Welcome!

Intro...

Hi! My name is Chris...though most of you will know me better as Blue in VT...and this is my blog...thanks for stopping by.

I thought I had better start a blog in order to consolidate all of the various miniature project reports that I have spammed all over the web during the last year in one location...and to let you know about what I'm working on now.

As most of you will know I'm a collector and painter of miniatures...and a large percentage of the ones I favor were produced by Marauder miniatures in the late 1980's and early 1990's.  Marauder Miniatures was an off-shoot of the Citadel Miniature Company that produced quality metal figures for use in the table top war game Warhammer Fantasy Battles (WFB).  The company operated "independently" of Citadel from 1988 to 1993 before being re-absorbed by the larger firm.

In my opinion the miniatures produced by Marauder were some of the best figures produced for WFB.  They were the figures that captured my imagination at an impressionable age (I was 15 in 1988) and while I had assembled quite a collection then, it has been in the last year that I have returned to the hobby and begun collecting and painting them...with reckless abandon.  If your not familiar with Marauder Miniatures there are a number of good reference sites on the WWW...the best of which is the "Stuff of Legends" web site...here is a link to their Marauder Catalog page:  http://www.solegends.com/marauder/index.htm

At this point my largest collection is my Dwarf Army...which was my first, and is still, my favorite.  This group consists of an nearly complete selection of Marauder Dwarfs as well as quite a few of the Citadel dwarfs produced during the same time period.  But I couldn't be stopped there...I have also assembled a complete set of the Marauder Chaos Dwarfs (MM90s) and have begun to collect their Orcs, Goblins, Ogre, and Empire (human) figures as well.  I will be posting about each of these lines as I manage to find time to paint them up.

But....as previously mentioned it was the Marauder Dwarfs that were (and are) my first love.  Many of the figures from this line were armed and dressed in the style of the Landsknecht, the mercenary soldiers that dominated many European battlefields during the Late 15th and early 16th centuries.  The Landsknecht were famous for their wildly flamboyant style of dress...and to have that style applied to a dwarf army seems improbable...but to my eye...it worked very well, as evidenced by these Marauder catalog shots.

Enter the Knight...

Sadly this range of figures, while wonderfully characterful, is also quite small.  This has made collecting them an achievable goal...but has always left me wanting more options for my units.  Enter another Marauder dwarf collector...who goes by the handle: White Knight.  White Knight has recently commissioned well known miniature sculptor John Pickford to create a new range of dwarfs dressed in the Landsknecht style that would work well with those created by Marauder.  For a complete breakdown of WK's project please see his blog which can be found here: White Knights Miniature Imperium

WK has recently made the first 8 figures from this new line available for purchase (again see his blog for details)...but there are a lot more in the works.  Knowing that I share his addiction to dwarfs of this style WK has been kind enough to send me some pre-production castings of the next set of Core Infantry dwarfs that he will be offering. Over the next couple of posts to this blog I will share with you these new figures...my impressions of them...the many options for heads and weapons (yes they are modular!)...and as time permits...some of my painting efforts.

As a teaser for the next post I will leave you with a couple of pictures of the first of these pre-production sets...

Here are the four body options (click for larger images):

Here are the eight (!) head options from this set:

And here are the 8 weapon options from this set:

Coming Next Post...
...I'll post pictures of the head and weapon choices that I made and post a couple of pictures comparing these figures with the Marauder sculpts...stay tuned!