Fighting Fantasy Battlegame Toys

Some might be aware that GW published a set of rules for fighting small engagements with large-scale plastic toys based on the Fighting Fantasy series. Well, they did. They also prototyped a polystyrene dungeon in the style of the Mighty Fortress for use with it. Although this never saw full production there are some examples of it kicking around. Well, at least I know of one that is...

As you can see, the plastic figures produced for the game were extremely high quality... (images from www.fightingfantasycollector.co.uk). As a result they sold extremely well and are very common and easy to get hold of. No, wait, I'm thinking of something else. let's face it, they aren't the finest example of plastics production, but I guess we can forgive GW as the technology was new (to them) and they were finding their feet.

 

 

A rumour abounds that BOYL 2020 might see some games of this ancient and lofty ruleset being played, but given how rare (and therefore expensive) the actual figures are... I mean, would you pay good money for them? Not when there are cheap alternatives of just as good quality to be found on the modern market.

Enter the True Legends bucket of fantasy figures! At our weekly gaming session last Friday Chris brought out this beuatiful collection of toys for us to admire. Just marvel at the workmanship:

Needless to say I begged him for a chance to paint one of each of these mighty heroes. Well, except the crazy, stunted witch lady with no hips. That model is just too nasty for me to want to paint even out of silliness! The rest though cut straight through the painting queue onto the desk and by Wednesday evening they were done. 

Here's Legolas, Gimli and Conan tooled up and spoiling for a fight!

And here are some less certain characters that I decided to paint as a rogue/ninja type, an Indian princess/sorceress type and (what I presume to be meant as an orc) a 1980s He-Man type furry demon man.

Yes, they're gawky, but they were actually pretty fun to paint up and apart from some wierdnesses of proportion and design (what does Legolas have on his feet?) they don't look too bad. Especially given a 1980s heavy metal animation theme (which makes things like the more modern attire of the rogue/ninja less incongruous). So now I want to build on the 54mm cartoon miniatures collection, especially get some more bad guys for the heroes to face. My attention has thus been drawn by this:

Should be some fun things to try out in there...

The Dreamstone- Wave 1 sculpts

 

The first wave of Dreamstone sculpts are pretty much finished and have (pending a couple of small adjustments) been approved for casting. I'll just leave some shots of the sculpts here in case anyone is interested.

We are the fighting Uru Lukinnat!

Happy new year settlers of blogsphere! This Christmas was a bit of a first, with no need to travel and the big day falling in the middle of the first week I had 9 clear days which translated (with a cold and impromptu days out and housework) into a solid 5 days of paintingand sculpting. :)

Thus was I able to expand my Orctober efforts to a mighty 2000pts of not-green skins. The mighty, fighting Uru Lukinatt, greatest goblinoid horde of Morrrrrrdooorrrrrrr! To be fair, not all of these were started and finished in the holidays, the crossbow arrer boyz has been creeping towards being finished for most of November and December. 40 odd goblins and 15 orcs, however, are a pretty good turnover for 5 days, even if they are definitely tabletop standard!

Speaking of standard...

I'm not totally sure, but someone fluent in black speech told me the approximate translation is "Oo are yoo lookin' at? Boris is my aunty", whatever that might mean. I figured it was a good moment to revive a truly oldhammer tradition, putting detested leaders on banners! The stone tablet afixed to the pole carries the regiment's official motto "Break shit, done". The reverse of the banner, designed to spur on the following unit, carries the unofficial motto.

I realised I needed to double my number of goblin warriors to make it effective, but was having difficulty finding an economically viable way of doing this. Luckily I had dug out some Moria goblins to paint and had been playing with Prince August home casting moulds that Harry gave me. The worst thing about both these sets of models was the heads, so I experimented replacing them with the very Angus McBride-style orc heads once released by Wargames Factory. They're oversized, as fits a goblin, and really helps lend them a LotR vibe. A short amount of superglue on fingers and broken knife blades later and...

Not too shabby. I had the bow goblins left, so thought I'd get myself a small unit of wolfriders to harass enemy flanks. Because they have a bit of a steppe goblin look I thought I'd put them on the Tibetan mastiffs I sculpted a few years back, with two huge RAFM wolves as mummy and daddy. Really pleased with how how the poses worked out.

This was also a great opportunity to paint up a recent acquisition. I've had my eye on an old Asgard Half Troll Chieftain for some years and last year finally got it together to collect a small group of buyers together and order from Viking Forge who still make them. He's too small to be a proper troll, of course, but makes an excellent Orcish Warboss.

The rest of the orcs are a mish mash of still-available miniatures and a few oldies I had available. I had ordered from SHQ at the start of December, but sadly still no sign of those despite being assured they were on their way. As it turns out I think I have enough orcs, I was just hoping a few of their mountain orcs might go with Alternative Armies one to make a small unit of Black Orcs and allow me to field my warboss as one. I still have some boarboyz to add, and am looking for the savage orc boarboy boss if anyone has one for trade or sale in the UK. He was my first metal Citadel Miniature, painted in Humbrol enamels and car body paints, and I would love to have another crack at him.

The background, in case you are wondering, was the product of the wife and I having our first lesson with Bob Ross to celebrate our 10th anniversary. Still lots to work on (it really isn't as easy as it looks!) before I try to tackle anything specific, but works nicely for a soft-focus backdrop.

The photo at the top shows the whole horde, this shows just the figures completed since Christmas (including 14 arrer boyz started in November).