More than Mordheim

Click on the pics to enlarge

Lots of old Citadel and Metal Magic wandering around an open market

When Mordheim came out 25 years ago I loved it.

I built a city base out of a sheet of foam with sand and paint and water created from a sheet of clear crackle plastic from a 2 x 4 flourescent light fixture with the underside painted. The base has not survived but I have some of the awesome miniatures and two boxes of ruined buildings that have seen a great deal of play.

So with Mordheim play growing and several other city based skirmish games in play, its time to build a new base and clean and repair some card and balsa buildings. 

My new base is 4' square (1.2m x 1.2m) and made of four 2'x2' sections. Each section starts with a gator board base (water level). City level is built up with 2" rigid foam topped with pva glue, sand and paint. The harbour walls are a mix of 3D resin prints - some from Ancrabourg by 3DLayeredScenery (which I had to modify using Blender since I only wanted the outside faces) and some by Gothic Things. The built-in tower bases and the rubble roads inbedded in the top are also by Gothic Things. The water level is paint and then two rough brush layers of AK Water Gel (a mix of swamp green and atlantic blue)

The board is designed for several configurations and the riser at the back is movable.

My biggest mistake I made was not keeping some of the water paint for additional future board options.

I have parts for three very different uses

Mordheim in Ruins

Modified buildings from the original set, some scratchbuild ones, and some resin prints.

Thriving Market Town

Buildings: Large scratch built inn in the center and a selection of resin (Tabletop World) and 3D prints by various designers but Gothic Things features heavily because their buildings work well for small or medium sized resin printer. Wizard tower in the back is Printable Scenery. The docks are Lemax Dept 56 village stuff i got at a garage sale, as are many of the crates. The rigged boat is a converted Little Mermaid toy, the larger nearer boat is Reaper, and the far one came home in my stuff from Adepticon one year and I have have no idea who it belongs to!

The third build option is a necropolis combining a huge variety of graveyards, crypts, and ruins.

But... most of them dont have so much as a lick of paint yet and I need a few more to fill the board so pictures will happen another time.

Cheers. C

The Citadel Giant

Weighing in at 3 Lb. 10 oz. (1,636g) and 7" tall (190mm)

The 1983 Citadel Giant

Alan Perry

and in the Red corner JOHAN!- a standard 28mm Citadel villager (for scale)

100mm base. No original metal base so I suppose he is even heaver. 

Weight and size were an issue. I haven't painted anything this big and heavy before that needed precision. I have buildings that are bigger but they are light and easy to manipulate. After a start where handling was rubbing off work I had just done I ended up mounting him to a half gallon square plastic can of paint. It made it heaver but provided a counterbalance. Significantly reduced wrist strain.  

This giant came to me with no base, no head or hand options, no knife. So I didn't have to think about how to build him. Which is good because I still be dithering and working out the very best way to magnetize the options.

Great to finally have him ready for battle.

Setting Myself Up to Fail

 

So the New Year rolled over and I met my annual resolution of at least 52 pre-slotta Citadel miniatures painted. (52 goblins, Jabberwoky, Giant beetle, 2 hydrae and the Owl),   I met the goal months ago and have been happily pottering with some buildings, my Mordheim board and an assortment of monsters (including the big fella ready for a pedicure pictured below , 

During the new year someone posted this funny thing.

But what if this year I committed do doing just that?

If I only count projects I have started - and I always start with basing

I reckon have enough Citadel pre-slotta to count as 52 - click on the pics to enlarge.

26 goblins to finish the set - and a couple of Gnolls

The three big demons and the big fella above

A tray of Citadel villagers and townsfolk

A tray with a wide variety of other villagers & townsfolk 

Some vintage metal adventurers

A tray of old metal monsters - Inc a couple of Citadel dragons

And a tray of one-piece-plastics, mostly from modern era games

My unfinished pile of shame.

(There are prolly also some 32mm pirates & citizens and a few heroic scale adventurers if I dig)

I'm gonna try and get them all done this year

Disclaimer - Unfinished pile of shame does not include partially assembled buildings and scenery elements. While no miniatures will be started till the pile has been depleted this does not include buildings or scenery. Also repairs and touch-ups or rebasing previously painted miniatures do not count no matter how extensive or who painted them. 

Cheers!

