Warhammer Levies, next to useless, but fun to paint!

"Go and get um' lads! There is only one and there are thirty of us, what could go wrong? CHARGE!!!"

All too often the biggest, the baddest and the most cool units in Warhammer get all the attention. After all that kick ass unit that wins you game after game gets the glory, as it should. But this post is not about those glory soaked units. In fact we are going to talk about the other end of the unit spectrum: levies!

We all know about the High Elf Dragonkin in 3rd Edition Warhammer, the Daemons of Khorne or even the incredible stat lines of vampires (see below) or treemen. So instead, how about levies! In this case a peasant levy from the 3rd Edition Bretonnian Army list in Warhammer Armies.

Before we get into it, first things first, the stat-line for the unit, in this case, Rascals (sorry about the low light photo of the entry):

WS2, BS2, I2, there is no way around it, levies are bad and not in a good way. Their only redeeming feature (if you can call it that) is that they are cheap at 4 points per model. Spears and shields costing .5 points a piece do not really do much to bring them up to even being remotely useful. On top of that they are compulsory troops (yes White Dwarf #137 had a revised page for the Bretonnians, but going with this for now).

Add to this the rules from the Warhammer Fantasy Rulebook on page 99 shows that they have a special mob formation meaning they cannot expand or contract frontage. Basically the unit formation they appear with on the first turn? That is what they are going to go with the whole battle, no changing it.

So the natural question is what are they good for? The answer is really not much. On the battlefield I suppose one could use them to tie up a unit for a round or so, but the opposing player would have to be fairly dumb to get caught up in that. Barring that? They add a lot of character to a game and perhaps that is the best way to look at them.

Painting and unit composition: Aside from one brigand Games Workshop model as the leader, the rest are from the Old Glory Revenge line of medieval miniatures with a fair amount of weapon swaps from various GW sprues like the zombie and empire regiments. In a way these minis capture the look and feel of peasant warriors far better than what I could get from GW when they still did Fantasy Battle in the late 6th through 8th edition days. In fact they are fairly close to the minis of 3rd Edition at the time in terms of look and feel. Hand weapons were a bit too small, perhaps a consequence of GW over-sizing their weapons? But otherwise the proportions are a match.

I especially liked how the "front rankers" and the axe-men came out in terms of painting, and the leader most of all. I imagine him as a brigand who somehow got himself "elected" leader of this rabble and forced onto the field of battle when he would rather be in a tavern! The pitchfork minis all came out well too. Now there is a weapon! The Sword of Khaine, bane of the Elven race??? BAH, PITCHFORK!!!

In terms of color scheme I deliberately kept the color palette limited and muted, trying to make them look muddy and dirty rather than bright. I used a lot of dark washes and slathered it on deliberately. From there it was minimal highlights. Overall I kept it to various shades of brown, tans, a bit of green here and there and black. After I took the photos I noticed a few things and I am touching up the standard/totem banner. It is a bit dodgy in spots and needs a bit more attention in my estimation.

Actual usage: Well... never really on the tabletop. As I was the only "non-evil army" player in the gaming group back in the day, I was the only one that would have conceivably fielded these guys, but as I was just scrapping together models to get a force on the field, I did not. This is in spite of the fact that the first army I fielded was in fact Bretonnians for a few games before I converted over to Empire (in the early days we ignored the compulsory units to a degree for the first few games as we were assembling armies). Fortunately, I kept all the models and added these guys to the force a few years back.

Looking through Warhammer Armies I did actually use levies once, but never made it to the field. As I note here in our forays into Warhammer Siege using my Empire army, I fielded units of Landestrum, (aka Empire levies) for forage and support. I did not have models representing the units at the time though as it was not really necessary: they were only ever on the strategic map.

Finally, in terms of the armies that can field levies, out of the 12 (the 12th being the Norse in White Dwarf #107) they appear for the following: Empire, Bretonnia, Skaven and Slann in Warhammer Armies. In the case of the Slann, there are the Jungle Braves listed as a levy and the human slave unit which has the same stat line as humans, but a point cost akin to levies. Skeletons and zombies have comparable stats in the Undead army, but their special rules make them different in terms of play. One could make the argument that goblins and snotlings are close in the Orc and Goblin list, but not quite exactly levies per se, certainly with the snotling rules. Gnomes with their crappy Toughness of 2 for the Dwarf army are likewise close, but I do not think I ever even saw a single gnome miniature from GW. As such highly unlikely anyone ever fielded a unit, definitely not in my Dwarf army which grew to be quite substantial.

In the mercenaries and ally contingents section, the pygmy allies for the Slann are close with their S2, T2. The halfling ally section is similar as they likewise have S2, T2 in their stats, but make up for this with a BS4. If I ever get around to a Slann army and ever get around to a pygmy ally contingent, I would bump their BS to 4 just like the halflings, makes sense to me for the same point values. The fact that levies are not a fixture of that section stands to reason: whether hiring mercs or getting allies to your cause, one is usually not getting the dregs of a society's warriors; certainly not in the case of spending coin on mercenaries.

NOTE: From above, vampires in Warhammer? Forget sparkly Twilight vampires; check out the stat lines in 3rd Edition Warhammer, holy crap! Even the Level 5 ones kick ass, wow. Perhaps a post for another time.

Building a Dwarf Mercenary Contingent for Warhammer 3rd Edition

The armies in 3rd edition Fantasy Battle that can utilize Dwarf Mercenaries are much what one would expect: The Empire and Bretonnia. High Elves are too snooty to use mercenaries and Wood Elves do not employ mercenaries at all. All the rest either do not employ mercenaries or are "evil" and thus the Dwarfs would not hire out to them. Oddly the Norse Army list (as featured in White Dwarf 107) does not allow for Dwarf mercenaries either. Now of course it is not like I am breaking any rules for an edition and it is usually just Willmark Jr and I playing but I could see them used for Norse. It is also odd that the Dwarf Army itself cannot hire them. Personally I would hand waive that one if the battle called for it.

The Entire Dwarf Mercenary Contingent

Looking at the backlog of minis on my painting desk I have made a conscious effort to complete and clear it. I took stock and noticed I still had a lot of Dwarfs to paint. And this was after painting 8,000 points of Chaos Dwarfs! So with that in mind and my plan to have separate minis for each ally and mercenary contingent in the 3rd Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle Army book, I got to work.

