A letter

Dear eBay sellers.

We have a bit of a mixed relationship, don’t we? On one hand, you provide me with the overpriced bits of cardboard and oddly shaped lumps of toxic metal that I crave so badly. On the other hand, you do cost me a lot of money, and sometimes one of you tries to pull some dodgy tricks, like offering stuff at low prices, but then overcharging for postage, or canceling an auction after it’s ended, if you aren’t satisfied with final offer.

In the end, however, most of you are fine chaps, and I feel like we all appreciate these little toys. That is why I’m never surprised, but always glad, that you go to such great lengths to protect my purchases. We understand that the fine postal workers of the world don’t always share our delicate touch, and so it is up to us to protect the objects of our affection during transit.

Why, when you send me a batch of minis, it’s not unusual for one of you to place every single figure in a separate Ziploc bag, then wrap them individually in bubble-wrap, and place it all in a sturdy cardboard box, surrounded by those little foam thingies. Truly outstanding dedication.

It is also why, when one of you decides to post a 25 year old, and relatively rare, box, wrapped in nothing but a single layer of brown paper, I’m not only baffled but also somewhat disappointed. If I then find that the box has been taped shut, using normal office tape, so that I either have to cut it open and live with patches of tape on my game, or try to rip it off, thereby risking further damage to the box, I’m inclined to be outright annoyed! 

So, dear eBay sellers, I hope this sad affair won’t repeat itself. It would not do for our relationship to be tarnished so.

Love

Croaker

My old AHQ box lid, which will now have to perform its duty a little longer, as its replacement was sadly mangled on the way here. Luckily, the contents survived intact, so now I have all the room- and corridor tiles I need.

Gearing up

Without going into too much detail, I’ve been “out of the game” for more than fifteen years (if you don’t count a very brief dalliance with 10mm miniatures a few years ago). It’s basically the same story as countless other hobbyists’; puberty hit, and suddenly my little toy soldiers seemed less important than other things – especially things of the feminine persuasion. The result is that most of my old painting gear has been lost for several years, which meant that I had to go shopping.

My brother (who is an avid painter) gave me some brushes and I still had some old paints from my 10mm days (mostly greys and browns). Incidentally, this proved to be a good test of the longevity of the different brands. The Formula P3 paints are still as good as new, whereas the Citadel are almost dried up. I’ll try to salvage them by adding a bit of water (don’t know if it’ll work), but I’m still missing a lot of colors, so I’ll have to stock up anyway.

I also bought a painting station off E-bay, which arrived yesterday. I've never used one before, but I hope it’ll make it easier for me to set up and get painting when I have an hour to spare without permanently claiming an entire table for myself (and thereby antagonizing the wife).

My house!

Which brings me to the next question: What am I going to paint first? I was, maybe, an “ok” painter fifteen years ago, but after all this time, whatever I paint first will probably end up looking as if a toddler assaulted a box of crayons, so I probably shouldn’t pick anything too difficult.

In the end I settled on a couple of Heroquest extras I had lying around. They are nice and simple, and having a fully painted Heroquest game is one of my long-term goals in any case.

The (un)lucky winners of the who-gets-to-look-like-an-explosion-in-a-paint-factory contest

Croaker

A little late to the party

Hello world.

As might be guessed from the name of this blog, it’s mainly going to be about Citadel miniatures from the 80s and early 90s, but it’s also going to be about the games I play with them; Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFRP), Advanced Heroquest (AHQ) and (maybe) Warhammer Fantasy Battles (WFB).

“Oldhammer Quest” felt like a good name, though I’m aware that others have used the term before me.

It seems that the words “oldhammer” and “blog” go hand in hand. There are certainly many great blogs about collecting, painting and playing with 80s Citadel miniatures out there – several of which have been going strong for years. So the question is; why would I waste my time writing another one? I will almost certainly not be nearly as prolific as some, I definitely cannot paint half as well as most and, since I’ve recently bought a house, I can’t really afford to spend hundreds of pounds on E-bay each month acquiring the rarest miniatures.

In the end there are basically two reasons. Primarily it's because it’ll give me a reason to actually paint my (slowly) growing collection. I have a terrible tendency to lose interest in my projects after a while, and I rather feel that I’ve already spend too much money on tiny lead soldiers to let them collect dust on a shelf in the basement.

Secondly, I just really want to write something, and a blog about miniatures seems to be as good a place as any to do it. If my ramblings can be of interest to someone out there, great – but otherwise it’ll just be my personal hobby journal.

So, to avoid having my first ever post simply being a boring wall of text, I’m going to present to you one of my favorite Warhammer images (which is also the background to the blog):

As many people who are interested in the subject will know, this is “Nuln” by John Blanche. It was used as the cover for the first module of the great WFRP campaign “The Enemy Within”. If you have never played this, you owe it to yourself to find a GM who has it (or maybe become that GM). It’s awesome.

The picture itself captures almost everything that is (or was) great about the Old World. It’s familiar and alien at the same time. Inviting, but with more than a hint of malice.

Cheers 

Croaker