HarrowHyrst – Forest Wyrm
In addition to the Treeman and Griffin, I just had to have the Forest Wyrm when Trish announced it. He has a name, Quercus, and is called either Forest Dragon or Wyrm. Yet, per definition of "dragonoids", he would count as a Drake (four legs, no wings), not a Dragon (four legs and two wings) or a Wyrm (giant serpent, no legs, no wings).
Quercus is a multipart resin kit with a 100 x 50 mm laser cut mdf base. Very clean cast, various casting aids from little stubs to rods, but no air bubbles and minor flash.
Quercus consists out of four parts, Head, front legs, body with right leg and tail with left leg. The casting aids are well placed, so that you can remove them without causing damage to the model or sculpted areas.
HarrowHyrst – Treeman and Griffin
Today for something special. It has been a while, since I've been gifted miniatures by my parents (actually, the very first Warhammer box I owned, was the Blood Bowl set for Christmas in the 90s), so I was very happy and surprised, when I received these for my 38th birthday back in September. Heartwood, the Treeman Elder, and Mockmoon, the Griffin, by HarrowHyrst Miniatures.
But why am I so excited about these miniatures by HarrowHyrst? Well, HarrowHyrst is not just any miniature company capturing the vibe of Middlehammer, because the person behind HarrowHyrst coined that era - Trish Carden (Morrison). She sculpted a lot of the larger creatures, monsters and mounts of many heroes of the Old World, not just in the era of Middlehammer but in the early 00s and for Forge World's Warhammer Forge as well. And "before" that, Trish, together with Aly Morrison, founded Marauder Miniatures in 1988, whose range were sold and later integrated by Citadel Miniatures.
Middlehammer – Skaven Rat Swarms
Since I've ordered and covered the Made-to-Order classic Skaven characters from the Middlehammer era of the 90s, I was able to get my hands on some original rat people from Citadel to build a small skirmish warband around.
This gives me the choice to have two small packs of vermin warriors, led by a champion each and some characters. But as we are talking Skaven here, we need some rat swarms. In the classic Warhammer Fantasy battles, you had giant rats that you put on 40 x 40mm square bases. The ones shown in the second picture are the later 6th-ish edition rats, a bit more in line with each other compared to the earlier Oldhammer ones, and of course more variety than the swarm pack plastic ones.
Necromunda – 1995s House Orlock Gang
I have finished a Middlehammer Chaos warband, I have finished a 90s Blood Bowl Chaos team and now it is time to jump into Sci-Fi. And what better miniature stock to do so by taking a look at Necromunda?
Necromunda has roots in the Rogue Trader era as well. Not entirely unlike Blood Bowl, it had a predecessor. In this case called Confrontation (not to be confused with the game by Rackham), which wasn't released as a boxed game but as published across multiple issues of the White Dwarf Magazine in 1990 and 1991 (Mordheim initially went for a similar approach and was published across multiple issues in White Dwarf until it was released as a boxed game). Confrontation shared a lot of similarities with Necromunda, like the gang warfare setting in a Hive City, yet had a different design approach, as you can see from the artwork and miniatures.
Necromunda – Outlanders Stock
I went over my Necromunda Underhive stock and did an update to the 2021 article, as I managed to complete large part of the collection, extending into the Outlanders supplement as well as beyond. From the core collection, I'm only missing a single Goliath ganger and I'd like to share the status quo of the extended Underhive collection.
Just to bring you up to date, a brief repetition from the last article: What is Necromunda about? It is a 28mm skirmish between the street gangs of the bigger Houses on the planet Necromunda, fighting over supply contracts, mines and facilities. And all that in the underground of a megacity (so very 2000 AD) in the Warhammer 40.000 universe. With the character / gang development it even included a narrative part, to tell the story of your own gang, with all the ups and downs that belong to it. And that narrative part is simply the cherry on top of that old school goodness.
