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Len suilon Ninjabread readers. I’ve painted a set of Dúnedain Rangers in order to play some Fellowship of the Ring games set on the borders of the Shire.



Eleven Rangers – enough for a whole football team. Like Rangers F.C. I know football.

With the exception of Aragorn, Dúnedain Rangers don’t appear directly in Tolkein’s Fellowship of the Ring book, or the Peter Jackson film adaptation. They’re just noted as lurking in the background being mysterious.

“…in the wild lands beyond Bree there were mysterious wanderers. The Bree folk called them Rangers and knew nothing of their origin. They were taller and darker than the Men of Bree and were believed to have strange powers of sight and hearing, and to understand the language of beasts and birds. They roamed at will southwards and eastwards even as far as the Misty Mountains; but they were now few and rarely seen.”
– The Lord of the Rings, At the Sign of the Prancing Pony



This is no mere Ranger. This is … oh wait, yes, it is a mere Ranger.

Six of the miniatures (all the ones with masked faces) are Citadel’s ME-25 Rangers of Ithilien, but I’ve repurposed them as their distant Dúnedain cousins, as Tolkein is sparse with descriptive details. Modern Games Workshop also produce a set of “Rangers of Middle-earth” that they recommend you use as any type of forest-lurking human group.



This is no mere Ranger. This is Aragorn, son of Arathorn. And you owe him your allegiance.

Attached to the group is the ME-12 version of Aragorn, in his Strider the Ranger persona. He’s a really strong sculpt, with a weathered nobility on his face. A nice detail is that his left hand is clutching a second sheathed sword – the pieces of Narsil that he carries as an heirloom of his family and to symbolise his birthright to the throne of Arnor.



This is no mere Ranger. This is Halbarad, son of Halbaron. And you owe him twenty Euro.

In command of the Rangers is my slaphead with an earring rendition of Halbarad. The sculpt’s expression of withering disdain is his main tool for keeping the group of strong-willed loners together. Thanks to Jesper Moberg over on the Oldhammer Community for identifying the figure as a C04 Thief.



Sing about the Rangers lads we`ll sing another song,
Sing it with the spirit that we’ll start the world along,
Sing it as we used to sing it 50,000 strong,
While we we’re marching to Ibrox

I’ve added some further variety to the group with a pair of Citadel’s Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Thieves, and a wannabe Hobbit ranger to impress on players they’re not just anywhere in Middle-earth, but defending the borders of the Shire. I’m excited to see how they get on in games against the Nazgûl and other nasties.

More from Ninjabread’s version of Middle-earth soon! Novaer!

More of my miniatures at: https://www.ninjabread.co.uk/
Painting tutorials at: https://www.patreon.com/ninjabread

Curtis over at Ramshackle did a limited run of figures for Bring Out Your Lead 2016, and I've painted one to accompany Clyro Burns. As an event, BOYL focuses on "Oldhammer", so Curtis sculpted this model holding an old hammer. Ha!



I've converted my figure with a new face shaved off a Citadel Judge Dredd Perp – Zuggy Spotz/Crazy Joseph. I then resculpted the hood around the front with putty. This does make me feel a little guilty, but of all people Curtis will understand the need to hack up and convert figures.




Post-Knavecon games of Dragon Rampant have made me feel uncomfortable with my wizard unit – Clyro Burns plus five tiny familiars. This reduced strength unit gets caught in combat, and seeing a tiny familiar taking as much effort to kill as two chunky human-sized models is really odd. I'm planning to reforge the unit at twelve-strong – all twelve being human-sized figures.




Nocturnal rituals being enacted in the Mourning Wood.

Shout out to Curtis for his generosity and community spirit!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
One day at Games Workshop HQ, Aly Morrison came up to me with a big bag of Talisman figures. “I found this bag of scrabby old models in my basement, and I was gonna bin ’em. Then I remembered you like scrabby old stuff.” I was over the moon. Here’s the first three painted.



The Chaos Brothers defending portal dolmens in the Mourning Wood.

All three figures are from 3rd edition Talisman, which I originally owned as my Dad bought it for me and my brother in the mid-1990s . Until that point I’d been exclusively into Warhammer 40,000, and this was my first real experience of the Warhammer Fantasy world. My painting has improved since then.




THIN YOUR PAINTS.

I’ve been quite annoyed at my initial choice of colour for my Chaos Warriors. Red and metal is very vanilla. To start stamping greater identity on them I’ve taken the flames from Clyro Burns’ robes and run them onto the armour panels. It does help break up the plain surfaces and make them less generi-chaos.

With the rising market value of the old metal Chaos Thug ranges, these muscly barbarians are welcome reinforcements to my Chaos Thug unit. I have played with them as Blood Warriors in Age of Sigmar, and Bellicose Foot in Dragon Rampant. The variety of designs and themes in the range means they can slip in, though they are noticeably beefier and taller. But hey, it’s Chaos.



