Doing an Oldhammer miniature companies roundup was always going to come at a financial cost. The latest company I decided to pick up a batch of cool and interesting minis from was Diehard.

Diehard Miniatures create metal wargames miniatures. The company started as a collaboration of 3 sculptors back in 2014 (Tim Prow, Chaz Elliott and Drew Williams). With the assistance of Richard Luong for the initial artwork and concepts, Diehard has expanded its artist stable to include Chris Walton, Johan Egerkrans, Kennon James and Jody Siegel.

I’ve been working on building a crew for Stargrave and I’m going for an undead theme.

I loved the look of these skeletal astronauts, and they were fun and easy to paint, too.

There’s a brilliant range of undead miniatures on the Diehard site which cater to both sci-fi and fantasy.

Joining the bony ranks of this crew is an undead Space Marine, also from Diehard.

No “here’s what I’ve painted recently” roundup would be complete without something from Midlam, either. This guy is a crow shaman and he’ll act as my crew’s “medic”.

Another character from Midlam is this demon who’ll be used for my dungeon crawler games.

Back to Diehard for another dungeon denizen, this guy is a Satyr.

Have you ever wondered why undead creatures persevere in their attempts to play wind instruments?

Another company I buy from a lot is CP Models. This trooper is part of a group of 5, so I just need to get his pals painted up now.

Finally, I painted up the last two Blood Bowl beastmen that I found in a box a while back.

So that’s what I’ve been up to recently on the hobby front. Well, that, and running our new Tabletop Miniature Hobby Podcast. We’ve had some great conversations on there recently about Oldhammer, Herohammer, and old White Dwarf mags. Have you listened yet?

Painting and has been a bit slower recently due to the better weather, easing of restrictions, and a few other commitments taking up a bit of my free time. Nevertheless, I’ve still managed to get another wee batch of minis finished up, starting with these Chaos Space Raiders from Diehard.

I came across these guys whilst researching options for Rogue Trader-esque Stargrave crews. They’re big chunky marines with a fantastic Oldhammer aesthetic.

Jadus Blakk’ here was the hardest miniature I’ve ever tried to photograph. There’s quite a lot going on with him.

You can pick him up for £6 on the Diehard Miniatures site.

With those 4 big exhaust pipes, he’s hardly what you’d call an Eco Warrior, eh? I wonder if his suit’s a nightmare to get through its MOT.

Back in May I painted some Chaos Dwarfs. I had another one of these obnoxious little guys in my to-do pile, so here he is.

Not to be out-tusked though, it’s a Boar Man from Midlam Miniatures.

I paint a lot of miniatures from the Midlam range, they’re definitely one of my favourite companies. I go on about them a lot though, and I don’t want to ‘boar’ you… 😐

So I’ll move on to another company I’m always banging on about – Knightmare. Here’s two more splendid tusks, too, sported by Commander Tusker himself.

I’ve built a lot of skirmish warbands from the Knightmare range, including Beastmen, Chaos Warriors, and Goblin Archers.

Swinging back round to the Diehard Space Raiders too, here’s Amorbis Zoon’…

I did him “a bit Nurgly”, if that’s an actual term.

So there’s the fruits of my labour this past month or so. I’ve plenty more to be getting cracked on with this summer, but for extra servings of my finished work, check out Chaos, Cultists, & Blood Bowl Beastmen, as well as From Battlemasters to Dungeon Masters.

I’ve been on a bit of a roll with my painting recently, and it’s largely down to Midlam Miniatures. They’re one of my favourite miniature manufacturers, and I talk more about them in my Oldhammer Miniature Companies article.

My projects recently have been fairly straightforward. Collect and paint any fantasy miniatures I like the look of for either skirmish-level or dungeon crawler games.

Midlam’s Kraken Cult collection have such a great Lovecraftian vibe to them. I’d painted up some Kraken Cultists already, but I wanted to try a few more with slightly different colour schemes.

I see Midlam are now Kickstarting more Kraken cult miniatures. The way I’m going I’ll end up with enough of them to make a full Warhammer Fantasy Battles army.

Moving away from robes and slithering tentacles, I’m also a sucker for a Chaos Warrior. Not those joyless modern types though. I mean real Chaos Warriors.

The first one I’ve named Brother Rust. He’d have fitted in with my retro Chaos Warrior warband, but alas, he will never know them.