My Warhammer Fantasy Battle Dwarf army grew out of the need for me to be my own ally. By my own ally I mean as I have noted on the blog before everyone in the gaming group back in our 3rd edition days already had all the "evil armies" picked. That left me to start with the Empire. So when we played really big battles like Jeff's Orcs and Goblins and Dave's Skaven versus my Empire I needed allies.

As a result I had to purchase and then paint a lot of minis. I bought some of Dave's dwarf crossbowmen and that was the nucleus of my Dwarf army that is now probably close to 5,000 points.

So rather than keep adding to that army I decided to use the minis for a dedicated Dwarf Mercenary contingent. I get that the Army Rule book was designed so that the Allies and Mercenary contingents could be used by just allocating minis from the main army one might already have. I also think it was a strategy to sell minis for armies that a player might not otherwise buy. With this in mind I have set out to create Ally and Mercenary contingents for all of them listed! A tall order I know.

Back to the Dwarf Mercenaries. The minis themselves are mainly from the awesome Battle for Skull Pass boxed set which I had bought two of between 2008 and 2010. Mainly these were for my 5th through 8th Edition Chaos Dwarfs. I also got a great deal on a Dwarf box set at Games Day 2008. Thus between these two sets I had enough left over to utilize for the mercenary force even after being used for four units of Chaos Dwarfs. This accomplished another part of my goal: clearing the painting table.

As I assembled the mercs I realized I had everything I needed to fill out all units listed from odds and ends.

Dwarf Mercenary Warriors & Command

The Dwarf Mercenary Force

• 1 Dwarf Mercenary Commander (I used a leftover metal Hammerer model I had lying around)
• 6 Mercenary Dwarf Sappers (Battle for Skull Pass miners. These guys obviously fit perfectly.)
• 19 Dwarf Mercenary Warriors (Battle for Skull Pass warriors)
• 1 Dwarf Mercenary Artillery (a cannon from the Milton Bradley set)

While a separate force from my Dwarf army, one thing I did consider was the color scheme. My larger Dwarf War Host is primarily green and yellow. I decided to do the same with the mercenary force so if I wanted to use them as part of the larger force I easily could do so. Despite being a separate force I like the flexibility. In fact with almost all of my armies and contingents I make them so they can span multiple editions as much as possible.

I have talked about it on Chaos Dwarfs Online before about how sometimes units "fight" you and the painting can be a pain or a chore. That was definitely the case with the crossbowmen. They were also originally assembled as Chaos Dwarf crossbowmen. So not only did I have to modify them, but I had to do a bunch of green stuffing and scrounge up enough pieces to make a unit. The painting was painful and seemed to take forever.

In contrast the dwarf warrior unit went together easily from assembly to painting, likewise with the miners who function as sappers and the cannon and its crew. All of these guys were enjoyable to paint.

Because of this, in practical terms it is not the most useful mercenary or ally contingent on the tabletop in terms of utilization, but one I wanted to complete to clear the desk.

Further afield I have now a fairly large Old Worlder Mercenary contingent (using some Old Glory minis, do not tell GW!) that is nearly complete in terms of collecting the minis. Likewise the Old Worlder Ally Contingent is rounding into form. Dwarf Allies, Dark Elf Ally and High Elf Ally are all likewise underway.

Painting the Nippon Castle for Warhammer – Part III: Progress and Next Step

It’s been quite some time since I posted any progress on my Nippon Castle (or anything in general on the blog). So with that in mind, it’s time to show some progress. I completed the construction on the castle around the first of the year and have been working on painting it off and on. I was looking back through the photos of it and it appears that I started working on it in 2013, as outlined here. It’s well past time to wrap this up.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The painting on this is very much WIP.

The castle started out as just the base keep itself, and the layout was inspired by...

The great thing about a project like this is that for those who want to create something like this for their own armies — whether a Nippon one or not — is that it’s really not that expensive. The castle is really nothing more than the following: cardboard, white glue, super glue, craft sticks, balsa wood, toothpicks, masking tape, and duct tape. The base of the castle proper and the walls are formed from foam-core boards to keep it light. While it might not make the base as strong as say plywood, it does save on weight.

So with all that in mind, in order, the following are complete in terms of painting:

• The outer walls
• The towers
• The moat sections
• Both gatehouses

Now, a note on when I say “complete”: the large area painting is done, as is about 99% of the detail painting. With the moats there is still a bit more that has to happen with the water area, but those are pretty well finished. I anticipate having to do some more detail here and there to truly finish it up.

For the towers there is still a bit of work to do on the removable roofs. I’m also not sure if I want to add a contrasting color like blue to them. The idea of the color also applies to the roof on the main keep.

So what is all this leading to? My goal is to get this complete by the end of the year. I’ve been working off and on a traditional European-style Empire castle in the vein of the old Warhammer Mighty Fortress, which will be smaller and a bit more practical for siege games. The Nippon castle has also been going on for seven years — time to finish it up!

Only snag is, simultaneously to this, I’m also working on clearing the considerable backlog on the painting desk.

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Part X of the Repainting my 3rd Edition Wood Elf Force - Elven Lords

While I have not blogged about it lately, I have been diligently working on my 3rd Edition Wood Elf force since Spring. So much so that even though I am going to post about a single unit today, my Elven Lords cavalry unit — it is actually not the only one complete.

In order, I have finished the following which will be in the next blog entry(ies):

• Beastmasters (just the animals and I had to get creative, those guys go for $$$).
• Another treeman
• Wizards, 1 on foot and 2 mounted.
• 2nd Wardancer unit of 10
• Army Standard Bearer
• Bears Monstrous Host
• A Shape Changer — a Werebear
• Another unit of 20 archers!
• Baggage! Only three elves, but I need to find more "elf villager" types anyways.

In short, my Wood Elf army is pretty much complete outside of some Falconer ideas which I may or may not get to and a unit of eight Glade Runners (scouts) made from left over minis from Archer units. Along with that I need to get the actual beast master elves as well for the beastmaster units. If I had to add up the points off the top of my head, it is at least 5,000, especially with the dragon. Not bad for a force that started as allies for my Empire army and was maybe around 800 points back then.

But onward to the meat of the post, the Elven Lords which gives this blurb from the Warhammer Armies book:

"The Lords of Elven communities and their noble retainers ride magnificent warhorses into battle. Wood elves favor roan and dappled horses, plaiting their manes and ornamenting their bridles with hair-plumes and jewels."

Like Mike McVey with his Elven Lord unit featured in White Dwarf #141I did not want to have too uniform of an appearance, but I did not vary them as much as he did. Because of this and the fact that I wanted the flexibility to field them as Wood Riders if I so chose I kept them uniform to the rest of the army. In my imagining of them I take it to be perhaps a single Elven Lord with his retainers, nine in number rather than 10 individual lords.

