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I've been thinking about that, and the best I've come up with so far has been to put all of them into a regiment base together and perhaps use the stats for the Ratkin unit "The Blight" (aka Skaven Plague Censer Bearers) to represent their speed, damage, and general scariness.

Today's update shows off an "Oldhammer" Warhammer Goblin Unit made up of 2nd-3rd Edition models, almost entirely sculpted by Kev Adams back in the day and based on Rounds and turned into a KoW regiment by virtue of some blu-tac and a movement tray. These figures have been painted over quite a few years, with many painted 5-10+ years ago, a couple last year, and the last stragglers done in the last few weeks as part of my "finish those bloody things" drive. I'll show them off in threes to start with.


The command group of the unit (not that these things matter in the new edition of KoW, but I digress). The leader is "Kleaver" from the Goblin Battle Chariots box set with the addition of a Marauder Goblin Shield. The rest of the crew also found their way into this regiment. I think I started painting them to add to the chariots, which I never got painted and slowly faded into the depths of time. I'll have to do something about those sometime soonish. Perhaps they can have some plastic crewmen? The other two are simply command figures from the late 1980's, probably painted sometime in the 1990's. I didn't feel a need for a flag or pennant. Not all standards are giant flags, after all. I gave the musician a Nine Inch Nails back tattoo, since as a gobbo musician he's clearly really into his industrial music. The leader got a red hood to make him really pop, especially given his chainmail coat and plate boots take away a lot of the opportunity to add colour and interest.


The next three feature two more from the 80's command figures - the mod-posed figures are a Champion, a Leader and their cohort is a regular goblin from '91. Though I think he looks like the sort to be a unit champion with his cute little glaive.


Two of these three also came off the chariot sets mentioned earlier. The centre spear and hammer. Clearly the "red" spear is a close relation to the Hammer, and no doubt that helped me decide to paint the pair of them at the same time. All three of these were originally painted in the 1990's...


...and then the two on the outer were "re-finished" this year. The copper and Bronze scale mail were originally red, and purple. Hideous, you might say? Yes. The shield was originally absent entirely - just a shield boss sticking out of the back of the figure, painted black - so I decided to add a shield. I went for a leering goblin face design. I'm not entirely happy with it, but it falls under "good enough" for me. I could spend time trying to figure out why I'm not satisfied with it, or I could just move on and do a better job on the next freehand shield. So I've chosen the latter.


These three are a little more interesting. The first goblin, with the hammer and net is an early slottabase figure, from the C13 Small Goblins range, circa 1885-ish. I haven't managed to find this specific figure in the catalogues, but it looks to be the same style as figures like "Spear Thruster", so possibly/probably sculpted by the Perrys. This one was entirely painted recently, and while I'm not super happy with how his musculature came out, the head is fine, and the mohawk was a fun old-school touch.

The other two figures were also painted years ago. The middle figure is one of Bob Olley's Iron Claw Goblins from 1988. It's from the same range that the recent Fanatics I shared came from, and he was probably even purchased in the same blister that they came in. I went for something entirely different on his shield, trimming off the edging and painting it in a kind of pseudo-3D goblin moon-face style. Why is the moon red rather than yellow? Probably so it'd stand out more against the green of the goblin's hide. Dunno. It was an experiment, after all. That's what the more individual metal models did for me back in the day, before mass plastics were the norm. I liked to experiment with a lot more of my models' paint jobs, even if it meant that they lacked a unified unit look. The final figure, another of the late-'80's "champions" also had a shield experiment.

The narrative to that figure, if you will - is that he painted his shield himself. I always wondered how brutal creatures like Orcs and Goblins, who had brutal and crude weapons and armour always had such fine, delicate and artistic designs on their shields, banners and gear. I decided to paint this guy's shield as though he'd painted it himself. [See boxout above] Recently. The skull is crude and simple. The blue (and red) paint is messy and spattered everywhere (including on his clothing) and the paint had also pooled at the base of his shield, leading to a mess on the metal where it was leaning on the ground in a pool of paint. Cast yourselves back to your Primary/Elementary School Art Room, and you'll feel the inspiration for this guy.