I’m not sure if the second guy is an actual Chaos Warrior or if he’s just cosplaying as one. Another lovely little miniature nonetheless, though.

So these guys will all go into the mix for future dungeon crawler adventures. They’ll make ideal opponents for my party of heroes.

This Cave Lurker reminds me a bit of the old Ambull from the Citadel Combat Cards.

And speaking of Citadel, let’s temporarily leave the Midlam universe. I found a pile of old metal Blood Bowl beastmen in a box in the attic last year. I very nearly stuck them on Ebay, but I decided to paint them up instead.

I’ve got 9 in total, so this might well be an excuse to complete a full team and hunt out a copy of the game.

Back to Midlam, these two guys are pals of the Cave Lurker. I actually managed to prime, paint, and base them both in one single day.

Same with this guy. I wonder if he’s related to the big sweetcorn salesman?

‘Rocky’ here could easily pass for a Rock Demon in Peter V. Brett’s Demon Cycle series.

As for this lad, I wonder how he’d have integrated into my old lizardman army. We will never know because I sold the thing.

So that’s my latest work from an unusually productive period. I’d just recently finished a batch of miniatures including some Battlemasters greenskins, Chaos Dwarfs, and an old Warhammer 40k Hero.

Next up on the painting table? Would you believe it… some more Midlam Miniatures…

Well, not quite “masters”… minions, more like… these Battlemasters baddies are coming to a dungeon near you…

I’ve just finished painting up my latest handful of miniatures. If you’ve been following along, you’ll know that I’ve been dabbling with Dungeon Saga. I wanted to populate the dungeons with my own unique miniatures, so I have formed up a party of heroes, and some Lovecraftian horrors to pit them against.

I had a few miniatures from the classic Battlemasters game of my childhood lying around. I decided to put an orc-goblin duo to work as dungeon minions.

I added the shields to give the miniatures a bit more depth. I am not 100% sure where I got them, but I think it might’ve been Knightmare. You can find out more about Knightmare in my Oldhammer miniature companies post.

This Chaos Dwarf is another old monopose plastic miniature getting a lick of paint and a fancy shield. I found him in my nephew’s Lego toybox of all places. His spear is slightly bent, probably an injury inflicted by a Lego batman or something. He looks slightly better than he did, in any case.

I didn’t put the Chaos Dwarf in the dungeon because I’d already been painting this fellow. I am sure I got him from CP Models.

Not had enough 90s throwbacks yet? Fair enough. We move from Battlemasters to Warhammer 40k, and the pious loudmouth that is Redemptor Kyrinov, Confessor of the Ministorum. He’s backed up by two Warmonger Miniatures’ Plague Apothecaries. This is all part of my sci-fi dystopia project.

Kyrinov will be placed in responsible charge of these endoskeleton miniatures from Terminator Genesys.

That’s all for now, though. We’re all waiting to see who comes through that dungeon door next. Will it be more Battlemasters characters? Someone from HeroQuest, perhaps?

Remember to check out who’s already down there in my Dungeons & Badgers, Populating a Lovecraftian Dungeon, and Dungeon Saga posts!

A few months ago I talked about getting into Dungeon Saga, a cracking dungeon crawler game by Mantic. I also picked up the Adventurer’s Companion supplement which gives you the tools to create your own scenarios, campaigns, and characters.

My first move was to put together 4 mighty heroes, and I picked out miniatures from the Oathsworn range, which are a favourite of mine. I posted pics of the finished characters in my Dungeons & Badgers article.

The next step was to populate the dungeon with some new and interesting baddies…

Long-term readers to this blog will know that I’m a big fan of Midlam Miniatures. They have a range known as Cult of the Kraken Lord, and, being a fan of Lovecraftian fiction, I was immediately drawn to them.

High Priest Kroll comes on this nautical-themed toilet. He’s been on there a while because the person before him forgot to replace the bog roll.

Cp Models were a company on my radar since writing my Oldhammer miniature companies roundup. I placed an order with them recently, and threw in these Spectres with Scythes. The bases on these guys are from Warbases.

Kraken Cultists queue outside the toilet, waiting on High Priest Kroll to be done.

Meanwhile, the spectres titter away at the shortage of bog roll for those squid-faced buffoons.

We’re not done with the puerile commentary yet either. Here’s another one from Cp Miniatures, known simply as ‘Night Horror’. Yup…

Sir Verlburch, Squirrel Knight, has spotted some nuts, and he’s about to have them off with that big axe of his.

