Elric of Melniboné

It is the colour of a bleached skull, his flesh; and the long hair which flows below his shoulders is milk-white. From the tapering, beautiful head stare two slanting eyes, crimson and moody, and from the sleeves of his gown emerge two slender hands, also the colour of bones

The last bonus theme of the Painting Challenge was "antihero". It was also the price paid to join the challenge, as each participant must donate one painted antihero of our choice to Curt.

This artwork adorned the wall of my bedroom in my pre-teen years

My choice was an easy one; I would pick *the* antihero of fantasy literature, the White Wolf himself, Elric of Melniboné. For many gamers, the fantasy bug came courtesy of J.R.R. Tolkien's Bilbot or Lord of the Ring. But for me, the love of the genre started after reading Michael Moorcock's Elric Saga. To this day the six first original books are probably the novels I have read the most often in my life, and I still pick them up once in a blue moon. It probably also explains my love of Warhammer Chaos (heavily influenced by Moorcock's work).

The story of Elric, last emperor of Melniboné, is one of life and death, fate versus free will, evil vs good and of course Law versus Chaos. Bound to Stormbringer, a weapon he loathes but needs, Elric tries to bring morality to a life which should be devoid of the mere notion.

Plagued by his destiny, the things he tries to control have quite often been decided by higher powers. A tragic figure, but a fascinating character. A true antihero.

The figure I chose, Elric the Whitewolf, is a figure from Citadel, released in the mid-eighties to be used with the "Stormbringer" roleplaying game as part of their "Eternal Champions" range.

It is I believe pretty rare and often fetches 15-20$ or more on Ebay. Of all the figures I gave to Curt for this challenge, it is the one I'm most attached to, but I know it will have a good home and Curt definitely deserves it!

I shall end this post and this year bonus round themes with my favourite last line of any novel, the last line of "Stormbringer" :

"Farewell, my friend. I was a thousand times more evil than thou!".

Battle for the sarcophagus; a Realm of Chaos battle report

Chaos is a ladder

Last week I had some grand visit as Jean-Baptiste Garidel (also known as JB Assless, of the blog Leadplague) came over from France for a game and a beer. Yes, people will cross oceans to play with me! Well...that and his sister-in-law happens to live in Montreal.

So the day was spent talking about miniatures, the good old days and of course we had to play a game of something Oldhammerish. We decided to go with a small Realm of Chaos Warband clash. You can read about the Duke of Blangis, JB's Slaanesh Champion (and warband) here. As for me, I created a Chaos undivided warband using figures from my Chaos army.

The warband of Doran Greenskull

The man himself

Doran Greenskull, Chaos Champion

Human, level 15 hero.
Armed with chaos weapon, chaos armour and shield (3+ save).
Mark of Chaos Undivided
  
Chaos gifts: Chaos armour, Chaos weapon.
Chaos attributes: Cloven hooves, powerful legs. 

M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	LD	INT	CI	WP
4	5	4	4	4	3	5	3	9+2	7	8+1	8+1

And his retinue...the Marsh Horrors

9 Beastmen

4 Chaos Dwarfs

and last but far from least, the mascot of this company of death, "SlobberPuke", affectionately nicknamed "Slobby"

Before the game started, we rolled for our chaos weapon, and my character got the "Skeleton horde" blade, which I thought worked quite well with his bone armour.

We played using the detailed narratives of Realm of Chaos, more precisely the "sarcophagus" scenario.

You can find the Slaanesh version of the events on JB's blog

Before we start, let's take a minute to admire the brave combatants fighting for blood and glory

JB, in front of his depraved warband

Me, in front of my black & green servants of Chaos

 The table was a small 4x4, representing a forest with a tall Chaos monolith in the middle.

I positioned SlobberPuke (the troll) on one flank, my dwarfs on the other, and in the middle my Beastmen and my Champion. The goal was to reach the monolith with the beastmen, while SlobberPuke would scare anything in front of him and my Champion, hidden behind the beastmen, would challenge the Duke to an easily won combat. Easy as pie, right?

