STONEWALL STREET'S LAVISH LEADER MONTH (263 points)

It's been a funny twelve months. For "funny" you can sub in words such as "surreal"; "terrifying" or just plain "I'm sorry what?"

At the start of the OWAC I wasn't expecting to be making such slow progress. I was expecting by mid-January to be in a new, far more spacious home with hobby stuff spread out on a bigger table and Mrs Street cursing my very existence at every turn.

It's not really worked out like that so I apologise. The mighty ambition that I could beat Thansants and Golgfagg for output has proved as misplaced as expecting either of them to use the backseat of their Land-Rovers as a place to keep a tapped beer keg for long journeys.

I find myself 3 months in, most of my possessions and books still in crates, and with only the bare minimum of 22 models painted.

But life is what it is.

We often in the Oldhammer Community talk about a "holy grail mini". What would you most like to own? For me - as a Dwarf collector, and self confessed pre-slotta Perry nut - it has always been the counter collect dwarf.

Photo - Stuff of Legends

You can keep your Ozrim Chardz or your unreleased whatever. As far as I am aware this is the rarest dwarf that was ever officially released.

I asked the largest of all the (several) Oldhammer communities for painted examples of the counter collect dwarf as painting inspiration if I could find one. It appears that in the entire community only two people own a painted example. And one of those is Richard Hale.

Enter Matt Hancock stage left. The British Secretary of State for Health (no really) - suicided my Grandmother almost exactly a year ago. Covid made everything difficult to process from certification to unattended funeral to estate processing. On Christmas Eve I received a modest inheritance. In typical nan-style she wanted me to have something nice. A holiday of a lifetime. A custom made Gordon Smith Guitar. A counter collect dwarf. 

In the beginning I saw this challenge as a way to get some units finished, I've done the command for a 2nd edition Bugman's unit and thought that I would finish off 16 troopers and the champion this month to complete them. Then I had a Street-sulk about the shields. I had a bunch of placcy shields I'd guide applied decals to for painting but the teenage me had his mind set on some rickety old shields he had bought in the early 90s in the Harrow Model Shop.

Turns out that they were by Fantasy Warlord and long OOP. I had about 12 but needed at least 4 more. I've recast those 4 in greenstuff in a press mould but it all put me back a long way.

So I've decided that instead of what I had planned I am going to recreate the "sacred company" of one-hundred-and-eleven dwarfs from my Oldhammer comic "Ravenscar". The pre-slotta dwarfs fit in perfectly and with the amount of Norse Dwarfs I have I'm sure I can do this more realistically or at least make a decent start. It allows me to use my wildcard month to tackle a couple of wagons, pack animals and some "clingers on" dwarf villager types.

So I used far too much money to purchase my holy grail mini to use as "Captain Ulfric Firebeard of Ravenscar". He is not "Lord Allaric One-Horn of Ravenscar" the leader of the Raven Company but he is the brains behind the outfit.  

Alongside him is his personal bodyguard and champion "Ser (nobgag nobgag nobgag)"

Ser Nobgag's shield has been copied (badly) from the same figure in the Heroes for Wargames book.

So my output for March is a pathetic two dwarfs. Although one of them cost as much in points as he is in pounds.

Captain Ulfric - Lvl 15 Hero (negotiable), light armour, 2-handed axe (132 points)

Ser Nobgag - Lvl 15 Hero (negotiable), Light Armour, Shield (131 points)

The counter collect models were only available by cutting out a section of a picture on the back of Citadel blister and then assembling into a picture of a model and sending off to Citadel to receive your model. Hence the rarity of some of them. Photo Credit and pictures used by courtesy of Stuff of Legends.

The Counter Collect Collection - Photo Courtesy of Stuff of Legends

Here's to a better three quarters of 2021.