On the backside of these three, both the Iron Claw goblin and the art-school candidate had their clothing repainted. Iron Claw boy lost his garish purple and yellow 1990's tunic and skirt while The Artist's blue scale mail was repainted in a bright copper.


Are Heartbreaker miniatures "Oldhammer"? Technically probably not since they were sculpted after Kev Adams left GW's employ, but then again their aesthetic follows the 3rd Edition Warhammer Fantasy look and feel quite closely. This guy is still available today from Ral Partha Europe/RPE as part of their range of Kev Adams Goblins. I should buy some more of them sometime, but at 2 quid a figure by 12 or 24, that comes to £24/48 or a little shy of AU$50-100 for one unit, which is a bit hard for me to justify to myself right now. I just wish they had discounted unit prices for sets of 10 or 20. Basically, they're super-cheap for heroes and unit leaders but it adds up quickly if you want to build whole units. (Though they're probably still cheaper than whatever GW is charging for plastics these days!) Still, this guy is a great figure and for only 2 quid, an easy and easily-justified purchase.

And now, The Unit Shot! (Lots more over on the Wordpress)

They look great. Really great. As always I feel you are too harsh on your free hand skills. Those shields are excellent and I absolutely love the Ork who has painted his own shield. Your back story fits so perfectly.

That goblin face shield rates much higher than "good enough" IMO - Very nice.

And the unit looks great together.

All those Gobbos look great, its so nice to have a bit of background info on each one as well.

Man, I love those old Kev Adams orcs and gobbos. I never could afford an army of them when they were available, and I still regret getting rid of the few that I did have. Seeing yours (with those fantastic paint jobs) makes me feel half nostalgic and half jealous.

Some nice looking gobbos there Azazel Good stuff!

Very nice!

Really digging the old models!

Job's a good 'un once again, simply oozing with character and colour!

I love them, They are just what I like to paint. Brilliant freehand shields!

Thanks all for the compliments. I've oddly enjoyed painting them up and I'm tempted to do some more after I finish these fanatics which are almost done (and should have been finished on Sunday, probably). I'll see how I feel afterwards, since I'm supposed to be finishing a bunch of other stuff. I am pretty happy/satisfied about finally finishing (kinda) a unit for those goblins to take to the table with. Even if it's for a different game system in the end!

I'd be getting a bunch of Orcs done as well, but they're on 25mm square bases in KoW, so I'd have to finish 20 to make a unit instead of 12, and then I'd have to work out a regiment tray. It's a bit off-putting when compared to painting 12 and blu-tacing them down to a store-bought Renedra tray, so it looks like Da Boyz will be waiting for a fair bit longer.

they're cracking. really love them. send me back ....a few years wee gobbos always have such great character and you've totally brought that out. lovely stuff

The goblins are really nice. Haven't seen those sculpts before. I really like the shield with the goblin face on it. Great work there!

Fantastic old models, I really like them, well done!! Cant wait for more.

Great work on the Gobbos, they bring back memories of getting into Warhammer around the time of the 3rd edition boxed set and that is great given there are only a few GW minis from that time in the unit.

Your desk clearing continues at an amazing rate.

The next few posts will feature a few callbacks to older figures I've painted and shown off here in the past. Don't worry, there's a point and context to it all, though.


These were some of the very early figures I got. Bloodletters of Khorne from the original Slaves to Darkness volume of Realm of Chaos circa 1988. Painted back in the day and touched up several times over the years. Pulled out of a storage case a couple of weeks ago to be rebased and lightly touched up again.


The middle guy looks a bit odd in the front-on photo, but the Conga-line profile shot helps him to make more sense. These early figures might not have been the greatest of sculpts, but they had a twisted physiology that made them work really well as Daemons. I'm glad that GW has returned to a design close to the original with the recent plastics after their iterations as cosplaying budybuilders and spiky beastmen in the interim.


