Monthly Archives: November 2013

Classic Citadel Ogres for Kings of War – Unit 2 – Olley’s Ogres

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Here’s the latest update on the Ogre Army Challenge. Another unit of restored Old-school Citadel Ogre Warriors. This time, the unit comes from Bob Olley.

By the way, Bob currently has a Kickstarter up for his range of “Scrunts” – Victorian and Steampunk Dwarves. Not to be confused with Squats. Only 14 days left!

I don’t have a whole slew of interesting angles for these three. Mostly because the close-ups I took didn’t turn out. I might re-take some and slip them into the post later on. Maybe.

Oldhammer Ogre, Ogryn

Old-School Ogre by Bob Olley, circa 1989.

Oldhammer Ogre, Ogryn

Bob Olley Ogre – rear view

This guy always reminded me of my Dad, from back when I painted him, and still to this day he reminds me of my father at that time. A bit of the face, the Calabrese complexion, the physique and even the brains(!) This figure is based on the original Olley-sculpted Ogryn Sergeant. (Not the original RT Ogryn, though!)

Oldhammer Ogre, Ogryn

Another of Bob Olley’s Citadel Ogres from 1989.

Oldhammer Ogre, Ogryn

Rear view of the second Bob Olley Ogre

Another of Olley’s Ogres. This one, amusingly enough always reminded me of my friend’s father who had been – amongst other things – a boxer back in the old country, and the bald noggin and complexion always helped that particular comparison. If I were to paint this guy today, he’d be covered in tattoos. Still – my rule for these guys is pretty much: New bases and “restoration” – so touchups over chips, dull metal and godawful colour choices only rather than repaints. I’m keeping an eye on eBay for another, though…

Oldhammer Ogre, Ogryn

The third of my trio of Bob Olley’s old-school Ogres

Oldhammer Ogre, Ogryn

Rear view of Olley Ogre #3

The third of this batch of Olley Ogres. The blue straps are a bit bright, but they’re not overwhelming enough to need to be repainted. IRL they’re not quite so garish.

 

Oldhammer Ogre, Ogryn

Unit shot of Olley’s Ogres

Oldhammer Ogre, Ogryn

And the back-shot!

A couple of shots of the newly restored unit. I’ll do an army-in-progress shot when I put the next finished unit up.

Oldhammer Ogre, Ogryn

Coming soon: More Jes Goodwin Goodness…

And a preview of things to come.. started in the 1990’s – (to be) finished in the 2010’s…(?)

 

Ogre Index:

Jes Goodwin Classic Citadel Ogres #1

Bob Olley’s Classic Citadel Ogres

Golfag’s Ogre Mercenaries

Mantic’s Ogre Shooters: Units 1 and 2.  And Based.

Mantic Ogre WIP 1 (and army concepts/some of the other ogres pre-touchup and rebasing)

Mantic Ogre WIP 2

 

Mantic Ogre Shooters – Blunderbuss and Crossbows – Based!

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Just a small update this time, but we finally had two days without rain in a row! Two! Sure, they directly followed the coldest November day in the last 25 years (it’s spring here, supposedly) but anyway – the day allowed me to finally finish the bases on these guys after finally getting a day warm enough to spray them. Paint-on Vallejo varnish kept leaving some non-matt areas. Hurrah for Testors Dullcote!

Mantic Ogre Shooters with Crossbows.

Mantic Ogre Shooters with Blunderbusses.

Here’s their previous post. With more photos, but no tufts.

Classic C23 Citadel Ogres for Kings of War – Unit 1

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As mentioned before, I’m building an Ogre army for Mantic Games‘ Kings of War, since pictures of it in play seem to give off an old-school Warhammer 3rd Edition vibe in a lot of ways, and the game allows pretty free proxying of models, so you can use whatever you like and feel is cool. I put together and painted a couple of units of Mantic’s new Ogre Shooter models recently.

The main reason I started Ogres though, was to have a reason/excuse to get out my classic Citadel Ogre models that I’d just painted for the pleasure of it. All of them painted between 10 and 23 years ago. I’ve also got several that are still unpainted, and a couple that got started and never finished. With this in mind, and after some bloody stupid moves a couple of years ago when I stripped some very well painted figures from my youth in order to repaint them “modern style” that I now hugely regret, I decided not to repaint these guys, but to touch up where needed (chipped paint or toning down overly garish bits, re-highlighting metals) but to keep the essence of them as they were originally painted. So where some of the highlighting is a bit rough, or the blending on the flesh tones isn’t 100%, that stuff stays untouched. The old railway-flock bases have been redone with painted sand and tufts so they fit in with my current stuff, but that’s mostly it, aside from the touch-ups.

