Tzeentch has many Silver Towers floating through the Mortal Realms, but the one I am building is full of throwbacks to a time when metal miniatures reigned supreme. Welcome back to my Silver Tower of lead.

The initial spark that led me on a four-year quest to reconstruct the Silver Tower game with 1990s lead miniatures was two of the tiny familiar miniatures – instantly recognisable as reimaginings of Citadel classics from days of yore. I’ve painted a complete set of modern plastic versions, and a complete set composed of 1980s/1990s analogues.

The CH5 Lune Familiar is an adorable moon-headed mook who was reborn in plastic complete with his original moon on a stick, tintinabulous jester shoes and scowling moonface.

The CH5 Walking Book Familiar was a perennial favourite of Warhammer players, popping up as a wizard’s helper in Chaos and non-Chaos armies for years. I’ve not thought of anything high concept enough to paint freehand on the pages of the plastic version, so I’ve left them blank for now. Maybe I will leave it blank forever and claim it’s an unwritten journal.

The small Lord of Change (Lord of Small Change?) was probably originally sculpted as a 6mm Epic Greater Demon miniature, but rolled into the CH5 Chaos Familiar range for the 1991 Citadel Catalogue Section 2. I’ve painted mine in orange and turquoise to match my 28mm Greater Demon. The new plastic version takes the mini Greater Demon vibe even further, having been written up in the background as a mischievous sprite with the delusion he’s an actual Lord of Change.

The fourth and final Silver Tower familiar, Slop, is a subtly different kettle of fish to the others – inspired not by a CH5 Chaos Familiar miniature but by Mordheim’s leitmotif of mutant fish artwork or old Ian Miller illustrations. I’ve painted the plastic Slop’s the tail with a Rainbow fade to match Blot.

That’s another adversary group ready for Silver Tower. You can see Brimstone Horrors here, Light Wizards here, Light Acolytes here. Tzaangor here and Deathrunners here. Time to start work on the next of the nineties nasties.

Ninjabread out!

Q. What do you get if you cross a Chaos Centaur of Tzeentch, and a zebra?
A. A “Tzebra”.

Presenting Tzebra Doomstripe, the latest monster to swell the ranks of my vintage Warhammer collection.

This tzoological monstrosity was my entry into the “Make a Trish” competition in the Oldhammer Community. Challengers had a month to model and paint a Trish Carden miniature, and the Mistress of Monsters herself would pick a favourite.

Tzebra is not one actually one Trish Carden monster, but two mashed together. The MM94/1 Chaos Centaur Lord was a metal human torso designed to be fitted to the standard plastic Warhammer horse torso (henceforth: “horso”). But the plastic horso had spindly legs that looked wrong with the human torso’s majestically beefy barbarian arms, so I decapitated Trish’s MM83 High Elf Unicorn and used it as a replacement horso. This new unicorn part is, importantly, also saddle-free – Tzebra is a Lord of Chaos and tolerates no riders upon his horso.

To nudge Tzebra into Tzeentch’s visual territory, I swapped his barbarian broadsword for a scratch-built khopesh. His helmet plume was switched for a plastic Ork topknot, whose flowing lines better matched the new unicorn tail. Historically, these helmet plumes were made from dyed horsehair, meaning Tzebra has made a hat decoration out of his own bodyhair.

The skin was painted light blue at first (using a modified version of the Ur-Ghul recipe Patreon backers have access to), and had dark blue strips added afterwards. I did a digital mockup of the colours to experiment with continuing the zebra strips onto the human elements, and also to work out if the blue and white stripes that worked in my imagination would look too “Bananas in Pyjamas” (thankfully not).

Tzebra didn’t win Trish’s competition, losing out to Jonathan Marshall’s atmospheric Albion Fenbeast. You can check out a gallery of all the entries here . Thanks to Asslessman for organising the competition, and Trish for judging and providing the prize.

More tzany Tzeentch creations coming soon!

Back into Tzeentch’s Silver Tower! But this is not just any Silver Tower, this is a Silver Tower stuck in the past – when metal miniatures reigned supreme. I’ve painted six Citadel Tzaangor from 1990 – the greatest of all times. (Ha! Sly goat reference!)

These are all wonderful Bob Olley sculpts that are packed with weird and flamboyant details like the exotic head-dresses, ornate armour, and bizarre codpieces. Two of the Tzaangor in the range didn’t see release as their obscene helmets were spotted in time. (You can see the notorious unreleased versions at CCM.)

