Recreating Fred Reeds Howling Griffons (WD180)

 

Recreating Fred Reeds Howling Griffons (WD180)

 

The highlight of any White Dwarf is the battle report, and during the 90s the battle report was at its best! The pre battle army round up, the blow-by-blow account of the battle, the handmade terrain, the strategy maps with all the symbols for each unit and of course the army photos of each opposing side.

The 90s saw some of the most iconic battle reports ever produced by Games Workshop, the likes of ‘Fangs of The Wolf’ which pitched Andy Chambers Space Wolves against Jervis Johnsons Ork war band lead by non-other than Ghazghkull Thraka! Or ‘Anges of Death’ where again Andy Chambers and Jervis Johnson pitch off again, this time the Blood Angels take on an Ork Hoard. Or even ‘Witch Hunt’ this time Jake Thornton and Adrian Wood jump into the fray with an Eldar and Ork match up. There were so many great battle reports produced during the War Hammer 40,000 second edition era.

However, there was one Battle Report that stood out to me above all others, it had everything! Drama on the tabletop and Drama off the tabletop between to two players as well, (all though this point only became apparent to me years later), and two amazingly painted armies that depicted what seconded edition was all about! Colour! This Battle Report was non other than ‘A Bitter Harvest’, the iconic report that pitched an upstart area manager Fred Reeds Howling Griffons against the season campaigner of the White Dwarf team Adrian Wood and his Seconded Editon Ork Hoard.

For many reasons this Battle Report truly captivated me, however no reason more so than Fred Reeds Howling Griffons! I would spend hours just looking at the army photo and wonder how he had painted them so beautifully. The boldness of the primary colours, the quartering and the hand painted banners all spoke to me in a way no other army ever did before or since. I remember saying to myself one day I will have an army like Fred Reeds Howling Griffons. Unfortunately, as a 10 year old kid at the time I neither had the money nor the painting skills to see this statement though.

Fast forward approximately 30 years, two dogs, a wife and 3 kids later I find myself with a bit more money and slightly more advanced painting skills of my 10 year old self, surely now is the time to carry out my childhood dream.

And so it began my journey to recreate Fred Reeds Howling Griffons Army from the Battle Report ‘A Bitter Harvest’ (WD180). My first task was to obtain the necessary miniatures to carry out this project. I wanted to keep within the second edition aesthetic so that meant not using miniatures from ranges post second edition as these were not available to Fred. This made things a lot tougher and more expensive on the collection front as the old Rouge Trader and Second Edition era miniatures go for a pretty penny on auction sites. With this in mind I raided some old boxes from my childhood to see what I could pull out. I was in luck, as I still had the old Blood Anges tactical squad (in metal) and also the Death Company. These were perfect for creating the backbone of my army repurposing these guys for my Tactical Squad and non-heavily armed Devastator squad. The Death Company came up trumps in more ways than one as it contains the exact Chaplin model Fred used as his Chaplin within his army. This was perfect as it was going to be the Character models that were going to cost the most.

 

This was a great base to start from and I decided to start with the Tactical squad. My first job was to strip the old paint from these miniatures, it was in doing this I realised I was not going to be able to save the plastic arms, shoulder pads and guns. It is here and only here I broke my rule of not using models/parts from new editions, however I quickly realised if I had to source original second edition arms, shoulder pads and guns I may need to remortgage my house. So, I made to tactical decision to scavenge these parts from the newly discontinued tactical squad box which I had lying around. This was my only concession within this project, but I feel one that did not take away from the overall aesthetic of the project.

Once cleaned up the painting commenced on the newly formed Tactical Squad (a little side note here, I switched out the Blood Angels Sargent for the Ultramarine Sargent as used by Fred.) In the interest of keeping this blog to a manageable size you can see how I painted and what paints I used on my YouTube channel ‘Jonny Watson Gaming’.

The Devastators were a little trickier in that I had to source at least 4 heavy weapons guys and the Sargent for the squad. However once these were obtained the process was basically the same as the Tactical Squad.

Once my core of the army was complete, I decided to turn my attention to the Scout Squad, I was looking forward to these as I feel these old Rouge Trader Scouts were by far the best ever produced and I just really enjoy the steam punk theme they carry. The Scouts presented me with a small amount of conversion work to carry out as I had to attach a heavy bolter to one of the scouts and a bolter to another to fall in line with Freds young punk space marine cadets. The scout Sargent coursed me some problems as I had trouble working out what model Fred had used, however after some googling I found it was a Rouge Trader model called ‘Space Marine with Terminator Honour's
and with that and some bartering on ebay I picked up mine ready to be added to the squad.

After finishing off the majority of the infantry models I though it time to reward my self with the centre piece of the army ‘the mighty Dreadnought!’ Again, this was an ebay purchase as I did not own an original Second Edition Dreadnought. I endeavoured to ensure I picked one up that had the same load out as Freds Dred. Having never owned an original Dreadnought I was not quite ready for just how heavy this lump of metal really was! Wow now that’s a model, the words ‘they don’t make them like they use to’ come to mind. He even came with the banner pole which saved some conversion work. So, I found a circular base, somehow stuck a heap of metal together and painted the beast.

So, with the euphoria of finishing the mighty Dreadnought I was on a high and went straight into the Landspeeder. Now if there ever was a bump down to earth this was it! Hands down the old metal second edition Landspeeder is the hardest model I have ever tried to put together. Nothing would stick (even with pins) sections needed filing down to fit into place and don’t get me started on how you hold this thing to actually paint it! This is one of those times I must admit the later plastic editions might have been better… Still after a lot of cursing I managed to finish it and once put together and painted its clear there is not better Landspeeder model before or after, well in looks terms anyway!

With the Landspeeder complete I come to realise I only have the hero models to paint. The old Blood Angels Death Company Chaplin, a Librarian in terminator armour a standard Librarian and of course the companies Captain. As I already had the Chaplin it was just the Librarians and the Captain I had to source. I started with the Librarians first. The Librarian with terminator armour was easy, I found him on my first search on ebay for a very reasonable price, one down. From here it got a little harder. It became clear after a lot of searching for the generic Librarian that the one from Freds army was a conversion and thus this model did not exist for purchase. As it was near impossible to work out what parts/models he used as part of his conversion works I in the end decided on using my favourite ever Librarian model of with I already owned, it meant going away from what Fred did however it give my army its own sense of uniqueness. With that it just left the captain to find. Now after I bit of research, I quickly find out the model used was the Games Day 1991 model, which means there was only a limited run carried out, which means yes you guessed it if I find one which is going to be unlikely its going to be expensive! Out of all the models I had to find for this project the Games Day Captain was by far the hardest to get hold of. In the end I saw a listed on ebay for an eye watering amount of money for a figure of his size. I had to make a decision, and in the end, I decided to fork out and purchase him, for the greater good! right!? Once I had all these models, I painted them as a batch along with their associated banners etc. and again if you want to see how I painted these there are videos on my YouTube channel as mentioned above.

So that’s it the army was complete! It’s done! But wait how am I going to photo the army to match the army shot within WD180 battle report without the terrain and back drop!? If I am going to recreate the army I may as well go the full distance and recreate the photo shoot. So, looking at the original army shot the main features are the old Bastion a Battle Bunker and the backdrop. Now this was going to push me out of my comfort zone, for a start terrain building is not my forte let alone scenic painting Bob Ross Style! But I’ve come this far I might as wall give it ago. I thought I would tackle the Bastion first and during some research I found that a company in Europe built the original and built replicas as well. I got lucky and found someone one ebay selling one of these replicas so instantly snapped it up. After some touching up and some terrain work the Bastion was done. I captured this on YouTube and I got a few comments stating that I have cheated because I had bought the main body of the Bastion, so with that I felt I needed to right this and settle the score by scratch building the Battle Bunker, which I built nearly entirely out of plaster card and foam board. (again, you can see how I built this via my YouTube Channel). This then just left the last and final element to recreate that iconic shot, and that was the backdrop! I’m afraid this time there was no short cuts, I had to suck it up and put my inner artist to the test.

This was such an amazing project and one I will never forget, it bought home a childhood dream, it even brought the man him self Fred Reed to get in touch with me to discuss mine and his works. It made me realise with time and hard works and a little bit of outlay you can achieve your goals no matter how far away they seem at the start. If you have a dream army that seem out of reach, start it today because that dream can be reality tomorrow!