Category Archives: Warhammer Fantasy Battle

Warhammer Old World Empire Halberdiers Made to Order

I love that Games Workshop are bring back some of the old oldhammer style Warhammer Fantasy miniatures as Made to Order for Warhammer the Old World. One of the most recent batches was a number of Empire infantry units – halberdiers, archers and handgunners – all painted in a lovely yellow and red for the Made to Order photos.

I had a go at recreating this look on one of the halberdiers. I am slowly working my way through a unit – but the puffed landschekt style sleeves are a little slow to paint :(

Also included an old photo of some originals from 4th edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battle – one a halberdier in the colours of Hochland and the other a handgunner in the colours of Talabecland.

Hope you enjoyed my attempt at painting up one of the Warhammer Old world Empire Halberdiers made to order miniatures.

Wargaming, Warhammer Fantasy Battle, Warhammer The Old World

Orc and Goblin Tribes: Goblins Primed and Basic Basing Done

May 10, 2024 Mark Leave a comment

Just a small update to keep the Warhammer The Old World Project fresh. The 5 goblin archers I started with the other day are now primed using Vallejo brush on black primer and I have given the bases a coat of Vallejo German Black Brown Camo – my standard basing base colour! And the bases have been edged with Steel Legion Drab.

Now to decide the paint scheme! My first consideration was the skin tone. Green of course, but what kind of green. I toyed with the idea of a light green – as seen on Age of Sigmar Orruk Kruleboyz – but decided that might look a bit weird with a mass of rank and file troops, so I will be sticking with a fairly standard green. Ideally aiming for something like this from the Warhammer website:

Other colours are probably going to be quite muted greys and browns. I toyed with the idea of them wearing Khorne red trousers or shirts, but decided that might look a bit too garish. Anyway the first 5 goblin archers will be a good test of the colour scheme and can always change it up for the rest of the army.

Wargaming, Warhammer Fantasy Battle, Warhammer The Old World

Warhammer The Old World Project

May 8, 2024 Mark Leave a comment

Welcome to my Warhammer the Old World Project. This is a series of posts that will follow my journey as I build an army for the new game.

Warhammer Fantasy Battle or Oldhammer as it is now known was one my favourite games back in years gone past – 2nd and 3rd edition games or Orcs Drift and McDeath were what I grew up on. So excited to see that Games Workshop have gone back to the Old World with a new rules set. From what I can tell it’s a mash up of a number of different variations of Warhammer Fantasy Battle with some new nods to historical wargames in there as well.

Anyway to cut to the chase I decided to build a new army for the game. With some trepidation I decided to take the plunge and go for the new basing rules – 20mm is now 25mm and 25mm is now 30mm for instance. I didn’t like the idea to start with, being used to my old metal 1980s miniatures on 20mm and 25mm bases, but when I saw the actual size of the figures I can understand why, not sure how they actually managed to get them on the old smaller bases – the figures are the same ones as were produced for 6th edition I think.

Orc and Goblin Tribes Army Project

So where have a I started? As modestly as possible I aimed to create a 1000 point Orc and Goblin Tribes army, with the aim of being able to play some small games at home or to play bigger multiplayer games with friends, and then at some point expanding it out to 2000 points. 2000 points seems to be the sweet spot from what I can see so far.

So the starting point for that was logically the Orc and Goblin Tribes Battalion Box. First off I decided to start small and simple and build 5 of the goblin archers. They come 5 to a sprue, so building and painting 5 at a time seems the most logical thing to do. Here’s the first 5 built and with some old Citadel sand recently glued on. Next step will be priming and then working out what paints to use!

First time with these miniatures and although I love my old 1980s orcs and goblins a lot these newer ones have a goofy comic book charm of their own. I think I am going to enjoy painting them.

As my Warhammer The Old World project gathers pace I will be posting about how I painted the miniatures and also the units and army list I will be playing with. Hopefully these updates will appear on a regular basis!

Warhammer Fantasy Battle, Warhammer: The Old World

Warhammer: The Old World Which Factions to Choose

June 7, 2023 Mark Leave a comment

I’m a big fan of older editions of Warhammer Fantasy Battle, having started gaming and miniature collecting when the 2nd edition came out and then carrying on playing with the 3rd edition before taking a long break. Just when I got back into gaming I found out that the Old World was about to be destroyed and that it was all Age of Sigmar. I’ve collected, painted and played Age of Sigmar, and it’s OK. The game mechanics are actually really good and the games generally fun. The detail and design of the miniatures are awesome. But for me nothing can beat the nostalgia of those earlier days or Warhammer and the more traditional fantasy armies and battles. Ranked units of goblins and dwarfs, elves and men etc.

That’s why I’m really excited that Warhammer’s Old World is now coming back. A few years it was a vague rumour about square bases and a few teasing maps, but now there are more and more details and it looks like it should be out maybe later this year with any luck.

Now that it’s so tangible I have started looking at my own collection of figures and started to think about what faction I might get behind. Empire of Man fits quite well with what I have but I’m always keen on Orcs & Goblins too. Perhaps the whole lot? Who knows. More thoughts on this soon. And hopefully some more info from Games Workshop about what’s coming to help me decide!

Games, Miniatures, Wargaming, Warhammer Fantasy Battle

Slaughterpriest with Hackblade and Wrath-hammer

Image June 6, 2020 Mark Leave a comment

Here’s a Slaughterpriest with Hackblade and Wrath-hammer that I painted up a while ago. Colour scheme is similar to the standard bloodreaver one.

Games, How to Paint Miniatures, Wargaming, Warhammer Fantasy Battle

How to Paint Shields for Wargames Miniatures – a great tip

June 4, 2020 Mark Leave a comment

I have recently been painting some freehand designs on miniatures. This post isn’t about how to paint designs like those, but how to make a fairly standard design look more realistic. I have an Orc archer with a simple quartered design on shield, but I was concerned that it looked a bit flat – it’s quite hard to add highlights to a flat image – well for me anyway!

So I did a bit of Googling and found this great tutorial on how to add realism to shields on the Pinman Miniature Painter blog. The idea is that you can add marks where the shield has suffered damage from people hitting it with swords. It’s quite a simple technique but really adds to the look of it I think.

Here’s what I managed to do as a first attempt on my Orc archer.