War of the Ring" ("WotR").

In the film, "The Return of the King" there is that fantastic moment when during the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, the Haradrim forces of Sauron, arrive on the battlefield and launch themselves into the attack against Theoden's Rohirrim.

The Trolls are mean, the Nazgul are scary, the Balrog makes you want to run for your life but for my money they all get eclipsed by

The Mighty Mumak!

For quite sometime, the Mumak was the biggest plastic kit that GW produced. I'm not sure if that still applies given the recent big monster releases they have been putting out for Warhammer but still the Mumak is one cracking model.

As you would expect, in both rules sets the Mumak is an incredibly tough beastie. In SBG, he starts off with a basic cost of 275 points but if you kit the Mumak with all his optional extras he weighs in at a massive 445 points. As most SBG games use a force total of about 750 points you can't afford too many Mumakil in your army.

He causes terror (not surprisingly) to all it's enemies, is immune to most types of control spells, can trample it's foes into a pulp and pretty well ignores morale tests. Okay, it has the downside of possibly causing a stampede if it suffers a wound and trample through everything and everyone in it's path if it does goes wild but the Servants of Sauron are plentiful so hey ho The Lidless Eye can afford to lose a few hundred or so every time.

In the original, but now out of print source book - "The Return of the King" for SBG, there is a scenario called "The Charge of the Mumakil". Fortunately GW had the sense to include the scenario in the recently released "The Fallen Realms" source book. That scenario, however, calls for the Evil player to have 2 Mumakil. So.....

Double Trouble.

DaveT of the "Wee Men Under the Bed" blog and I played this scenario at Kirriemuir Wargames Club many, many moons ago, using the old sourcebook.

I didn't tell Dave in advance which scenario was playing, only that he had a shed load of Rohirrim Cavalry to deploy at the start of the scenario to which I deployed in response a thin line of Mordor Orcs. I told him, that I was entitled to have reinforcements turn up if I still had models in play after 3 turns, so like the true impetuous warrior he is Dave rushed the Rohan nags across the table killing the feeble Orcs, but not enough in time  to prevent the reinforcements arriving. 

Dave's face was a picture when I produced not one, but two of the beasties and proceeded to trample the horse warriors into oblivion. Final score Mumakil 42 - Rohan 0.

In WotR, the Mumak weighs in at 250 points and when it suffers a wound it uses the aptly named "Ridiculously Hard to Kill" Table. Again, it has the fun ability of trampling everything in it's way and some but also if it can't quite reach a body of troops with it's trample move, it will use it's "Stamp and Gore" attack.

And of course all the while the Mumak is doing it's thing, the ickle crew in the Howdah strapped to the beastie's back can fire away at the enemy below too.

WotR is designed to played with hordes of figures, it's the Lord of the Rings version of 40k's "Apocalypse". The Battle of Pelennor Fields scenario in the WotR rulebook is massive, the Evil Player having the option of fielding up to 10,000 points of models. One of the pictures in the rulebook of the scenario in play has 9! Mumakil on the table. 9 is pretty excessive even for the most committed Lord of the Rings fanboy, I can only manage

A third of the way there

Plus

One day, he shall arise from his box and crush all before him!

My mate, Alan, has also just bought himself a Mumak off EBay and I know of at least 1 other Kirriemuir club member who has another completed model So if there is anybody out there in the Angus and Dundee area of Scotland that has a few Mumakil to spare and fancies playing a Pelennor Fields re fight then let me know!!!