3rd edition Talisman Barbarian and Warrior. Interestingly, one of these is a resculpt of the other.

I’m looking through the rest of the Talisman range now to see what other figures will fit in my Chaos warband. The Minotaur, Skaven, Black Orc and Chaos Sorcerer are all potentials.

Thanks for the minis Aly!

My teenage Orc and Goblin army featured a Night Goblin shaman on Cockatrice. I’ve sold the bulk of the army, but hung onto the Cockatrice out of sentimentality. Bulking out my Frostgrave Chaos into a Dragon Rampant force demanded a fantastic monster, so this mythological bird resurrected itself from the ashes.



The wings on my Orc and Goblin Cockatrice weren’t the original MM44 ones, but had been nicked from an High Elf Dragon. I replaced these original replacements with a pair of 15mm Demonworld dragon wings. Since I was converting the figure with non-Citadel parts, I figured I’d swap the rather dull tail with a scorpion one from the Dark World Manticore.



The Cockatrice torso showing his original yellow paintjob. He was known as “Lemon Chicken”.

I did plan on him having a Chaos rider, and tried every single mounted Chaos figure in my collection. However, anything bigger than a weeny Night Goblin shaman looked ridiculous, and the wings and neck all obscure the rider. So Stingwing is an unbound monster, which also means he’s easier to legitimately field in Age of Sigmar.



Chicken stripped.

Attaching the Demonworld wings, and at a different angle to the original MM44 wings, required hacking away the sockets on the torso and some heavy pinning. I used three layers of putty to first fill the gaps, then sculpt muscles, and then add fur.



In my efforts to bend the old lead wings into curved shapes I managed to break the left one straight in half. The metal along the split crumbled, and I had a pig of a time trying to reattach it. I managed it with pins in the only two places that joined, and a good amount of putty. Luckily the membranes had very little sculpted detail so my repairs are barely visible.

Anyways, here’s the finished beastie! I went with a mainly flesh, and ran the warband’s signature red colour onto the comb, wattles and scorpion tail.





Cockatrice breaks through a clearing in Mourningwood.

Sadly I have no good photos of the six-way Dragon Rampant game from the Knavecon weekend – I’d borrowed sho3box‘s selfie-stick and only managed photographs of my own arm.



Put in black and white, however, this looks intentionally arty. And you can’t see my Superman socks clashing with the hotel carpet.

HeroQuest Quest – Chaos Warrior II

A quickfire hobby challenge for the Scale Creep Peeps:

Paint a charmingly basic model from HeroQuest
nO cRaZy CoNvErSiOnS
Replacing the sausagey rectangle base is encouraged.

I picked a Chaos Warrior. To the 7-year-old boy learning words from game components, but not pronunciations: a “Chouse” Warrior.



“Hoots mon! There’s a chouse louse about this house!”

Theottovonbismark has already shown off Slambo and the 4E plastic Chouse … ahem … Chaos Warrior. Here’s the HeroQuest dude alongside Battlemasters and Legend of Zagor Chaos dudes, for no reason other than to showcase the breadth of my vintage Chaos.



Prejudiced against gorefs, means he’s a gorefist.

Otto’s updating of this old plastic has freehand and a jazzy base. My version is painted so tamely in comparison. I’ve gone for the red-and-metal scheme which you might think is a homage to the original HeroQuest art, but is really so he ties into my 1980s Chaos Warband. Being a 1989er *I think* he is actually the newest miniature. Everything is relative.



“Oi, HeroQuest, you’re so young I bet you don’t remember POGs!”

After modern-style crisp highlighting you start to realise the limitations of the miniature – a combination of 1989 plastic technology and 27 years of man-handling (“manchild-handling”?). So to hide the dalrymples I painted some textures: sponge-chipping the armour; fluting on the horns; notching the axe blade; and blood-spatter over the finished piece. I’ve recently become aware that competition painters like different textures on a miniature to provide interest and contrast, and to showcase their skills.



Judging by the spatter he dealt a nasty axe wound.

The texture I’m fondest of at the moment is the blood-spats. After a lot of trial and error with a Blood Bowl team recently I’ve hit upon the following method: load up a tiny brush with your blood-effect paint of choice, put it right in front of your lips, and blow. You instantly get realistic spines, satellite spatters, cast-off patterns and other terms I’m just regurgitating from a CSI episode.



Guess this means he’s the Herald of the ApocaLIPS.
(•_•) ( •_•)>⌐■-■ (⌐■_■)

Some great work updating those old-school models. Lovely stuff!

Thanks Paradigm! It's a joy to blast through old lead.

