Tag: Oldhammer

  • A Tale of Four Gamers: Gozo Edition – The Journey Begins

    A Tale of Four Gamers: Gozo Edition – The Journey Begins

    Warhammer: The Old World has arrived, and with it, four wargamers in Gozo are diving into the ranks and flanks of classic fantasy battles. Some of us are returning to a game we played decades ago, while others are experiencing the magic of square bases for the first time. What we all share is the same goal—to build, paint, and play with fully realized armies in The Old World.

    Each of us has chosen a faction that reflects our playstyle, from the disciplined ranks of High Elves to the savage raids of the Beastmen, the righteous charges of Bretonnia, and the cold-blooded precision of the Lizardmen. While some of us are assembling brand-new armies, others are restoring classic collections from Warhammer’s past.

    At the heart of this project is the drive to build a Warhammer community in Gozo. Noel is already playing at The Realm of Pure Fantasy in Malta, but the rest of us are still deep in the assembly, painting, and learning phases.

    The first goal is simple: 1,000 points per player, ready for battle. Noel may be the first to get a fully built 2,000-point army on the table, but who will be the first to get a painted unit finished?

    Meet the Players and Their Armies

    Matt – The Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Turned Wargamer

    Matt is completely new to Warhammer, but with years of experience in Dungeons & Dragons, he’s no stranger to rolling dice and strategic thinking. Drawn to the glory of Bretonnia, he’s starting fresh with the Kingdom of Bretonnia Army Box.

    His Knights of the Realm, Pegasus Knights, and Archers are fully assembled, but his main challenge lies in painting Bretonnian heraldry. Determined to match the box art, he’s set himself the ambitious task of freehanding intricate knightly designs—a daunting process, but one that will make his army stand out on the battlefield.

    His army is fully assembled, and he has started painting his first knight, but he has yet to play his first game.

    Michael – The High Elf Revivalist

    Michael is no stranger to Warhammer, having played Dwarves and Bretonnians in past editions, but this is his first time commanding a High Elf army. His project is a mix of classic 4th and 5th Edition models, including vintage metal heroes, plastic regiments, and an original 1990s High Elf Spearmen box.

    Unlike the others, Michael has already rebased most of his infantry while still in the USA last year, but he still needs to finish rebasing and rebuilding his cavalry. He also has a few sprues of 4th Edition Archers and Spearmen to assemble before his army is complete.

    At the center of his collection is his fully painted High Elf Lord on Dragon, a standout piece that sets the standard for the rest of the army. However, since the dragon isn’t in his first 1,000 points, his priority is getting Spearmen, Archers, and Bolt Throwers ready for the table.

    Instead of spending weeks layering and highlighting every robe and armor plate, Michael is using Contrast Paints to quickly achieve an old-school aesthetic. With this method, his High Elf Spearmen could be the first fully painted unit in the group.

    His Lord on Dragon is painted, and his infantry is mostly rebased, but he still needs to finish assembling and rebasing his cavalry before playing his first game.

    Noel – The Veteran Beastlord

    Noel is the most experienced player in the group, having played competitively in Malta’s Warhammer scene before The Old World was even announced. He’s already playing regular games at The Realm of Pure Fantasy, meaning his Beastmen lists are being refined through actual battles while the rest of us are still getting armies together.

    His army is growing fast, featuring an almost absurd number of Tuskgor Chariots, Chaos Spawn, and a Bray Shaman. He’s also waiting on a Jabberslythe, a terrifying monster that will add fear and disruption to enemy forces.

    If anyone is going to have a fully built 2,000-point army first, it’s Noel. However, while he might have the first fully assembled army, he’ll likely be the last to finish painting it.

    Most of his army is built and primed, but nothing is fully painted yet. His first games have already been played, but his first painted unit remains a work in progress.

    Slawek – The Brewery Warboss

    Slawek is returning to Warhammer after years away, but The Old World is completely new to him. He’s also taking a different approach—his Lizardmen will be using a legacy army list, meaning his force will play differently from the standard new TOW lists.

    His collection is a mix of metal, plastic, and resin models, featuring a Slann Mage-Priest, Saurus Warriors, Skinks, Cold One Riders, Temple Guard, and a Stegadon. But his biggest challenge isn’t painting—it’s deciding on a color scheme.

