This 2-volume book arrived in the post yesterday.

"Talking Miniatures" , by John Stallard and Robin Dews, chronicles the early days (most notably the 80s and early 90s) of Games Workshop and Citadel Miniatures through interviews of many people who worked there at the time. I already read a few of the interviews, and it brings back a lot of memories and nostalgia. It is also a nice complement to "Dice Men" (by Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson), which described the very early days of Games Workshop.

I was a real GW junkie during my early gaming days. I bought the 1st edition of Warhammer when it was first published, and it opened a whole new gaming world for me (before that, I played mostly board wargames, I had'nt even played an rpg yet :-)). So many of the events and games and miniatures described feel very familiar to me, although I never knew or met any of the GW/Citadel staff. But I was an avid GW gamer (these days are long gone, I'm not the target audience anymore), and still have quite a lot of those early games and books and miniatures.

But anyway, after reading through a few of the interviews, I realized a couple of things:

• Although I didn't feel like that at the time, as a gamer I experienced a period in the history of fantasy gaming that was still very close to the early days. So perhaps I was a pioneer without realizing it ;-)
• It is stated several times that the Warhammer books (and especially the 3rd edition book) created an ideal to strive for as a wargamer: photographs of spectacular gaming tables, which were the dream of many starting hobbyists. I do indeed remember me drooling over many of these photographs, thinking it was something I could never achieve ...
• Something else which struck me, but I also never gave much thought, is that the slottabase was a very clever invention. It allowed for miniatures to be manufactured with less metal, but it also allowed for regiments to be formed in neat blocks without having to cut out one's own bases.
• Rick Priestley (one of my wargaming heroes!) mentioned that Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3rd edition was quite unplayable ... which I found very odd, because this is the edition I played many battles with., and which I felt was perfectly playable at the time. But anyway, thanks for letting us know! :-)
  

An enjoyable read, and a must for all GW/Citadel fanboyz, past or present ...

And here are some of my early credentials ... (my 1st edition box is gone, all 1st edition stuff is in the 2nd edition box ;-)).

I got some more vintage figures during the past months.

First, a couple of old pre-Slotta miniatures, from my friend Wim VdB. I particluarly like the old Slann figure.



The, some Ral Partha figures from Eric B. I still have to identify most of them, but using Lost Minis Wiki as a guide, I think not all of them are the originals that came in this box.




And finally, some GW space marines. These feel "new" to me, but by now are also already 27 years old (the box says 1993, and they appear in 1993 catalogues). These are completely in metal, and I was surprised by how heavy they are.  There were only 3 figures in the box, the others are MIA. They will be good additions to my StarMarine force for our Antares campaign, but I'll first file off all the excess skulls ;-)

Back when I was just starting in miniature wargaming - mid eighties - we invented all sorts of troop types irrespective of what the "official" army lists said. WFB 3rd edition had formulas for computing how many points troops were worth, so there was no reason to let your creativity run wild. This all changed in later editions of Warhammer, of course.

My skaven army had skaven mounted on wolves. Very uncharacteristic troop types, but I always felt skaven should have cavalry. For some reason, I always imagined skaven riding wolves.

Below some old converted figures dating back more than 25 years, but which never got painted, so I quickly gave them a basic paint coat. The wolves and bodies are goblin cavalry form the old Battlemasters game. The goblin heads were removed an replaced by skaven heads from the old Warhammer Regiments box. The weapons also got replaced by skaven blades from the boxed set. One goblin spear was left as is, to attach a banner.

Sometimes you discover something unexpected, even within your own collection.

I recently finished the 12 figures in the photograph below. I bought these as a "Pirate" set from Wargames/Guernsey Foundry in 1997, but they remained unpainted in my leadpile for over 20 years.

When I was looking through my collection of old White Dwarfs, to loop up a reference for the Knights of the Cleansing Flame (see this blogpost), I suddenly saw a picture of a fencing figure in White Dwarf 63, exactly the same figure I was painting at that moment (a remarkable coincidence, and completely true!). The photo I am talking about is the photo on the bottom-right of the page ...


Moreover, the photo on the same page, upper-right showed some more figures of this Pirate set I was painting. Quickly reading the caption, it said: "New from Citadel are their range of Rogues ..." (there is also an amusing anecdote about Steve Jackson). It is well-known that a number of old Citadel figures transferred to Wargames Foundry, and apparently, these Pirates must have done so as well.

