The "How to do Oldhammer" Thread

Here's my ugly 1/72 roman as an orc. Please bear in mind that the photo is about four times the size! (I couldn't be bothered basing anything today)





I grabbed a tester for my lesser goblin army. An orc that came free, I hope to add a goblin nose and use him as a champion or hero (since he's bigger). Asgard wizard is the one I think can lead my Uruk-hai. He even brought his school backpack!

That wizard is cool and the roman looks decidedly orcy! Looking forward to see the lot of it completed.

That Roman orc puts me in mind of the Lord of the Rings books. I think it reminds me a lot of the Mithril miniatures stuff (I was in the Prince August factory who make Mithirl minis last weekend). I like it, I think it really works.

Thanks Phreedh!

theottovonbismark":1kqobxni said:

That Roman orc puts me in mind of the Lord of the Rings books. I think it reminds me a lot of the Mithril miniatures stuff (I was in the Prince August factory who make Mithirl minis last weekend). I like it, I think it really works.

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Thank you For anyone new to the hobby and happy to put in a little effort (and isn't too fussed about the models or collecting, I guess), there really is a huge range of 1/72 out there, not to mention the newer (totally lotr "inspired" ) fantasy models. The fact that this set came with 48 infantry for less than two pots of paint is hard to pass up, and I've bought more sets than I ever should just "because it's cheap" Looking them up just now, I can't believe the amount of well-painted photos and info there is online compared to a couple of years ago. Perhaps the scale has had a resurgence As much as I prefer the chunkier look for models, I doubt I'd ever go with 15mm for ancients now. If anyone seems interested enough, I might paint some more some day. I have some artillery and elephants that could look good as orcs.

I'm a little jealous of you going to the factory! I'd love to try casting something with one of their moulds one day, and I'd like to at least own one Mithril lotr model, too!

This is the set, by the way. Not quite as old as the Airfix Romans, but until now I'd never seen them for sale locally:

http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/review.aspx?id=136

zoggin-eck":9lkytrse said:

I'm a little jealous of you going to the factory! I'd love to try casting something with one of their moulds one day, and I'd like to at least own one Mithril lotr model, too!

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The Mithirl range is uniquely styled and nicely sculpted. The Games Workshop LOTR borrowed heavily from the feel of those models I believe.

The factory is pretty cool, they have a big shop area with lots of display painted models. They are set up to deal with busloads of tourists there and they have stuff on special offer all the time - I picked up 2 sets of 10 Airbrush paints for €20. They also sell all their stuff online. If you are interested in casting I would recommend the "heroic scale" moulds as they are the most modern and sync with other modern ranges in terms of scale. The 25mm moulds, while often characterful, tend to be on the small side beside other ranges. Model Metal is normally what I use for casting but they also have a pewter which is child/animal safe if you are concerned about any runts or squigs getting into it . I never bother with their highest quality casting metal, Model Metal works very well for me.

theottovonbismark":2owybw0l said:

I never bother with their highest quality casting metal, Model Metal works very well for me.

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As a wee sprog I used tire balancing weights from my dad's auto repair shop. Never did me any harm. Unicorns.

zoggin-eck":1lupl305 said:

This is the set, by the way. Not quite as old as the Airfix Romans, but until now I'd never seen them for sale locally:

http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/review.aspx?id=136

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I have loads of these republican Romans by Hat painted and based in scaled maniples (12 men to a maniple if I remember correctly) along with some equestrians. I also have a bunch of their Carthagians, large phalanxes, elephants, lybians and cavalry. To Allie with either side as I see fit I have their celts, celt-iberians, iberians and latins plus a few greeks for pyrrhic fun's sake. There are a few other manufactures mixed in too. We used to use WHAB back in the day. lots of fun.

The orc is cool though I'd be tempted to trim the feathers off. Somehow seams too decorative.

There is something very appealing about orcs in Roman gear. It reminds me of something that I cant quite place, some game or comic or tv show or something.

Anyway, its very appealing and the little guy looks great.

As for Prince August, the factory shop is a pleasant place to visit. They are very accommodating too and will take visitors to look at the various machines and stock rooms and the like
if that floats your boat. Its a small place, but they have spent a little money on it so while its not exactly Warhammer World, it is a lot nicer that a tiny toy soldier factory located in rural Ireland has any right to be.

The image below is theottovonbismark and me last Friday. When Phreedh saw that photo he mentioned an urge to start a small Prince August project. I had to slap myself in order to not to immediately agree with him... Tempting, with lots of nostalgia factor.

phreedh":pnk0wllk said:

As a wee sprog I used tire balancing weights from my dad's auto repair shop. Never did me any harm. Unicorns.

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I used to melt down my grandfathers fishing weights. It taught me a great deal about why pure lead is not used to make toy soldiers. Well, toy soldiers with any detail anyway.

Apologies for the minor derail. In my defence I do get a lot of the same kick from old PA stuff that I get from old GW stuff and you could definitely Oldhammer with Prince August stuff.