Delving deep within my Lead Mountain for robed acolytes I came across this Mantic Goblin Sneek. He's been painted with fire-motif robes as he will be joining my warband as one of Clyro Burns' assistant sorcerers.



This miniature is out of production, which is weird as I still think of Mantic Games as the new kids on the block and not a venerable old company with the luxury of retiring its older offerings. Time flies. Only yesterday I was horrified to be told it was my tenth Twitter anniversary. Next thing you know I'll be off to a field to drink cider and watch Fairport Convention unironically.

In 2016 I had a weekend of Frostgrave gaming looming and was desperate for fully painted figures. I quickly rebased a Ruglud's test miniature and slipped him in with my Chaos Thugs with a matching shield. It established a precedent, and I'm now seeing what other greenskins I can paint as part of this multiculti force.

Though I'm working on these guys with Dragon Rampant in mind, I'm wondering how to get them onto an Age of Sigmar battlefield. Kairic Acolytes is my current best bet, but their compulsory weapon options don't make them a perfect fit. Suggestions welcome!



Clyro Burns and his acolytes in the City of False Idols.

Chaos Thugs are a Warhammer range released in several batches between 1988 and 1991. Games Workshop stamped them out of existence in 1994, omitting them from Warhammer Armies: Chaos. Thugs are firmly anchored solely in Warhammer’s past, quintessential incarnations of Oldhammer, meaning they command decent prices on the collector’s market.



I regret going with the red hair on these figures – it worked on the rightmost guy, who was the first I painted, but looks a a bit clownlike on the other two. Don’t paint people with bright red eyebrows. Even Ronald McDonald doesn’t have red eyebrows.

Chaos Thugs are great fun to paint as they’re all individuals that the sculptors packed with weird and unique details.



This Thug has hair that’s long one side and short the other – and one eyebrow bushy and the other shaven off. He also comes with a severed head at his belt – there’s some back story to how he decapitated someone with just a bludgeoning weapon.



This Thug has both his weapons, the business-end of his “horseman’s pick” and the pommel of his sheathed dagger, shaped like bird heads. Perhaps it was a subtle Tzeentch reference? I also like how his one scavenged kneepad has a leering face sculpted on it.



Pazyryk Banefire and the Thugs in the Matityahu Temple.

The Thugs will get on well with the Talisman Warrior and Barbarian as they’re all half-naked men who enjoy shaving their chests. The Talisman Chaos Warrior is the unit champion, as that’s how it worked in the Warhammer 3rd edition army lists. Next off I’m on the hunt for more Thugs to make a modestly sized raiding party, with a full command group.

The Citadel Miniatures Chaos Thug range is melting pot of influences and ideas. Unlike Games Workshop’s modern Chaos Marauders, who are uniformly bearded barbarians, the classic Thug range had odd chaps with mullets, Saracen-flavoured archers and even stray ninjas.



Hot as thuggery.

It makes the individual Thugs fun to paint, as they’re each full of unique details. The mullet man has a pair of horns poking out his hairstyle. The archer has a leering face kneepad. All three have plumped for asymmetrical trousers.



The ninja has a ninja throwing knife for stealth kills, but today he’s chosen to fight with the less subtle morning star. Maybe he wields that stealthily too, assassinating targets with a silent swing of the massive spiky ball.



Pazyryk Banefire’s Thugs sacking the town of Æbbe’s Hill.

Having a single archer in the otherwise-melee unit slightly bothers me, but given the chaotic appearance of the the unit I can cope with it in games of Age of Sigmar and Dragon Rampant. The mix of troop types also gives me a nice selection of models to pick for Frostgrave. In time he will split off to found a Chaos Thug mob with bows, made up of a mix of the Battle Masters plastic Chaos Thug and the chunky punky Marauder Chaos Thug range from the early 1990s.

More of my miniatures at http://www.ninjabread.co.uk/

Phenomenal painting in this thread...really fantastic work.

Brimstone Horrors! The cheeky pairs of scampering bastards you get when you kill a Blue Horror. I’ve painted four sets of these quarter-daemons, but with an Oldhammer twist.



And it’s all in how you mix the two.
And it starts just where the light exists.

Ever since 1989, Pink Horrors split into a pair of Blue Horrors when killed – it was the Tzeentch lesser daemon gimmick. But when Silver Tower arrived in 2016, the GIMMICK ALSO SPLIT IN TWO as Blue Horrors started to split into pairs of Brimstone (or Yellow) Horrors. This troubled me for a little while, as there are several generations of vintage Pink and Blue Horror miniatures with no corresponding Brimstone Horrors if you want to use them with modern Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40,000 rules. But then I remembered the tiny Epic-scale Pink Horrors from 1992.



Do your demons, do they ever let you go?

Epic was nominally a 6mm game, but these Horrors were hilariously overscaled and make great 28mm familiars – as I discovered way way back in 2010 when I painted Inconstantine Bowie, Champion of Tzeentch.



Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes

It has taken me a while to work out why yellow was chosen as the colour for the new tiny Horrors. The answer is in this passage from White Dwarf 113 (May 1989), which highlights the importance of colours in the early Warhammer lore.

Tzeentch is the Changer of Ways and, true to his nature, he has more than a single colour. The Pink and Blue Horrors, Daemons of Tzeentch, use magic of their own actual colour, reflecting the changing forces of their master as they turn from pink to blue. However, aside from the Pink Horrors who are associated with the Amethyst College, Tzeentch’s colours are very bright shades of blue and yellow. These colours are often dominant, though by no means exclusive, in the worship of Tzeentch. The two colours are particularly significant because they are the province of the Golden and Celestial Colleges which lie either side of the green magic of Tzeentch’s adversary Nurgle. A follower of Tzeentch could therefore be inferior or superior to Nurgle depending on his colour.

I really like how daemons align to the Colleges of Magic, and will use it as an excuse to model some Golden and Celestial Wizards to be corrupted by Tzeentch.



Wave your hands in the air like you don’t care.

These newly painted Horrors join my existing 1980s Kev Adams Horror force I started 9 years ago. I’ve rebased these minis onto 32mm round bases which means they don’t have any of their toes poking over the edge. They’ve seen plenty of gaming action down the years so there were a fair few chips to repaint. I really enjoyed the restoration; it was like catching up with old friends, or wearing an old t-shirt from back when you were 14.

New and old paintjobs together mean I’ve got all 10 of the various daemon incarnations needed to play Silver Tower.



Rainbow in the daaaark!

Coming soon, more vintage lead substitutes for the modern plastic pieces in Silver Tower – some of which you may’ve already spotted on the Ninjabread Workbench.

Move over Penn & Teller, move over Siegfried & Roy – a new magical double act is in town. Coming all the way from the pyramids of the Old World are twin brothers Lapis & Lazuli – fantastical Wizards of Light.



Masters of the mysterious and occasional caberet performers.

This magical duo are going to be the Kairic Adepts in my vintage Silver Tower project – where I replace all the 2016 boardgame pieces with Citadel Miniatures from about 20 years previous. Like the Brimstone Horrors I painted previously, 1990s era Warhammer didn’t have Kairic Adepts, but did have Egyptian-flavoured magic users in the form of Light Wizards. And the 1990s Light Wizards also had Acolytes, which are perfect for Silver Tower Kairic Acolytes.

These Light Wizards turned traitor from the College of Light alongside their Patriarch – Egrimm van Horstmann. They have found sanctuary from the Empire in a Silver Tower of Tzeentch in my personal Warhammer canon. Egrimm himself will be big boss of the Silver Tower, as he was Tzeentch’s favoured servant in the 20 years before Gaunt Summoners were invented.




Lapis & Lazuli supported by Blue Horrors in their Silver Tower.

Games Workshop originally released the plastic Light Wizard (on the right in the photos) as the High Priest in the 1994 Talisman expansion Dungeon of Doom. He later appeared as one of the eight free wizard miniatures on 1995’s White Dwarf 186. Getting a Warhammer character miniature in plastic was an insane novelty in the 1990s, as plastic was normally reserved only for the massed ranks of mono-posed regiments.

Here’s Lazuli with the other classic 3rd edition Talisman miniatures I’ve painted to date.




Lazuli and Pazyryk Banefire in the ruins of a non-metallic tower.

Coming soon on Ninjabread: more vintage lead miniatures to populate my time-warped Silver Tower.

I love how you worked out brimstone horrors.

I also love their tiny tiny hands

Some lovely work with the old-school guys here, very nice.

Thanks amazingturtles! I regret painting some of them with pink hands, looks like they're wearing washing-up gloves.

Cheers monkeytroll!

I like to think of Light Wizards as jobbing professionals and their Acolytes as bumbling apprentices. Here’s a bumble of Light Acolytes – one of the obscurest units in Warhammer of editions past.



Left to right: Donkor, Aswad, Llam-Cheops, Wiss Qeb, Khontar and Wankh.

Two poses of Acolyte were released in April 1993 alongside the Light Wizard on foot. Empire player could buy them in units of five at 25 points to accompany a Light Wizard. Rules were that if you deployed the five Acolytes in a pyramid formation (Light Wizards being all Egpytian and therefore pyramid-themed) with the Light Wizard at the apex you got an extra Winds of Magic card. Now, I read “deployed in pyramid formation” and think this:



NAILED IT. One bonus Winds of Magic please.

But no, they didn’t mean human pyramid formation, they mean 2-D triangle formation, as you can see in the iconic Gathering of Might battle report photo below from White Dwarf 181 (1995). This unit in this battle report puzzled child-Curis as Warhammer Armies: The Empire didn’t contain any rules for it – it’s only now in 2018 that I know they had to be conjured up from the pages of the Warhammer Battle Magic supplement.



