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!

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.

The Citadel Miniatures Chaos Thug range is melting pot of influences and ideas.  Unlike Games Workshop’s modern Chaos Marauders, who are uniformly bearded barbarians, the classic Thug range had odd chaps with mullets, Saracen-flavoured archers and even stray ninjas.

Hot as thuggery.

It makes the individual Thugs fun to paint, as they’re each full of unique details. The mullet man has a pair of horns poking out his hairstyle.  The archer has a leering face kneepad.  All three have plumped for asymmetrical trousers.

The ninja has a ninja throwing knife for stealth kills, but today he’s chosen to fight with the less subtle morning star.  Maybe he wields that stealthily too, assassinating targets with a silent swing of the massive spiky ball.

Pazyryk Banefire’s Thugs sacking the town of Æbbe’s Hill.

Having a single archer in the otherwise-melee unit slightly bothers me, but given the chaotic appearance of the the unit I can cope with it in games of Age of Sigmar and Dragon Rampant.  The mix of troop types also gives me a nice selection of models to pick for Frostgrave.  In time he will split off to found a Chaos Thug mob with bows, made up of a mix of the Battle Masters plastic Chaos Thug and the chunky punky Marauder Chaos Thug range from the early 1990s.

Chaos Thugs are a Warhammer range released in several batches between 1986 and 1991.  Games Workshop stamped them out of existence in 1994, omitting them from Warhammer Armies: Chaos.  Thugs are firmly anchored solely in Warhammer’s past, quintessential incarnations of Oldhammer, meaning they command decent prices on the collector’s market.

I regret going with the red hair on these figures – it worked on the rightmost guy, who was the first I painted, but looks a a bit clownlike on the other two.  Don’t paint people with bright red eyebrows.  Even Ronald McDonald doesn’t have red eyebrows.

Chaos Thugs are great fun to paint as they’re all individuals that the sculptors packed with weird and unique details.

This Thug has hair that’s long one side and short the other – and one eyebrow bushy and the other shaven off.  He also comes with a severed head at his belt – there’s some back story to how he decapitated someone with just a bludgeoning weapon.

This Thug has both his weapons, the business-end of his “horseman’s pick” and the pommel of his sheathed dagger, shaped like bird heads.  Perhaps it was a subtle Tzeentch reference?  I also like how his one scavenged kneepad has a leering face sculpted on it.

Pazyryk  Banefire and the Thugs in the Matityahu Temple.

The Thugs will get on well with the Talisman Warrior and Barbarian as they’re all half-naked men who enjoy shaving their chests.  The Talisman Chaos Warrior is the unit champion, as that’s how it worked in the Warhammer 3rd edition army lists.  Next off I’m on the hunt for more Thugs to make a modestly sized raiding party, with a full command group.

One day at Games Workshop HQ, Aly Morrison came up to me with a big bag of Talisman figures.  “I found this bag of scrabby old models in my basement, and I was gonna bin ’em.  Then I remembered you like scrabby old stuff.”  I was over the moon.  Here’s the first three painted.

The Chaos Brothers defending portal dolmens in the Mourning Wood.

All three figures are from 3rd edition Talisman, which I originally owned as my Dad bought it for me and my brother in the mid-1990s .  Until that point I’d been exclusively into Warhammer 40,000, and this was my first real experience of the Warhammer Fantasy world.  My painting has improved since then.

THIN YOUR PAINTS.

I’ve been quite annoyed at my initial choice of colour for my Chaos Warriors.  Red and metal is very vanilla.  To start stamping greater identity on them I’ve taken the flames from Clyro Burns’ robes and run them onto the armour panels.  It does help break up the plain surfaces and make them less generi-chaos.

With the rising market value of the old metal Chaos Thug ranges, these muscly barbarians are welcome reinforcements to my Chaos Thug unit.  I have played with them as Blood Warriors in Age of Sigmar, and Bellicose Foot in Dragon Rampant.  The variety of designs and themes in the range means they can slip in, though they are noticeably beefier and taller.  But hey, it’s Chaos.

3rd edition Talisman Barbarian and Warrior.  Interestingly, one of these is a resculpt of the other.

I’m looking through the rest of the Talisman range now to see what other figures will fit in my Chaos warband.  The Minotaur, Skaven, Black Orc and Chaos Sorcerer are all potentials.

Thanks for the minis Aly!

Delving deep within my Lead Mountain for robed acolytes I came across this Mantic Goblin Sneek.  He’s been painted with fire-motif robes as he will be joining my warband as one of Clyro Burns’ assistant sorcerers.

This miniature is out of production, which is weird as I still think of Mantic Games as the new kids on the block and not a venerable old company with the luxury of retiring its older offerings.  Time flies.  Only yesterday I was horrified to be told it was my tenth Twitter anniversary.  Next thing you know I’ll be off to a field to drink cider and watch Fairport Convention unironically.

In 2016 I had a weekend of Frostgrave gaming looming and was desperate for fully painted figures.  I quickly rebased a Ruglud’s test miniature and slipped him in with my Chaos Thugs with a matching shield.  It established a precedent, and I’m now seeing what other greenskins I can paint as part of this multiculti force.

Though I’m working on these guys with Dragon Rampant in mind, I’m wondering how to get them onto an Age of Sigmar battlefield.  Kairic Acolytes is my current best bet, but their compulsory weapon options don’t make them a perfect fit.  Suggestions welcome!

Clyro Burns and his acolytes in the City of False Idols.

Curtis over at Ramshackle did a limited run of figures for Bring Out Your Lead 2016, and I’ve painted one to accompany Clyro Burns. As an event, BOYL focuses on “Oldhammer”, so Curtis sculpted this model holding an old hammer.  Ha!

I’ve converted my figure with a new face shaved off a Citadel Judge Dredd Perp – Zuggy Spotz/Crazy Joseph.  I then resculpted the hood around the front with putty.  This does make me feel a little guilty, but of all people Curtis will understand the need to hack up and convert figures.

Post-Knavecon games of Dragon Rampant have made me feel uncomfortable with my wizard unit – Clyro Burns plus five tiny familiars. This reduced strength unit gets caught in combat, and seeing a tiny familiar taking as much effort to kill as two chunky human-sized models is really odd.  I’m planning to reforge the unit at twelve-strong – all twelve being human-sized figures.

Nocturnal rituals being enacted in the Mourning Wood.

Shout out to Curtis for his generosity and community spirit!  Check out his shop full of other wonderful nonsense.