Warriors of Minas Tirith – Archers (again!) (6-Month Tale of Gamers Challenge)

Citadel Lord of the Rings Warriors of Minas Tirith - Archers

A pretty inconsequential update today. I haven’t spent much time online over the last week or so, as I’ve been making some changes to the War Room which involved a lot of cleanup and turfing old stuff, and a sizable donation of old hardware and software to a local retrogamers’ group. I’ll show the room changes off later on. Probably. This update is simply about documenting another unit completed for the monthly challenge – this one finished at the end of March (see, I’ve been slow at updating!) I didn’t actually paint all of these guys this last month, but due to the rules of the painting challenge – it’s about completing units – which can be finishing off a whole unit of models that only need 2 more hours work on them, or (as in this case) painting two models needed to complete a unit where all of the mother models are already done.

I noticed yesterday while learning to play SAGA that I have another unit that only needs either two more spearmen or a command pair added to complete it as well. That one’s getting bumped to the front of the queue for April!

Citadel Lord of the Rings Moria Goblin Spearman

This goblin is just here since he’s a repair and complete job, and I wanted to document him and forget about him. It’s either a Foundry or Warlord metal spear in place of his broken plastic one. I’ll sort him out into a unit later. Perhaps in the second half of 2016? I’ve got 12 or 13 sprues of Moria goblins to paint, plus a few metals – so reasonably achievable to complete with a concerted effort. Oh yeah. Plus trolls.

Realm of Chaos: Warrior-Champion of Slaanesh

Back in the early 1990’s, shortly after the release of Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned, a small set of Chaos models was released. At least one for each of the four Chaos Powers, and seemingly Khorne got a few extras. These particular models aren’t seen a whole lot, as they weren’t sculpted by Jes Goodwin, but by Mark Copplestone – and so had a much shorter production life. They’re not the equal of Jes’ classic sculpts, but they do have an interesting character (there I bloody go) of their own. Objectively, they’re not amazing models compared to what has gone before or since, but I still like them.

Realm of Chaos Oldhammer Chaos Warrior Champion of Slaanesh.

Chaos Warrior-Champion of Slaanesh.

I haven’t managed to find them in Stuff of Legends nor in the old issues of White Dwarf, but I seem to recall seeing them named both as “Chaos Champions” and as “Chaos Warriors” at different times – which also happened with more than a few of Jes’ champions. They’re that “in-between” style of model that could reasonably fit into either category. These days at least, my thoughts on Chaos Warriors tend towards the more generic models as used in more recent years, so I’ll call these guys “Champions” in my own collection – especially as the more generic “foot knight”-style armoured Chaos Warriors were a thing as far back as the pre-slotta days.

Realm of Chaos Oldhammer Chaos Warrior Champion of Slaanesh.

Side view of the Fiend-headed one.

This guy is Slaanesh’s entry. He features all-original paint from the 1990’s as well. Amazingly there were no touch-ups needed whatsoever, nor any embarrassingly garish colour combinations that needed correction. All I needed to do to “renovate” him to 2016 standard was to rebase him – onto a 32mm round in this case since he overhung the 25mm square pretty badly. This way I can legit use him should I ever try Age of Sigmar as well. It doesn’t matter in Kings of War as the game uses regimental bases, so as long as the footprint is sound, this guy and whatever other heavy, psychotic bastards he hangs out with can wreak havoc just as effectively once I actually start on them properly.

Realm of Chaos Oldhammer Chaos Warrior Champion of Slaanesh.

Shield View.

I’ve added flowers to his base not because I see Slaanesh as effeminate, but as followers of Chaos that can appreciate beauty as well as debauchery – just as they were back in the RoC days. The shield is NOT freehand, I should point out. It’s a decal. It had some silvering but a coat of satin over the top fixed that up well enough.

Realm of Chaos Oldhammer Chaos Warrior Champion of Slaanesh.

A cheeky grin?

A rather “cheeky” (hur hur) shot to finish up. It’s more than a little silly, but such was life in Nottingham back in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s and it’s pretty well known that the studio didn’t take themselves so seriously back then, and took the piss out of everything including themselves (and they liked to sneak stuff past management) so I’m willing to give it a pass while if such a thing were released today, the implications would be a lot more disturbing.

I’ve got a Khorne Warrior-Champion from the same release who I’ll show shortly. He just needs a bit of updating, and I’ve been putting all of my energy into a big clean-up of the house and (especially) the war room, which has slowly become a dumping ground for boxes and random junk. So as soon as I can manage!