Spot the pyramid.

The majority of my Light Acolytes had been rescued from someone that got halfway to converting them into Necromunda gangers or Warhammer 40,000 cultists – their hands and weapons had been hacked away and replaced with autopistols, stubguns and the like. This meant there was no guilt at despoiling vintage miniatures for the sake of bringing their weaponry in line with the rules of the modern Warhammer game.



Lazuli spearheading the official and far less silly pyramid formation.

Yes! Modern Warhammer! (As if the 32mm rounds bases weren’t enough of a clue.) These figures have been specifically modelled as Kairic Acolytes for Silver Tower: two with hand weapon and shield, two with double-handed weapons and two with pairs of hand weapons.

I originally restored the Acolytes back to Warhammer Fantasy with contemporaneous 1990s Citadel weaponry, but it looked bad. There was no Egyptian weaponry (it wasn’t until 2003 that the Tomb Kings range appeared), and so I suspended my Citadel-components-only rule and bought some WarGods of Ægyptus bits from Crocodile Games. This does annoy the Citadel purist in me, and to get back to sleep I tell myself Crocodile’s Chris Fitzpatrick did a stint sculpting for Games Workshop.



Silver Tower madness at Knavecon 2018. Pat, Bruce, cheetor and yours truly looming over our various creations.

To get even more gaming use out of the figures I’d like to paint another three to make a full official Warscroll for Warhammer Age of Sigmar. I’ve also got plans for them in a series of summer Mordheim games, where they’ll be fielded as Brethren in a Possessed Warband. Watch this space!

More of my miniatures at: http://www.ninjabread.co.uk

Subbed! This is a great thread. Very nostalgic indeed to look at all these old army shots and the like.

Thanks LDP!

A motorcycle display team, Mason – ohhh, that would be an upside down pyramid. Maybe I'll try that.

A child-aged Curis attempted to paint the single Skaven Clanrat from 3rd edition Talisman. The paintjob went so badly it’s taken over twenty years before an adult-aged Curis returned to painting Skaven miniatures.




Double Dragon Rat.

This is classic Jes Goodwin Deathmaster Snikch. Twice. The left-hand one is painted as a straight copy of the 1993 ‘Eavy Metal scheme; the right-hand one is painted in the 2009 ‘Eavy Metal scheme used on Seb Perbert’s redesigned Deathmaster. Seb followed Jes’ original sculpt so closely that porting the new scheme onto the old miniature felt like being on auto-pilot.



‘Eavy Metal Deathmasters.

But why paint two of a unique special character? Well, Snikch and Snikch are standing in as the Deathrunner and his illusory double in my Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower project where every model is replaced with a 1990s equivalent. Snikch kept his exact location a secret to spread maximum fear – I’m imagining an illusory double as a manifestation of this Snikchitsu. The rules for the Deathrunner mean he’s an absolute fiend, so it’s apt to represent him with this Herohammer icon rather than a standard 1990s Skaven Assassin miniature.



Ninja Skavens put the “rat” in karate.

The Snikchs took less than an evening each to paint, which I found surprising as they’re super-chunky miniatures and packed full of detail. I think the damage and wear on the second-hand castings (particularly noticeable on the triangular shuriken) stopped me being overly fussy with highlights. And the bulk of the miniature is a big black cloak – black being one of the quickest colours to paint.



The Ninja Chaos Thug trying to work out which of the Ninja Rats is real.

There’s twenty retro miniatures so far in the Silver Tower project! Check out the 1990s Pink, Blue and Brimstone Horrors here. Check out the 1990s Kairic Adepts here. And check out the 1990s Kairic Acolytes here. Coming soon – fur and gold.

More of my miniatures at: http://www.ninjabread.co.uk
More of my specifically-Warhammer miniatures at: http://www.ninjabread.co.uk/category/blog/warhammer-blog

I’ve finished painting ALL the Shadespire Orruks! A whole plastic force, fully painted, with modern miniatures, for a current Games Workshop game. WHAT HAVE I BECOME?!?! Gods of Oldhammer, I have forsaken thee!



Ironskull’s Ironjawz tearing up the Realm of Shadows.

Initially I planned to just copy the ‘Eavy Metal banana-yellow paint scheme, but I switched the Orruk fleshtone from green (which sits awfully with yellow) to a nicely contrasting purpley-brown. I blocked out the basecoats, confident I could ignore http://leadplague.blogspot.com/2018/06/warhammer-underwolds-shadespire.html " target="_new" rel="nofollow">Jean-Baptiste’s “never go full banana” advice.



Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring banana phone orc.

