Tuesday 28 February 2017

Action Force!

It is the early 1980's.

The threat of global terrorism is on the rise.

Recognising the need for a multinational force with the ability to respond quickly to threats anywhere on the planet, world leaders propose the creation of a new elite military unit known simply as "Action Force".  The best and the brightest will be handpicked from military forces on every continent and formed into 4 fighting arms:

Z Force - the infantry backbone of Action Force.
SAS Force - the special operations force.
Q Force - naval operations team.
Space Force - maintaining a watch over the planet from their orbiting satellite station.

Red Shadows vs Z Force
My Action Force project is based on a mixture of the 1980's Palitoy action figures, the Battle Action Force comic which ran concurrently with the toy range and whatever 15mm figures I can get which seem to match them.  An exact match hasn't always been possible, especially given the very disparate nature of some of the figures used in the original Action Force range (a WWII British "Desert Rat" armed with a Vietnam War era US M60 machine gun?!).  I've tried to go with the spirit of the figures rather than slavishly copying every detail and Peter Pig has supplied the vast majority of the figures that I've used.

 Stay tuned over the coming days for more of my Action Force project!

Friday 24 February 2017

Oldhammer goodies part3!

 My next box contains all sorts of bits and pieces...


A few Alcatani Fellowship pikemen.These date from the "Dogs of War" mercenaries when GW relaunched their "regiments of renown", I think it was late 1990's?


The pikeman on the left has a great expression!


I have a few halflings scattered about my collection, this is the only unpainted one.  Like many of my other older citadel figures, he game from the second hand tub in our 1980's-90's local games shop Truro Micro.


Some undead, I think it's a Reaper undead houndmaster on the left, a Ral Partha liche on the right, both from the fantastic Games Room on Elm Hill in Norwich.  A proper games shop selling a wide range of different figures and lots of games books, many out of print, do be sure to pop in if you ever visit Norwich!


Beast of Slaanesh, also from the second hand tub in Truro Micro.  Its tongue has fallen off but it's in the box somewhere.


Skaven night runner, very heavily inked (back then it never occurred to me that they might need to be diluted!) and now coated in dust and fluff.


Citadel Lords of Battle.  I already have 3 others painted in my Heroquest box, again all from Truro Micro.


Brettonian musicians and a standard bearer.


Vampire.  I think this was actually the last GW model I bought from a GW shop, some 15-20 years ago.


A plastic wizard who came free with White Dwarf.  He'll be visiting Frostgrave pretty soon.


An adventurer from the late '80s Citadel Catalogue.  I had him cast when I visited GW in 1998, the same as the zombies in my previous post.  I'd always loved this particular figure and decided that if I didn't get him cast especially on my visit, I'd probably never get him.  Shame I still haven't painted him after almost 20 years!


A couple of Night Horrors, slime and a ghoul, also from the Truro Micro bargain box.


"Slime" is a particularly creepy figure, all tentacles and large teeth.


A slinky vampiress on her throne.  A Heroquest end-of-level baddie if ever I saw one.


This multi-part figure is possibly a Scylla?


A couple of nice shields, possibly Marauder?


 An old Citadel knight.  I also have a box of about 10 plastic horses so I must get him assembled and mounted.


Marauder Chaos Warrior in need of a replacement weapon.  I think some sort of axe or mace would be appropriate.


Mithril Miniatures barrow wight from their Lord of the Rings range.  Their figures were always more delicately sculpted than the GW range and came ready-undercoated, a bonus for an inexperienced novice painter like my 12 year old self.  Shame about the thick humbrol varnish I used afterwards.


Dwarf miners, part of a pack of 5 which I bought mainly because I loved the tools that came with them.  There is a pick, small wheelbarrow and a couple of other items somewhere amongst my collection. Just imagine, 5 figures plus a load of accessories for only £2.99!  Those were the days...


Chaos Dwarf bazooka.


Chaos warrior.


Original 40K/Rogue Trader Tarantula weapon platform with twin Lascannon.


A couple of monstrous demon head decorations which will probably end up gracing the wall of one of my dungeon rooms.


