Category Archives: Warhammer Fantasy – 9th Age

From the Painting Desk #6 – Bolt Action T-34/85, Citadel Spirit Hosts (Ghosts)

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A couple of weeks ago, I bought a bunch of Bolt Action kits from Warlord. After checking out the T-34s, I noticed that the kit wasn’t especially complex, and so perfectly suitable to start and actually finish as well, since I’ve got a habit of ..not finishing everything I start. When my DeadZone stuff arrived this week and I found that they missed the additional rulebooks and a few other things, I had a bit of a rage for a bit, and then decided to start assembling the tanks to get my mind off it. I thought I took some photos, but this is where I’m up to at this point:

A trio of Warlord Games T-34/85

Basically, all assembled excepting the final assembly of the two halves of the hull, and the turret will just pop on. I’d have magnetised it, but I didn’t think of that until after I’d assembled the two turret halves, so…

The tanks have been sprayed with PSC Russian Armour, airbrushes with a 50:50 mix of VMA Russian Green and Camo Light Green, followed by a 70:30 mix. My airbrush skills are awful still, or maybe its the cheap POS airbrush I have. Either way, the results are far from impressive. Once that was done, a 50:50 mix of VMC Russian Uniform and Army Painter Camo Green for a final-ish highlight. Next will be some sandy/buff colours for weathering. Tracks got a coat of Vallejo Panzer Aces Track Primer with a drybrush of VMA steel over the top.

I still need to hit the whole thing with PSC weathering spray and have a play with weathering powders and the like. Add some decals and then finish them. Hopefully next update!

The other thing I’ve been doing today was opened up a care package from a mate. Quite a lot of loot in there, along with something I totally was not expecting – ghosts!

Citadel Spirit Host Ghosts on Back to Base-ix bases.

The ghosts were mounted three each to several goblin green-painted 40mm square bases. I pried them off immediately, and after a bit of faffing about, decided to mount them on some Back to Base-ix resin “ruins” bases I bought years ago. I felt they raised the Marine figures up too high from the “ground” and so never used them for the original intent, but they work perfectly with these undead. The weight of the resin also stops some of the more lop-sided members of the gang from toppling over.

Ghosts – Sprayed and freshly washed

After mounting them, I took them outside the hit them with some Rustoleum Heirloom White. You can’t really see it here, but it’s a slightly off-white with a slight touch of coffee brown to it. Better for projects like this than pure white. I mixed up a suitably-ethereal coloured paint wash using a mix of Citadel’s Lahmian Medium and Gauss Blaster Green. Stupid names, yes, but the paint being fit for purpose is all I care about.

ooOOooo ooOOo O OOo

They’re outside now. I was going to start on the bases right after I did this, but decided to seal them with gloss varnish, since it was a bright warm sunny day – so wanted to take full advantage of that. That stuff dries much much faster in the sun. This way I can work on them tonight, and maybe even finish them off. It’ll just be the bases and some touch-up work – then a coat of matt. Also hoping to have those T-34s finished tomorrow, or perhaps the following day…

…then I can get back to the grind of my other half-finished projects. Gondor, ahoy!

Oldhammer Trolls and another ID Request

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This time we have another couple of figures started decades ago and finished a couple of years ago. A couple of the old-school Citadel (or Oldhammer) Trolls.

C20 Oldhammer Troll

C20 Cave Troll

The first guy is a C20 Cave Troll. I started painting him in the mid-1990s with the skin tones of a Stone Troll, for my WHFB Orc and Goblin army. Finally finished him 2 or 3 years ago, and stuck him on a slate base from back-to-base-ix

Oldhammer C20 Troll

C20 Warrior Troll

Also from the old C20 range, this guy is known as “Warrior Troll”. No D&D style misgivings about metal armour for him, no indeedy! Also started around the same time as his mate up there, and finished at more or less the same time, when I dug them out of half-painted purgatory and finally completed them.

Oldhammer C20 trolls

C20 Trolls. Two thirds of a unit!

Both of these guys were sculpted by Aly Morrison, who really did quite a good job on the Troll range of the day. I have to say I’ve also liked pretty much all of the subsequent renditions of trolls that GW has come out with over the years. The stone trolls, the LotR-inspired Trolls, the plastic Swamp Trolls… all good stuff. Well, except for the Chaos Trolls, I guess. But I don’t really consider them part of this range, which I’ve mostly thought of as a subset of the O&G one, with a side range of being really useful for tabletop RPGs. These guys will have a new lease of life at some stage when I finish painting their mate, and then convert my old O&G horde over to Kings of War. But working on 5 armies already at once means the Orcs and Gobboes will need to wait a little while.

C20 Oldhammer Trolls

C20 Trolls – the arseward shot!

Looking at them today, the golden yellow-blonde hair does look pretty garish, especially with the bright blue skin, but hell – that’s how I started them, and it’s not something I’m willing to mess up, change or repaint. I’m just happy to have them done. I’ve got their mate on my painting shelf as well. A mid-90’s stone troll who I selected to finish this unit off about three years ago when I finished these two. He’s been partially painted and sitting on my painting shelves ever since… funny how these things work, eh?

 

And finally, a request to those who read this blog. Inspired by the fast work in finding out the identity of Farendil, Elf ranger so quickly, I’m again asking for help in identifying this guy.

Oldhammer Wizard – seeking his name!

I’ve been looking through SoL a bit, and he’s not a C02 wizard. There’s no pic of the TL2 wizard on SoL, so that’s a possibility – it’s certainly from the right timeframe. He’s not from the DungeonQuest series, or any of the other board games of that time. He’s listed as #19 of the Wizards in the Blue 1988 catalogue, but that group is a mash-up of several previous ranges, and I’d like to find where he comes from originally, and if he had a name as well.

This is actually his second paintjob. I first painted him bright blue and red, with brown hair back in the 1990’s, then repainted him in the 2000’s in the darker blue scheme with grey hair. I don’t intend to repaint him again, just rebase him this time. I figure he looks the part to play the Necromancer that Marouda’s KoW Undead army needs for their next battle, so I’m rebasing him and might just add a tiny bit of edge highlighting.