Basha was the first Orruk I painted to completion – and he took bloody ages. Yellow is notoriously translucent and takes a lot of layers to build to a strong colour. Bright colours also show up the flaws in the shading and highlighting. Pity anyone that’s doing an entire horde army of these buggers in yellow. Although I was pleased with the brashness, I needed da boyz on the gaming table, and wanted to slash the time spent on them.



Basha and Gurzag Ironskull.

Gurzag and the other Orruks had their armour colours reversed. The dark steel colour is simply drybrush, wash and a quick edge highlight in bright silver. It takes a fraction of the time of the yellow as there’s no glazing of midtones to eat through time.



I spent a bit of the time saved putting flames on Gurzag’s cloak.

Reducing the amount of yellow makes the Orruks look far more menacing, and gives what yellow is there greater impact. Basha’s all-yellow scheme does push him towards looking like a kid’s toy, or a construction vehicle. Which I quite like anyway.



Bonekutta and Hakka.

I had a lot of fun with Hakka, freehanding the flames onto his shoulderpads and jaw. He’s my favourite miniature in the gang as the colour scheme draws your focus towards his head and cool mask.



I’ve really enjoyed painting these, and like that they’re instantly a finished project, ready to rumble against the likes of asslessman, Tears of Envy and Mr Saturday.

Lemme know which version of the yellow scheme you prefer below!

More of my miniatures at: http://www.ninjabread.co.uk

I am glad i am not the only one who sees the default orruks and thinks "sentient tonka trucks".

Or something like that.

The rats also look great!

Curis wrote:I’ve finished painting ALL the Shadespire Orruks! A whole plastic force, fully painted, with modern miniatures, for a current Games Workshop game. WHAT HAVE I BECOME?!?! Gods of Oldhammer, I have forsaken thee!

amazingturtles wrote:I am glad i am not the only one who sees the default orruks and thinks "sentient tonka trucks".

They do look a treat though, well slogged with that yellow. Also +1 to Team Hakka, them shoulder pads

- Salvage

Yeah amazingturtles, they have a very strong construction vibe. Which doesn't sit well in a fantasy universe. It's top in 40K though.

It's Age of Sigmar time! Here's a nine-strong cluster of Grot Scuttlings from the modern (gasp!) Warhammer Quest Silver Tower game. There's only eight in the box, but I painted a bonus one as PRAISE BE TO TZEENTCH.



Spider-Grots, Spider-Grots, manufactured in Notts.

Mashing together Night Goblins with sp-sp-spiders puzzles me – Forest Goblins were the spider-flavoured Goblins from Warhammer, so it's confusing the themes. Like mashing up High Elves with leafs. Or Khorne Berserkers with sonic sex-weaponry. It seems Gee-Dub haven't continued the arachno-trend with the subsequent Night Goblin (or "Moonclan Grot" as they're now called) releases, and these spider-hybrids ("sp-ybrids"?) are confined to Tzeentch's Silver Tower. Moonclan have found their feet, and it's not eight-a-grot.



Spin a web any size, catch Orruks just like flies.

To emphasise the Tzeentchian nature of these Scuttlings I avoided the classic Night Goblin black-robes-green-skin scheme and went for pale blue flesh and vivid purple robes. My Silver Tower 1990s project will feature Scuttlings converted from the classic Kev Adams Night Goblins, and they may borrow this scheme to reinforce how they're not your standard Night Goblins.

Normal Oldhammer service will resume shortly with some charmingly vintage Bob Olley Tzaangor. Have fun!

More of my miniatures at: http://www.ninjabread.co.uk/
Tutorials at: https://www.patreon.com/ninjabread/

It’s Samhain, so let’s celebrate this Celtic pagan festival with a classic druid miniature. It’s the Albion Truthsayer! Tha a’ bàta-falbhain agam loma-làn easgannan!



Albion Truthsayers: the most predictable opponents in "Truth or Dare".

The Albion Truthsayer is a standing-stone-cold classic of a miniature from Warhammer’s Dark Shadows mini-supplement. The 2001 campaign booklet featured rules for you army to be joined these warrior-wizards (or their arch-nemeses, the Dark Emissaries) while they fought their way across the mysterious island of Albion to thwart (or aid) Warhammer’s newest mega-villain: the Dark Master.



The Truthsayer, interfering with one of the many barrows on the Isle of Wights.

I had a lot of fun modelling the base to make it look like the boggy fenlands of Albion. The owl (from a Wood Elf kit) is a reference the “Wings of Fate” spell that let the Truthsayer summon a flock of enchanted birds to peck at his foes. The sculpt itself is packed full of Celtic-style details: a spiral skull carvings, gold neck torque; spiked barbarian hair; bronze triskele medallion. As a geek of ancient trappings I get super excited about it appearing in Warhammer.



When it comes to prehistoric jewellery, Curis not only walks the walk, but torques the torque.