I decided to keep the horses rustic looking, but uniform with their manes and tails. I did not want to go all gray as to me this seems more like High Elf steeds so I went with more brown horses. Green and white for the bridles with minor variations on the white patterns. Their bases continue with the autumnal turf to convey a middle of the woods late in the year feel that the rest of the army has.

Now some notes on the composition of the unit itself:

• The champion of the unit: I have disliked the mini since I bought it (around 1990) as I recall. Not sure why, but I think something in the pose struck me as odd. Finally, however, he came together with a paint job I liked this time around.
• The back row of the unit is of special note. After a single purchase off eBay I was able to round out the unit, but they were not cheap. I had never seen the rider with the mask attached to the helm before and it struck me as unusual.
• The elf in the front rank with the bow spent a number of years atop a cockatrice for my 4th/5th edition High Elf Army. I debated swapping him out but left him. If I can find some musical instrument "baggage" it will go to him.
• Several of the elves served as Dragonkin mounted on various dragons for my 3rd Edition High Elf Army when it functioned as a purely dragon force. Real quick — if you wanted, a High Elf player could field an entire army of nothing but dragons... more on that in a post at a later point. Fortunately I kept all the metal horses.
• The standard bearer I got off of an eBay seller who I do business with quite often. Sometimes pricey, but always reliable. The mini was in rough shape and gobs of paint which I stripped down, primed, painted. The flag itself is inspired from Dark Ages England and I tried to convey an Anglo-Saxon type feel to it while staying with the colors and scheme of the army.

One thing of note is the white spiral pattern on the shields... for some reason on these guys it was a bit wavier than on the other units. Not sure why. I was also short a few shields so I had to use some later edition ones...

Despite all this the unit came out fairly well and are a nice fit for the elites of the army. They did take a bit longer than I expected however.

Next up, as I mentioned and possibly a line on some minis that can stand in for Falconers but that is low on the priority list. Ok so if you ask, I am looking for Bob Olley Half Elves from the Ironclaw line in the late 1980s. They are not cheap however when they come up on eBay and the half elf with the spear cannot be used for the Falconer unit itself.

The next post on the Wood Elf force may be a "catch-all" as I mentioned above encompassing the last units as well as my thoughts on the army, what went well and what I would change with hindsight.

 

 

 

 

Realms of Chaos- The Lost and the Damned

Apologies in advance in reading this, I have been working on this post in an off again on again fashion for quite some time so it jumps around and covers a lot of ground.

The Lost and the Damned

Unlike my copy of Slaves to Darkness which I have had forever, my copy Lost and the Damned i is one I have had for... never. I have read through a friend’s copy numerous times as well as "ahem" other means, but I have largely been very unlucky on the purchase of this one. In other words I have missed out on this on eBay multiple auctions. In fact I have been about as unlucky on it as the quest for the Elven Attack Chariot (which I have been able to secure since I blogged about it). 

"Papa Nurgle looks so plump and full of puss!"

 

For some reason in terms of collecting this rule book it is very akin to the Deities and Demigods with the Cthulhu and Melniboné mythos for AD&D. In the collecting world (or at least the selling side) people got the idea that it is "rare". In fact, neither book is really that rare, but people think they are and thus the price is higher than it might otherwise be. Typically, the Lost and the Damned sells for $150-300 on eBay. So my plan to acquire it? Wait it out and get it eventually. What eBay has taught me over the years is that if one is patient you will eventually get what you are looking for at the right price. I might need to continue to be patient as it is going for $150-300 on eBay and around $350 on Amazon, ugh. (after this it is off to get The Warhammer Giant... ugh).

It is true that in the case of the Lost and the Damned that it was a smaller print run than Slaves to Darkness. This is probably due to the fact Lost and the Damned came late in the run of 3rd Edition Warhammer right before the employee buyout of Games Workshop and the rapid move to 4th edition as a result.

That said? The Lost and the Damned might be my favorite of the two books, perhaps because I do not have it in my collection?

Slaves to Darkness and The Lost and the Damned are designed to work together and full of awesome stuff. I think the thing that I like the most about the second book are the various chaos conversions, particularly those representing daemons. Those pictures provided me with countless hours of inspiration. The art is likewise great and really captures the feel of the mid to late 1980s ethos of design and feel. The independent daemon based on a hand from the color pages (pictured to the right) has always been a favorite of mine and even inspired a on-again/off again scratch build of a larger greater daemon... more on that in some future post if I ever get around to finishing it.

The COOLEST coversion!

Like Slaves to Darkness it delves deep into two of the Chaos Powers — Nurgle, Lord of Plague and Tzeentch the Master of Magic, their daemons, and their mortal followers. Like Slaves to Darkness it documents the path to power for the followers of those gods. For some reason the Gifts of Nurgle that a potential Chaos Champion can receive on his road to power or damnation always resonated with me. I especially like the Trail of Slime gift; highly impractical on the battlefield (what general is purposely having model(s) march across the trail?) but completely in keeping with the pathos of Nurgle — any model within 4" and directly behind the model risks catching Nurgle's Rot. This is but one of the chaos gifts and there is of course the large table of mutations.

Another great thing about these two books is that one can also use them for 40k, but even more than that is that they can be used for "spicing up" the Chaos Army in the 3rd Edition Warhammer Armies. This army represents a chaos "undivided" force and works well and has very good modeling opportunities as well which I will be covering in a future blog post.

Still want more? Like Slaves to Darkness the book can also be used for 1st Edition Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. It cannot be stated enough these books are a masterwork and along with the rules, the Armies Book as well as the maligned Siege a very good set of rules, well not Siege...

I have spent a fair amount of time talking about Nurgle but what about Tzeentch? For some reason I have not been as drawn to Tzeentch as Nurgle, much like I am drawn to Khorne over Slaanesh in Slaves to Darkness. For some reason the models just do not seem to resonate with me the same way they do with Nurgle. Maybe it is the fun factor of the nurglings infesting Papa Nurgle?

(A brief write up here: Eldritch Epistles Blog).

For either Nurgle or Tzeentch I have a few minis to form the basis of the respective warbands but not enough (really no more than 1-3) to field anything substantive. My 3rd Edition Chaos warband is a Khorne themed one and I am assembling another smaller one of an undivided force in line with the rules for Chaos in the Warhammer Armies book. Obviously I can use these but I really want each force to be independent.

