Maciek's classic undead

Hello everybody,

My name is Maciek and this is my first OWAC - I am very happy to be joining this collective madness. I was first exposed to the "grim and perilous" Old Word through Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFRP), back in 1994 when it was published in Poland. My first experience of battles in the Old World was through the WFRP perspective in "Lichemaster". It was a brilliant WFRP supplement, where player characters fought a series of desperate, atmospheric - and highly enjoyable - skirmishes against a growing army of the undead. 

Lichemaster, PL edition, AD 1994. That cover art meant the book was an instant buy for me back in the day. The art from the book will be an inspiration for this army. A little challenge: try to pronounce that title :-)

To reflect this early experience in "Old World battles" my first entry to OWAC will be the undead - a classic force led by a necromancer and composed of skeletons, zombies and ghouls. A necromancer who wants to succeed where Heinrich Kemmler failed. More pragmatic reason for this choice is that it is an army I hope to actually be able to paint in 6 months - my normal painting speed is glacial so I decided to start of easy - painting many skeletons should be a breeze... (or so I think...) Secondly, I need an army of darkness as an adversary for my painted Bretonnians. When putting together the army I was driven by one rule - "Thou shalt paint what thou already have". Well, mostly...

Without further ado, here is my force: 

 - Level 20 Necromancer acting as the army general and a Level 5 vampire (240+330=570 points). The necromancer was among the first Warhammer figures I bought - owned him for about 25 years. 

- 20 Skeleton warriors, with spears, light armour, shields and full command. Led by Level 5 undead hero. Total 343 points. There are nine new plastic skeletons in the back two ranks. My puny excuse is: they are great models (just remove the excess helmet decorations). I will also "oldify" them by retrograding them with 90s shields.

 

- 10 Death Riders, with heavy armour, lances and shields. Led by Level 10 undead hero. Total 287 points.

- 20 Zombies, costing 80 points. Mostly Heresy Miniatures sculpts. Led by a dancing halfling "Mikael Hackson" and ready to bring the thrill to unsuspecting citizens of the Empire. :-)

- 10 Ghouls, costing 80 points.

- One screaming skull catapult, costing 85 points.

Altogether it should clock in at 1445 points. If painting goes well, I will be adding a couple of things (army standard, mounted wight king...), if not I may need to descope the zombies. 

As an offering for our benevolent Overlord, I present this skeleton warrior with old-school freehand design on the shield. I really enjoyed that shield painting but will only be doing that for heroes!

It is my first attempt at such focused army painting and also my first blog post, ever. So many first time experiences and I'm really looking forward to the challenge. Roll on 1st of January 2021!

Cheers, Maciek

Merijn's Chaos Dwarfs

 The best part of the fourth edition for me was how flamboyant it was. Everything was just that bit more over the top, the colours, the sculpts. I loved it and I still do. And who embodies that flamboyance better than the chaos dwarfs and their giant hats?

2020 has been a crazy year. I ended up dropping out of the last OWAC quite early and even this year my entry comes in at the very last moment. Half my army is still without bases but mailman hasn't come through yet.

2021 still looks like a mystery so I figured I'd keep this OWAC modest to make sure I wouldn't have to drop out again. Those ornate hats can be a pain to paint after all. The nice thing about chaos dwarfs is that half their army consists of greenskins so really a lot of units can pull double duty.

So without further ado, this year I'm painting a modest 1007 point segment of a larger chaos dwarf army I'm using for the 9th age.

We have:

• A sorcerer general on a lamassu (259 points)
• 10 blunderbusses (140 points)
• 10 blunderbusses (140 points)
• 12 allied squigs and a herder (248 points)
• 5 goblin spider riders acting as hobgoblin cavalry (70 points)
• 2 death rockets with their crew still in a bath of paint stripper (150 points)

For a total of 1007 points.

And since I so rudely robbed our overlord of his tithe the first time around, I'm offering up two models this time:

A night horror werebear from my previous army and a nightmare legionnaire.

Slaaneshchild's flesh corrupters

Hi there, so as far as I know, I will be "the french guy" of the group :)

My name is Laurent (nickname Slaaneshchild) and I have collecting miniatures since I was 7... so 31 years ago. I started WHFB with dark elves with the 4th ed and little by little I met eternal damnation as I discovered Slaanesh's sweetest pleasures.

I have always been fascinated by the famous Realm of Chaos books and I continued to paint/build my armies in this spirit. I stopped once, in 2010, sold everything, and then restarted 5 years later :D Anyway I don't regret it as I think I evolved a lot in my painting approach.

If you want to have a look to my old collection, feel free to visit this page. Some of you might remember it. Visit Slave to Darkness page.

So 5 years later, same people, same friends, same games (WHFB 4th ed and W40K 2nd ed) and same.... army/project. Now I have decided to stay focus on Slaanesh only. No lapse in concentration. All hail the Dark Prince !!

If you want to have a look to my new blog, you will discover my new minis. 

Please enter "Le Lupanard de Slaaneshchild".