Tzaangor have “brightly colured or exotically patterned fur” according to Realms of Chaos, so I went for an unnatural turquoise colour. I’m unsure if the combination of bright colours and smiling anthropomorphic animal fuzz pushes them into My Little Pony territory, but hey ho! Their armour is blue and gold to give off an Egyptian-cum-Tzeentch vibe, and two have horns in alternating stripes like a pharoah’s head dress. There’s some minor weapon swaps to bring them in line with the Silver Tower game requirements, and one has a Light Acolyte sword to show they’re part of the same force. The Marauder shield with the serpent motif (thanks to Mr. Saturday for sending me them) further echoes the Light Acolytes whose staffs and belts feature a snake motif. Chaos Snakemen will have to be part of this force in the future!

That’s twenty-six of the vintage Silver Tower denizens now painted (Skaven here, Acolytes here, Light Wizards here and Horrors here). Now I can convert a classic Ogre into the Ogroid Thaumathurge – watch this space!

Albion Truthsayers: the most predictable opponents in “Truth or Dare”.

The Albion Truthsayer is a standing-stone-cold classic of a miniature from Warhammer’s Dark Shadows mini-supplement.  The 2001 campaign booklet featured rules for you army to be joined these warrior-wizards (or their arch-nemeses, the Dark Emissaries) while they fought their way across the mysterious island of Albion to thwart (or aid) Warhammer’s newest mega-villain: the Dark Master.

The Truthsayer, interfering with one of the many barrows on the Isle of Wights.

I had a lot of fun modelling the base to make it look like the boggy fenlands of Albion.  The owl (from a Wood Elf kit) is a reference the “Wings of Fate” spell that let the Truthsayer summon a flock of enchanted birds to peck at his foes.  The sculpt itself is packed full of Celtic-style details: a spiral skull carvings, gold neck torque; spiked barbarian hair; bronze triskele medallion.  As a geek of ancient trappings I get super excited about it appearing in Warhammer.

When it comes to prehistoric jewellery, Curis not only walks the walk, but torques the torque.

This miniature is one of my favourite Citadel Miniatures of all time – not least because if you clip off his basing tab and peek up the loincloth you can see the sculptor’s – Chris Fitzpatrick – signature.  I can’t think of any miniatures signed in this way since Citadel’s preslotta days.

Cheeky Albion Truthsayer upskirt shot.

Albion Skin Painting Tutorial

One of the popular requests on the Ninjabread Patreon is “how do you paint skin”?  I photographed the Truthsayer between steps so supporters can follow along and learn how to paint flesh in this style.

Become a supporter today and you’ll get access to this in depth masterclass tutorial, and not one BUT TWO guides on how to paint your power armoured Space Marines.

That’s it for today’s visit to Albion.  What’s next – perhaps the evil Truthsayer?  Or the Fenbeasts?  Or the Giants of Albion and their Druid?  Or maybe delving even further back into Albion’s past with the LE8 McDeath’s Crazed Caledonians?  Watch this space…

This miniature is a mystery – an unreleased Warhammer treasure from the vaults of Citadel Miniatures.  Who is he?  Why have I got (perhaps) the only casting in existence?

Could this be a dark horse on a dark horse?

This casting was a gift from Marcus Ansell of Wargames Foundry (thanks Marcus). The tab (“GENERAL” and “ ©  GW 1987″) shows its provenance as a piece of classic Warhammer – but beyond that everything else is a mystery.  Who sculpted it?  What range was it destined for?  Why was it not released?

“A horse, a horse, my Romano-Germanic kingdom for a horse.”

The vibe of the figure is more historical than fantastical – the moustache, crested helm and scalemail give it a very Romano-Germanic kingdom vibe.  It feels like an Alan or Michael Perry sculpt judging by this face and care put into the armour detailing.  In fact it’s a bit too historically accurate to fit in with Citadel’s F3 Barbarian or F6 Barbarian Raider ranges, or the ADD21 Advanced Dungeons & Dragons mounted barbarian.  The closest thing released by Citadel are the F7 Mounted Barbarian Raiders.

F7 Mounted Barbarian Raiders.  Image from solegends.

The Mounted Barbarian Raiders were released at a time when the line between historical and fantasy figures was blurred, with Warhammer’s Empire, Norse, Bretonnian and Dogs of War ranges doing double-service as various historical Europeans.  It’s conceivable that Citadel had plans for a Warhammer race with a strong Romano-Germanic design elements, and this General was a testpiece.

I gave my General one of the F7 horses as it’s coetaneous, and he deserves a bodyguard of these classics at a future point.  I modelled the horse forward on the raised base so that when the planned regiment ranks up he will ride slightly above and ahead.

Then as I was researching colours a thought struck me.  Is this mystery figure a … Blandford Warrior?  He fits beautifully with the released Blandford Warriors in terms of style and scale.

The 13th (Blandford) Warrior.

The Medieval Warlords book comprises seven chapters each detailing a different warlord, and Games Workshop released miniatures for only six of these characters.  The warlord that appears as a chapter but not a miniature was Genseric – general of one of the most famous Romano-Germanic kingdoms.  I think this figure could be him.