Should I actually get it it will then be a fair amount of minis off of eBay, but this is not a bad thing. The idea of a Nurgle warband is one I really like. It also leads to one of the best parts of a Chaos Army: a war altar which only Dark Elves, Bretonnians, Chaos and Slann may have in 3rd Edition. Even with the web there really is not that many examples of chaos war altars from 3rd edition Warhammer out there. The most well known is from White Dwarf 125.

In the case of chaos war altars this really is the "grand daddy of them all". There really is not that much else out there. I have attempted a scratch build of a chaos war altar that really turned out to be a wagon... which the rules say they are. But I am not so sure I want something this elaborate. In any event a chaos war altar is on my long range of plans I am just not sure when and what form it will take.

Final Note: War altars for 3rd Edition Warhammer are covered in a blog here including my Dark Elf War altar which has since been completed.

Part IX of the Repainting my 3rd Edition Wood Elf Force- The War Wain!

 

Since last time I blogged about it I have expanded my Wood Elf force considerably. This time however with a miniature that has a long history before it finally arrived on my doorstep. To what am I referring to? The addition of a Wood Elf Wain Lord aka the Elven Attack Chariot.

The Elven Attack Chariot was part of the "Machineries of Destruction" line from Citadel Miniatures. These featured minis from the 1980s were mainly siege engines and the like. They also included foot regiments like Prince Uthar's Imperial Dwarfs, which came in rectangular boxes, cool artwork and a short story of the machinery or regiment on the back.

An excerpt from the text:

"Prince Iolair Gilandiril drove through the forest on a crisp winter's morning. The frost glistened jewel-like on the branches and on the leaves of the evergreens, and the pale sun filtered through the morning mist to wash the scene with delicate pastel shades."

About 10 years ago I actually won this off of eBay. However, as I sadly pointed out here, it never made it to my doorstep. I still hope that someday it might arrive, but realize it is long since gone in the post and having moved since then makes it doubly unlikely. As best as I can figure it was delivered to the next street over from where I lived; same number for the house, but different street name.

So it was that around this time last year I got this miniature for considerably more than the one I lost out on (I paid $25 plus shipping for the other one!) It was not until September 2018 that I got around to painting it after a busy summer.

Of special note is the figure Aesllanan Woodmage (to the right) sculpted by Jes Goodwin. I have pretty much always liked this mini, so much so that I bought a second one to paint in the same color-scheme as the one on the chariot. Some would modify the mini so you could take the mage off of the chariot and use on foot on a 20mm base... Not me. I liked it so much I wanted to paint it twice! This mini is also unusual for me as it is a fairly light tone for the clothing. I always undercoat in thin watery black paint so when I go lighter it presents its own challenges. In all it came out fairly well in my estimation.

As you can see the chariot miniature overall continues with the autumnal foliage I have used on the rest of the Wood Elf force. I stayed away from painting the white like in the art on the box; to me that has more of a High Elf feel to it. So more browns and tans it was for the paint and with more gold used than normal to denote a high ranking wood elf noble riding in the chariot.

Here are the goods, my Elven Attack Chariot at long last! Now if that one I bought for $25 could shoul up that would be great....

Part VIII of the Repainting my 3rd Edition Wood Elf Force

I've actually been busy in real life as well as with Warhammer stuff. Over the last few months I've done lots of work on my Dark Elf force along with my wood Elves I've been chronicling here on the blog. Interestingly I've been working on the Wood Elves in the autumn and the Dark Elves in the echoing their basing choices.

Quick aside: the progress on the Dark elves can be found here. I'll have some new photos up soon of their progress.

As we all know, Wood Elf forces in 3rd Edition Warhammer are heavy with bow armed troops. This also carried over to later editions. In 3rd the compulsory choices are archers of which the minimum to field is 30. Aside from my Skarloc Wood Elf Archers all the bow armed units in the army are the result of the PBS3 -Plastic Warhammer Regiment Boxed Set. I know I've said it before, but while not the best miniatures that GW ever produced they are some of the best value around, even now as everyone and their brother has some spare ones to sell on E-Bay or trade. Additionally, to me at least these "looks like Warhammer to me" in much the same way 3rd Edition Talisman "As I know it."

So with all this here are the units I've completed, not one but two units, 20 strong of Wood Elf archers. As you can see green predominates but I continued with the black and white accenting to tie them into the other units of the army, along with the autumnal basing or red, orange and yellow. This now brings the fire power up to 82; three units with 20 and the Skarloc Archers having 22 in the regimental box set.

The 2nd unit (2nd as in I pictures the first unit here and Skarloc's counts as unit #1 for my army) followed by the 3rd.

To close out, I'll also need to get pictures up of my Elven Attack chariot that I painted up for the Wood Elf force, it came out well and I realized I finished it several months back. I now have a sizable force of Wood Elves repainted and have come a long way when they were simply an Ally force for my mega-battle with Dave and Jeff.

Creatures of Chaos- Part II

As fall starts giving way to winter you know what that means for my Warhammer and hobby activity: it begins to increase, or at least my blogging about it does. I have a lot of stuff that I have been completing in terms of Warhammer and a lot already photographed. In particular I have been hard at work on the repaint of my Wood Elf army which is now quite respectable in size. But enough of the heads up on where I'm at, onto the point of this blog entry: Creatures of Chaos.

As outlined in my previous entry on the matter here I purchased all three of the Creatures of Chaos from Langley Miniatures by Andrew Taylor. To recap, these are great sculpts and I was happy to support them; they also have a fair amount of other minis I'm keeping my eyes on for down the road. The minis are created very much in the vein of the miniatures that Citadel/Games Workshop/Marauder created back in the heyday of 3rd Edition Warhammer.

The minis themselves were a pleasure to paint with very few awkward areas. You know the kind I mean: some minis have areas, usually the undersides that are a pain to try and contort the hand and brush to reach to apply adequate paint coverage.

I decided to mount these minis on 50mm by 50mm bases as that would also allow me a fair amount of space to create some decorative bases in the style of 3rd edition Warhammer. By this I mean the look and feel of the 3rd Edition rule book and White Dwarfs at the time with their crazy painted mushrooms, simulated rushes/weeds and the like.

The only real "issues" I had revolved around the paint job of the cockatrice and the chimaera's lion head. In the case of the cockatrice the issue was trying to get the color right so it didn't look muddy or like a dark mustard. As with most photos its kinda hard to see as it shows a shade darker than it actually is. A cockatrice in terms of overall colors isn't quite as simple as it seems to begin with. To help with painting guidance, I did look at the Bestiary in the rule book, the 2nd Edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Monstrous Manual and the painted examples from the Langley Miniatures site,

With the chimera, the issue was trying to find the right balance of the lighter colors.

In the end rather than go with a tawny color as one might expect from a lion, I went with one that was more cream/ivory in terms of the shade making it more of a "white lion" (no, not the hair band from the 80s). At first it was a bit of a pain and was not coming out well. Part of this is because I undercoat in black rather than white. But in the end, like plenty of minis that I have done in the past that I thought would not turn out well I kept at it. And sure enough I got it to a point where it came together. This happens time and again and the best advice is to press on and keep painting!

In terms of use they have two primary uses for  armies in Warhammer. The ones that can make use of these minis in their army list are ones that have, imagine that! Thus they make appearances in my 3rd Edition Dark Elf and Chaos forces as a matter of course.

A few bonus pictures of the project.

For my next post I'll be turning back to my Wood Elf host for the first time in quite a while. Right now the army has expanded quite a bit including the fact that I now have over 80 painted Wood Elf Archers. In fact looking at the plans for the army, I have probably only four more units to go: Elven Lords (Calvary), another Treeman, 3 more wardancers for the second unit of 10 and a few packs of Animal Handlers aka Beastmasters. For these guys my plan is to use animals from the excellent Wargames Foundy Bears and Big Cats.

As to timing of these purchases? Yet to be determined...

Oh Yeah, that other area of Wargaming- Terrain

(Grrrrrr.... Once again my love/hate relationship with Blogger continues as this hosting platform ate a large portions of my changes to this post and for whatever reason auto-save did not work....)

As summer turns to early Fall here in North America I take a pause from my intensive construction of my Warhammer Nippon Castle and the start of Castle Von Wittgenstein. (as well as numerous Warhammer Fantasy Battle units for various armies) I got to thinking about the overall amount of time that I and I suspect others engage in when it comes to terrain. It is my contention that there probably isn't as much compared to actual painting and assembly of miniatures which is to be expected.This in a way is a sad thing because one of the most rewarding areas of the game in my mind and in way one of the cheapest is terrain. Certainly when one considers the cost of Oldhammer; i.e that almost any miniatures have to be purchased off of eBay and not so nice prices, terrain is cheap in comparison.

When I say lack of terrain, I'm not saying there was none in our games, but rather a decided lack of attention to it  to a large degree. By this I mean buildings, forests/woods, rivers etc,were present, but not large scale projects I mentioned above. Even back in the day when 3rd Edition was the current edition of the game, I don't recall creating as much terrain compared to the gold standard of what we saw in White White Dwarf. Sure, in my gaming group we had the main board (cut into 12x12 sections for ease of transport), some trees, hedges and fences but not much else. Buildings were taken care of by the Warhammer Townscape book, but none of us attempted to create more elaborate pieces.

As an aside: over time I purchased another Warhammer Townscapes Book years ago and since I inherited our old terrain as a gaming group I reckon I have about 1.5 sets of buildings from the two books. I say 1.5 because despite this I don't have all of the buildings due to various moves and some being destroyed over said time-frame.For those not in the know, Warhammer Townscape was a book of card-stock buildings that one folded and glued, looking like this =>

For me the lack of terrain is odd when you consider the totality of the hobby. Even though I saw some of the excellent buildings created by Dave Andrews in various White Dwarf articles, it wasn't until after the heyday of 3rd that I really started constructing my own buildings. But a funny thing happened when I did I start creating them, I did so in a style very akin to 3rd Edition. This is probably not as "funny" when I think about it, for example (Willmark's Homemade Warhammer terrain)

Now, I posted these years ago on Chaos Dwarfs Online and are a slection of some of my terrain and the the style is distinctive, atat the same time familiar. But even with these I still wasn't doing anything too new, as a lot of the pieces were right from White Dwarf (not that its a bad thing).

I guess when you put it all together, terrain is one of the most under represented parts of the hobby (to a degree) but one of the most universally praised? Or put another way, gamers love terrain, but usually the last thing created. This in and of itself is surprising for another reason when one considers terrain is actually one of the cheaper areas of the hobby.

Old Worlder Ally or Old Worlder Mercenaries?

As the title notes... but not really much of conundrum. The reality is these guys I just finished up could be used for one of three things in 3rd Edition Warhammer.

• Part of a small force of Bretonnians; unlikely as they are by far my least favorite army.
• Or as a Old Worlder Mercenary unit
• Or as a Old Worlder Ally unit.

As I outlined here these minis are from my very first army, Bretonnians... which lasted all of one battle before converting them to Empire. (see I disliked them even back then!) Through the years they saw a few different configurations, even buying 5th edition Bretonnian warhorses and repainting them. Fortunately for me I did save the horses they came with and had a vague idea of making them into a terrain piece: horses around a paddock. But as in my previous post I noted I wanted to bring them back to 3rd Edition. They were mostly in good shape but a fair number of the horse tails were missing so green-stuff to the rescue.

Regardless of how they are used there is still a further plan with them. I still have 10 more horses that I will expand to another unit. Once I have the riders for them I will split out the Templar painted knights for their own unit... Dues Vult! (Note- nothing more implied by that other then the Templars themselves.) These are left overs from my Imperial Knights who were rebased on armored horses and fit perfectly.

Like the rest of the mercenary forces I've used brown bases for them and added a few half-buried shields and mushrooms to give them that 3rd edition look and feel.

Anyways, here is the finished unit. Of special note is the Templar in the front row on the right of the standard bearer. He represents the first Warhammer minis that I ever painted. I've since repainted him a number of times and hopefully this is the last.

3rd Edition Warhammer Chaos Dwarf Army list

Special thanks to orlygg for the scan and the ones that appear in the "army book" below.

Being the Mad Hatter that I am I decided a while back to post my "back-port" of a Chaos Dwarf Army list to 3rd Edition rules. I've been on the periphery of the Oldhammer movement, but felt compelled to give back by standing on the shoulders of those who got the ball rolling as it were.

For those not in the know, back in the 3rd Edition days the Chaos Dwarfs only appeared in two sections in terms of armies in the game and then not even in their own army. They appeared in Warhammer Armies: as part of the Chaos Ally contingent and as part of the Khornate army listed in Realm of Chaos- Slaves to Darkness. Even then, the Chaos Dwarfs were different than what would appear in the 4th Edition rules in their own "Army Book". From there there, the uncertainly of 5th through 7th editions until Chaos Dwarfs Online spearheaded a resurgence and brought them back from the brink of disappearing.