This miniature is one of my favourite Citadel Miniatures of all time – not least because if you clip off his basing tab and peek up the loincloth you can see the sculptor’s – Chris Fitzpatrick – signature. I can’t think of any miniatures signed in this way since Citadel’s preslotta days.




Cheeky Albion Truthsayer upskirt shot.

Albion Skin Painting Tutorial

One of the popular requests on the Ninjabread Patreon is “how do you paint skin”? I photographed the Truthsayer between steps so supporters can follow along and learn how to paint flesh in this style.



Become a supporter today and you’ll get access to this in depth masterclass tutorial, and not one BUT TWO guides on how to paint your power armoured Space Marines.

That’s it for today’s visit to Albion. What’s next – perhaps the evil Truthsayer? Or the Fenbeasts? Or the Giants of Albion and their Druid? Or maybe delving even further back into Albion’s past with the LE8 McDeath’s Crazed Caledonians? Watch this space…

More minitaures at: http://www.ninjabread.co.uk/
Painting tutorials at: http://www.patreon.com/ninjabread

Loving the Orrucks!

Nice stuff as always. I always wanted to put that wight into an undead gym diorama....

As a major fan of the Albion campaign, I won't lie. That's all i came in here for.

But I was pleasantly surprised with everything else on offer. The painting is top notch and the figures give me all types of nostalgia.

Awesome work mate, keep it up.

Great work on the spider grots! I love those little guys.

Thanks amazingturtles! I'm looking forward to getting my hands on some more standard Moonclan in the future, maybe the Shadespire gang...

There's more Dark Shadows on its way in 2019, I hope, howie. My friend's gunna dig up a Fennbeast to send my way. And one day I'll find the Giants of Albion for an acceptable price (all the ones on eBay are so high they're offered with 12-month financing options!)

Yeah, monkeytroll. That Wight is so Victorian era strongman. Guess "weight" and "wight" are only one letter different.

Thanks Tim!

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It’s Christmas time, so enthusiasm for the ultimate Christmas films – The Lord the Rings Trilogy – has enveloped Ninjabread towers. While binging on DVDs and mince pies, I’ve painted a breakfast (that must be the collective noun) of vintage Games Workshop Hobbits.



Left to right: BME1 Pippin, Frodo, Sam and Merry.

These are the four Halflings from the BME1 Fellowship of the Ring boxed set. They’re wonderfully characterful – Frodo with a troubled expression, gazing towards Mordor, rings of his Mithril shirt peeping out from under his sleeves. Sam looks very much the bimbler. Merry and Pippin are the pint-sized action heroes jumping in to defend Frodo with their Barrow-blades.

Since 2001, Games Workshop’s highstreet stores have sold minis based on the movie trilogy – buuut these aren’t them. In 1985 Games Workshop were selling minis to support Middle-Earth Role Playing (MERP) game. It was a range of a few hundred figures which includes most of the major heroes, villains and troops.



ME-63 Witch-king of angmar leading a the ME-64 Black Riders.

I’ve also painted up a selection of Ringwraiths to chase those pesky Hobbits around the countryside. I’ve gone for four repeats of the same pose so they look like they’re advancing in unison, performing a ritualised Hobbit-slaughter like the movie’s Brie and Weathertop scenes. In my mind it works, but in photos they come across a bit dance troupe. More Lord of the Dance than Lord of the Rings. Oh well.



“I can’t believe you started the conga without me.” – Witch-king of Angmar

The lines between the Lord of the Rings and Warhammer ranges was blurred, with many Lord of the Rings figures appearing later as part of the Warhammer range after the license expired. I was really excited to discover the Ringwraith miniatures were modified and rereleased as Warhammer Fantasy Empire Wizards.



Wrecycled Wraith Wizards in 1991’s Citadel Catalogue 2.

I’d like to find these figures and paint them as the Witch-king of Angmar and the sorcerers of the Second Age as they appeared before Sauron gave them their magic rings. Or maybe as the ghostly forms Frodo sees when he puts on the One Ring. Or maybe actual Warhammer wizards.



The Hobbits defend themselves from Ringwraiths in the ruins of Weathertop.

I’ve enough Ringwraiths and Hobbits for several scenarios from the first half of Fellowship of the Ring now, and will spend Christmas recreating the Hobbits getting repeatedly stabbed in various locales of Middle-Earth.

These Ringwraiths are a great miniature to teach how to paint black cloth with, as it’s 98% of the miniature. Over on Patreon right now is the detailed stage-by-stage write up of the paints, techniques, theory and secrets that you let you learn how to paint black cloth to this style and quality.