Ah Prince August, that brings back memories. I still have all my old moulds too.

phreedh":13mrpgif said:

As a wee sprog I used tire balancing weights from my dad's auto repair shop. Never did me any harm. Unicorns.

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Ditto and I turned out perfectly aardvark.

Just John":34kqvda0 said:

Ah Prince August, that brings back memories. I still have all my old moulds too.

phreedh":34kqvda0 said:

As a wee sprog I used tire balancing weights from my dad's auto repair shop. Never did me any harm. Unicorns.

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Ditto and I turned out perfectly aardvark.

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Toodlesprigs!

I went to post an hour ago, but got distracted looking up Prince August moulds! I even found by chance that some Ral Partha orcs I like are still made! Too many projects

theottovonbismark, cheetor, thanks very much for the into, I may have to ask a little more if I get into it.

Erny, glad to hear of more 1/72 love WAB is what I bought and based mine for, too. At the price they are, I just used card for the bases (the boxes they came in!) but this time I have plenty of Renedra plastics to use. I really liked the HAT range, although I think the Italeri/Zvezda sets are the best detailed. I did think of cutting the feathers off, but it reinforces how small the heads are! The plan is to leave ever third or so as they are and slightly convert the rest.

Anyway, here's a couple more Orco-Romans (or is that Romano-Orcs?). Sorry to my Uruk-Hai for getting their hopes up, I think I'll be painting these guys instead (plus I forget where I put them...).





I tried adding a little variation to the helmets and shields (with leftover sprue from Reaper "bones" models!). Pretty crude, but you get the idea.

The whole "Oldhammer on a budget" principle is very appealing to me, so one of my main reasons for signing up on the forum was so that I could join in on the fun. I have plenty of old Citadel miniatures in the vaults, but also a lot of stuff from other manufacturers. So, in sticking with the idea for this thread, I resurrected a project planned and purchased several years ago - my contribution will be that Warhammer Armies classic, the Pygmy Ally Contingent. One of my first memories of reading White Dwarf was leafing through issue 100 at a friends house, and seeing the ad for the Perry sculpts following the WFRP pygmy adventure. I guess early impressions linger, because I decided a while ago to purchase enough of these on ebay to paint a small warband. While browsing around, I discovered that Kallistra ( http://www.kallistra.co.uk/?page=24 ) has a range that is quite compatible if slightly on the large side. They are cheap as well, these days you pay £9.50 for 12 pygmies though I think I payed a few pounds less five years ago.



As you can see, the Kallistra pygmies are quite a bit larger than the classic Citadel ones (example on far right- note that the base also adds quite a bit of height).

I therefore had enough miniatures to do this little cheaphammer thread and perhaps to round it out later on into a proper army. Anyway, since they are an Ally Contigent two units of ten and a leader really is a complete force? My ultimate goal is to have enough pygmies to be able to play a modern WFB game using the Lizardmen rules - I will count them as skinks, which seems to fit perfectly what with all the skirmishing, blowpipe-toting quite feeble warriors. We'll see how far I make it in this first effort!

The pygmies have the dubious honour of being (to mu knowledge) the only part of the Warhammer hobby to have a bit of controversy about them. Read Zhu's excellent treatment of the matter here ( http://realmofzhu.blogspot.no/2013/07/lstri-pygmies.html ) as it goes into far more detailed discussion than I have room for here. My personal view is that a gaming universe that deems rape, torture and genocide as perfectly adequate elements of hobby entertainment is perhaps not the place to go digging too deep for social-political analysis. Also, the real life problems that has haunted (and is indeed still haunting) the real life pygmy peoples of Africa are so very grave that such a trivial controversy as this one must be considered quite superfluous.

Well, enough blabbering, get painting! Ten spearmen, ten blowpipers and a shaman will do nicely, I think...

olean":2k8w38ib said:

The pygmies have the dubious honour of being (to mu knowledge) the only part of the Warhammer hobby to have a bit of controversy about them

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There's quite a few races which can lay claim to such a honour, Fimir & Genestealers Hybrids both reproducing by rape is a good example.

Anyway, been planning to get some Pygmies at some point and the newly formed Affinity Miniatures plan to have a range by the end of the year

Great idea with the Pygmies, olean. I must admit that while I've seen their orcs and elves, I'd never noticed them before. The boar riders are cool. (Yeah, to me there's worse already in WHFB. Killing people is also bad, but we play a game about it.)

Chico":t154ro3u said:

There's quite a few races which can lay claim to such a honour, Fimir & Genestealers Hybrids both reproducing by rape is a good example.

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Well, am I remembering right that even in the first references to Genestealers (I know they've changed and simplified it a little over the years), it was more a case of implanting a seed and taking over the victim's reproduction cycle and partly takes over their mind? As far as I've read, hybrids do exactly the same. As in, all mating is still by the victim to other humans/whatever? (Which, since it says the victim is driven to reproduce, I guess you can imagine it's just as bad).