I never had many of the original Bloodletters, and still don't. Getting them up to an even 8 (or 10, or 12) is "on the list" but they're not cheap or easily found on eBay. Back in the day, a Night Horror Demon (I guess he could be a gargoyle, but the trident is telling) got roped into the gang and has been a part of the small unit ever since. I somehow ended up with a broken Bloodletter torso, and so ended up grafting it to a spare pair of Chaos Warrior legs I had lying around after an uninspired Bear Centaur conversion. The arm is off an early Jugger rider.


At some point these guys will hit the table again. I'll use Abyssal rules for KoW, though it's doubtful that I'll run a full daemonic army, and instead ally them with "The Herd" (Beastmen) and whatever Non De Plume that Warriors of Chaos end up with. They might be willing to ally with Nurgle, but not with the hated Slannesh or the duplicitous Magicians of Nurgle. I'm sure they'll also end up on a 40k table, after I get some more forces up to scratch and work out which version or combination of the rules my group will play with.

Love the old Khorne models, never got any of them, but they were cool.

As for your beastmen name "The Herd", I always wanted to make a 40K beastman imperial guard army and call the "Baaaaaaad Company"

Heh, "The Herd" is the official name for the Officially Unofficial Mantic Beastmen Kings of War Army List - not my creation.

As for that IG company name. Whatever floats your goat...

Wow, I've never seen any of the old bloodletters before. Didn't even know they made them that far back. Those are pretty darn cool!

Ah, Realms of Chaos - Wonderful models, but I never had enough money at the time as a young teenager.

Yours look great - It's the variety that makes your blog so exciting, we're always waiting to see what will appear next

Goblins look great, the old sculpts have a lot of character and you made them look really nice.

Those old khorne models are freaky looking, and well painted to boot!

Thanks guys. I think I'm definmately going to have to pull my finger out and get the rest of a unit's worth of the old Bloodletters. I might see if I can pull my fist out and paint up one of the original Bloodthirsters as well (Fun Fact: - I had one painted years ago and then stripped it because I don't know why!)

In the meantime, here's a look at the crap in the front of my current paint queue:


Two very old goblins. The one on the left is a crappy touch-up of a crappily-painted crappy sculpt that was crappily repaired/converted. Crap ahoy! The other one is a very old Kev Adams one (from before he really developed his distinctive style) that sat half-painted for 20 years and I managed to finish in about 2 hours today. Ok, I still need to do his shield. Which will cover all of the detail on his face magnificently. Oh early models. How we love your poor choices!

Following that are a pair of Moria Goblin Shamen who probably don't need much time at all to finish off. I've got friends coming over shortly (they're already late) so hopefully I'll manage to get them done tomorrow. Behind those are 2 sets of the Blackroot Vale Archers command from LotR, which are the only things preventing me from having two more fully-regiments for KoW (and have been the cockblock for several months now)


Next up are two of the old Regiments of Renown Black Orcs by Nick Lund. I only ever painted these two, so they're basically just being rebased and having some clothing touched-up (I know now much more than I did then about the history of purple dye!) I'm in two minds about repainting the double-crescent-moon standard to bronze or brass, since I did a nice job with the yellow way back, but it unfortunately looks a bit like a pair of bananas... With them is a Moria Goblin King, who, like the Shamen won't take much to get done once I knuckle down and put my mind to him. The next model, a Necromancer/Lich from I don't know which manufacturer also shares that (need to knuckle down and just do him) as does the decapitated Golem/Frankenstein type Night Horror model.

There's a few more goblins ripe for repainting from the figure case there as well, and also Denethor (I had his robe shaded really nicely, then fethed it all up with a wash - putting me right off finishing him), that Ogre Shaman, a Troll, and a pair of Dark Elves and that Dwarf Slayer. Basically a whole bunch of single figures that just require a bit of knuckling down (and some more goblins).


Last of all, the first 4 of the Brigade skeletons I picked up recently, along with an oversized orc that I'm debating sticking on a 40mm base and therefore paralyzed, and a gorgon from the Night Horrirs who is getting a repaint and rebase. She can go into the Mythical Greeks once I get her done. But again. Needs knuckling down!

Such an amazing variety of models. It really is great to see them all especially as I am firmly in the grip of GW in regards to my models.

Looks like you are really busy, lots of interesting models.

I think you should leave the standard though those bananas look really good to be honest.

