Nippon Samurai Unit Complete – 25 Ashigaru/Ronin for Warhammer

Once again I've been working on again/off again Nippon mercenary force. I have got a lot of stuff on the bench right now but as we are in the waning month of summer here in North America my thoughts turn back to painting. So with that I finally finished up a unit for the Warband of Nippon: a unit of 25 samurai.

As with all of the units of this army I am making them flexible enough to be used in varying editions of Warhammer via the 2nd Edition Ravening Hordes to using the 6th Edition Dogs of War rules for later versions/

• When used in 2nd Edition they will be fielded as ashigaru with hand weapons.
• In 3rd Edition they fall under Empire as a "Count As" force. From that list they use the stat line for Eratzsoldier with light armor and hand weapons.
• For a true 5th/6th Edition Dogs of War force? Well they do not really fit at all unless I used them as Norse Marauders but the base sizes do not really work. With that said I do not really think I can use them as is in any form really as the Core choices for Dogs of War are pikemen and crossbowmen. The only thing that comes close for the 20mm bases in the Special Choices are dwarfs. Not really helpful there GW.

So without further delay here are the ashigaru/ronin/lower class samurai as promised. They are not the best unit I have ever painted but considering the stop start nature of them at least they are complete. I tried to keep the colors somewhat muted for most of the warriors as some later units will really stand out. These guys I wanted less flash but still painted a few brighter colors.

Anyone else with a Dogs of War or Nippon army force? I know of this very cool army here. 

3rd Edition Warhammer Armies- 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 Armies.

• 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 re-based 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.

Part VII - Repainting the 3rd Edition Wood Elf Force Wood Elf Warrior Kinbands (4th Edition Glade Guard)

I now turn back to an army that I have not worked on in several months, my Wood Elves. As I last left the army it was at the state of adding my converted Wood Elf Dragon Rider. (Part VI described here).

This time around, I have churned out twenty 4th Edition spear-men for my 3rd Edition Wood Elf Force... Obviously they fill out the role of Warrior Kinbands in the 3rd Edition Wood Elf Army list.

Couple of points:

• I went with the 4th Edition range for several reasons, one being cost: the 4th edition range is not that hard to come by and the prices to round them out were fairly cheap. When compared to the 3rd edition elves they were significantly cheaper.
• Availability – Not too hard to find on eBay. The 3rd Edition elves with spears on eBay are a bit more and usually in smaller groups. I was able to assemble the unit fairly quickly.
• Most importantly, I like the minis. I am not sure the reasoning, but I have always liked these pointy ears.

So I started with 12 that I had bought years ago; stripped the old paint off and started at square one. Got eight more off eBay last fall and just got around to painting them. So without further delay the next unit to come off the bench.

As you can see I continued the autumnal feel with the basing. I also continued the green shields with the white swirl pattern to tie them into the rest of the army thus far.

Next up for this army is... I am not sure. I have another unit of Wardancers currently standing at 7 out of 10, and two units of 20 archers formed from metal command/hero minis and miniatures from the plastic Warhammer Fantasy Regiment box set.

Warhammer Armies, Chaos Dwarf Army List for 3rd Edition – Oldhammer Back-Port

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

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, the uncertainty 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 and feel of Warhammer Armies. The problem wasn't the design but rather it is my illustration skills which have atrophied over the years. So 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.

Part I - New Creatures of Chaos Minis from Langley Miniatures

EDIT: 7-19-26, Since this post, Langley Miniatures has shuttered operations. I was able to get the minis prior to that as I discuss here. 

Link to the Original kickstarter. 

As if I do not have enough to paint already and adding to the fact that my painting desk is groaning under the weight of copious amounts of unpainted lead. What do I do? Of course, I purchase more minis. I have been eyeing the excellent range of Creatures of Chaos by Andrew Taylor for several months now and finally got around to pulling the trigger. Suffice to say I am eagerly awaiting these guys from the UK.

My purchase was of the cockatrice, chimera and manticore with a toss-up between the chimera and manticore as to which one I want to paint first! NOTE: these are not my paint jobs.

If you are in the market for these guys, whether for role-playing games or for war-gaming you could do a lot worse. These guys look excellent and I cannot wait to get my grubby mitts on them. Link to Langley Miniatures. I will just have to remember to post my progress here as my various projects underway are scattered across multiple sites.

Lastly, more Old School miniatures in the same vein goodness can also be found here, great stuff really.

Building an Old Worlder Mercenary Force for 3rd Edition Warhammer

Snooty Bretonnian knights!

EDIT: 7-19-26, in the years since this post I did indeed finish the unit bit as Bretonnians after all, go figure. 

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 did not 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 Bretonnia it was. A few stops at the local game stores left me with the following for my very first games (around 1988):

• 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 aid 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 WYSIWYG. Nowadays I could pull it off with green stuff but back then my skills at modelling were not 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 Bretonnian knights standing in as Imperial ones diminished. 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 ago I 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 am the administrator of Dogs of War Online, homeland of mercenaries!

Free Foresters at the ready!

A few nights of stripping paint, redoing horse tails and finding shields and we 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.

So now the force becomes:

• 10 Tilean Condotieri or 10 Estalian Caballeros
• 22 Archers now equating to 20 Free Foresters*
• 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 decide on a mounted contingent commander.

• Yes, the rules say a maximum of 20, but I am 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.

Death on the Reik- Scale Model of Castle Von Wittgenstein

 

 

EDIT: this project never really got off the ground. I did get to the point of creating the gatehouse at area #28-30. From there the project stalled. The parts I did complete got recycled into the main gate for my scratch built "Mighty Fortress."

 

As such this post is kept for historical purposes. 

 

My favorite RPG might just be 1st Edition Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, followed by 2nd Edition AD&D. So with that in mind my thoughts have been turning to iconic images from 1st Edition WFRP. And if I don't have enough "irons in the fire" as it were when it comes to Warhammer projects my thoughts have been turning to the next large scale terrain project.

What got me thinking about it is this: T1 The Village of Hommlet was a classic, seminal module for many and the Moathouse (meat grinder thought it was/is) stands a indelible image of AD&D. I think for me it would be fairly easy to do something like this, but its already been done as it were. And I should add its an excellent model all around so no need to do it again.

So with that in mind, my thoughts have started to coalesce around this, a scale model of Castle Von Wittgenstein from Death on the Reik. 

Now, I do have the module (obviously) but one thing I'd have to decide early on is which route to go. What do I mean by that? The floor plan/map is not the same as the art which is to be expected. But its not even really close. I get that Miller's cover is exaggerated to great deal but the castle made is far wider.

The tougher route to go with is the art because its just that one picture from the cover and the backside not shown would require some guess work based on the map. Sorta a Catch-22.

 

I've posted this a couple of different places (Chaos Dwarfs Online and the RPG Site) to gauge interest/ideas/feedback.

Right now this is in the idea phase only. 

 

NOTE: If looking for themed miniatures for the amazing adventure? You can't do any better than this although its in French (I don't speak it).