    The one thing he knows? His Lizardmen won’t be blue. What color they will be is still undecided, but with so many options—red, green, purple, albino—he’s taking his time choosing the right look for his army.

    His army is assembled, but rebasing is still in progress, and he has yet to play a game or settle on a color scheme.

    What’s Next?

    With Noel already gaming in Malta, our next step is to get our first games going in Gozo. Our first matches will be learning games, helping Matt and Slawek get familiar with The Old World rules, while Michael and Noel test their armies’ strengths and weaknesses.

    At the same time, the hobby race is on—who will paint the first fully finished unit?

    Matt’s knights will take the longest but will be some of the best-looking models when finished.
    Michael’s Spearmen might be the first painted unit, thanks to his Contrast Paint method.
    Noel could speed-paint some Beastmen, but he’s more likely to just keep assembling chariots.
    Slawek’s Skinks could be the surprise winner—quick to paint and easier to finish than larger Saurus Warriors.

    Even though legacy factions won’t be getting an army book, they’re still fully playable, which means Slawek’s Lizardmen will be a force to be reckoned with once they hit the table.

    Will the Bretonnians hold firm against the Beastmen charge? Will the High Elves outmaneuver their foes? Or will the Lizardmen reclaim their rightful place as the true rulers of The Old World?

    Stay tuned as our armies take shape and the first battles of Gozo unfold!

  • Recreating Classic Oldhammer Forests with K&M Trees

    Recreating Classic Oldhammer Forests with K&M Trees

    Recreating the iconic Warhammer battlefields of the late 1980s and early 1990s is a cherished endeavor for many enthusiasts. Central to this nostalgic landscape are the distinctive bottlebrush-style trees that once adorned Games Workshop tables. As a child, I couldn’t afford the official GW trees, but after acquiring a few in a trade, I realized I needed more—lots more—enough to keep a Wood Elf happy. This quest led me to discover that many of these original trees were produced by K&M Trees, a company still operating today.

    K&M Trees, based in the UK, has been crafting high-quality model trees since 1966. Their products have been widely used in railway modeling, dioramas, and architectural displays. Notably, they supplied the distinctive bottlebrush-style trees with flocked conical shapes that became synonymous with Warhammer’s classic terrain. These trees were a staple in Games Workshop’s studio battlefields and featured prominently in publications like White Dwarf.

    After extensive searching and delving into various forums, I discovered that K&M Trees were the original manufacturers of these iconic pieces. A discussion on the Oldhammer Forum confirmed that many of the trees seen in classic battle reports were indeed made by K&M. Similarly, a thread on DakkaDakka highlighted different sources for Warhammer trees, with multiple users praising K&M for their authenticity and quality.

    Armed with this knowledge, I decided to purchase a large batch while living in the USA. They were perfect for capturing the look of classic GW battlefields. If you’re outside the UK and looking to order, you’ll need to email them directly to arrange shipping—they’re super friendly folks and happy to help.

    Recreating the look and feel of classic Warhammer battlefields is all about authenticity and nostalgia. Using K&M Trees lets you bring back the exact style of forests that graced Warhammer tables in the 1990s—without resorting to overpriced eBay listings for vintage GW trees. With a little effort, you can build forests that feel right out of White Dwarf #150, perfect for battles in the Old World.

    If you’re looking to build your own Oldhammer forests, check out K&M Trees’ full range here.

  • Oldhammer Style Bretonnians for The Old World

    Oldhammer Style Bretonnians for The Old World

    I started playing Warhammer Fantasy when I was 10 or 11 back when it was the tail end of 4th edition and Bretonnians had been squatted for a while. I’d grown up with all the Arthurian tales as a child and fell in love with the few photos of the early quasi historical Bretonnan armies that featured in the color pages of the rule book, but never thought I’d get a chance to actually own or play them.

    When 5th edition came out, I had a small Bretonnian army with Louen Leoncoeur, the Lionhearted, Bertrand the Brigand and the Bowmen of Bergerac, Morgiana le Fay, Fay Enchantress of Bretonnia and of course the plastic knights and bowmen that came in the box set. Being a young kid in New Zealand, I couldn’t afford what was needed for a full army especially once the exchange rate, postage and taxes were taken into account, and that was if I could find them in stock at Pendragon Games (I believe this was before Games Workshop opened a store directly below them in the MidCity Center).