I quickly went over to the Stuff of Legends website to browse through old Citadel flyers and catalogues, and I found a reference to these Rogues in a flyer from October 1984:


Most of the Pirates in my photograph can be seen in the drawings in this flyer, except for the two figures on the far right, the Town Lady and Powder Monkey. I haven't been able to identify them in old Citadel flyers, so perhaps these are Wargames Foundry after all, and were added to to set when repackaged as Pirates?

So, I have more vintage Citadel figures in my collection than I thought!

A recent acquisition ... an unopened blister RR10 (Avenging) Knights of the Cleansing Flame, one of the Regiments of Renown for Warhammer back in the 80s. A nice addition to my Oldhammer collection.


These are the type of figures I drooled over when I was a young wargamer, studying every detail of them in Citadel catalogues and flyers, or in White Dwarf.

Here you see the original advert, in my copy of WD 66 (June 1985):


A full history of Regiments of the Renown, and the different releases and packaging, can be read on the Stuff of Legends website.

More old miniatures ...

I acquired these as part of a larger trade (along with some 75 1980s Norse Dwarfs from Citadel) with a long-time gaming buddy. He wanted some old Magic cards, I wanted some old miniatures. No money was involved. Those deals are the best!

So, what are these?

• Citadel Giant "Nine Fingers" - advertised in White Dwarf 94
• Citadel Fimir - advertised in White Dwarf 86
•  Citadel Night Horror Vampire
• 2 Citadel Fighters - Knights of the Empire Sword 25 & Hammer 4
• Grenadier "Fantasy Lords 504 Pet Dragon"
• Ral Partha Dragon -- 11-482 White Dragon
• Grenadier "Fantasy Warriors 51016 Undead Troll"
• Citadel wizard

We have decided what our game will be for Crisis 2017. We will run the Ziggurat of Doom scenario from the first edition of Warhammer, using vintage fantasy figures that could have been used in 1983, when Warhammer was first published.

Scenario

The scenario is pretty straightforward. A large Ziggurat is defended by 6 dwarfs, who have to hold out against an attack by goblins, 6D6 in total. The Ziggurat is located in an open plain, surrounded by forest. The scenario was also slightly modified and published in White Dwarf 340, for the 25th anniversary of Warhammer.

Scenery

Luckily, I already have a big model for the Ziggurat, made for me in mid-90s, and which was based on exactly this scenario. The model has been used in various games before, but it is still an impressive model that should draw some spectators.

A first mock-up of what the table could look like is shown here. The table at CRISIS will probably be somewhat larger.


We might still add smaller scenery elements such as lichen, rocks, and various other little bits and bobs.

Figures

This is the hardest part. The idea is to use vintage fantasy figures that were around at the time of publication of Warhammer 1st edition, so the figures must be from 1983 or earlier.

First, the dwarfs. I have a couple of old Ral Partha Dwarfs from their Fantasy Collectors range. These show up in the Ral Partha catalogues as far back as 1979, so that's vintage enough.

Ral Partha dwarves from the late seventies (Fantasy Collectors, 02-03x).

Below you see some of these dwarf models on the Ziggurat. They seem rather smallish (more on that later), but I will still base them on a slottabase, so their height will increase somewhat

Dwarves on the top level of the Ziggurat.

The leader of the dwarfs is Thorgrimm Branedimm. This was a promotional figure which you could only get by using a voucher in the first edition of the Warhammer rulebook, and I guess it's quite costly to find one now. However, I have another old Citadel dwarven figure, and he looks in pose very similar to Thorgrimm Branedimm. Perhaps a little conversion might do the trick.
Update: Thorgrimm Branedim found!

Citadel dwarf in my collection (C06 Dwarf Adventurers)

Thorgrimm Branedimm

Thorgrimm Branedimm, pre-slotta

As for the goblins, I have three options. For each group, I have roughly 20-30 figures, which should be enough to populate the goblin army as per the original scenario.

Option 1: Citadel goblins. These are figures from the Fiend Factory range, and these are models FF20, FF22 and FF23. These were later also part of the C13 Night Goblins range (see also here).

Old pre-slotta Citadel goblins.

Option 2: Custom Cast goblins. These are models from "Lesser Orcs of the Red Eye" from Custom Cast, dated 1975 (more info here).

Old Custom Cast Lesser goblins

Option 3: Valley of the Four Winds Orcs.These are "Forest Orcs", once published by Minifigs, and go back to 1978.


Option 4: mix and match of any of the above ...

