Oldhammer Weekend 2026 summary

Just like 4 lears ago I 've just came back from Oldhammer Weelend Poland. This time I was double motivated to move mu ass to the capital city by the fact, I didn't manage to go last year, and I had the Slaanesh Chaos Army painted especially for that event. Oldhammer Weekend Poland is always special thing. This time it was even more special for me, 'cause in the middle of Saturday Warhammer Fantasy campaign I got sick, puked twice (luckly for everyone around there was toilet nearby) and had to drop the last Saturday game and big battle on Sunday. Apparently Papa Nurgle didn't like me painting Slaanesh stuff... 🙄

But despite that, the even was pretty cool thing - for everyone who likes middlehammer era games that is. Just like every year there was painting contest - I brought 3 entries and the Bloodthirster / Daemon Prince brought me bronze statue in large model category. In 2022 Carnifex brought me the same prize, so I guess painting large models is my "thing". Not sure I was hoping for anything more, but other entries were just supercool, so the judges had tough job to pick only 3 in each category.

The think I was waiting for the most was the Warhammer Fantasy Battle campaign. Thie time teams were made of 2 armies of 1500 points (good vs evil) and my Warriors of Slaanesh were matched with Lizardmen force. It was pretty cool experience to stand at the same side with Lustria's reptiles. We got our arses kicked by Chaos Dwarves + Empire team, won (by total accident methinks) Dark Elves + High Elves and that was it for my Warhammer gaming.

During the games I had some thoughts about Warhammer: no matted how much I like the fluff, artworks, models, painting models etc, gaming itseld is just fucking stupid. I mean 5th edition. I know it's the matter of convention, but that "herohammer" attitude makes painting most of army just necessary evil - if a single model mounted on large creature is able to wipe out almost every unit single-handedly. The army I fielded was painted for the display case and that's it, so I didn't expect much of them on "real" 5th edition field of battle, but still - 6 edition ot The Old World are much more player and fun-friendly. 

Anyway - here's what I brought. Army list is based or earlier Armies of Chaos box (the red period era):

Friday evening I've manage to see some Gorkamorka gaming. I was pretty cool thing to see orky-junk staggeing on the battlefield. Must say I really regret I never managed to give it a try - all those vehicles bring so much converting opportunities! The battles were raging till the late night, but I've managed to see just part of that mayhem. Some pics below:

What else? Ah yeah!

Friday night there was also Necromunda RPG which I definitely didn't want to miss! It was really cool experience to finally play some RPG as player - not as keeper of secrets. For the first time I saw "dungeon crawler" in action which was much better fun then I expected - ace work Rob! Some pics from the Vault:

And last but not least - some random photos of armies I've managed to take while I was there. Sadly I didn't see all armies - all participants put tons of work in preparing the forces and below you can see some examples: 

Big thanks to organizers for keeping the event alive! 

Hope to take a part in another edition of Oldhammer Weekend Poland in the future - with better heatlh condition 😷
Nurgle be praised!

Skeleton warriors (Highland Miniatures)

Painting skellies is kinda like knitting:

you get pissed - you paint some bones - you get better.

Too bad I didn't realize it bit earlier, but apparently better late then never.

Anyway last week I excavated another part of spoils of war looted during Oldhammer Weekend 2022: skeleton warriors unit from highland Miniatures range. Models look pretty cool: poses are different, proportions are correct - these guys definitely fit Warhammer range. There's one flaw though: since these are printed, they are also really fragile (those thin limbs and spears especially!). So fragile, several models arrived broken and it's even despite the fact they were pretty well packed. So yeah, if I could choose - purely of gaming purposes I'd pick plastic models instead of printed. Luckly I still had some spare limbs left by the previous boneheads unit, which added bit more vatiety to the freshly dug out death squad.

I have only 15 models from this line so I think these will be just support squad for the main unit or screaming skull catapult / second class character bodyguards. Of course - that is only in my head, because don't think there's even slighiest shade of chance these will move an inch after I put them in the display case hibernation chamber 😵

So here they are - corpses in the park. I think I've managed to adjust lighting a bit so photos turned out really decent:

And some scale shot: restless skeletons are defending city park against Dusk Realm Demon:

And here - skeletons supported by Mr Carstein himself and converted battle standard bearer are trying to convince chaos lord of Slaanesh city park and fresh grass is no place for heavy barded ponies:

Moon Clan (Chaos beastmen) #5- finished! 🤘🏻

"...and it will be a time of great strife, when the moons are united in darkness and the dead shall walk the earth once more..."

The Children of Chaos project is finally finished. Models have actually been painted a while ago, but now they got proper display base. As for the base used about 10 years ago I painted other unit standing on the same thing - Fabius Bile's  Plague Marines. Back days those chaotic creatures got a trophy on Pyrkon painting contest, and now - beastmen were planned to appear on Oldhammer Weekend Poland 2025 (3.10-5.10.2025).

I even signed up for Warhamer Fantasy campaigh, but sadly real life kicked in and hobby plans got dumped. Oh well, maybe nexy year. Or maybe never...

Like mentioned before - working on these oldies was lots of fun. These sculpts are essence of Warhammer spirit for me, and no printed / digitally designed hi-tech boring model can change that. Right now to take a step back from Warhammer I brought good ol' Deathjack on painting desk, but after it's done I deeply hope to assemble another warband from old range. Don't think I have enough junk to assemble Rogue Trader style band, but surely I have enough greenskins for the project...

Looking at viewers counters these models were damn popular compared to other stuff I paint. No idea why - my guess is GW released fresh Beastmen armybook or something. But we'll see what happens when new stuff leaves painting desk. So here they are and back to work...

Take care! 🐐

Moon Clan (Chaos beastmen) #4

Another bunch of beastmen got just finished so apparently Chaos Children warband project is nearly done. The gang is only dozen or so models, but must admit I've slowly started getting sick after painting Chaos only stuff. Looking forward for some change on painting desk. Olive green change...

The last trio are champion (beastlord), standard bearer and school bully - minotaur. I had lots of fun working on them: painting paper banner brings lots of memories. I still prefer paper banners over plastic or icons on stick. It's light so small model can carry pretty large standard without falling off. Bad Moon ain't new idea - 10 years ago I used it on the first zombie dragon project. Sure it should be greenskins' stuff but at the same time it's Warhammer Fantasy, and when it comes to worshipping evil forces - Chaos is not picky.

New models were painted using the same color palette as rest of the group so they all look nice marching together. They still need basing and display base but since it requires lots of pva glue - it also requires lots of time for drying and therefore it gets dedicated post. There's never enough Chaos spam after all... 😁

Minotaur sculpt got pretty aggressive, assaulting pose so for postcard purpose it got worthy opponent - Skaven rat ogre, trying to block falling axe with it's steam-powered, corrupted claw. And because poor rat-man is outnumbered it's assisted by mysterious Raze from Dark Age range. I know it's not Warhammer but who the hell knows what those twisted engineers from Clan Moulder have been working on recently: there might be rat-head under that mask as well... 

For some mysterious reason photos turned out to be kinda overburnt - no idea why: models for matt varnish as always, I used same set of lamps and tested background (pic of Moon Clan #2 were much better). My guess is the Horned Rat got pissed I dared to use rat ogre as sparring partner for minotaur. No matter what the reason is I might dig out light box trying to get as good photo conditions as possible. Ok, back to basing work to get this thing off the list:

Moon Clan (Chaos beastmen) #3

Before launching hobby-spam there's quick technical annuncement. As you can see I've slightlty changed layout of the blog. I think it's temporary (header seems bit too massive) but we'll see shortly. I've also dumped "best posts ever" widget. I was nice to have most popular posts around, but sadly most of them contain old pics f#cked by Photobucket back days, so they weren't much cool anymore because of that silly Photobucket logo attatched 🙄

Also a while back I found a bug is "spam of the year" section as well: 

the top post (the one with Plague Marine)  was launched in 2014 and yet it's still on the top last year's best chart. No idea why: there's no way to make any post sticky, tried to re-launch that gizmo - no effect. I can sure delete old post but the again - why should I surrender to some stupid bloggy bug? 🙄

If you have any idea how to fix that - shout, I'll be grateful for any help. 

As for the proper topic - another 3 villains joined beastmen gang, so the project is ~70% finished: there are 3 more fellas to be done + basing. I was deeply hoping to bring them for Oldhammer Weekend Poland 2025 painting contest, but sadly once again real life stepped in so the plan got dumped. Oh well - at least I don't have to rush with them anymore... The guys got bit more reddish flesh tone but apart from that I tried to keep the same color palette so whole team looks coherent marching together. Painting those oldie beastmen is ton of fun, but really cannot wait to cross them off the list to paint something from science fiction range (like Chaos Cultists band from 40K...):

And finally: goat boys vs squid boys split second before a brief but vigorous fight erupts!

Moon Clan (Chaos beastmen) #2

Chaos Children at the horizon!!! 🐐🐐🐐

Yeah, so summer holiday is finally over (thank Slaanesh, Cthulhu and Satan for that...) so I could deal with some job backlogs and grab a brush for a while to expand Moon Clan crew. Like before I chose 1 gor + 2 ungors to work on and once again painting them was total fun! These models ara fuc#ing amazing!!!

There's so much character packed into those tinies and each models can almost tell own story. Not even mentioning the faces - these little bastards look just so corrupted and evil from a distance and resemble Diablo creatures so much! The one with dwarf's head is surely a child eater! 😨

As for painting I stick to middlehammer era aesthetics: vivid colors and clean, bright paintwork. Hopefully. After years spent on painting everything dark and dirty clean painting it's a breath of fresh air over painting station. Bases aren't finished yet - they'll be done after whole wargand is painted to make all models coherent.

So here they are - goatmen and fallen ones deep in perilous ash wastes enviroment:

Here - on mellow fields of Border Princes:

And here group shot - inbred clan about to chew on some plague zombies:

Time to pick another trio and thing about proper banner...