 Archer wrote:
Such an amazing variety of models. It really is great to see them all especially as I am firmly in the grip of GW in regards to my models.

The funny thing is that except for the Necromancer and the Skeletons, (and maybe the fat orc?) all the models in those photos are indeed GW ones. A lot of them are just older.

 GiraffeX wrote:
Looks like you are really busy, lots of interesting models.

I think you should leave the standard though those bananas look really good to be honest.

Thanks for the vote of confidence. It's nice to get other people's opinions when you're not sure about aspects of models at times.
The nice thing is I'm actually feeling like I'm getting some momentum up now after a few days off work. I'll have some more goblins to show soon as well. Probably in the morning, because it's time for sleep now!

These models are from Early 4th Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle, when "Goblin Fanatics" got handed over to the Night Goblin faction (revived pretty much from earlier editions of Warhammer, and the early "C" Series models, but mostly forgotten in 3rd). As 4th Edition Models, released in 1992 they're technically not "Oldhammer" by about a year for those who care about strict definitions. (Not me, but hey - I like the history.) Unlike the last batch of goblins from a few days ago, these were all painted in the last few weeks.


Four 4th Edition Night Goblin Fanatics

Now the more astute amongst you will have noted that there are way too many Fanatics here to be sensible at all. As always, there's a good reason for this. I had a bunch of my own back in the day (which got started but not finished) and my friend Jared had started a Night Goblin/Savage Orc army of his own, though he never got (m)any of the models completed before losing interest and selling them off. I purchased many of the half-and-un-painted models off him, with the intent to repaint them myself one day - and ending up with way too many fanatics for a normal game of WHFB. For the most part, they've sat in a series of figure cases since then.


Four More 4th Edition Night Goblin Fanatics. Including a couple repair jobs!

Anyway, between Jared's goblins and my own, I ended up with quite a lot of Fanatics, who as I mentioned have done nothing since the mid-1990's besides take up space in a case. Over the years, a couple of them had their fragile chains break, and so got repaired with brass rod. So it's a ball on the end of a metal rod on the end of a chain. That's still unsafe, so it's ok!


Hopefully the last four 4th Edition Night Goblin Fanatics I'll ever paint!

Since one of my aims this year aside from directed army painting for KoW is to clear off my desk and shelves of half-painted, unfinished and even slightly-started stuff, it wasn't a huge stretch to extend that to the stack of figure cases that have the same in them. I mean, the reason I'm trying to finish the stuff on my desk is to avoid adding to the reams of unfinished stuff in cases, so this just follows the same ethos, albeit, slightly in reverse.

These Fanatics all followed the same general scheme shown with the newer plastics that I finished recently (who were cluttering up my desk) - and were also the direct inspiration for me to pull these out and paint them up. I quite like how they turned out in crazy loose formation (though I seem to have a bit of a contrast issue with these latest photos).


A horde of dangerously insane goblins swinging their big balls around!
Finally and as usual - the "unit shots". Anyone familiar with KoW might be wondering how I intend to use these, as their Goblin army doesn't really have any equivalents to much of the crazy-colourful stuff in the Warhammer list, including Fanatics. My initial thoughts were to use the profiles of Twilight Kin "Blade-Dancers" (Witch Elves) as they've got lots of attacks but are fragile, but the recent Ratkin (Skaven) list also gives the option of "The Blight", which are kinda-sorta Plague Censer Bearers. Dunno for sure yet, but I'll find an appropriate profile for them once the new rules and lists are ironed out and I'm able to start playing again. Until then I'll just push on painting the semi-random crap on my desk and building "units" as I can.



Given that the unit is made up of psychotic goblins swinging their balls & chains around like mad Dervishes, I've felt free to face them in various directions rather than all front-on, also with the intent to make the unit look interesting from multiple angles.
Now this just leaves me with needing to figure out what to do with those new plastics and the Iron Claw Fanatics that I've painted...

Standard does look a bit like bananas. I would repaint, It needs black bits at each end... then it will really look like bananas. Good job besides!

Super stuff! Wouldn't want to receive a charge from those guys!

Fanatic unit is looking great!