The warband of Doran GreenSkull, son of Chaos

The warband of the Duke of Blangis, servant of Slaanesh

The warband starts moving, as even SlobberPuke remembers to go forward

It started bad early, as in the second turn, before I thought it was necessary to hide my champion behind the Beastmen, the dark elves crossbowmen managed to wound him (who had a 3+ save) from long range! After a nice start (first turn), the Troll forgot where he was and got lost looking at the...oh is that grass...

The dastardly Slaanesh wizard then decided to cast "Pavane of Slaanesh" on my poor Beastmen, rendering them useless as they started to dance (and knowing Slaanesh, god knows what else *shiver*).

Me : "So, how long does that spell lasts?"

JB : "Let me look in RoC. So it lasts...all game"

(ouch)

The Slaanesh minotaurs quickly move next to the monolith

I tried to hide my remaining dwarfs from the murdering crossbows while still (slowly) advancing them and l also kept advancing Doran and SlobberPuke towards the Monolith.

Robbed of the protection of his trusted Beastmen, Doran uses the monolith for cover

On the other side, the Minotaurs wasted no time and reached the Monolith, while the Slaanesh cultists, probably drunk on hedonistic drugs, made the mistake of getting a bit too close to the troll, who, sensing a good dinner of white meat, managed to find the intelligence to charge!

The crazed (and very nicely painted) Cultists of the Duke

The Cultists, completely unaware of the Troll fearful appearance, did not flee and stood their ground.

Doran Greenskull, meanwhile, extremely frustrated at seeing his loyal Beastmen reduced to nothing more than "So you think you can dance" contestants, got around the monolith in an attempt to get in position to charge and cut in half the depraved Duke.

So close...

And then once again the Chaos Gods, fickle masters, abandoned their servant. The three dark elves managed to hit him twice, and twice the Champion of Chaos missed his (very good) saving throw. That was too much for the already wounded Doran, who fell on the ground merely inches away from his target.

Oh the tragedy!

Angered beyond reasons to see his beloved master lay motionless on the ground, a proud chaos dwarf charged the decadent sorcerer.

Vengeance!! Cried the skull masked chaos dwarf

On the other flank, after quite a few minutes of pushing back and forth with the cultists, Slobby (the troll's nickname) found his groove and started eating cultists with appetite. The cultists stood their ground as their numbers kept dwindling. "Hmmm...Slaanesh Cultists"

Hmmm...weren't there 20 of us not long ago?

Never ones to give up, a single dwarf, his brother massacred by the unsporting crossbows, managed to reach the dastardly elves!

Vindication! The dwarf kills one of the dark elves. Ha!

The Minotaurs finally managed to open the sarcophagus, exposing what looked like a magic sword (which turned out to be a daemon weapon!), and then turned their attention on the poor lone dwarf facing the Slaanesh Champion. The Duke managed to deliver the final blow to the dwarf, and to Doran's ego. The battle was lost...

The poor little guy stands no chance...

Conclusion

Doran and his followers managed to escape while the Slaneesh fiends danced and rejoiced in their master's victory. While Doran himself avoided any serious injuries, being only knocked unconscious from an arrow hit to the helmet, others in his warband were not so lucky. Poor Blightaxe, one of the four dwarf, died from his wounds not long after the battle, may he rest in peace. Another of his comrade caught an infection, and was never exactly the same after that (-1 T). But the Beastmen escaped without a scratch...ahem...

As Doran exited the forest, he cursed under his breath "Next time, sorcerer, next time..."

Post-mortem

• Well it went about as bad as it could've for Doran Greenskull. The lack of magic and long distance weapons really hurt him, especially combined with some bad luck throughout the game. At one point SlobberPuke managed to get a "1" (only score needed to fail) for his strength roll three times in a row, while the cultists succeeded numerous rout rolls. And the troll still managed to be by far the most useful member of the warband!