Oldhammer Ogre, Ogryn, c23 Ogre

Hrothyogg, Ogre Captain. Sculpted by Jes Goodwin.

Oldhammer Ogre, Ogryn, c23 Ogre

Hrothyogg, Ogre Captain. Right Side View.

Oldhammer Ogre, Ogryn, c23 Ogre

Hrothyogg, Ogre Captain. Rear View.

Oldhammer Ogre, Ogryn, Hrothyogg, Ogre Captain, c23 Ogre

Look at that gorgeous face!

For the moment, he’s leading the first infantry unit. I’ve not glued him to the resin base, as I’m also considering mounting him in a chariot to be the Warlord of the entire force, as this is my favourite ogre figure ever, and also one of my favourite miniatures ever.

I don’t know this next one’s proper name, but I’m sure he has one. Sculpted by Jes.

Oldhammer Ogre, Ogryn, c23 Ogre

“Bandit Ogre” Sculpted by Jes Goodwin.

Oldhammer Ogre, Ogryn, c23 Ogre

Bandit Ogre’s mugshot close-up!

Oldhammer Ogre, Ogryn, c23 Ogre

“Bandit Ogre” Rear View.

Oldhammer Ogre, Ogryn, c23 Ogre

A slightly better look at “Bandit Ogre”s head.

I remember, I painted him from bare metal to done in a single Saturday, many years ago. Still a nice, characterful sculpt, but the memory of painting him entirely in a day especially makes him a special model to me and still gives me the warm fuzzies (though I forget the actual details of the day.)

Oldhammer Ogre, Ogryn, c23 Ogre

The last guy is “Ogre Thug”, another of Jes Goodwin’s.

Since I had more than one of this guy, I decided to convert him a little. I took off his helmet spike, and replaced the head of his mace with a hammer head from some other random figure. This one got painted around 1996 during or just after the Atlanta Olympics, since I gave him an Aussie flag tattoo, as so many of our athletes of the time were wearing on their right shoulders. Also, a big tribal piece, since that was the fashion of the time, and, you know, Ogre.

Oldhammer Ogre, Ogryn, c23 Ogre

“Ogre Thug” tattoo shot.

Oldhammer Ogre, Ogryn, c23 Ogre

“Ogre Thug” rear view.

Oldhammer Ogre, Ogryn, c23 Ogre

“Ogre Thug” Close-up.

His tribal tattoo is based off an actual tattoo I saw/had a photo of at the time. Can’t recall if it was a musician, etc or just a random person, though.

Lastly, a couple of unit shots. (click for bigger!)

Oldhammer Ogre, Ogryn, c23 Ogre

Hrothyogg’s Ogres – (Version 1) front view.

Oldhammer Ogre, Ogryn, c23 Ogre

Hrothyogg’s Ogres – (Version 1) rear view.

Ogres ready to Rhumba!

 

Ogre Index:

Jes Goodwin Classic Citadel Ogres #1

Bob Olley’s Classic Citadel Ogres

Golfag’s Ogre Mercenaries

Mantic’s Ogre Shooters: Units 1 and 2.  And Based.

Mantic Ogre WIP 1 (and army concepts/some of the other ogres pre-touchup and rebasing)

Mantic Ogre WIP 2

 

Mini-Review: Academy 1/48 Challenger Kit

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While sitting and waiting for a doctor’s appointment several months ago, I was browsing Dakka on my phone when someone posted an eBay link to some 1:48 scale tanks, by a Korean company called Adademy. Since 1:48 is one of the appropriate scales for 28mm miniatures (some of our figures’ weird proportions are 1:35, some 1:48, some 1:56), I checked out the link, and on seeing the price of $15 a pop with free shipping, 5 minutes later, I’d ordered a platoon of three British Challengers to use in moderns or proxy into 40k, WarPath or any other games that might require tanks – particularly ones that look like they might actually work. I went with the challenger since it looks modern and pretty cool but isn’t as immediately recognisable as the US Abrams series (to those of us outside the UK, at least).

Sexy Box Picture

Open Box!