Much as I hate to break into a discussion about the comparative merits of Fimir, Genestealers and pygmies...

I've finally got off the fence about what I'm planning to do for this project, inspired in part by zoggin-eck's post from a few pages back. One of my options was a bunch of monopose goblin archers from eBay (99p!) combined with some other Kev Adams goblins from various current manufacturers. However zoggin-eck's post persuaded me to look a bit further afield, and it also occured to me that a lot of orc figures I've previously looked at but written off would actually make very good hobgoblins, especially looking at older sources such as the 2nd ed bestiary or the Dolgan Raiders scenario.

So I thinking of going for a mix of Armalion Red Moon orcs (available individually via Ral Partha Europe) and old Grenadier Nihon orcs from Mirliton, or perhaps some of their eastern hobgoblins. Now I just need to avoid going too far overboard with my Mirliton order (humm... wolf riders, various cool character models...).

I've just got some proper orcs to paint before I can get on to this (sorry, I'm stuck in my ways, the Perry twins and later Kev Adams defined for me what Warhammer orcs should look like).


Paul / Grumdril

I quite like those armalion figures, never seen them before. If I ever get my hob-gobs painted I might expand with some of those and some of the otherworld ones.

Grumdril":18y3z07c said:

So I thinking of going for a mix of Armalion Red Moon orcs (available individually via Ral Partha Europe) and old Grenadier Nihon orcs from Mirliton, or perhaps some of their eastern hobgoblins. Now I just need to avoid going too far overboard with my Mirliton order (humm... wolf riders, various cool character models...).

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That sounds great! With greenskins, as I've looked further afield I've found I'm less worried about whether they all look the same within an army, even in mixed units. There's a few in those Grenadier/Mirliton range I should try. Bear in mind that the "Armalion/Das Schwarze Auge - The Dark Eye" orcs and goblins all have hairy arms, if you can't tell by the photos! I didn't know before I bought my first one, but I think it's cool, really makes them different. Lots of fun models in that line. Here's my goblin witch if you haven't seen, hairy arms and all! (Sorry if anyone's seen it before)

whiskey priest":18y3z07c said:

I quite like those armalion figures, never seen them before. If I ever get my hob-gobs painted I might expand with some of those and some of the otherworld ones.

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I think the Armalion/Das Schwarze Auge range is great. I've written about it before, but if ever there was a range of models I'd like to collect, document and take decent photos of unpainted models, it'd be these. Not nearly enough info online for them, with most of it in German and only about half of the photos on the Ral Partha site are any good, particularly the monsters. I took a gamble on a sorcerer on wyvern, with little idea how it looked based on their photos. Luckily I like it

Sadly, I once wrote them off mentally when reading the less than favourable reviews in the "Colonel Marble's Army Showcase" pages.

I hadn't noticed the hairy arms thing, it's good to know though. The arm hair might need to become some sort of undergarment, I'll see what I think when I have them in hand to look at.

I have quite fixed ideas in my head about what what most races should look like, although as you say there's room for variation in how even a single unit of goblinoids look. It is fun to go looking for what models out there might match my mind's eye rather than just looking on eBay for old Citadel stuff, made a bit more difficult by the lack of or poor photography on some websites.

Speaking of which, has anyone got any decent pictures of Dixon Miniatures' oni and goblins?

Just to show I've been working, if only a little, here's my "free gift orc" from Ral Partha. As I wrote earlier, I've turned him into a goblin! I rather like how it turned out, and in another life I'd probably do a whole regiment/army as regular goblins. I plan on adding bits of battlefield junk to the bases to emphasise the fact that they are intentionally small, not just a 15mm army based for multiple games/scales.





The "nose-job" is about the extent of my sculpting ability I'm surprised at how different it makes the whole model. Oh, and of course I used the leftovers to make some mushrooms.

Here's the other free model they sent, a Witch Elf! Sorry in advance for the behind shot.



I love their Dark Elves, I think 15mm based the same as 28mm for Warhammer would be a great project or low-cost alternative. Something I'd do if I were to start again or loose everything I own. As it is, it's not worth making another set of houses and other terrain!

zoggin-eck":2om4z6ze said:

Well, am I remembering right that even in the first references to Genestealers (I know they've changed and simplified it a little over the years), it was more a case of implanting a seed and taking over the victim's reproduction cycle and partly takes over their mind? As far as I've read, hybrids do exactly the same. As in, all mating is still by the victim to other humans/whatever? (Which, since it says the victim is driven to reproduce, I guess you can imagine it's just as bad).

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Sorry to go off topic but Genestealer Hybrids after and including the 3rd Generation don't have opervistors or however its spelt (The bit which 'Stealer implant a egg) so they have to go and get reproduce the human way.. And it ain't gonna be consensual .

Anyway bad to the topic...and Goblin nose jobs!