If you become a supporter today you’ll get access to this in-depth masterclass tutorial, and also the back catalogue, which covers last month’s Golden Demon winning entry, two varieties of Space Marines power armour, and human flesh. Thanks to everyone that ha signed up so far this year. Thanks to this month’s new patrons: Liam, Claudia, Daintist, Craig, Dan, Jason, Andrew, John and David.

I think next I’ll work on some more prey for the Ringwraiths based on the early chapters of the Fellowship – probably the ME-25 Rangers of Ithilien reimagined as the Dunedain secretly defending the Shire, or a Gildor once I’ve worked out a suitable vintage Warhammer Elf. Watch this space! Merry Christmas everbody!

More of my miniatures at: http://www.ninjabread.co.uk/
Painting tutorials at: https://www.patreon.com/ninjabread

Back into Tzeentch’s Silver Tower! But this is not just any Silver Tower, this is a Silver Tower stuck in the past – when metal miniatures reigned supreme. I’ve painted six Citadel Tzaangor from 1990 – the greatest of all times. (Ha! Sly goat reference!)



Left to right: Ougoatlas, Rameses, Lambeses, Hornus, Iry-Horn and Phuroah.

These are all wonderful Bob Olley sculpts that are packed with weird and flamboyant details like the exotic head-dresses, ornate armour, and bizarre codpieces. Two of the Tzaangor in the range didn’t see release as their obscene helmets were spotted in time. (You can see the notorious unreleased versions at CCM.)



Tzaangor kidding about in the ruins of a Chaos Temple.

Tzaangor have “brightly colured or exotically patterned fur” according to Realms of Chaos, so I went for an unnatural turquoise colour. I’m unsure if the combination of bright colours and smiling anthropomorphic animal fuzz pushes them into My Little Pony territory, but hey ho! Their armour is blue and gold to give off an Egyptian-cum-Tzeentch vibe, and two have horns in alternating stripes like a pharoah’s head dress. There’s some minor weapon swaps to bring them in line with the Silver Tower game requirements, and one has a Light Acolyte sword to show they’re part of the same force. The Marauder shield with the serpent motif (thanks to Mr. Saturday for sending me them) further echoes the Light Acolytes whose staffs and belts feature a snake motif. Chaos Snakemen will have to be part of this force in the future!



A herd of bray with a bird of prey.

That’s twenty-six of the vintage Silver Tower denizens now painted (Skaven here, Acolytes here, Light Wizards here and Horrors here). Now I can convert a classic Ogre into the Ogroid Thaumathurge – watch this space!

More of my miniatures at: www.ninjabread.co.uk
Painting tutorials at: www.patreon.com/ninjabread

Fantastic stuff. Your skill level is top notch. I'll be following this one closely.

Man the one with the two swords is probably the smuggest beastman i have ever seen!

Great work as always!

Q. What do you get if you cross a Chaos Centaur of Tzeentch, and a zebra?
A. A “Tzebra”.

Presenting Tzebra Doomstripe, the latest monster to swell the ranks of my vintage Warhammer collection.



This tzoological monstrosity was my entry into the “Make a Trish” competition in the Oldhammer Community. Challengers had a month to model and paint a Trish Carden miniature, and the Mistress of Monsters herself would pick a favourite.



Tzebra is not one actually one Trish Carden monster, but two mashed together. The MM94/1 Chaos Centaur Lord was a metal human torso designed to be fitted to the standard plastic Warhammer horse torso (henceforth: “horso”). But the plastic horso had spindly legs that looked wrong with the human torso’s majestically beefy barbarian arms, so I decapitated Trish’s MM83 High Elf Unicorn and used it as a replacement horso. This new unicorn part is, importantly, also saddle-free – Tzebra is a Lord of Chaos and tolerates no riders upon his horso.



To nudge Tzebra into Tzeentch’s visual territory, I swapped his barbarian broadsword for a scratch-built khopesh. His helmet plume was switched for a plastic Ork topknot, whose flowing lines better matched the new unicorn tail. Historically, these helmet plumes were made from dyed horsehair, meaning Tzebra has made a hat decoration out of his own bodyhair.



The skin was painted light blue at first (using a modified version of the Ur-Ghul recipe /url]Patreon backers have access to), and had dark blue strips added afterwards. I did a digital mockup of the colours to experiment with continuing the zebra strips onto the human elements, and also to work out if the blue and white stripes that worked in my imagination would look too “Bananas in Pyjamas” (thankfully not).



Tzebra didn’t win Trish’s competition, losing out to Jonathan Marshall’s atmospheric Albion Fenbeast. You can check out a gallery of all the entries here . Thanks to Asslessman for organising the competition, and Trish for judging and providing the prize.

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Tzebra Doomstripe leading his Tzebu retinue to battle.

More tzany Tzeentch creations coming soon!


More of my miniatures at: http://www.ninjabread.co.uk/
Painting tutorials at: https://www.patreon.com/ninjabread