Hull/Chassis in-bag

Turret, detail parts and road wheels.

A couple of in-box and sprue-in bag shots. Nothing too exciting here. Tracks are rubbery plastic, as is not uncommon for tracked vehicle model kits. So far, so normal. I also took a bunch of comparison photos with some 40k models, so people can get an accurate look at the size. Bear in mind in these pics the wheels and tracks aren’t assembled on the Challenger, so the actual kit would end up a bit taller.

A nice amount of detail for the price.

Front-on details.

Profile with the Chimera.

Profile with a Rhino.

Model’s-eye view, front on.

With: Techmarine, Cadian Stormtrooper, Ork Boy, Imperial Stormtrooper.

Gamers-eye-view, side-on with models.

Gamers-eye-view, front-on with models.

Yes, I took a whole lot of photos. Mostly because I went with what I personally like to be able to see when looking at kits like this on the web, so some comparisons with other commonly-used vehicles (sorry, I couldn’t find my Russes) and some of the models most likely to be spending quality time with it (sorry, my Mantic Corporation guys aren’t built yet, and my half-painted moderns are still hiding out somewhere since  I moved).

More direct width comparison.

More direct length comparison.

A very detailed turret underside? Perhaps not! (Yeah, I thought there was a piece missing, too!)

As Academy is clearly a budget-ended model company, you can see how they subscribe to an “out of sight, out of mind model” with the underside of the turret and main gun. Even so this is acceptable for a model to be used in wargaming in my mind, as we tend not to remove the turret unless the model is destroyed, and the underside of the gun really can’t be seen unless you’re looking front-on at tabletop eye level with the gun elevated to maximum.

Given that I’m looking at this kit as something to use/convert for miniatures wargaming, I’d say it will do the job admirably and at a very reasonable price. I’m not going to be doing a Mig Jiminez on it and creating a museum-quality work of art in 1:48 with it, and so if you’re also looking for wargames-friendly models, I’d suggest the Academy line as worth checking out. In the same scale, there’s also an Israeli Merkava, a US M60A1 (Patton), Soviet T-72, German Leopard 2 A5 in the $15 price range, with other tanks (Panthers, Tigers, T-34s, and more) becoming available as the kits go on with motorised elements and a slight price increase going on to $25 and $30+ per kit… I’d have jumped on the T-34s if they were also in the $15 price band, but alas, not! Maybe I’ll buy some M60s next.. then some T-72s! 🙂

Overall, the Challenger is a nicely-detailed kit that looks like it will go together quickly and easily. Certainly for fifteen bucks and free shipping, I found them to be a worthwhile purchase, and no doubt will find them even more worthwhile once they’re assembled, painted and used for something!

Quick edit – 23rd Oct 2015: – For the serious model makers – people from Britmodeller and Armorama, etc. I’d avoid the Academy kits. I’ve got a few others in 1:48, and they’re really not up to the standards that you’ll be looking for. For starter modellers, your kids, and for wargamers like myself where the kits can be “good enough” in terms of accuracy and details – or used for terrain, they’re fine and in fact pretty good value. For serious armour modellers though, these aren’t the tanks you’re looking for.

cheers!

Kickstarter: Mars Attacks – Mantic Games

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I’m not going to start to make a habit of pimping Kickstarters or anything like that, but I thought this one in particular might be worth sharing, since there’s only a day or two to go, and Mantic appear to have really pulled out all the stops for this one – right down to not using restic, renders of the models, and throwing an enormous amount of free stuff at it. I was originally in it just for the scenery, since I’m not a particular fan of the IP, but I’m now considering staying in for the scenery and getting a large set of the game’s stuff as well, since it’s written by Jake Thornton and looks like it would be quite a bit of fun.

Basically, it’s a boardgame, which is pretty much cross-compatible with DeadZone (Mantic’s Sci-Fi boardgame that’s about to come out in December) – so similar in style to Dust Tactics with miniatures and ground tiles, but they’re also doing things like a DeadZone team (Sci-Fi Bloodbowl to use a simple analogy, but actually much closer to the classic Amiga game Speedball.) They’re also going to put out rules to use the models in Warpath, which is their sci-fi miniatures skirmish game.

