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Author Topic: Into the Nacht Garten - A Retro Realms of Chaos Project - Now with old Brigands  (Read 5558 times)

Offline Diablo Jon

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This is a project I've been working on for a couple of years now. It's a very stop start project but with all the extra hobby time I suddenly find myself with I thought it would be a good time to blog it and share what I've done so far.

A lot of this project is pure nostalgia (must be an age thing). In the 80s my school friends and I spent many a long hour playing Warhammer and fighting with chaos warbands created using the Realms of Chaos books. Back then though our painting and conversion skills where practically non existent, plastic models where few and far between and pocket money never stretched very far when buying models. As such our games where not exactly visual feasts for the eyes.

As I've got older I find I play games far less and enjoy the painting and modelling side of the hobby far more. With such a wealth of miniatures, paints and modelling materials out there in todays hobby I thought it would be interesting to try and recrate the fun of those old 80s games but with far nicer models and scenery.

While this is an Oldhammer project I'm not going to restrict myself to old citadel miniatures (or even just games workshop miniatures) and just use what ever miniatures I like the look of to try and create a dark grim fantasy set up with a nod to those heady days of 1987 warhammer.

So I've created myself a little spot in the Warhammer Old World that I've named the Nacht Garten as place to set my warbands and characters in. Its rather a lot to post up here but if you are interested you can read about it on my blog here

https://nachtgarten.blogspot.com/2018/07/welcome-to-nacht-garten.html
 


and here's my dodgy homemade map

« Last Edit: April 28, 2020, 05:46:38 AM by Diablo Jon »

Offline Diablo Jon

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Re: Into the Nacht Garten - A Retro Realms of Chaos Project
« Reply #1 on: April 04, 2020, 08:27:35 PM »
The Nacht Beast

Branches slapped Ekhard's face as thorns tore at his arms and legs. Ekhard didn't care as he ran blindly through the woods. He didn't see the tangle of roots until his foot caught them as he fell, forward into the dirt, he felt the pain in his twisted ankle. Ekhard tried to stand but pain flare through his left leg" no more running then" Ekhard said to himself as he drew his sword "time to die like a man".

Ekhard knew the beast was out there in the woods watching him. The thing had been hunting him and his companions for days. " Ironic seeing as we where paid to hunt it" Ekhard mused with a wry smile. They had entered the woods a few days ago a dozen veteran warriors, a mage and Ekhard. They where all dead now. the beast had taken them one at a time.

Ekhard was jolted from his thoughts by a low hiss and cursed under his breath " How could something, so big, move so quietly?" Ekhard sanity came close to breaking point as he surveyed the creature "Truly this could only be the work of the fell gods" he mumbled. This was no natural creature the body was that of a gigantic spider, each of it's six legs ending in a razor sharp claw, its two front legs ended in huge bone scythes  and its head was that of a huge wolf.

The beast hissed again Ekhard held up his sword, in the guard position, and steadied his breathing. the pain in his leg was gone and felt a sort of calm descend upon him " lets finish this" he screamed and the beast charged..










Legends of the Nacht Beast date back to the beginnings of the Empire. Those imperial scholars who study such things are divided. Some believe there have been many Nacht Beasts, and the legends are a manifestation of folk sighting many strange things in the woods, they site the many different places the beast has been sighted and its varied descriptions. Others claim it is a single beast tied to the Nacht Garten and suggest there are accounts of the same beast dating back centuries and many sitings are not the true Nacht Beast. Either way they all agree the creature is a large, and very dangerous, chaos spawn.







« Last Edit: April 04, 2020, 08:32:23 PM by Diablo Jon »

Offline Diablo Jon

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Re: Into the Nacht Garten - A Retro Realms of Chaos Project
« Reply #2 on: April 04, 2020, 08:31:29 PM »
The Story of Frantz Faulen

Frantz closed his eyes and tried to swallow but instead started another chesty phlegm filled cough. His throat was burning sore, his head was pounding like Karl the blacksmiths hammer on the anvil and his skin itched with boils, sores and rashes.

 He opened his eyes but the daemon was still there " You are strong precious.. yes you are" the daemon said " my master is pleased". Through his pus weeping eyes Frantz tried to focus on the daemon. It had a single large eye below a broken and filth encrusted horn, its teeth where yellow and rotten, its skin thin and cracked like old parchment and pus leaked from sore and lesions across his body.

 " You are in pain my precious...but my master can save you...just say his name my child" the daemon droned. "Help mmmeeee" hissed Frantz. "Just say my masters names child". " I don't know who your master is" croaked Frantz. The daemon laughed " you know him child...just say his name...and this all ends" Frantz took a deep breath and started coughing again as the coughing subsided he managed to whisper "Lord Nurgle...I...I am yours"




Frantz lived in one of the many small hamlets the dot the Nacht Garten. The hamlet was part of Graf Gerhard Rotfuchs's holdings like many such hamlets the saw few travellers except when the Graf's men came to collect taxes. Life in the Hamlet was simple and offered little in the way of excitement other than the yearly spring fair.

So there was much excitement in the hamlet when a troupe of travelling players appeared out of the forest and offered to perform a one night show for the villagers. The traveling players had clearly seen better days their wagons showed faded grandeur, there clothes where dirty and thread bare and many of them seemed a little unhealthy.

The play turned out to be less than a master piece of acting with odd droning music, strange words and finally ended with a macabre dance. In the morning the players left to little fanfare and the hamlet, seemingly, returned to normal.  A few days latter the first animals became sick, then milk and food started to sour and rot and finally people started to fall ill.

For weeks the hamlet slowly died soon only a few people still lived in among the filth and decaying corpses barely alive themselves.  Frantz was the strongest among the living somehow finding the strength of will to carry on drinking soured milk and eating mouldy food. Eventually even Frantz could no longer carry on and he collapsed resigned to his fate.

Nurgle though had turned his eye on the small hamlet, to admire the work of his carnival, and so it was he spied Frantz. Nurgle felt a brief surge of interest in this mortal and sent one of his daemons to offer Frantz a new life as one of Nurgle's champions.







« Last Edit: April 25, 2020, 08:28:14 PM by Diablo Jon »

Offline Diablo Jon

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Re: Into the Nacht Garten - A Retro Realms of Chaos Project
« Reply #3 on: April 04, 2020, 08:40:14 PM »
The Retinue of Frantz Faulen

Frantz slithered on to the rock outcrop leaving a trail of yellow slime in his wake. From his vantage point he stared down at the sickly, mutated humans that had become his followers. He paused to study them.

His lieutenant, Georg, stood out from the crowd resplendent in his suit of rusted armour. The suit of armour not only protected Georg in battle but helped to hold in his ample rolls of pallid flesh. Georg had appeared in Frantz camp one evening clearly marked with Papa Nurgle's gifts.  Once, as he told it, he had been a sellsword but when he was struck down with the Red Plague his fellow mercenaries had abandoned him to die. Georg though didn't die and wandered the land, drawn by voices he claims, to find Frantz. Georg's experience in war had served Frantz well training his other followers how to use their weapons and improve their fighting ability.

Nurgle knows his other followers needed the training to. They came from the lowest elements of imperial society beggars, paupers and serfs all untied by being marked with Nurgle's gifts. A shuffling mass of weeping sores, hacking coughs and unusual coloured skin rashes armed with rusted farming tools and broken weapons. others would find them disgusting but Frantz took a paternal pride in them.

Frantz cleared his throat spitting out a huge ball of green yellow phlegm. "My children the enemies of our lord have entered the sacred grounds of Pliz Hain here to steal lord Nurgle's sacred plants. It is our duty to stop them"




Georg is an old GW plastic chaos warrior from the 90s with a head from my bitz box and some green stuff.







Frantz human followers are 40K pox walkers with any 40k bits removed and fantasy medieval pieces from my bits box added and some extra green stuff work.



 


« Last Edit: April 25, 2020, 08:31:51 PM by Diablo Jon »

Offline Ethelred the Almost Ready

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Re: Into the Nacht Garten - A Retro Realms of Chaos Project
« Reply #4 on: April 04, 2020, 09:31:29 PM »
You are a sick, sick, little man!  lol
Great (but disturbing) painting.

Offline Diablo Jon

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Re: Into the Nacht Garten - A Retro Realms of Chaos Project
« Reply #5 on: April 05, 2020, 07:10:43 AM »
You are a sick, sick, little man!  lol
Great (but disturbing) painting.

errrr...Thanks...I think  ;)

Offline Diablo Jon

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Re: Into the Nacht Garten - A Retro Realms of Chaos Project
« Reply #6 on: April 05, 2020, 07:15:38 AM »
Doomgore Guardian of the Chaos Heart

Doomgore watched, from his vantage point above the cave entrance as the champion of Tzeentch lead his followers into the gloom of the cave. He let out a low growl "More puny weaklings come to steal the sacred heart... Doomgore stop them". Doomgore turned and walked back into another cave, behind his vantage point, the hunt had began.