In any case, the relative size of the figures is also important. Below you see all figures at the foot of the Ziggurat.


From left to right: Custom Cast goblins; Ral Partha dwarves; Citadel goblins; Minifigs orcs; and for comparison, 2 later Citadel miniatures (fighter and dwarf). Note that all these miniatures are listed as "25mm". Scale creep visualized!

Rules

WFB1 rules as closely as possible. The idea is to summarize all relevant rules on a single sheet, leaving out all the rules that are not needed for this specific scenario or troop types.

No unit formations are necessary, this scenario is obviously meant to be played using individual figures. Sometimes we forget that this was a mode of playing that was still very much present in WFB1.

Pimping the scenario

We might "pimp" the scenario by using more vintage Citadel figures, especially monsters that might appear out of the woods using random event cards or something similar. Maybe my scratch-built treeman can make an appearance? Or some of the other Oldhammer monsters (see here, here, or here)?

I managed to identify some more figures from the batch I acquired some time ago (see also previous blogposts).

Some more Citadel, but rather from the historical ranges than the fantasy ranges:

• 2 figures from the Medievals range: M& Infantry in Aketon with Hand Weapons
• Dar Ages range: DA21 Crossbowmen
• Dark Ages range: DA23 Staff Slinger
• Might be a DA78 figure, but not sure

Some more Ral Partha:

•  E311, Dwarf of the Anvil
• 3 copies of E111 Halfling Esquirw
• ... both from the Wizards, Warriors and Warlocks range

And finally  3 Ninja Warriors from Dixon Miniatures:

• SN1 Ninja throwing Shuriken Star
• SN1 Ninja shooting short bow
• SN3 Ninja charging with sword

Earlier I reported on a large amount of vintage scifi and fantasy figures I acquired (read here and here and here). I managed to identify some more miniatures. I apologize for the quality of the photographs (bad shadows and some perspective correction ...).

A first group are Chronicle figures, according to LostMinisWiki: "Chronicle Miniatures was owned by Nick Lund. In the mid-1980s it was bought by Citadel Miniatures. Nick Lund went to work at the Citadel Design Studio and Citadel continued to distribute the original Chronicle Miniatures under the Chronicle brand name but these were gradually replaced with new designs. When Nick Lund joined Grenadier Miniatures to form Grenadier Miniatures UK, the Chronicle brand ceased to exist."

It took me a while browsing through the collector sites (LostMinisWiki and CitadelCollectors) before I could find them, since the Chronicle range was not well known to me. Curiously, some figures came in multiples of 2,3 or 4 castings. Since I assume they all came from the same collector, it might be he/she bought mutiples, or perhaps they were sold as mutiples in blisters or bags?

From left to right, top to bottom:

• CF3 Wizard
• CF4.v2 Illusionist with wand
• CF8 Ranger with sword, shield and bow
• CF9v1 Elf-Fighter Wizard
• CF10 Thief Backstabbing
• CF12 Assassin
• CF14 Hireling carrying pack and lantern
• CF15 Female Cleric
• CF17 Ninja
• CF19 Half Orc Adventurer with long axe and shield
• CF26 Gnome Fighter/Illusionist
• CF27 Halfling Adventurer
• CF29 Female Barbarian
• CF30 - Female Ranger
• CF32 Left-Handed Fighter
• CM14 Ghoul
• CT10 Evil Cleric

• Citadel Dwarf Adventurers - Fighters (miniature 29 here)
• Citadel Fantasy Adventurers FA 30-1 Female Ranger (here)
• Citadel FTH Fantasy Tribe Hobgoblin (here)
• Citadel SAM12 Warrior Monk with Naginata (here), weapon missing.
• Ral Partha Personalities and Things that go Bump in the Night 01-16 Beowulf Nordic Hero (here)
• Ral Partha 1200 AD - Spanish Catalan Archer 42-165 (http://www.miniatures-workshop.com/lostminiswiki/index.php?title=1200_A.D.#Spanish)
• Ral Partha Personalities and Things that go Bump in the Night 01-13 Assassin (here)
• Minifigs ORC6 Orc Hurling Spear (here) 
• Custom Cast - Fighter from 1057 The Companions (here) - obviously Boromir.

As part of a bunch of vintage figures, I also got a few minis still in their original packing. Always nice, but also always a dilemma. Should we remove them from the bag, or keep them in the original packaging as is?

Anyway, here they are:


First , a Citadel Samurai SAM2 from their old historical Samurai range.