• It had been a while for both JB and me since we had played a WFB game (well in my case since playing unmodified 3rd edition rules). It reminded us of some of the things that did not work very well. For example needing a "5" to hit when troops with identical WS face each other. Or the lack of combat results modifiers to LD during melee. These put together meant the Cultist vs Troll battle literally lasted forever.

• And then of course there is the magic, always so unpredictable and powerful. The spell against my Beastmen meant a quick defeat for me! As JB said, nothing is fair in the Realm of Chaos. Next time, I will split my Beastmen into small units. Lesson learned! 

• It was good clean nostalgic fun and JB was a very good guest. Hopefully I will get a chance to get my revenge one day, although there is literally an ocean between us. Can't believe this is 2015 and we have neither flying cars nor transporters! Get your shit together, science!

• JB came to Montreal with a surprise gift for me; the Oldhammer Goblin, the limited figure sculpted by the master Kev Adams for last year's BOYL (Oldhammer day). I'm collecting a Kev Adam 4th edition goblin army so it was just a perfect gift! Thanks again JB!

Oooh...shiny

•  JB got his first taste of real poutine as we went for dinner after the game in a traditionnal Montreal "casse-croute" (fast food restaurant). Since he finished the whole plate (and the accompanying two hot dogs) I assume he enjoyed it!

• It really does take forever to write an AAR

The Manticore

A triple row of teeth meeting like the teeth of a comb, the face and ears of a human being, blood-red color eyes, a lion's body, inflicting stings with its tail like a scorpion...with a special appetite for human flesh!

One of the things I love about the old Warhammer editions is the numerous monsters available. It is perfectly acceptable to have in your army a few of them, from good Elementals to various Chaos creatures. As it should be, really, I mean we are talking about a fantasy world goddammit!

Citadel produced a number of monsters in the 80s, and of course Chaos being the favourite child (lets not kid ourselves here) a wide selection of Chaos critters were sculpted. Many of these were stand alone beasts, and not the mandatory heroe's mounts like we see today. They were also often of "normal", as in "human" size. The following Manticore is such a sculpt. It was designed by the master Jes Goodwin in the mid-80s and is probably my favourite Manticore sculpt to this day. A good Manticore should always look like its in a very bad mood and this one fits the bill!

It is smaller than the recent offering by GW, but to me the Manticore was never meant to be a gigantic beast. I was surely influenced in this view in part by the well known cover of "The Shamutanti Hills", from the Sorcery! series of Fighting Fantasy books. A creature doesn't have to be the size of a Dragon to be terrifying!

The Manticore has the body of a lion, a human head with three rows of sharp teeth (like a shark), bat-like wings, and a trumpet-like voice.

I went pretty conventional on the painting, with a classic beige for the lion body and some dark purple for the wings and scorpion tail. I did modify slightly the position of the wings, I just prefer the look. I love the animation of this model, I find Jes Goodwin has really nailed the feline slow and predatory walking stance.

The base was made with cork, accompanied by the remnants of a skeleton to add a little atmosphere to the piece (he is a man eater after all).

Another nice addition to my Chaos bestiary. In my young days, I used to be afraid of painting these creatures, but they are a lot of fun and a great change of pace between unit painting. After painting a Griffon and now a Manticore, I'll probably need to paint a Chimera soon, I figure!

This piece was entered in the recent Analogue Painting Challenge Bonus Theme Round. This round's theme was "myth", so the Manticore, originally a myth of Persian origin, where its name was "man-eater", fitted perfectly. If you like him, you can encourage one of your fellow Oldhammerer by voting on the page previously linked. You'll also get to see a bunch of fantastic entries.

Collecting Oldhammer : 3rd edition fantasy rulebooks

A few weeks ago I sent over to a member of the Oldhammer Facebook community, by way of Vermont (long story), a few OOP GW inks as a Christmas gift. I rarely use inks nowadays (washes or AP) and Don was out of his favourite inks so I figured it was an opportunity to do a good deed, Christmas spirit and all.

