For some reason I seem to have an affinity for ogres (and giants) in Warhammer. I am not sure why this is mind you as I have not set out to collect a lot of them, it kind of just happened. A few months back I was able to procure these ogres off of eBay for about $20 less than the going price after having my eye on them since around 2001. What are they? Dragonrune Miniatures Ogre Marauders.
Dragonrune Miniatures was in operation from 2001 to 2003 and closed down in 2003 (source). The minis in question were sculpted by Felix Paniagua and obviously look very much in the vein/style of the Warhammer miniatures at the time; his orcs also are very much same style-wise. This makes sense as Felix also worked for Games Workshop.
While Dragonrune went "belly up" they were acquired by Armorcast and you can still get the miniatures.
As you can see I have all seven of the minis from the ogre line. I have mixed feelings about these guys, not the minis mind you. They are packed with details and a proliferation of skulls, heads, chests, pouches etc. In fact in a way they echo the Citadel miniatures of the mid to late 80s which I cut my teeth on as it were (In fact the left hand most ogre has orange and white haircut akin to the ogre on the cover of the 1st Edition Warhammer Fantasy Role-play book). And yes I know the troll slayer on the cover had the orange hair...
Sorry about the digress, I was saying mixed feelings? This was one of those units and/or minis that gave me a lot of grief when painting. What do I mean by that? Glad you asked. By grief I mean they just did not come together in terms of the colors as I expected. The skin tones were better than I expected, but overall as noted the whole experience left me somewhat perplexed. I am not sure about you, but this happens to me every once in a while when painting a unit or miniature. It either is a case where it does not come out quite like I intended or was not as enjoyable to paint.
I did get to work on my black lining technique to give them a more Oldhammer feel and the washes went well. I also gave the weapons a rusty bloodstained look which on the ogre with the orange/white hair and the ogre with the hammer looks good.
Regardless of the outcome I now have yet another unit of ogres for Warhammer and here is what is in my collection at the moment:
- A unit of three ogres for my 6th/7th Edition Chaos Dwarf army.
- A unit of three ogres for my 6th/7th Edition Chaos (Undivided) army.
- A unit of eight ogres for my 3rd Edition Armies which are detailed here.
While all of these guys are assigned to an army and in some cases painted to match the armies or their bases/movement trays they could also be used for Warhammer Fantasy Role-play or for other Warhammer Armies in Warhammer Fantasy Battle proper. In the case of the Dragonrune ones I just finished above they are painted with the more neutral brown scheme I use for mercenary forces in my collection. Another use could very easily be in my ever so slowly evolving Dogs of War army.
In the end, I recommend these guys, they are excellent miniatures with a very good amount of fine detail to them. In fact if you did not know you might be forgiven for assuming they were unreleased GW miniatures.
As a final note I think these are the last ogres I will be procuring for quite some time, although there are still some giant ogres from the Marauder line which I quite like along with some more of the classic lines from Citadel. Perhaps I need to switch to the classic giants! So many choices, limited $, but we will see. Maybe The Citadel Giant, but only 1,000 were produced...
Narrator's Voice: "He would indeed fine a "Citadel Giant"