Next, a Ral Partha Galactic Grenadier - goes well with the figures I reported on before.

And last but not least, two bags simple labeled Citadel, but which contain a cart with two horses. It took a while before I realized these might be historicals instead of fantasy, and I identified them as part of the Romans range (ARE2 - Cart with two Horses).

A wargaming friend of a wargaming friend was lucky enough to pick up a large number of vintage wargaming figures from the late seventies at a flea market. Since I'm always interested in acquiring "old stuff", I bought a number of fantasy and science fiction figures in bulk from him for a friendly price. I wasn't really aware of what was in the boxes, but that's part of the fun: trying to identity all those old figures, browsing through old catalogues and collector's websites.

A batch of SF figures was already identified in a previous post, so now it's time to take a closer look at some of the fantasy figures. Below are the (easier) ones I could identify so far.

Here's a batch of "Lesser Orcs of the Red Eye" from Custom Cast, dated 1975. The base actually says Custom Cast 1975 - so they are probably not later recasts by Heritage.


Next, there's a group of pre-slotta Citadel Goblins. More precisely, from the Fiend Factory range, and these are models FF20, FF22 and FF23. Various variants were made of these figures, but the Collecting Citadel Miniatures site was a great help in identifying these. These were later also part of the C13 Night Goblins range.


Last but not least, there's a group of Minifigs. These are:

• First 3 figures are Goblins from the Minifigs D&D range (GOB1, GOB2, GOB5).
• 4 "True Orc Archers" (Mythical Earth range, ME23)
• Hobgoblin marching with banner (HBG 11)
• 2 Hobgoblin Sergeatnt with military fork (damaged, HBG 1)
• Gnoll Chieftain w Broadaxe (GNL1)
• Knight of the Silver Rose (w Halberd, but damaged)
• Dark Ages (marking on base DA 44) - Viking Bondi

I managed to identify most of the figures mentioned in the last post. As suspected, most are Star Trek Citadel figures from the 70s, and a few Galactic Grenadiers from Ral Partha, also from the 70s.


All figure codes (ST for Star Trek, GG for Galactic Grenadiers) are shown in the image above.

One figure remains unidentified (bottom row), but he could as well be a modern soldier, not a science fiction figure.
Update: identified as Citadel Spacefarers S4 figure (see comments).

I recently acquired a batch of old SF miniatures, shown below.


I haven't managed to identify them all, but I've tracked some of them down to the Ral Partha Galactic Grenadier range, and some others to Citadel's Star Trek range. So that makes these late 70s figures.

In any case an interesting addition to my growing collection of vintage scifi figures (see here and here and here).

In a previous blogpost, I identified some very old Runequest miniatures in my collection.

They finally got painted.


From left to right: Dark Troll with large Axe, Ogre with Flail, Runner with Bow.

A couple of quickly painted Undead Samurai ...

I have these figures probably since the late 80s. They are Citadel Miniatures, and according to solegends.com and Collecting Citadel Miniatures, first appeared in the C18 range in June 1985. There are two other figures here (1st and 3rd from the right), that did not belong to this range.

According to the original names from the C18 range: Bo, Tu, Ne, Jin, Ig, Bek, Yo, ?, Jin, ?

Original catalogue image (June 1985 Flyer):

Some more pictures from my ongoing effort to photograph and catalogue my entire collection of miniatures. This time, it was the drawer that contains all Norse / Barbarians. These figures came into my collection through 2 acquisitions from ex-wargamers a couple of years ago. Hence the different basing styles.

All figures are either from the Citadel Norse/Barbarian range, or from the Grenadier Barbarian range. Especially for the Citadel figures, an exact reference is sometimes difficult, since some of these figures changed categories over the years. However, most can be located in the 87 and 88 Citael catalogues.

At the end, there are a few unknowns, so any help in identifying these is appreciated (update: one of the images has been identified as Harlequin Barbarians)

Citadel Norse with swords.

Citadel Norse with axes and spears

Citadel barbarians/Raiders - except the figure in the middle front, which is a Grenadier figure.

Warhammer Quest Barbarian

Citadel Norse

Part of the Barbarian army, but originally figures from the Citadel Chaos Thugs range.

Grenadier mounted barbarians.

Grenadier barbarian shamans.

Grenadier Barbarian archers

Grenadier Barbarian swordsmen

Grenadier barbarian command figures

Grenadier Barbarian Axemen

Unknown - possible Grenadier figures?

Harlequin Barbarians