One of the main reasons I’m pimping it here is that they ran into a bit of trouble, with a lot of backers dropping out – so yesterday I sent in a suggestion for them to add in their excellent DeadZone scenery and talk to Guillotine Games/CMON (who they’re on friendly terms with) about some crossover using the MA survivors in Zombicide – since the survivors have a very similar stylistic look and feel. This morning, I got an email from Ronnie replying to my message and I see they’ve added the DZ scenery, a shout-out from CMON to their Zombicide backers in my inbox that also suggests the MA survivors would work in Zombicide and a new $500k stretch goals of Zombies vs Martians!

Oh, and they added a shitton of extra freebies as well.

Anyway, here’s the $100 “Sweet Spot” pledge level image, though they also have a giganton of stuff for those willing to go in for $300, which I’ve also added below.

More painted models soon! Hoping for some good natural light today…

Mantic Ogre Shooters – Blunderbuss and Crossbows – Finished!

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Well, after putting a whole lot of time into them this weekend, and now some finishing off time today, I’ve finally finished the first 6 Ogres. Yes, they took me the better part of a month to do. I’m not fast, but in my defence, despite being pretty happy with the way they turned out, I found them an absolute bear to paint, My problems with them are twofold. Actually, threefold:

1) Too much fine detail. I really like Remy’s sculpts in general, and these guys look quite good if you can get past the Johnny Bravo proportions and knocked knees. The thing is he overdoes the tiny details, which are then shrunk down even more by the restic that Mantic use. There are WAY too damn many buckles and studs on the leather straps and such. If there were just a couple of figures, as in individuals, or commander-types then I’d have no problem here, but as rank & file, it’s just maddening to have to paint.

2) Arms across their bodies – Since these are missile troops, they have their arms across their bodies as they hold their blunderbusses and crossbows. it exacerbates the issues above and makes them far, far more painful to paint than open-armed ones like the melee models would be.

3) Not enough variety. Three torsos used and reused for the BB, Xbow, 1h&S, 2h and “hero” models that are also quite specific in their details and poses, paired with a total of 6 unique heads – only 2 of which I particularly like, and a couple that are awful. Then one set of arms each for the crossbows and blunderbusses. This is going to mean a hell of a lot of repetition. There;s also not a lot that can be done with them. I’ll be chopping topknots and trying to figure out how to apply helmets to these guys as I assemble more, though the GW OK models’ heads are a touch too large to use. Yes, the GW OK bodies are also very limited in posing, but they seem to make up for it with a large variety of arms, weapons, heads, gutplates and the like.

Let’s add one more point:

4) I need to paint another 6 of them – 3 more of each. D’oh!

I’ll be doing them next, so I can put painting Mantic’s Ogre Shooters behind me for awhile.

Anyway, enough of my bitching. At least the bright side is they turned out pretty well, so I’m happy with them in the end. I did enjoy assembling them and even needing to heat up each piece in very hot water was a bit of fun, as it allowed me to somewhat vary their arm poses slightly.

The light is a bit glarey in these photos, but it’s the best I could do today. It’s creating a bit more contrast than I’d like, but that’s life. The figures still need a couple of final things done to completely finish them. First they need to be varnished. I wanted to get the photos before the matt varnish flattens out my blending – something that always annoys me – and following that I’ll be adding some tufts (sorry Cash – I like ’em!) and then some weathering powder to dirty up their feet and blend them in with their bases a little.

I also found my Pin Vice this morning, as well as some larger bits, so I drilled out the barrels of the blunderbusses. I think I mentioned it before, but I ended up basing these on Citadel 40mm square bases for consistency in the force, which is largely made up otherwise of the classic GW models.

Finally, a couple of group shots. I’ll take some new ones down the line when the whole 600-pt Army is finished. And then again when it bumps to 1200 and 2000pts. As you can see, these figures could be easily proxied into Warhammer Fantasy Battle if you want a different look to the Ogre Kingdoms models. Additionally, since it’s been Kings of War Week over on Beasts of War, I thought I’d throw them a link since I’m painting these Mantic Ogres for a KoW list anyway, so whoring myself out slightly is a no-harm, no-foul kinda situation in context…

Ogre Index:

Jes Goodwin Classic Citadel Ogres #1

Bob Olley’s Classic Citadel Ogres

Golfag’s Ogre Mercenaries

Mantic’s Ogre Shooters: Units 1 and 2.  And Based.

Mantic Ogre WIP 1 (and army concepts/some of the other ogres pre-touchup and rebasing)

Mantic Ogre WIP 2