I look forward to my anthropomorphic dungeon delvers ploughing through these Kraken Cultists and Spectres. I’ll be doing a bit of solo play soon to test them all out.

Meanwhile, would someone please fetch poor Kroll some newspaper or something? Seriously, he’s been in there a long time…

Traditional Spooky Characters

Lovecraftian creatures weren’t all I’ve been painting in this batch of dungeon baddies. I found another couple of nice minis on the Midlam site, and thought they’d make great Boss characters.

The first is Lady Clarissa De Collate.

The second is that old clock-watcher himself, the Grim Reaper.

“My head’s been all over the place since we last met. I don’t think we should see one another any more.”

So there you have it, my latest bunch of miniatures moved from the “to-do” pile to the “done” pile. Next up, I’ve a bunch of 6mm stuff I might focus on as a bit of a palette cleanser.

In the meantime, if you like a good dungeon bash, be sure to check out my miniatures for Dungeon Saga, as well as my brave party of heroes.

Thanks as always for reading!

The excellent Knightmare Miniatures make up the spine of my Oldhammer Chaos Warrior Warband. I’ve also put together a small unit of goblin archers from their range.

This time around, it was time to build a Chaos Beastmen Herd. There’s a lot of great beastmen miniatures in the Knightmare catalogue, so I picked out my favourite 10, along with a Greater Daemon to lead them.

The big guy came with wings, but I didn’t stick them on in the end. Help keep his feet on the ground and all that…

This fellow is a sort of three-eyed Highland Cow. Udderly terrifying.

Also coming in threes was this beastman’s arms. He can dig the garden whilst making a sandwich at the same time.

This chap has the only pair of feet in the warband that aren’t cloven. Hoove had thought it?

I reckon the shaman is a bit bat-like. A bat with hooves, though.

The customary ‘three miniatures walking through a castle gate’ shot.

A beastman who’s gran is always asking him if he’s eating well.

More of the big lad.

The ‘get off my lawn’ beastman.

Spot the Nurgle worshipper. There’s always one…

Smug youngblood with golden earring and ideas way above his station.

I imagine this guy spends a lot of time thinking about where he should actually live. Under the sea? In the forest? Dry tentacles or wet fur? What’s the lesser of the two evils?

As usual, I stuck them on a Warbases tray so they’ll work equally as well in big rank and flank games as they will in small-scale skirmishes. Remember to also check out my Chaos Warrior Warband and Goblin Archer unit – both of which are made up heavily of Knightmare miniatures!

Thanks for reading 🙂

You don’t need to look far (or hard) online to find a better miniature painter than yourself. That’s as relevant to the seasoned pros as it is to aspiring plodders like myself.

As I keep saying on this blog though, you can only really compare your work to your older work. That’s the only true barometer when it comes to miniature painting progress.

As it’s January 2021, I thought I’d take a look back at my progress this year. I’ve posted monthly hobby updates since I launched the site, so it was easy to skim through. I’ve picked out a few examples to post here.

Let’s kick off though, with my most recent work. This beast herd was finished up around the New Year period (full report coming soon), and I’m pretty chuffed with how they’ve turned out.

My Early Work in 2020

I was pleased with these paintjobs at the time (and I still think they’re acceptable), but I feel I’m capable of a lot better, one year on.

The Middle of the Year

Those heady days of spring and summer brought a bit of a step up in my techniques. To be honest, I probably got a bit better at taking pictures, too.

Into the Autumn…

Not too much of a difference between these guys and their spring/summer counterparts.

Winter is Coming…

Perseverance, practice, curiosity, and an open mind led me to taking another baby step forwards.

So there we have it, a year in pictures. Is there an improvement there? I’d say so. If I can just keep practising and learning, then I’ll be able to kick on even more in 2021, too. The main thing above everything else, however, is to simply enjoy the process.

Once again, you can look over my full year’s worth of work in my monthly updates. As ever, thanks for taking the time to read this humble blog 🙂

Alright so there are no badgers in my party, but I am of course making reference to Burrows & Badgers by Oathsworn Miniatures. They’re the company behind these lovely little furries.

I recently wrote about buying Mantic’s Dungeon Saga, and painting up all the miniatures. The core heroes in the box were absolutely fine, but, ever the storyteller, I wanted to create something unique for my dungeon delves.