    Life got in the way, I became a teenager, discovered girls, then paintball and the warhammer was mostly sold off (though recently my old neighbor Andrew told me he has a bunch of my old stuff in storage, though it might be mostly orcs and goblins – I’ll have to dig it out next time I make the 20 hour+ flight from Washington DC to Auckland) and I didn’t get back into wargaming properly till around 2017.

    When The Old World was announced, along with the new Bretonnian models I decided I wanted to build a Bretonnian army, though I wanted to make it all (or as much) metal as possible. Thankfully Brian Ansell and the team at Foundry Models still have most of the moulds for the 3rd Ed models (you can find them in the Ex Citadel, Early Medieval / Barons Wars / The 13th Century, Wars of the Roses / 15th Century Men at Arms, Medieval Cannons where most, if not all were sculpted by the Perry Twins. You can also find some more modern sculpts over at their sister website Casting Room Miniatures.

    I’ve picked up a bunch of stuff including bowmen, men at arms, peasants, nobles, cannons, foot knights which should keep me busy for quite some time.

    I’ve been scrounging around and managed to find some of the old GW 5th edition metal models for characters and a metal trebuchet and decided I wanted to occasionally add a bit more pythonesque flavor to the army so picked up a bunch of the Medieval Mayhem models produced by Hayland Terrain. I think these will make great unit fillers including knights and their coconut carrying squires, the black knight and the three headed giant.

    I’m starting work on the infantry as they are the only ones where I know the base sizes for the new version of the game (25mm), so far I’ve got through a couple of units of archers, a sorceress and a knight. The new edition suggests that knights will run varients of their lords heraldry, so I’ll probably keep most of them to a Blue and Red color scheme. As usual everything is painted using a airbrushed Zenithal prime, white drybrush and citadel contrasts/army painter speed paints. Banners will use a variety of historical banners that just “look good” if I can find them on the internet.

    I was really happy to find the 5th edition models for Bertrand the Brigand, Gui le Gros and Hugo le Petit. I think they work well with the unarmored archers to make up a unit of Bowmen of Bergerac or Herrimaults.

    Now that the NOVA Open is over I’ll have some more time to paint, so hopefully the rest of the army will start to get some color on it over the winter and will be ready to play once the Old World hits (whenever that is). Now all I need to know is what size bases the knights actually go on!

  • Horus Heresy/30K: Squat Militia

    Horus Heresy/30K: Squat Militia

    I’ve always had a weird obsession with Squats. They were one of those armies that I just missed as I got into 40k during the tail end of 2nd edition, and never really saw them growing up in New Zealand. But there they were – sitting in index imperials.

    I started a “Squat Gang” using the venator rules with a bunch of converted Khadaron Overlords around 2018. Later on GW/ForgeWorld released a few squat Dramatis Personae: Grendl Grendlsen, Squat Bounty Hunter and Ragnir Gunnstein, Squat Ammo-jack which were some of the first new squat models (outside of White Dwarf special edition models) in close to 25 years. The followed up with a squat miner gang the Ironhead Squat Prospectors, the Claim Jumper and the Vartijan Exo Driller. Don’t get me started on Leagues of Votan, while I have the box set – they don’t really count as squats to me.

    I’ve also been slowly collecting a Squat Epic 40k force.. but thats for another blog post.

    Last year I started taking an interest in Horus Heresy, and headed down to the Board Room in Arlington where the Victory Gamers crew were playing some narrative games, where one of the armies was a chaos cult force. After a few too many beers, I learnt about the V1 Cults and Milita rules where you had the option to run Abhuman Helots and Survivors of the Dark age rules to respresent a squat force with higher WS, T and lower M & I + RT era Rhinos (I’d picked up 17 of them in a trade recently so neededa project to use them on) and Land Raiders.

    I’d quickly bid way more money than I’d ever admit to my wife on a massive ebay listing but it included a tonne of bikes and trikes, some of them still in blister packs. This was followed up by two more ebay purchases of old GW and Iron claw squats that left me with a decent sized squat force.