So with this in mind I attempted to create an army listing in the same vein as how they were presented in 3rd Edition, but using the organizing concepts of 4th Edition and beyond. That is to say I combined orcs and goblins into the list, even though in 3rd Edition they are listed as hating all dwarfs including Chaos Dwarfs. Oldhammer is what you make it and I'm not too worried about the 3rd Edition Warhammer police breaking down my door by breaking a rule. Then again, with Games Workshop Legal? Who knows...

Knowing a fair amount about graphic design and having produced both the Word of Hashut and Gold and Glory ezines it was a fairly easy task to replicate the look at feel of Warhammer Armies. The problem wasn't the design but rather it is my illustration skills which have atrophied over the years. Sot it was a lot of scans were in order, namely from White Dwarf, Realms of Chaos- Slaves to Darkness and Warhammer Armies.

Be warned, this has NOT been play tested so who knows how it will work! You'll also note that there is space for adding rules for the Chaos Dwarf Juggernaut. Strangely, Games Workshop created the model back in the 80s, but never created rules for it. The production run of the mini was limited and goes for quite a bit on eBay. At some point I'll add rules for the miniature and its accompanying crew.

For more details on Chaos Dwarfs in the 80s and early 90s, be sure to check the excellent site Realm of Chaos, a leading light in the Oldhammer movement.

The 3rd Edition Chaos Dwarf Army list can be downloaded here, let me know what you think.

Warhammer 3rd Edition- Old Worlder Mercenary Contingent

One of the coolest things about 3rd Edition Warhammer are the rules for Allies and Mercenaries. While not perfect, I think they are the closest they have ever come to being truly playable in the various iterations of Warhammer.

This post is about the Old Worlder Mercenary Contingent, but first a bit of backstory.

As I noted here, my very first step into Warhammer Fantasy Battle was in 3rd Edition. Since the other guys had already picked armies and we didn't want to duplicate any one army I had a few choices to go with, all on the "good side". I had always liked knights back in the day so Brettonia it was. A few stops at the local games stores left me with the following for my very first games (around1988)

• 10 Chevaliers D'Honneur
• 22 Archers
• 1 cannon and crew
• A bunch of assorted models I recall fielding as Brigands. 

I only ever recall playing against Dave's Skaven before converting them to an Empire force which would become my first real army. Jeff had some he sold me some Empire halberdiers I think to bolster the force and aide the conversion of the army. As knights of the Empire I used epoxy glue to add aluminum foil to paint barding! Ugh. The lengths we went through to make the models WYWIWYG. Nowdays I could pull it off with green-stuff but back then my skills at modelling werent so good and no one knew what green-stuff was.

After a while my dislike of all things Bretonnia grew as well as eventually creating three 10+ units of Empire Knights which the need for Brettonian knights standing in as Imperial ones diminish. Even so, I bought some 5th Edition Bretonnian horses a number of years later repainting and remounting the knights; and then promptly did nothing with them. I was fortunate in that I did save the original horses having a vague idea of using them as steeds for a paddock and stable terrain piece. A casualty of them sitting at the bottom of various bits boxes for years was that almost all were missing their tails. No big deal as I recreated them with green-stuff that came out quite well. Moral of the story: never throw anything out!

Now this brings me to the present. A month or so back I stripped down the archers and primed them just for the Hell of it. But in doing so I got to thinking. About six months I have reassembled one of my Bretonnian cannons that I saved the frame for 20 years (the barrel was part of a crappy home built steam tank, now since destroyed). Did this mean I was going to reassemble my Bretonnian? No. With a perusal through the 3rd Edition Warhammer Armies book it became clear it would be more fun to paint them up as scummy mercenaries! This has the added benefit of the fact that I'm the administrator of Dogs of War Online, homeland of mercenaries!

A few nights of stripping paint, redoing horse tails and finding shields and were all set. Note the shields will be repainted; some of them sport their crappy 1988 paint jobs. Paint jobs reflective of me not knowing what the Hell I was doing back then..

Snooty Bretonnian knights on the way to becoming scummy mercenaries!

So now the force becomes:

• 10 Tilean Condotieri or 10 Estalian Caballeros
• 22 Archers now equating to 20 Frieforstjaegers*
• 1 cannon and crew (probably will just end up as a small diorama type piece)
• 9 crossbowmen I've had for odds and ends to form a small unit of Tilean crossbowmen. 
• Going to add 20 pikemen from either the Pike and Shotte range or the Perry Miniatures range*. 
• 20 Bretonnian brigands. I did have a few here but foolishly traded them, I'll need to reacquire these guys.
• I also was able to rehab 10  unarmored 3rd edition horses; I'll be looking for more knight figures on eBay sans riders to fill them out.
• Still need to decided on a mounted contingent commander.

* Yes, the rules say a maximum of 20, but I'm not too worried about the 3rd Edition Warhammer police breaking down my door at 2 AM for rules violations....

** Perry miniatures obviously, seamlessly integrate with the other minis. Minis from the Foundry line are another possibility.

Free Foresters at the ready!

So with that I'll have a nice, tight Old World Mercenary force. In a pinch they can shift to an Old World Ally Contingent as needed or even a small Bretonnian force (yuck). The only downside is that only Empire, Bretonnian and Dwarf armies can field Old Worlder Ally and Mercenary contingents...

As an aside, I also now have enough minis from the various armies to field almost all outside of pygmies, Skaven (I have some but not a lot) and Fimir. My ultimate goal is to have enough to field all these! But for some reason Old Worlder strikes me as cool as I haven't really seen any truly dedicated forces on the internet. And that's my goal to have enough dedicated minis rather than always pulling from the main army.

Last part for those wondering- yes I'm still working on my scale Castle Von Wittgenstein and my Nippon castle. In fact I'm working on a ton of stuff and going wherever my muse takes me! Its a fun ride, updates over at Chaos Dwarfs Online and Dogs of War Online.

Nippon Castle for Warhammer- Part IV

Wow, the Nippon castle has been garnering a lot of attention on the web, keep up the comments guys and many thanks; especially the shout out here, thanks Scot!

I've stepped back and taken stock of where I am with the project at this point which is to say a lot further along then when I really picked it back up in October. Overall I'm pleased with the pace I've been on and have been enjoying the whole project. I've even found time to work on other projects like the siege equipment, paint a few units and other things that strike my fancy.

