… and his name was Guthrum Mane

As you perhaps may have seen, I have been very slowly painting the miniatures belonging to the Orc’s Drift campaign and in fact, I was really considering this project finished as I have finally given up on finding the Hagar Sheol miniature. While painting the minis for the campaign my little gaming group has played all scenarios except the last one. The first scenario I think we even have played three times and I have been using a very nice old, giant for this, serving as the drunken Guthrum Mane.

There is little chance for me playing the scenario again anytime soon, but some time ago I got hold of the mini suggested for the campaign as Guthrum Mane and he has now been staring at me from his cave in the lead mountain for a while. Finally I succumbed to temptation and painted my Guthrum in order for him to join his fellow minis from Orc’s Drift.

The mini, as you probably all know, was one of the first, if not the very first miniature sculpted by Kev Adams to be put in production by Citadel back in 1985. It is listed as a ‘giant hill troll’ and despite the rather crudely sculpted face I really love this mini. It has so much cool old school oddness to it. I love the lumbering pose and general dismal look, topped by the mask-shaped knee protector all kept in a not too cartoony style.

Guthrum has been painted by many and you will find a lot of great Guthrums on the web. I followed the idea of others and put him on rocky ground. It suits the model nicely. all in all i am very pleased with how he turned out. Now he can return to his cave and wait for some action to come his way.   

I hope you like him.

 

Gobbos of the Crooked Claw

Here is two goblins sculpted, of course, by Kev Adams for the now defunct Crooked Claw Miniatures. While in action Crooked Claw released a number of fine gobbos and I think Adams did a great job at creating some very colourful and nasty looking greenskins in the style he is known for today.

The two in this post, I guess, were probably produced around 2012. I bought a number of the gobbos from Crooked Claw back then around ‘13 and I almost think that these two were the last single models left unpainted.

There is not that much to say about the minis themselves. The minis are very well produced and they are fun, wicked chaps, which I had a great time painting.

 

Orcs once again

As mentioned previously I am all about painting greenskins at the moment for a scenario we are playing later this year. So, as said, be prepared for a number of posts about orcs and goblins on the blog. Hopefully you won’t find it too dull. While I usually get bored when having to paint large numbers (more than four or five really) of the same type of minis in a row, the greenskins do a lot to help prevent burnout due to their fun, diverse nature. The orcs or goblin of the Perry’s and Adams are really an eclectic bunch when it comes to physiognomy and general look. Thus all one has to do is to vary the skin tone in order not having to paint the same green again and again and each orc and goblin by this really turns into a little world of its own; a quality which is lost in lost more recent greenskin models, I think.  

What we have here in this post is troopers from two Citadel speciality sets. First up is an archer from the Harboth’s Orc Archers box, released in that golden year of ´87. I really love this set and always had a thing for bow units.

The second orc is of course from Ruglud’s Armoured Orcs, also produced in 87. I like the armour and iconic, weird helmet on this one, but his face is definitely not, at least to my mind, Kev Adam’s best work. Nevertheless, I think the troopers from this set work very well as a special unit. Their heavy armour does make them stand apart from most others orcs produced during the same era, making them really useful when one wants to portray a special, hard hitting unit, veteran troops or such things. Good stuff.

To base or not to base?

I am pondering a little problem at the moment. It has been quite some time since I ventured into painting any fantasy war machines, but I am now working towards finishing an old project of mine (more about that at a later stage), which involves a goblin stone thrower. For this I roughly two years ago got my hands on the lovely Skull Crusher, sculpted by the one and only Kev Adams and released in 1986 as part of the Machineries of Destruction series. Cool stuff.

The Skull Crusher box cover

Now, as suggested by the title of this post, my problem is if I should base stone thrower or not. I’m really in doubt here as both solutions have benefits and drawbacks. To base it would allow me to do all sorts of fun things with the model as a whole and turn the thing into a little mini diorama, just like Mr. Adams did when he painted the Skull Crusher himself for the box cover.

The Skull Crusher as painted by Kev Adams. Lopvely, lovely Work in his classic style. Photo by Steve Casey.

However, these bases can be slightly clumsy in actual gaming situations and somewhat limit the integration of the model on the table. For instance, the classic problem of wanting to put the stone thrower on a hill, but the base is too big for the hill, while the model as such alone would fit nicely. You know the problems. And then there of course also is the crew – should they be integrated into the base or not?

So many decisions to make.

If you have any advice, let me know, I would be glad to hear it, while I slowly start prepping the model.

 

 

How very 90’s

One of the things I bought in Hamburg two weeks ago was this unopened blister. A “Dark Goblin Leader” sculpted by Kev Adams for his fantasy–line produced by Heartbreaker in 1994. Check out the presentation on the back of the pack. Here we find an introduction to the master himself, his likes and inspirations. We are even given a photo of the man himself with nose ring and all. Yeah, those were the grungy days. It certainly brings back memories.

Oh ya, by the way, the goblin inside the blister is very nice indeed. A perfect champion of some sort.  I wonder how much the other minis from this line cost on Ebay. This one I got dirt cheap; 1 euro. Certainly a fair price!

And if you wonder what his taste in music sounds like, you can sample what I believe are the mentioned Spacemen here: