A Long Time Ago....

.....in a gaming world far, far away.

It's hard to believe that I have been gaming and collecting for nearly twenty years. So many things have changed in that time. Most of my collection from that time has disappeared, I probably sold it on to other gamers (this was the pre-ebay era). But I do have a few models that I have kept for sentimental reasons. Here's the cream of my early 1990's painting.

The army book at the time was simply the Undead and included what would later be split into the both Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings ranges. The figure on the left is a liche, the one in the centre is a necromancer on a converted dark elf pegasus, and finally on the right is Krell. I also had a vampire, but he has vanished into the night. All the units are long gone, but from memory there was plastic skeleton warriors and horsemen and chariot made from the Undead Army boxset, a large metal regiment of zombies (large being 28, 7 ranks of 4 wide), 3 carrion riders, 2 screaming skull catapults and I think that was it. You didn't need many models to build a 2000 point army in the 1990s.

The liche was my general. I can remember being really pleased with the painting on this model. Though it looks very garish through modern eyes, it was in fact quite muted and understated for the period! For a while it was my best painted model. The robes  were a massive breakthrough for me. Notice the rather bright red scarf. Every model has red accesories in the 1990's. 

Then I decided to take a chance at Golden Daemon and painted up Krell. Brightly coloured single figures with hand painted banners were all the rage and believe it or not, this figure made the final cut. Some of the highlights are drybrushed on, the only guide we had back in those days was White Dwarf, which continually recommended drybrushing and ink washing. Check out the goblin green knee pads. 

While I have a fondness for these old models, I do think that many of the changes that have taken place over the two decades have been for the better. I have never really understood the viewpoint that "old metals are automatically great sculpts and have bags more character than the modern day rubbish". Though I am not particularly a fan of the current Vampire character sculpts, I would not to go back to these.