But, the title of this post says Part III so what am I working on right now in relation to the Nippon castle you ask: As I mentioned in Part II I've been re-reading my stack of White Dwarf magazines from the range of #220-235. In particular, in #225, Nick Davis' "Jungle Fever - Part 2" where he covers the creation of his Lizardman Castle has been of particular interest. #224 is where the rules appeared for 5th Edition Siege rules for moats which I'm drawing on as well, so here is the point of this post, moats.

As you can see, I've started on the beginnings of a moat for the castle. The moat will obviously surround the entire castle to simulate a Nippon fortress situated on the lowlands of Nippon (or Nihon?) near rice patties perhaps? I deliberately started at the most difficult part of the moats, the corner towers knowing the wall sections would be far easier. I also took inspiration from the corner board sections of 3rd Edition Talisman.

From there, once finished I also have been formulating ideas to create a way to raise up the entire thing so it will sit on a series of cliff walls to simulate a mountain top type of castle. That is further off and I will be using fair amount of paper-mache to make the mountainside.  In this, the 6th Edition High Elf Army Book has some interesting photos of minis and mountains so we'll see.

Note- my overall progress of my Nippon Army is tracked over here at Dogs of War Online.

Speaking of paper-mache, I took a brief side track to work a tomb/barrow, first seen in the 6th Edition General's Compendium on page 52. I started out when I looked at a barrow I created about 15 years ago. I was going to pull that apart but just decided to create something from scratch. Then remembered the barrow in the a fore mentioned General's Compendium. You'll have to excuse this photo as I remembered to take it as I was applying the paper-mache. But I digress, here is the barrow:

As you can see, the top will be removable because I'm insane apparently and need to add all kinds of stuff to the interior..

And if the barrow/tomb were not enough of a bonus, I've also been working on redoing the river pieces of the terrain that Jeff and Dave created 25+ years ago! I widened them a few years back but now I've added gravel to the river edges and will be painting them shortly. Need to add a few more bends and another river crossing part. You'll have to excuse the quick photo on this one too, I only remembered to take a picture after I had already started on it and undercoated one.

I think that's all for now. Good gaming in the new year everyone.

WM

Why I’m Obsessed with Ninjas and Nippon in Warhammer

 

As I blogged about here I've been working on my Warband of Nippon in an on again, off again fashion. Currently it is in the on mode, huzzah.

I have just completed a few far eastern/Nippon/samurai type major purchases and will be rounding out two units with enough minis to have a sizeable force to play with. I have currently been tracking all activity on this particular army over at Dogs of War Online. As you can see I have made substantial progress with the ninja. For those inclined here is a picture from the blog featuring my first unit rounding into form.

I have been having a lot of fun scouring eBay for these guys and I am nearing the end of my quest to have one of each of the ninjas from back in the 1980s (there were 48 in all).

But only recently I stepped back and wondered just why? Why the interest in ninjas? No it was not the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles either (I missed that by a few years). The roots of my being smack dab in the middle of the 80s Ninja Craze was this awesome great/bad movie, American Ninja!

I mean c'mon what 12 year old in 1985 DIDN'T want to be a ninja????

Of course, after watching it on HBO I wanted to be a ninja so of course I then proceeded to make some ninjatō, painted them silver and proceeded to whack the crap out of my friends with them. I also had some ninja stars to fling around too with my main target being the garage drywall. Of one thing I know for sure, I also dressed up as a ninja for Halloween one year too, probably seventh grade. My mom has a picture of it, but I am not letting that out to become the next internet meme.

So there you go. 80s Ninja Craze, 3rd Edition Warhammer a few short years later with some vestigial traces (and the let down of no Nippon army from GW) and then going full bore later in my life. I guess what was once old is now new again?

As a final thought one does have to deal with a Inverse ninja law.

NOTE: Games Workshop teased at Nippon on page 194 of the 3rd Edition Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay book: "For the moment we shall pass over these lands, leaving their exploration to others. A complete guide to the lands of Nippon is already under development." Looks like that became never with the move to 4th Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle and then Herohammer.

Part V- Repainting the Wood Elf Force- The General

Thanks PhotoBucket.

Like a lot of hobbyists I imagine, I have spent the last week and half migrating everything off of PhotoBucket due to their new Terms and Conditions. So that means not much time for actual hobby work. In my case I had most everything backed up, but the Mac that had the photos got damaged in a flood due to an errant sump pump malfunction. So in a few short months it was: lose the local copies of the photos and then the online ones (in a sense). Fortunately, for the Wood Elf thread I chose to place it online here at Blogger (until this too closes- many years from now, right google?)

Anyways, onto the thread: since the Wood Elf host has been growing in size I figured it was time to pause in the rank and file units and give them a leader. For my general I utilized the Ashen Peacemaker miniature that I had procured years ago sans horse and then proceeded to cut apart for a ill-advised attempt at a conversion. What possessed me to do that I have no idea. Fortunately I cut him apart at the points where he was easy to reassemble.

Like the rest of the army he is on a brown base (not the sides obviously) with fall foliage and with the rest of the army I went for a more subdued color scheme. To me this makes sense the Wood Elves are not High Elves; they are not about flash and style, but more rustic and "natural" in their finery.

The horse is actually from another 3rd Edition mini from the Elf6 Cavalry range. The general model it came with is (so far) assigned to the Elven Lord unit im assmebling (see below), but remains to be seen if that is where he stays. I think the crown throws the whole look off for a Wood Elf army to be honest.

As far as my general (I still need to think up a name) there is still a bit of touch up to go on the base and a few other spots. Why is I only notice these after I take photos and prepare the blog post???

I still have not decided whether he will accompany a unit of (so far) 6 Elven Lords or if he will be independent. Of course a lot of this is predicated on what happens with the battle standard bearer of which I'll have mounted as well.

Next up to blog about is my mounted wizard "Milambar Ice Blade". I actually took photos of him too, but noticed that I still need to paint the "ramage" (he has a saddle bag with scrolls). Also the Dragomaster (DRAG7) which I converted years ago with his remounted rider is almost complete too. If that were not enough I have another unmodified dragon that is stripped of its old paint job and primed. As to which army it will go I'm not sure yet, perhaps it will be painted in a high elf scheme...

And further: I still have another mounted elf wizard and a unicorn in need of a mounted female elf wizard.... an elf kin warrior band, two more 20 strong elf archer units, another Treeman, another war dancer troupe, and a scratch built chariot... So plenty of stuff to do with this army to say the least.