Genseric led the Vandals from the heartlands of the crumbling Roman Empire to Africa and around the Mediterranean region until they stormed Rome itself, looting its treaures. The incident stuck in the West’s poplar imagination, and ever since the word “vandal” has been a byword for destroying property.

Genseric sacked Rome until politely asked to stop it by Pope Leo I, AD455.

I used the Karl Briullov painting above as the basis for my miniature’s colour scheme.  I love the satanically-black horse implying he’s the Pope’s archnemesis – but the menace is rather undermined by the pink leggings and ruby red shoes.

I painted the shield with an Arianist symbol – I’d like to stress this was the form of Christianity that took off in the Romano-Germanic kingdoms and was named after Arius and NOTHING TO DO WITH ARYANISM.  (After all those “arian symbol german” google searches I think I’ve been put on a list.)

Genseric and his bucellarius on the outskirts of Carthage.

Not Genseric.

Regardless of the figure’s true identity, it’s now definitely part of my Late Imperial Roman army and will get some outings in SAGA when I’ve painted enough for a 4-point warband … coming soon.

If you’ve got any theories or information on the figure, please please let me know in the comments.

It’s Age of Sigmar time!  Here’s a nine-strong cluster of Grot Scuttlings from the modern (gasp!) Warhammer Quest Silver Tower game. There’s only eight in the box, but I painted a bonus one as PRAISE BE TO TZEENTCH.

Spider-Grots, Spider-Grots, manufactured in Notts.

Mashing together Night Goblins with sp-sp-spiders puzzles me – Forest Goblins were the spider-flavoured Goblins from Warhammer, so it’s confusing the themes.  Like mashing up High Elves with leafs.  Or Khorne Berserkers with sonic sex-weaponry.  It seems Gee-Dub haven’t continued the arachno-trend with the subsequent Night Goblin (or “Moonclan Grot” as they’re now called) releases, and these spider-hybrids (“sp-ybrids”?) are confined to Tzeentch’s Silver Tower.  Moonclan have found their feet, and it’s not eight-a-grot.

Spin a web any size, catch Orruks just like flies.

To emphasise the Tzeentchian nature of these Scuttlings I avoided the classic Night Goblin black-robes-green-skin scheme and went for pale blue flesh and vivid purple robes.  My Silver Tower 1990s project will feature Scuttlings converted from the classic Kev Adams Night Goblins, and they may borrow this scheme to reinforce how they’re not your standard Night Goblins.

Painting Tutorials

Thanks to everyone that’s backed the Ninjabread Patreon!  It’s going amazingly well and I’m thankful for all the comments and support.  Last month’s installment went in deep on how to get crisp highlights on Crimson Fists power armour.  This month’s will walk Patrons through another model, teaching you how to shape your miniatures with midtones, and it will also go into depth with tactics on line thickness.

Normal Oldhammer service will resume shortly with some charmingly vintage Bob Olley Tzaangor.  Have fun!

I’ve finished painting ALL the Shadespire Orruks! A whole plastic force, fully painted, with modern miniatures, for a current Games Workshop game. WHAT HAVE I BECOME?!?!  Gods of Oldhammer, I have forsaken thee!

Ironskull’s Ironjawz tearing up the Realm of Shadows.

Initially I planned to just copy the ‘Eavy Metal banana-yellow paint scheme, but I switched the Orruk fleshtone from green (which sits awfully with yellow) to a nicely contrasting purpley-brown.  I blocked out the basecoats, confident I could ignore Jean-Baptiste’s “never go full banana” advice.

Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring banana phone orc.

Basha was the first Orruk I painted to completion – and he took bloody ages.  Yellow is notoriously translucent and takes a lot of layers to build to a strong colour.  Bright colours also show up the flaws in the shading and highlighting.  Pity anyone that’s doing an entire horde army of these buggers in yellow.  Although I was pleased with the brashness, I needed da boyz on the gaming table, and wanted to slash the time spent on them.

Basha and Gurzag Ironskull.

Gurzag and the other Orruks had their armour colours reversed.  The dark steel colour is simply drybrush, wash and a quick edge highlight in bright silver.  It takes a fraction of the time of the yellow as there’s no glazing of midtones to eat through time.

I spent a bit of the time saved putting flames on Gurzag’s cloak.

Reducing the amount of yellow makes the Orruks look far more menacing, and gives what yellow is there greater impact. Basha’s all-yellow scheme does push him towards looking like a kid’s toy, or a construction vehicle.  Which I quite like anyway.

Bonekutta and Hakka.

I had a lot of fun with Hakka, freehanding the flames onto his shoulderpads and jaw.  He’s my favourite miniature in the gang as the colour scheme draws your focus towards his head and cool mask.