Thanks to the lockdown in 2020, I had the opportunity to finish my Emperor's Children army and my Dark Elves/Cult of Slaanesh army. As we are starting a new year, I decided to join you with my endless army... my Chaos army of Slaanesh :)

I already have a lot of things but the Oldhammer Army Challenge is a great opportunity to finish many things I had in my mind/desk. Thank you Iannick for accepting me :)

The project:

This time I want to pay attention to "side characters". One thing I love in the 3rd ed are battle baggage train and war altars. To me it is a unique opportunity to give strong personality to your army. So for this army, I want to put them at its very core. Not just "something nice beside your army". I want to do the opposite. 

Slaaneshi warriors are hedonists. They don't really care about fighting, especially based on usual standards. So main characters will be on baggage wagons and war altar and the army will be their minions/champions.

A bit of background:

The dreadful champion of Slaanesh was impaling the last slave in the entrance. After 6 long nights of nightmarish pleasures, all prisoners captured were killed. Their dismembered bodies were scattered everywhere in the "play ground". His rapturous tongue was desecrating what they were before, "one last time, just for me" he was thinking.

Saarh'adonis was extracted from his reverie by a very familiar moan. Laying on a sliver fainting couch, a young lady, not older than sixteen springs was beholding herself in a mirror : 

"Minions !!! Amuse me ! How poor I am. All my toys are broken. " - sighed the Lady 

As she spoked, the infamous statue on the altar started to animate itself.

"Yes, yes, yes, we need more flesh !" Its voice was echoing in the entire room.

As a single man, all the Slaaneshi followers kneeled before the altar and the Lady.

"It shall be done. For the Lady, for the Dark Prince !" 

Little by little, they left the room, ridding their mounts of horror, following their Champion, to seek entertainment and victims...

To me Oldhammer is more a spirit, an atmosphere than "just" old miniatures. My vision of Chaos and Slaanesh in particular is baroque and grotesque, as it was in the Realm of Chaos. This small army will try to embody this spirit: warriors, daemons, sacrifies, slaves and debauchery.

I am not 100% sure of  the content yet but basically it will be :

- Saarh'adonis, Champion of Slaanesh, Favorite of the Lady : Chaos Lord on Spinned Dragon

- 12 Chaos Warriors

- 6 Chaos Knights riding Slaanesh Mounts (mounts are waiting to be stripped)

- 12 Slaangors/ or maybe 12 Cultists

- 6 Chaos Knights / Or maybe the mighty Keegox

- The Palaquin of Flesh, a palanquin of slaves/cultists bearing the infamous Wet Nurse, it will count as a war altar

- The Throne of the Lady, a custom baggage wagon made with Sauron's Throne and an entire ground of naked slaves

- I might add another baggage wagon full of caskets, chest, offerings and other treasures and some slaaneshi daemons laying on it, will see how it goes :)... and some fantastic scenery !

I hope you will like it as much as I love preparing it !

My overlord offering: nothing more better than the mighty Warhammer himself !! 

PaulM's Chaos - The Tallyband of Ruination

Hello youse.

So, it's finally here; my first OWAC!

Like a few others, I have what we'll term 'second-hand nostalgia' for the days of old. Being that WHFB 3rd Ed. and I are of the same vintage. So though I have always been attracted to the Oldhammer style, it was not a world in which I lived, having entered the hobby in the midst of its Red Period in the mid '90s (specifically, towards the end of 4th edition) and dropping out towards the mid-point of 7th. 

Regardless I have decided to throw my hat in the ring with a small Chaos retinue, using the the Warhammer Armies supplement for 3rd Edition. The armylist for which can be seen below:

I imagine the army being very much a raiding force, striking out from the dark forests of the Empire to pillage and burn unsuspecting villages and towns. Though the background is still a very much  work in progress the rough outline regards the fall from grace of the famed Doktor Hydigger, a lay member of one of the Empire's Knightly Orders and educated man of physic and the results of his dabbling with warpstone in aid of finding a cure for a plague sweeping the villages of Talabecland.  

The Miniatures are a mix of Ral Partha (of various ages), Games Workshop and Heartbreaker. As you can see, I've not done so well with the prep. Having intended to have them all cleaned up and undercoated before the KO...but at least they're based. 

Colours wise I'm looking to go for a muted palette, though they're ostensibly followers of Nurgle I'm trying to avoid too much green as I've just completed a green and yellow VC army. 

The army is lead by Kagan the Hollow, former Knight of the Empire and his band  the Hollow Lords (Chaos Champion & 14 Chaos Marauders - 671pts)

These are accompanied by The Flyblown (5 Marauder Horsemen - 225pts) The flyblown themselves being invisible currently...as they're getting cut to pieces to have some slight conversions.

Frak'gor Brakentusk leads The Wormsore (Lvl 10 Beastman Hero & 19 Beastmen - 300pts)

The Retch Twins follow the band of raiders around, feeding on their leavings...and the odd beastman (2 Trolls - 130pts)

Always looking for a scrap, and the spoils that come after, Korrag's Kompany accompany the Tallyband as long as the meat keeps coming (3 Ogre Mercenaries - 114pts)

Unfortunately the famed Doktor Hydigger (Lvl 5 Beastman Shaman - 110pts)  himself and his pet Jabberwock Filthbite (200pts) are not ready for the limelight as of yet. So no pictures of them for the moment. 

