The Classics

Saturday Potpourri

Hair Metal forver!!

I've been asked by many people just what it is about those old Citadel & Marauder figures I love so much. They're clunky. Their proportions are way off. They don't have nearly the level of detail modern models do. They are METAL as opposed to all this resin and plastic available now-a-days. They have awful hair.
To all of these accusations I say: "yup, and that's just the tip of the iceberg!"

You see, It's not about the quality of the model to me.
I fully admit the newer sculpts are far and away superior in every way shape and form. Lines are crisper. Joints are easier to glue. The models (usually) go together correctly. Today's models are just BETTER than they were back in the day when I started gaming.
But again, it's not about the quality of the models to me.


In the last 10 years, Games workshop has become more and more a BUSINESS that happens to sell models. It's not about the games anymore. Those old Models are links to a more innocent time when they cared what people had to say.vThe old models had a certain... Whimsy about them that you just don't see in the modern models released by GW.. or even anyone really. The modellers knew that they were part of something new... something cutting edge... something blatantly ripping off everything that was awesome in Sci-Fi, Fantasy and every other genre the models touched upon, and were given free reign to cast up their visions to add to the whole. They were BUILDING a gaming UNIVERSE and a HOBBY at the same time. They were seeing what they could do, what they could mold with their hands to contribute to the whole, what they could create to make their mark in a vast universe of imagination that, at the time, was unique, cutting edge, and so far beyond anything else anyone had ever done that they had no limits.These old models show that child-like innocence that came with the mad vision they were adding to.
Those old models show, in no uncertain form, that the game was made by mad-men, rebels, metal-music listening, motor-bike riding lunatics that smoked and drank on the job late into the night crafting a world that blatantly stole from every available source of AWESOME. They took those ill-gotten gains and distilled it and smeared that skullduggerous (I made a new word!) paste across the universe they created to make something truly astounding... the bedrock that shaped the games we all love now-a-days.

The universe of Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Fantasy.

Those old models. Those clunky, mishappen blobs of lead, with their ridiculous hair and their silly big hands... Those models make me feel like I'm right there with them creating something new and exciting. They are pure NOSTALGIA to me, and when I paint them I can't help but enjoy myself.

So that's why I love those old models. Why I have a early 90's era Dark Elf army for Fantasy (a work in progress... So many Cher-style Witch elves..) and why I spend hours looking for those old Necromunda Figures and every Rogue Trader Era model I can get my grubby hands on.

Now I'm going to go put on some Man O' War and paint My Thrudd the Barbarian... Cause dammit that model is AWESOME.

Bean out~