Hello Old World

Between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis
and the rise of the sons of Aryas
there was an age undreamed of...

It is about time I started this little project. For many years I have been thinking about take pictures of my miniatures, put them on facebook... nah, facebook is for something else and difficult to follow updates. Put them on a forum painting log, put them on twitter, on instagram, oh jeez, put them somewhere!
But it never ended well. Until I discovered the army challenges by a bunch of friends and their oldhammer adventures.

Finally a "somewhere" to show my efforts and also motivate me to do so, and easy to follow by someone. I have few spare time to paint and too many miniatures to count them, but with these fun challenges I felt the motivation to at least continue for some time. One hour here and there until some troops are finished.

This whole blog idea came from my project for the Old World Army Challenge. Which in fact I couldn't get into the ongoing challenge. But worth take your time there because there are like million of good ol' little metal reasons and superb paintings to follow all the logs!
Instead of proceed to a skaven tactical retreat, I unpacked all my stuff again, prepared for the Challenge and swore my self "this time we finish all this pile of miniatures". And so we are here.

This blog will be dedicated to almost all my fantasy miniatures I want to be showing. Mostly dwarfs. Lots of dwarf. An actual army of dwarfs in real numbers, more than a threat in middle X century standards. Coming from almost all editions (now expanding to the lovely 80's norse dwarf clansmen). But for now my main challenge will be a secondary, "small" troop of despic..not so brave and loyal elves!

I have to face the reality around here, most of my friends play 6th edition or 8th edition. The most outlandish experiments they have played are Kings of War or 9th Age new rules. So if I want to keep my motivation with the capabilities of actually playing something, I left some of the more oldhammer-ish troops I prepared for the challenge. But we can do something properly old-school with a pile of plastic.

I couldn't get to the oldhammer scene in the times where it was not oldammer because at that time I was using diapers (and now I am not *double check the pants*, confirmed) and by the time I got into the hobbie, fifth edition was the deal and sixth edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battle just kicked in. But with the years I have appreciated more and more the old miniatures. There is a something about them that are quite lovely to paint and display that the more recent sculpts lack beside the marvelous designs of today plastics... let see the elf Silver Helms (which I do not like the old 4th edition version but have this kind of magic to them).

What would be the trick behind both miniatures

Ah yes, apart that every silver helm of the old unit have a more interesting palette and more colors than the whole plastic silver helm unit. The devil is in the details, and most of the old sculpts excel in having some sort of interesting details that feels unique and well placed. Belts, sword sheaths, pouches, bandanas on the head or helms.
And of course, crests!
Instead of misplaced sheaths, lack of detail (sometimes our own modelling tastes, I double checked the bit box and there are tons of things left over from the silver helm sprues that I've never ever seen put on the miniature but are quite interesting here) among other problems I have with the newish miniatures.

In fact, I can change my mind over old metal silver helms when placed in the interesting, more recent horses.

Much better now, need some more crests tho.

But while I am a big fan of old third edition melnibonean cavalry or the metal silver helms on new horses, the reality is, I won a big deal sometime ago and I have 40 plastic h o r s e y  el v e s and some more infantrymen unpainted, so we need to work with what is given.

To summarize, I'll paint a rather newhammerish-middlehammer army on a personal challenge. But trying to give that retro vibe that I have started to appreciate in recent years. Give them those wonderful details and paint them properly. I am deciding a final palette, but I'll go with old school combinations of many colors contrasting them rather than the more recent uniformity. Probably using old army book or third edition compendium shield designs in free hand.
We will see.

So the list, in Third Edition High Elf points:

Daramas the Mage (Lvl 10 Wizard)  . . . . . . . . . . 118 points

Knights of Iyrandrar
  Iyrandrar (Lvl 5 hero) with shield and lance  . . . 63 points
  4 Silver Helms  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258 points
  + standard bearer

Archers of Durothil
  Durothil + 11 Archers  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 points

Spearmen of Cithrelr
  Cithrel (Lvl 5 hero) with shield and spear  . . . . 52 points
  14 Kith with light armour and spear  . . . . . . . 128 points
  + standard bearer + musician

Kelvhan city guards
  Kelvhan + 14 Merchant Company with shields  . . . . 165 points

Repeater Bolt Thrower + 3 elves  . . . . . . . . . . 54 points

Total: 1106 points

Every unit shall have all the details, like that pile of swords. Ah, see the champion, a little history of not so good ideas.

As you see, each unit might have extra bits, and the cavalry lacks for now the lance banners (and the standard, which I must add before priming) and the standard. See the guy in white behind the pile of proper hand weapons additional to the spear of the unit. Well, I had this guy sitting there so I decided to add him as spearmenelf champion.
A tall guy, they call him by the name of High Tower. Here and there are people with different heights, I am not too troubled on having a casual NBA Center player sized guy running in the ranks. But oh boi, Reaper Miniatures are cast in unconvertium. While plastic have the benefits of conversion but require much more time than metal to prepare each miniature, and the metal is ready to go. This white plastic-resin is pain. If no strip is present, go.
If you want to repair or change something in a Reaper mini and it is not a simple cut (which is even easier than cutting plastic), you can cry. And if cry is not enough, crying is your second best option. I'll have to work his cape and back a lot after removing the shield. Crappy idea indeed.

Cherry picking what I like the most from the old metal Silver Helms

Oh, and I said this is Tales of Brush and Sorcery, not Tales of High Brushery, so every unit will have a hero of some sort as champion. An outstanding miniature for each unit, instead a random rank guy with bigger or weirder weapon.

And that's all for now. Hope everyone liked this presentation. And hope for myself that this blog doesn't die after two weeks. I'll do my best.


It is I, his chronicler, who alone can tell thee of his saga.
Let me tell you of the days of high adventure!