I'm still tinkering with the light box (I know, I know, I've been saying this for a while) but have come up with a few good ideas while I get some more lights this week. These photos are a bit better than as of late. I also have been re-reading about it in the web. Seems like that information I knew at one point, but I must have purged from my memory over the last few years.


In any event let me know what you think of the paint job or any other questions or comments. 
 

Warhammer 3rd Edition Oldhammer Army Status and Plans

 

As I outlined here I have really returned to my roots as it were in regards to 3rd Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle. For me that version remains the pinnacle. As time had gone by less and less folks have stayed with the old editions. And with the demise of the traditional rule set of Warhammer Fantasy Battle this is more pronounced with folks going either the Age of Sigmar route, 9th Age or Return of Kings.

For me it is why bother? Yes it is cumbersome, but with the good old orange rule book and Warhammer Armies you have all you need to play a great game of Warhammer

Talk about value on this thing: It has 11 of the 12 armies contained within (Norse appeared in White Dwarf 107). In addition there are new rules for war machines, and great rules in my opinion for allies and mercenaries which Warhammer always seemed to struggle with to find a good balance for. So with that in mind here is where I stand for each of the armies and potential future plans:

Dark Elves When complete they will total around 4,000 to 5,000 points. Details on the progress of the army can be found here. For the most part I largely have all the minis needed and just need to round out a few here and there to fill up certain units rank and file. They also have 25 hobgoblins as allies which I am looking forward to painting (see below).

Wood Elves As I have been outlining here on the blog they will come in around 4,000 points when complete. Like Dark Elves these pointy ears are a repaint of my existing models. As I also noted they originally served as allies for my Empire force, but over the years I collected enough to field a force in their own right. Almost all the models are 3rd edition ones with a few 4th edition ones mixed in like the Glade Guard serving as Kin Band warriors.

One of my first successful miniature conversions.

 

High Elves

This will be tougher. Not because I do not have minis but because I have a force of at least 10,000 points of High Elves painted and another 4,000 points unpainted. But they are a 5th edition force in composition and models. This is not a problem per se, but I am not going to convert them back to 3rd. Easy enough to play 3rd edition games with them, but unlikely to get a lot of the 3rd/4th edition range save for two: one being that ever elusive Elven Attack Chariot (for me).

The Empire Actually my second army in 3rd Edition (more on that in a bit). Like my High Elves these guys are more configured for 4th through 7th than 3rd edition. The good news is it is easy enough to use them in 3rd edition which I did in a battle around December.

Bretonnia When I first played 3rd Edition I played my initial force as a Bretonnian force. Now I cannot stand Bretonnia due to certain posters on a website that promotes them (you know the one). Ever wonder why the Word of Hashut #10 is is the way it is? There you go. Right now I have a mixed force that is probably around 1,000 points. I do not really see myself doing anything with them anytime soon. I will be finishing up a Bretonnian cannon however as it was one of my first mini purchases ever. Maybe even a small scenic base too.

Chaos My chaos force is largely done. It dates back to 1991 and sports a lot of original paint jobs from that time. As of late I have been splitting out the 5th/6th edition minis from the earlier ones. One "new" unit is a repaint of chaos warriors on foot. Right now I have 16 and have been scoping out the remaining 4. Highly unlikely to field 20 at once as the point cost would be over 1,000 points, but they will look cool nonetheless. A unit of 25 Beastmen with some gors from 5th/6th and Talisman plastic Beastmen is also under the brush, but back burner right now.

Skaven As my buddy Dave collected them way back when he got all of them from the joint plastic regiment boxes. As a result of this over the years they never had much appeal. I would say I have 10 to 20 plastic ones. I could see a unit or two for allies, but I am highly unlikely to gather a full force especially when one considers the amount of minis needed to field a Skaven force.

Orcs From my Chaos Dwarfs force I have more than enough to field an Orc and Goblin force but not too many in the way of 3rd edition minis. If I did I would be looking for the orc and goblin war machines to round it out. Hell I might just get them anyways as the minis are so cool.

Dwarfs Like the Wood Elves the Dwarfs are an outgrowth of needing allies for my Empire force in larger battles (as I was the only one playing the "good armies"). The Dwarfs are the force I have changed the least over the years. What I have done is add more minis to them. The leftovers from the Battle for Skull Pass box set have also made their way to the army. Right now I have four units to go with the 6,000 points of painted minis I already have. They were also the first force I thought of painting in a coherent scheme rather than individuals except for one unit where I purposely painted each mini different. As a result the unit is a mishmash of colors but the army is predominately green and yellow. All in all the force works.

Slann Ahhh Slann. I have zero Slann minis unfortunately and I think I only ever actually saw a few in person painted (Dave had some). For some reason they were fairly hard to come by in the States in the late 80s and to try and collect them now? Expensive.

Undead This will be a bit easier. Due to summoning spells in 3rd edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle everyone had an Undead plastic box set. Because of this I have one unit of cavalry, one unit of infantry and some extras. Coupled with the zombie plastic box set from 6th means I have the nucleus of a small force but needs some touching up on the first two. At some point I envision a small force along the lines of the ones presented around White Dwarf 142.

Extras Norse Only appeared in White Dwarf 107 and I have to say it left me with a meh feeling for the army. I have a few scattered Norse minis, but do not see myself undertaking this task for another human army largely composed of infantry. Do not get me wrong the minis are cool, but where are the Norse riding war mammoths???

Nippon My attempts at Nippon have been on again and off again as the mood strikes me. Now not a 3rd edition force the army list for 2nd could be modified to work with 3rd. I have a sizable force but it is going to take a lot more time and a lot more lead. I do have almost every ninja model from the range which is kinda cool! I think if I could get 1 to 4 of those damn Temple Dogs it would help!

Mercenaries and Allies Based on having so many armies I can usually field any allies needed. In terms of the mercs? I have the following:

• Chaos Allies: both chaos dwarf war machines, a mortar and multiple bazookas!
• Old Worlder Ally contingent: toyed with the idea of converting my Bret force to this contingent.
• Halflings: Got a fair amount of these for a small ally force.
• Giants: Two giants, one old school.
• Ogres: Unit of 8 detailed here.
• Half Orcs: this is going to be a quest. I want the 2nd edition range which goes for big money on eBay.
• Hobgoblins: 25 old school hobgoblins including Baron Brightgore on the painting table!

That about rounds out where I stand in Oldhammer. A lot done, quite a bit to go but that is the fun of it.

How about you, what is your favorite Warhammer army faction?