Imperial Fists – Supremacy Force
With the last puzzle piece added to the collection, I have the core of what I "need" to recreate the Imperial Fists Supremacy Force from the very last moments of the 2nd Edition of Warhammer 40k.
This bundle was 65 GBP / 249 DM back in the day (that massiv uppricing in Germany, as the 65 GBP were only about 190 DM - anyhow the German price was EUR 127,31, or EUR 179,39 with inflation) when it was released in August 1998 and introduced in White Dwarf issue 224.
Blood Bowl – 1994s Chaos All-Stars Team
I've talked about the start of a new league franchise, and while the team owners are battling over which Chaos team will start in the new CBL (Chaosbunker Bloodbowl League), let's see how the roster is set up.
The league is set up around the miniatures from the 3rd edition of Blood Bowl, which was released in 1994 and partially updated beginning in the 2000's. Blood Bowl was a side-game produced by Games Workshop directly back in the day, later moved to Fanatic Games / Specialist Games and nowadays split between Games Workshop and Forge World.
The initial White Dwarf issue was UK Issue #174 in April 1994, to introduce the new boxed starter game and retiring the 1987 boxed set, that was quite popular, covered plastic miniatures, had an astrogranite matchfield and even a Dungeon Bowl supplement, that added even more plastic miniatures to the game.
Somewhen back a lot of years ago, I got one of these for my collection, but during slimming down my stock I handed it over to my oldest wargaming buddy Indigo. But one item, that I'll always cherish is my first ever wargaming boxed set, a german copy of the Blood Bowl boxed set, that I still own. I managed to keep it complete, yet a bit beaten around the edges, but hey, it's in my collection for 25 years and the components used over and over again.
The true meaning of X-Mas … erm Warhammer
While I was looking for some special interest content / ideas, I browsed through my copies of the Citadel Journal and some of the articles, especially the conversions, reminded me of something, that often gets lost in the nostalgia of Middle- and Oldhammer.
I am looking online for the last missing pieces, a few poses to give my squads more variations and such, and I came across people who are collecting boxed as new kits and blisters (sic!). And while I can absolutely understand paying an extra dime for untouched and especially complete miniatures (just calculate the effort to strip painted miniatures and the time, costs and chances to get your hands on that missing bits), I honestly don't understand the appeal of collecting sealed blisters (unlike let's say action figures, you're just looking at a few grams of metal, a base and a sponge), to a degree keeping the boxes (they have the original artwork, are nice to look at, but keeping them sealed? yeah ... no).
Oldhammer – The Hunt – 2021 status
While consolidating and taking stock, I made the decision that I wanted to keep the scope of my collection to the mid to late 90s Games Workshop miniatures. I narrowed it down to certain projects and evaluated, which to complete or sell off.
The original idea was to write about "the hunt" for Old- and Middlehammer, which I started in 2019 with a brief introduction on how to start your project and to scope it. The ongoing process of sourcing your stock / the needed miniatures was covered in two more articles, one rather generic with basic information and another focused on the Imperial Guard. From there I went on and covered the progress, introducing the individual units, with detailed information on design, alteration, prices and so on - for example with Chaos Space Marines. And all that went more or less well until early 2020.
It is not that I lost interest on continuing the series or stopped the projects. It is primarily due to the fact, that the circumstances have changed so much, that it is rather difficult to write about something, like price values or suggestion, that aren't reliable or useful at the moment up until the unforeseen future. And it is not a single incident, more a rather unlucky combination of multiple things, that lay heavy on our small niché hobby.
Reinforcement straight from the foundry
I usually pick up Wargames Foundry at shows likes Crisis or Salute, but with the lack of shows "lately" I went for some direct ordering. As I have friends in the UK, I'm able to order without the hassle of customs and fees. These were ordered in April, Foundry did a great job having them delivered only a few days later within the UK, and I only recently came around to arrange the hand over. So that's only a solution for some non-time critical items, never the less - let's take a look at what I got myself.
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