    Next up I wanted to add a land train, so off to Ramshackle Games where I picked up Minimumus Squat’s Bounty Hunter Crew as well as a bunch of bikers and Jetbikes. I’m a big fan of his vehicles, though the bikers do come in a little bit smaller than the old squat bikers and the resin is an absolute PITA to glue together – something that can be solved using super glue accelerant such as that from Bob Smith Industries.

    I’ve also added a variety of third party space dwarves such as those from Ninjabread/Ontos Games, Macrocosm, CP Models and Satyr Art Studios. I’ll probably grab some of the Kev Adams space dwarves (and more importantly – arms) from Uscarl Minis as well. I seem to always miss out on the notifications whenever Magglet releases a kickstarter though!

    All up I’ve probably sunk over $2500 USD into the army so far, and I can see it growing… but its something you won’t see on any other gaming table – virtually anywhere else in the world. I’d guess that its the largest RT Era squat army in the USA, or at least close to it!

    I worked out a rough color scheme I wanted to use for the standard infantry, something that was fast to paint (there were going to be a lot of them) and matched the early art on the boxes. A quick zenithal airbrush followed by a drybrush in white, Iyanden Yellow for Helmets and Gloves, Blood Angels Red and Dark Angels Green for their uniforms and Snakebite Leather for Hats, Webbing and Boots.

    Next up is one of two squads of Thunderers. In this case 10 heavy weapons teams armed with Lascannons. I’m currently in the process of painting an identical squad of 10 armed with heavy bolters as well as miscellaneous armed with other weapons such as missile launchers, conversion beamers and grenade launchers from Citadel/GW as well as 3 bases of mortars from Macroscosm and a RT Era Mole Mortar.

    This unit in Resin will most likely be used as a command squad or similar depending on what rules I’m using and came from a kickstarter called Röknaut Space Dwarfs by Ontos Games that are loosely based on the unreleased 2nd edition Squats that never quite made it into retail. I’d have preferred them if they were slightly smaller and in lead – but they are a good “in between” for newer GW squats and more old school ones aesthetic wise.

    These guys are mostly GW/Citadel/Ironclaw squats by Bob Olley and were part of one of the ebay purchases I got last year. I’m quite happy with how they were originally painted, so I kept the paint job, added a wash and rebased them all so they were consistent with the rest of the army. The only downside was the seller packaged them very poorly, and a number of multipart ones arrived broken or chipped and I have no idea what the matching paint colors are to touch them up.

    More from the same purchase, such as living ancestors, hearthguard, a squat mechanicus, and guildmaster engineers. Again I’ve stuck with the original paint scheme on these.

    More GW/Citadel/Ironclaw/Olley squats – painted up in more modern contrast paints to get them ready for the NOVA open in a rougly similar scheme to the older ones. I’ll need to do a darker wash over the blue and purple at some stage to tone them down, but I’m quite happy with how they turned out. I use them as Militia Grenadiers, Medics and Characters.

    Some characters I purchsed from Macrocosm, but are a mix of Macrocosm and CP Models Runts. I’m currently using them a Commissars/Discipline Masters or other Characters. I’ll most likely buy a bunch more from CP Models as I’m a real fan of these sculpts.

    Squat beastmen from Macrocosm. I’ll likely buy some more of these and am also painting up a heavy weapons team. These will do double duty when I start building out my militia beastmen army next.

    Trikes with a quick and dirty/unfinished paint job to get them table ready for NOVA Open. Still need a lot of work done on them, but am currently running them as proxy “sentinels” for my 30k militia list.

    Bikers which also need a bit more work to finish them, but good enough to play at NOVA. I’m currently using them as militia cavalry/rough riders for 30k. I’ve got a bunch more in resin from Ramshackle games if I want to have even more bikers for additional mobility.

    And heres how I ran them at NOVA Open, with Grenadiers (anything painted blue and purple) in the Rhinos, using the Ramshackle land train as a Malcador tank with Battle Cannon, Demolisher Cannon and heavy flamers and an Armorcast baneblade in support + some more abhumans in the ogryns and ratlings.

    Theres a lot more to come and I’ll probably update this post as more gets painted and I add to the army. Let’s see your squat forces in the comments.