I’ve really enjoyed painting these, and like that they’re instantly a finished project, ready to rumble against the likes of asslessman, Tears of Envy and Mr Saturday.

Lemme know which version of the yellow scheme you prefer in the comments!

A child-aged Curis attempted to paint the single Skaven Clanrat from 3rd edition Talisman.  The paintjob went so badly it’s taken over twenty years before an adult-aged Curis returned to painting Skaven miniatures.

Double Dragon Rat.

This is classic Jes Goodwin Deathmaster Snikch.  Twice.  The left-hand one is painted as a straight copy of the 1993 ‘Eavy Metal scheme; the right-hand one is painted in the 2009 ‘Eavy Metal scheme used on Seb Perbert’s redesigned Deathmaster.  Seb followed Jes’ original sculpt so closely that porting the new scheme onto the old miniature felt like being on auto-pilot.

‘Eavy Metal Deathmasters.

But why paint two of a unique special character?  Well, Snikch and Snikch are standing in as the Deathrunner and his illusory double in my Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower project where every model is replaced with a 1990s equivalent.  Snikch kept his exact location a secret to spread maximum fear – I’m imagining an illusory double as a manifestation of this Snikchitsu.  The rules for the Deathrunner mean he’s an absolute fiend, so it’s apt to represent him with this Herohammer icon rather than a standard 1990s Skaven Assassin miniature.

Ninja Skavens put the “rat” in karate.

The Snikchs took less than an evening each to paint, which I found surprising as they’re super-chunky miniatures and packed full of detail.  I think the damage and wear on the second-hand castings (particularly noticeable on the triangular shuriken) stopped me being overly fussy with highlights.  And the bulk of the miniature is a big black cloak – black being one of the quickest colours to paint.

The Ninja Chaos Thug trying to work out which of the Ninja Rats is real.

There’s twenty retro miniatures so far in the Silver Tower project!  Check out the 1990s Pink, Blue and Brimstone Horrors here.   Check out the 1990s Kairic Adepts here.  And check out the 1990s Kairic Acolytes here.  Coming soon – fur and gold.

I like to think of Light Wizards as jobbing professionals and their Acolytes as bumbling apprentices.  Here’s a bumble of Light Acolytes – one of the obscurest units in Warhammer of editions past.

Left to right: Donkor, Aswad, Llam-Cheops, Wiss Qeb, Khontar and Wankh.

Two poses of Acolyte were released in April 1993 alongside the Light Wizard on foot. Empire player could buy them in units of five at 25 points to accompany a Light Wizard.  Rules were that if you deployed the five Acolytes in a pyramid formation (Light Wizards being all Egpytian and therefore pyramid-themed) with the Light Wizard at the apex you got an extra Winds of Magic card.  Now, I read “deployed in pyramid formation” and think this:

NAILED IT.  One bonus Winds of Magic please.

But no, they didn’t mean human pyramid formation, they mean 2-D triangle formation, as you can see in the iconic Gathering of Might battle report photo below from White Dwarf 181 (1995).  This unit in this battle report puzzled child-Curis as Warhammer Armies: The Empire didn’t contain any rules for it – it’s only now in 2018 that I know they had to be conjured up from the pages of the Warhammer Battle Magic supplement.

Spot the pyramid.

The majority of my Light Acolytes had been rescued from someone that got halfway to converting them into Necromunda gangers or Warhammer 40,000 cultists – their hands and weapons had been hacked away and replaced with autopistols, stubguns and the like.  This meant there was no guilt at despoiling vintage miniatures for the sake of bringing their weaponry in line with the rules of the modern Warhammer game.

Lazuli spearheading the official and far less silly pyramid formation.

Yes!  Modern Warhammer!  (As if the 32mm rounds bases weren’t enough of a clue.)  These figures have been specifically modelled as Kairic Acolytes for Silver Tower: two with hand weapon and shield, two with double-handed weapons and two with pairs of hand weapons.

I originally restored the Acolytes back to Warhammer Fantasy with contemporaneous 1990s Citadel weaponry, but it looked bad.  There was no Egyptian weaponry (it wasn’t until 2003 that the Tomb Kings range appeared), and so I suspended my Citadel-components-only rule and bought some WarGods of Ægyptus bits from Crocodile Games.  This does annoy the Citadel purist in me, and to get back to sleep I tell myself Crocodile’s Chris Fitzpatrick did a stint sculpting for Games Workshop.

Silver Tower madness at Knavecon 2018.  Pat, Bruce, cheetor and yours truly looming over our various creations.

To get even more gaming use out of the figures I’d like to paint another three to make a full official Warscroll for Warhammer Age of Sigmar.  I’ve also got plans for them in a series of summer Mordheim games, where they’ll be fielded as Brethren in a Possessed Warband.  Watch this space!