 They weren't the first ones, and no doubt wouldn't be the last ones, to try enter the sacred temple of the Chaos Heart but Doomgore had killed all those that came before and displayed their skulls at the temple entrance. He was totally at home in the dark caverns in which the temple lay he knew every inch like the back of his hoof.  Doomgore tipped his head and listened, the intruders thought they where being stealthy but their noise betrayed them, "South tunnel...near the rock trap" the perfect place for an ambush. Doomgore tested the edge on his huge axe "time to kill.. time to feed"

Doomgore's axe smashed in the head of the last dwarf this one had, been blessed by the gods with, horns like Doomgore's and blue fur. Its blood was still red though and he had to fight the urge to fall on the dwarf's corpse and feed at the sight of blood. Instead he turned and faced the champion of Tzeentch, a human in blue robes, whose left arm was a mass of writhing tentacles and who had a third large eye on his forehead.

The human tried to look confident but Doomgore could smell his fear even as he started to chant the dark words of a spell. Bolts of blue lightning flew across the cavern and struck Doomgore, he barely felt the pain, as he strode toward the human raising his axe high above his head. "You are weak, you are not worthy to tread this holy ground" roared Doomgore as he brought his axe down...




The Chaos Heart

On the eastern side of the Nacht garden is a bluff overlooking the river Reik. The bluff is riddled with caves deep inside the caves is a temple dedicated to chaos undivided. The temple is guarded, so rumours say, by a huge minotaur known as Doomgore. The temple is also home to a sacred treasure of chaos the Chaos Heart. Many a chaos champion has tried to lay claim to the chaos heart but, so far, they have all fallen to Doomgore’s axe.





 



« Last Edit: April 25, 2020, 08:35:39 PM by Diablo Jon »

Offline Elk101

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Re: Into the Nacht Garten - A Retro Realms of Chaos Project
« Reply #7 on: April 05, 2020, 08:06:30 AM »
Very interesting idea. I look forward to seeing all sorts of old figures.

Offline commissarmoody

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Re: Into the Nacht Garten - A Retro Realms of Chaos Project
« Reply #8 on: April 05, 2020, 09:37:18 AM »
This is pretty metal. :D
"Peace" is that brief, glorious moment in history when everybody stands around reloading.

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Offline Onebigriver

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Re: Into the Nacht Garten - A Retro Realms of Chaos Project
« Reply #9 on: April 05, 2020, 11:15:20 AM »
Absolutely wonderful painting, but must admit with that title I expected chaotic versions of Iggle-Piggle and the gang!  :D
Waiter, my soup is giggling.

Offline Grumbledook

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Re: Into the Nacht Garten - A Retro Realms of Chaos Project
« Reply #10 on: April 05, 2020, 11:34:38 AM »
Lovely work and brilliantly evocative little scenes, great selection of minis too! Looking forward to your slice of the Old World developing further.

Offline snitcythedog

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Re: Into the Nacht Garten - A Retro Realms of Chaos Project
« Reply #11 on: April 05, 2020, 11:42:11 AM »
Very impressed so far.  Everything has so much character. 
A bottle of scotch and two aspirin a day will greatly reduce your awareness of heart disease.
"Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference"... Mark Twain
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Offline Diablo Jon

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Re: Into the Nacht Garten - A Retro Realms of Chaos Project
« Reply #12 on: April 05, 2020, 12:01:30 PM »
Thanks guys glad you like them

Absolutely wonderful painting, but must admit with that title I expected chaotic versions of Iggle-Piggle and the gang!  :D

There may have been an influence. I spent many an evening watching Upsy Daisy and Makka Pakka  with my little girl (when she was little)  …. Also Teletubby land didn't sound quite so cool when I translated it, into German, with google translate  :D

Offline Onebigriver

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Re: Into the Nacht Garten - A Retro Realms of Chaos Project
« Reply #13 on: April 05, 2020, 12:09:57 PM »
Thanks guys glad you like them

There may have been an influence. I spent many an evening watching Upsy Daisy and Makka Pakka  with my little girl (when she was little)  …. Also Teletubby land didn't sound quite so cool when I translated it, into German, with google translate  :D

Yes, I too remember sitting there watching "Night Garden" with my little girl, wondering "what the hell is this?"

Offline Diablo Jon

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Re: Into the Nacht Garten - A Retro Realms of Chaos Project
« Reply #14 on: April 05, 2020, 12:15:29 PM »
Yes, I too remember sitting there watching "Night Garden" with my little girl, wondering "what the hell is this?"

Literally the reaction of every adult who ever watched it  lol