As for the Overlord's offering, I propose the below as tribute:

Though if the Overlord Prefers I have a Halfling-Zombie-Michael Jackson for his Undead?

Lastly, a call for help: you'll note that the beastmen are lead by the Bestigor command group, this is by necessity unfortunately as the proper command group I ordered went missing in the Christmas post. So if anyone has one at a reasonable price (circa £15) and is willing to part with it I would be interested. 

Nathan’s Ogres

Well another year and another challenge. After significant procrastination and uncertainty I finally decided to paint up an ogre mercenary contingent for this years challenge. In the end what clinched that for me was a couple of points none of my other options (wood elves and orcs) had:

1. Painting ogres will enable me to finish off all the ogre figures I have collected since I got back into oldhammer in the early 2000s (yep it is that long ago);
2. I have a really eclectic group of figures which will be fun to paint. Sculptors like Jes Goodwin and Aly Morrison are well known and I have a few of their figures in my list. But I also have a number of figures from the hands of Bob Olley and Nick Lund which I’m really looking forward to painting; and
3. The small number of figures required (each ogre being worth 2 foot troops) should be manageable. With that in mind I’m adding in some old blood bowl ogres that Bob and Jes did for fun. Finish those and I have an old school ogre team for blood bowl!

Anyway here they are:

Nick Lund ogres

Aly Morrison ogres

Bob Olley ogres

Jes Goodwin ogres

And last but not least here is my offering for our benevolent overlord - a Bob Olley ogre that was done for the Fantasy Warlord game (Folio works minis) around 1991:

I'll include a weapon for this guy but won't attach it; nor will I do the base. That way one could base him up and add a weapon as an ogre or ogryn. Or add a standard as I have done with the other one I had :).

Dustin's Dwarfs for OWAC IV

Well, I'm back and seeking redemption for ending up in the Field of Bones during the last challenge. I made a good start, but the combination of global pandemic and an ending lease forced me to focus my energies toward finding a house, packing up our lives, and ultimately moving, which was no small feat for April of 2020. Even after settling into my new home, I couldn't quite get settled into my new painting area (a basement office that needs some updating), and my orcs languished. There was also little incentive to paint, given that there would be no in-person gaming for the foreseeable future. I had a few ideas about solo gaming with rulesets such as Oathmark, so I considered creating a "good" army to oppose my Orcs and Goblins. Empire was tempting, but the vintage minis certainly aren't cheap and I didn't fancy the idea of painting all those ostentatious landsknechts on a tight schedule. I then considered High Elves. I still had my 4th edition starter set minis and had picked up some metal command figures in dribs and drabs over the years. High Elves were looking like "the one," until I saw a Facebook post where someone mentioned painting something like 60 gemstones on a small unit of basic infantry. Ugh. My High Elves would have to wait. So maybe I'd go 40K for this Challenge, but I just haven't been feeling the grim darkness of the far future lately, and I still wanted someone to fight it out with my Goblinoids. Around October, I was able to get a batch of old plastic Fantasy Regiments Dwarfs. These figures were pretty simple, but had a charm that appealed to this old Heroquest fan. They looked good en masse and straightforward to paint, all points in their favor. And so, after scrambling to get some additional troops, I have put together the following list for my initial 1000 points (using 3rd edition Warhammer Armies):

• Level 20 Dwarf Hero (168), with double-handed hammer (2), Mithril heavy armor (28) -- 198 points
• Level 5 Dwarf Army Standard Bearer (98), with heavy armor (3) -- 101 points
• Level 5 Dwarf Hero, Warriors' Champion (48), with light armor (2), shield (1) -- 51 points
• 19 Dwarf Warriors with light armor and shields (209), with Standard (11) and Musician (11) -- 231 points
• 12 Dwarf Crossbowmen (156), with Standard (13) and Musician (13) -- 182 points
• 12 Dwarf Thunderers (156), with Standard (13) and Musician (13) -- 182 points
• Dwarf Fire Thrower Team with heavy armor  -- 62 points
• Total: 1007 points

 

I'm still waiting on a few figures in the mail (general, thunderer standard, more crossbows), but I've got plenty to get started with.

Now for the Overlord Offering, my test figure for my Dwarf Warriors:

This guy was fairly relaxing to paint, no weird "what is that supposed to be?" textures or difficult-to-reach details. I'm looking forward to getting on these guys come January. Here's to another installment of the OWAC, may the Field of Bones remain empty!

Johns Grudge of Drong dwarf force (3153 points!)

 Hello

Today I have declared my insanity by painting both Queen Helgar's Retinue (660 points) and The Army of Kazad Thrund (2493 points) in the Battle The army of Krag Bryn. They both total out to 3153 points.

I love Dwarfs and this is my favorite scenario so thought why not. I will be making a display board based on the dwarf deployment zone from the scenario

 My board is a wip but here it is with army 

wish me luck

 My offering is a musician playing the song of the overlord

*toot*