Plastic game pieces from the early 90's

Early board games with fantasy components in hard plastic. I am old enough that when these games came out I sneered at them, compared them to my metal figs and gave them a pass. A decade later when they showed up in garage sales I picked them up for particular pieces or for cheap regiments. Later still, I used them to introduce my kids to roleplaying and painting. And now they are a collectable subgenre I think of as One Piece Plastics. Their originally slightly-too-large scale is now "heroic". And now when new games come boxed with a pile of fantasy minis I pay attention and some get added to lead, plastic and resin pile.

Recently we had a mini break in NY state and though we had some vacationy outings planned my wife announced that she wanted a couple of days curled up with a book in front of a fire, so I should bring my paints. Not wanting to pack half finished metal I grabbed eight primed and based old plastics and some bold colors. 

Dark World 

Mattel 1991

Forked tongue added to the manticore - It really needed a fix. 

Click on the pics to enlarge

Dragonfire

Heartbreaker/Target 1992

This game came with just the four types of figure

The Dragon Knight has always struck me as a teenage wannabe chaos knight. The embarrassing son of the grim countenanced Dark Lord who sighs heavy as his pathetic minions fail yet again to thwart a party of bold halfling children.

Previous One Piece Plastics Posts:

HeroQuest and other game plastics

http://leadnpaint.blogspot.com/2017/07/

https://leadnpaint.blogspot.com/2021/12/plastics-too.html

Doorways for HQ and AHQ are here

https://leadnpaint.blogspot.com/2023/04/doorways.html

Uncommon Monsters

 I have a couple of projects to share that wrapped up last year.

The first is a group of monsters

Click on the pictures to enlarge

Citadel - C29 Giant Owl

Nick Bibby 1985

40mm base with scratch built tree stump

Citadel - C29 Giant Beetle - 1985 

40mm base

Citadel - C27 Hydrae 1984 

30x60 oval bases

Citadel - FF35 Manticore 1981 

I painted this 10 years ago as part of the FF set but I had managed to break off a wing. So he got repaired and repainted.

The FF set is here: https://leadnpaint.blogspot.com/2014/09/

Jabberwocks

Citadel C29 1985 and Ral Partha 01-095 1982

Tom Meier

Wonderful classic figures based on the original illustration

Grenadier - Monster Manuscript 

John Dennett 1986

Elementals MM20-MM23  - 40mm bases

MM40 Kirin - 40mm base

MM38 Iron Bull - 40mm base

 Pre-slotta Citadel Goblins - Post 4 

Night Goblins

First Compendium C13 Night Goblins 1983

and

C27 Goblin Fanatics (Set of 7) 1984 

- Click on the pics to enlarge -

When I started this set I mounted them in recessed 25mm round bases, the same most of my pre slotta figs not destined to line up on a battlefield, thinking they would not number enough to make up a unit for play.

Then TOW came out with its bigger base size and I thought - Ok I can can set them up as a unit with a custom tray and include the fanatics. 

I had started painted them in typical warm green tones (go back a couple of posts to see). But I decided these should be special and distinctive. I went with a much colder, jewel tone, black light, dark cave color scheme with glowing mushrooms in very light blue green that seems difficult to photograph. 

The mushrooms are 3d prints from Epic Basing

Since releasing fanatics doesn't reduce the unit size I needed some fillers for the goblins careening across the battlefield - more mushrooms painted larger. As a testament to my slowness I understand the recent TOW addenda nerfed the number of fanatics before I could get them to a game and I now only need two fillers.

Anyway, please pay attention and be distracted by this crazy unit of night goblins and its amazing potential to cause havoc (while I line up the perfect charge for my 12 wolf chariots).

The miniatures are all pretty much as they came (apart from the bases and basing) except that one of the C27 fanatics had a boomerang. I decided this didn't fit my theme and sculpted it into a moon with green stuff.

That's 52 Pre-slotta Citadel goblins painted so far and about 30 based and started, but I'll be taking a break from goblins to keep that fresh.  Also on my paint table at the moment - more monsters mostly old ones, NPCS of various vintages and scales, gaming plastics old and new and a project I'm calling Mordheim the Restoration - taking my battle worn Mordheim  buildings and giving them some love.  

Citadel's Preslotta Goblins - Post 3 - Box sets

It nice to start the year with a couple of sets that get you solidly into your annual painting goals.

Regiment of Renown - RR3 Groms Goblin Guard

1984 (4 unique figures) 

Box set - SS4 Goblin Raiding Party (10 figures) 1982

Eight of these figures have shields

    Two other preslotta goblins have exactly the same shields

 Evil Leaders 1982 Goblin Chieften

and the C13 standard bearer shown in the first compendium

Which make a raiding party (or regiment) of 12