Bryan's cabinets of...Oldhammer!

Bryan Ansell provided a marvellous selection of figures to display at the Oldhammer Weekend at Foundry, all carefully arranged and displayed by his son Marcus. A took quite a few photographs, some of which have appeared previously on this blog, others have not. I'll let the pictures do the talking, but see if you can spot the Blanche-painted Runequest Troll...(hint: it's not in the "Blanche" section).

Undead

Citadel box set scenarios: useful Oldhammer inspiration

Back in the early 1980s Citadel Miniatures produced a number of box sets of figures, several of which came with insert sheets detailing specific scenarios and/or character stats designed for use with the associated boxed figures. This post presents, to my knowledge, all of the inserts together with a review and a discussion of their use in Oldhammer. If you do have any inserts which I have not covered I would love to hear from you.

There are quite a few inserts and it might take a little time to read them all in detail. If you are an Oldhammer devotee and are short for time I would recommend you read the Chaos Marauders insert first, which is a great example of the ethos of what it meant to play Warhammer at that time.

The Oldhammer ethos permeates many of the inserts, which I've tried to highlight in my introduction to each, and I've also picked out some of my favourite features of the various scenarios and character profiles provided. I've been deliberately vague about the details of the various scenarios, in case those reading wish to play them for themselves. The inserts can be seen in detail on a Scribd link I have provided at the end of this post.

(Note that "Toughness"  in early Warhammer was designated by letter, and not number, in case you get confused).

The  inserts are from the following sets (the contents of each box can be see on the excellent Stuff of Legends):

Bryan's cabinets of chaos 2

So the good news is that I've got loads more pics of Bryan Ansell's figures, enough material to keep this blog going for a good few months!

Today's post will be taking a closer look at some of the figures from Bryan's now famous chaos army that appeared in the Warhammer Armies (1988) book. Bryan is currently homing the majority of these figures in his display cabinets, but there are remnants scattered in his figure drawers that have yet to make it to display. By the way, he's hoping to bring this army to the Oldhammer Weekend.

The exact figures from Bryan's army are scattered among other chaos and non-chaos figures from the period. If you are feeling particularly beardy why not get out your copy of Warhammer Armies and see how many figures you can spot?

In this post I'll be showing some pics of the main bulk of the army, the Broo (plus some preslotta beastmen), plus some of the army characters. I've taken pics from slightly different angles: my photography skills aren't great but I hope these pics are good enough for you to get a feel for the oldschool charm of the figures. The Broo figures are derived from the following Citadel ranges: C38 Beastmen; Runequest Broo (loose/blistered figures); Runequest Broo Box 3 (v2) Attack of the Broo; Runequest Broo Box 4 (v1) with separate heads and weapons (a great set for conversion possibilities); and Runequest Broo Box 4 (v2) with fixed heads and weapons.

Bryan's cabinets of chaos

In my last post, private wierd (check out his blog if you want to see some truly inspiring Oldhammer battle scenes) asked if I could post some more pics of Bryan's chaos army from the Warhammer Armies book. I couldn't find any more images from the Armies book on my PC, but I did find pics of some of the chaos units currently on display in Bryan's cabinets, which I'd like to share with you. Bryan's display cabinets - as I'm sure you can imagine - are seriously impressive.

(Incidentally, if you're planning on getting married then you could do a lot worse than hire Stoke Hall as a venue. If you're now wondering, "Where the hell did that comment come from?!" - Stoke Hall is Bryan's home and its where these cabinets are on display, which wedding guests are able to view.)

A couple of shots, mainly of beastmen, to start with. Not all of the figures on display here are Citadel but most are:

Paint your beastman

Over in the B.L.O.O.D. forum and across the bloggosphere, ascendent chaos captains are beginning to nail their colours to the mast for the forthcoming Oldhammer Weekend over at Wargames Foundry. Will it be Khorne? Will it be Slaanesh? Or will you - ahem - swing both ways? In true chaos style you may choose to rebel and align yourself to one of the other Great Powers - some putrescent Nurgle perhaps? Or if you really can't decide then Tzeentch may be the one for you... Whatever chaos god you choose to align with, a staple troop choice of many a chaos warband will be the humble beastman. There's a 30% chance you'll acquire some beastmen each time you roll on the retinue table, if that's the route you decide to take in generating your warband.

OK, let's assume you've decided to stick with convention in this Slaves To Darkness anniversary year and go for Khorne and/or Slaanesh. What will be your colour scheme? According to John Blanche (and let's face it, he's the man in the know):

"A livery mainly composed of the martial colours (red, black and brass) suits the followers of Khorne perfectly, whereas Slaanesh has pale skinned followers bedecked in pastel shades, offset by shiny black leather and studs."

If you decide against these colour schemes, then good for you - your place in the pantheon of chaos will be assured. If, however, you decide to follow tradition and John's suggestions you'll be following in the footsteps of the great and the good. Let's take a look at some of the colour schemes evident in Bryan Ansell's collection.

First up is Khorne:

Kill, kill, kill, kill...