What's left in the box?  A few Marauder wood Elf archers, a metal horse's head, another Brettonian standard bearer, Brettonian mounted musician, plastic Skink, assorted bases and shields.


Plastic Saurus from the WFB boxed set - possibly the 5th Edition?  I picked the boxed set up for £5 in the GW mega sale along with vast quantities of Epic 40K - of which more another day.


Last few items in the box include another of those free-with-White-Dwarf Mordheim Elf characters and a mounted Elf standard bearer.  I'm not sure how I ended up with him, having never had an elf army.


I might take a break for my next post and head back to the world of 15mm, though still with a 1980's theme.

Friday 17 February 2017

Yet more Oldhammer goodies...

 My next box contains some particularly nice Oldhammer goodness.

Another box of Oldhammer-ness

I won't linger on the shields, slottabases or the collection of Brettonian Knights' heads (bottom right).

Chaos Dwarves

Chaos Dwarfs!  Back when they were properly Chaotic, not the weird Middle-Eastern styled ones that came later.  These were from my late lamented local games shop and specialist stockist, Truro Micro.  They regularly had lots of second hand boxes you could rummage through, these cost about 25p each.  Mind you, that was about 20-25 years ago.

Shields!

A few of the more interesting shields, a mix of GW, Marauder plus anonymous metal ones.

Assorted weapons.

A collection of weapons.  Chaos warriors box set, Space Marine combat knives, skeleton horde spears, part of a giant scorpion claw... a bizarre mix really.  Many will come in useful as pieces of set dressing for my dungeon.

Mule

The expedition pack mule from the Adventurer's Starter Pack, the first ever set of GW figures I had.  He was badly painted to start with, I really do need to clean him up and paint him properly!

Adventurers vs monsters!


You can see him lurking back left in this copy of the box art that also appears in the WFB 3rd ed rule book.


More shields.

A few more Marauder shields, partly painted.  These were later issued with the Advanced Heroquest game as shields for the retainers.

Epic scale diorama minus the epic scale figure.

This slottabase was intended to be the scenic base for an Epic scale Squat biker in exo-armour.  He was going to be doing a wheelie, hence the hole drilled ready to securely fix him in place.  I wonder where he went?

Chaos warrior

This Chaos Warrior may look vaguely familiar.  Why?  Because he graces the front of the WFB 3rd Edition rulebook!

Chaos warrior on WFB cover.


See,there he is!


Yet more shields.

Chaotic shields.

Enough shields now!

Horses' heads and some more shields.

Kev Adams' zombies

A trio of the fantastic old GW zombies by Kev Adams, I had these cast up specially at GW in Nottingham when I visited in 1998 because they were no longer available in blister packs by then.  All packed full of character, these deserve closer examination.

Raaaargh!

There's a scary face!

Mwuuuhhhh...

I like the dangling eyeball, exposed rib cage and escaping intestines!

Dingly-dangly zombie?

I think this chap is actually supposed to be separated from his slottabase tab and suspended from a gallows.

Mmmm... brains!

Makes a change to see something else eating a zombie's brains!

Nice hooves!

Gargoyle, not sure exactly which GW range he originally came from, I thought he might be a Night Horror but I can't find him in my 1989catalogue.  Somewhere I have a pair of wings for him.

Ghoul

Citadel pre-slotta ghoul.

Ghoul

I love this figure!  It stars in the WFB 3rd ed rule book.

WFB pp180-181.

 Our zombie-like ghoul appears 3 times in this magnificent diorama in the magic section of the WFB 3rd ed rules.


Here he is, on the far left of the diorama.


And again, by the bridge.


One more appearance as he emerges from the river.


This reminds me, somewhere I have a Jabberwock that needs painting.


Some of the detail from the bridge.  You just don't seem to get this sort of work from GW in their rule books these days, now they just plonk a load of figures down on a grass mat amongst their generic skull-laced terrain and don't even bother to try and hide their bases.

More Chaos Dwarfs.

Some more of my proper Chaos Dwarfs.  With these old figures, it's always fun to see which mutations they've worked into the figures.

More Oldhammer goodness next time!