I’d been dying to buy more stuff from Oathsworn for a while now and this seemed like the ideal project. First up, I replaced the Human Barbarian with this hardy looking anthropomorphic rat. I’ve named him Stinky Bob – there’s a plant theme here, for some reason.

Sir Velburch (say it aloud) is a proud looking Squirrel Knight. He replaces the Dwarf Warrior.

Chickweed is my Mouse Ranger, replacing the Elf Ranger. He’s heard a rumour that the dungeons he’ll be looting are a lot like the ones found in Elder Scrolls: Oblivion – jam-packed with lots of cheese wheels.

Out goes the Human Mage, in comes the Hare Mage. Her name is Rosa Rugosa, and she’s a prickly one.

Godspeed my bold adventurers. Delve forth and kill skeleton minions and stuff. Perhaps I’ll find a vet miniature to act as an Apothecary if things get tough down there.

Thanks to Oathsworn for the fantastic miniatures. You can peruse more on my Dungeon Saga adventures right here, and I’ve also been working on some bad guys for the party to fight – check out populating a Lovecraftian dungeon for more on that!

Not content with working on my Retro Chaos Warrior warband, I’ve been putting together a goblin archers warband too.

Greenskins were my first love. It goes back to the first hobby related product I ever picked up – a deck of ‘Goblinoids’ Citadel Combat Cards in the very early 90s.

As someone who’s spilt a lot of green paint on a lot of different carpets, I decided to push my luck and tempt the fates by picking up these little guys. They’re from the excellent Knightmare Miniatures’ Green Skin Wars range.

I’m not sure if they were sculpted by Kev ‘Goblin King’ Adams, who I know does a fair bit of work for them. But they certainly have a classic Oldhammer aesthetic.

They were a lot of fun to paint. Nothing too complicated, but each model had enough variety and unique character to keep things interesting.

I’ve housed them in a movement tray from Warbases. I find these ones work really well for little warbands of archers.

So now it’s back to finishing the second half of my Chaos Warrior warband, and once they’re done, I have a herd of Beastmen who’re raring to get some paint splashed on them.

If you like these miniatures, you can pick them up from Knightmare. No affiliation here, I’m just a big fan, and regular customer. I also have a roundup of Oldhammer-style miniature companies, too, if you’re interested in that type of thing!

Building a Chaos Warrior warband with the classic Oldhammer vibe has been something I’ve wanted to do for a while now.

What finally spurred me into action was publishing a roundup of Oldhammer-style miniature companies. After spending a bit of time browsing all these sites, a purchase or two was inevitable. And so, the Dark Gods came calling (for my wallet).

The first port of call was a company I already know and love – Knightmare Miniatures. This was either my second or third bulky order from them. I picked up a lot of other stuff too, which I’ll be writing about in a future post.

The hulking giant in the gang is Knightmare’s Jötum Icemane (though he’s more of a Redmane for me). There’s a bit of a scale difference between him and some of the miniatures from other companies. This is inevitable when buying from various companies – especially when it comes to the more retro-looking metal stuff.

The next two Chaos Warriors are from Ral Partha.

They could easily pass for Icemane’s sons, proudly dressed up for their first day of Chaos Warrior school.

Back to Knightmare, here’s Mallüs Bloodaxe. I still consider myself a very limited and early-stage painter, but I’m quite happy with these guys. I got a lot of great painting tips in the Oldhammer Community and managed to try out a few new techniques.

The final finished miniature, for now, is Knightmare’s superbly named “Chaos Warrior 14”. A name that strikers fear into hearts, from Albion to Far Cathay.

Most recently completed and added to the fray, are these 5 Chaos Foot Knights from Mirliton, bought via Campaign Game Miniatures.

They are quite small miniatures, but mounting them on the plastic bases raised their height a bit.

I now have 10 Chaos Warriors in total, and will house them in an Infamy Mob movement tray from Warbases, if/when I field them in a game of Warhammer.

On hindsight, I’ll actually be puling Jötum Icemane out the regiment to use him as an individual Hero or Champion instead. He’s just a bit too big (and slightly different) than the rest. I’ve replaced him with an old Citadel purchase off Ebay.

My next Oldhammer-esque projects? A retro-looking beastmen herd, and a goblin archer warband. Be sure to check them out in the links I’ve posted there.

I also recently added and painted up these two Chaos Warriors from Midlam. Not part of my warband, but I thought I’d add them in here anyway!

Next up: Solo Wargaming – 4 Great Reasons to Go It Alone