Don returned the favour right away, sending me Warhammer Siege as a new year's gift! Let this be a reminder to all of us that it pays to be generous!

So yeah, it took me over twenty years but here they are, the complete collection of rulebooks made for Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3rd edition. Well, I've had 4 of the 5 since my early teens, but never got around to getting Warhammer Siege. It was a lot of fun reading for the first time a 3rd edition rulebook! I'm glad I have the two RoC books already, as they are going for some insane prices on Ebay (still worth it, though. Yes they are that awesome).

The 3rd Edition really is the edition of my youth and the one that represents most Oldhammer to me. I started playing around 1989-1990, a few years before the 4th edition came along, and although I played a lot of the 4th (High Elves vs Goblins, anyone) the one which made an impact on me most was definitely the 3rd. I was also playing a lot of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay at the time, and the two mixed really well together. In fact, I believe I got Realm of Chaos originally as a supplement for WFRP. You can see from the corners that these books have seen a lot of action, although incredibly my Slave to Darkness copy still has its dust jacket 25 years later! 

I played a LOT of this game. Does it shows?

This is the first part of my collecting of Oldhammer books. I'm working on acquiring the earlier editions as well as the complete collection of WFRP books 1st edition. I sold a long time ago the few WFRP supplements I had, and my rulebook (in french) is literally in shambles! So I would like to get a copy in better condition, in the original english version.






 I also have a few of the 1st edition 40K (Rogue Trader) rulebooks, and *that* is a testament to my hoarding disorder! I haven't played in 20 years, I've sold or lost all my figures during the dark days of my late teen years and yet...I. just. can't. get. rid. of. it. I just know if I sell them I'll regret it!

MM43 Chaos Champion on War Griffon

When I first read the descriptive for the latest bonus round for the Analogue Challenge, "mounts and rider" I immediately decided there would be no way I would submit a boring horse and rider! I'm knee deep in Oldhammer at the moment, so obviously It would have to be a hero mounted on some kind of exotic monster! 

I settled quickly on my choice; the "MM43 Chaos Champion on War Griffon", a classic Marauder Miniatures multi-part kit released in 1990. I was, and still am, a big fan of Marauder Miniatures, and this piece is no exception. A nice Christmas gift to myself!

 

The original WD advert

I will admit it doesn't really fit in the rest of the Realm of Chaos range, it seems almost too clean and the Griffon looks more "Empire" with the tassels and all than Chaos. But at the same time difference is what makes Chaos, and the Champion definitely looks the part! Heavy nostalgia love factor for me in this one.

It took me some time to find one at a decent price, in fact I found it barely two months ago, and the one I got was still in its original blister. And yes, I did what some may consider heresy and opened it and painted it! I'm a collector, but dammit miniatures are meant to be painted and loved and played with! The assembling went better than anticipated (heavy wings are a serious pain to glue!) although those early pieces are always tricky.

You rarely see it painted, in fact I've only seen three painted examples, and that's including the one painted in 1990 for the White Dwarf advert (see above). I painted the Champion's armour a bright colour, in this case green (I think those who follow my blog have noticed my army's green theme by now!), which is something you would often see in the golden age of Warhammer. The Griffon I painted a bright palette, too, mostly of white, green and red. I'm really happy with the way the white fur came out, I think I nailed it.

Not very evil colours, maybe, but the early Warhammer Chaos colours were all over the place and that's something I loved. It's Chaos, not undead! I'm quite happy with the way he's come up, even though I find the photography don't do justice to the red wings at all. I glued the rider in a slightly different position than he was meant to be, so he seems more in attack mode (the original position looks a bit likes he's sitting comfortably on an Elran couch, I have to admit).

I just need to find a proper name for the Champion and his mount and he's ready for combat! Suggestions?

(And happy new year to all!)