Sunday, February 19, 2012

Art of the Citadel Compendium

If you like things that are awesome do yourself a favor a go over here and click 'Citadel Compendium' over in the left-hand column.  I've always seen this work billed as a catalog for the early Citadel range, but it's much more than that.  There's capsule rules for Warhammer Fantasy Battles and an embryonic form of 40K, scenarios, and advice for painting and sculpting figures.  And the art is absolutely glorious.  Dig it:

I know those are goat horns, but I keep wanting to read the cover as an homage to the vorpal bunny scene in Monty Python & The Holy Grail.  The head is rather rabbitish in shape and those knights in the background look rather... hesitant.


"LET'S SMASH SKULLS"
Best tagline ever?


These dudes are supposed to be giants, but man that dude with the finger pointing up is totally badass.  I may cut him out of the pic and use him as a PC sometime.  The guy with the eyepatch next to him is also great.  That's obviously meant to be a boulder in his upraised hand, but imagine it as a mystic orb and him as a really sketchy magic-user.


I know those are just two revolvers, but I can kinda want that to be a pic of a gun with its own gun attached.


How's that for a dungeon entrance?  Photoshop project: change "(first) Citadel Compendium" to "Jungle, Baby!"


These dudes are wicked cool.  The slann (frog-dude in the middle) has an ax on his shoulder, but it kinda looks like he's holding a big fat cigar.


I have no idea what is going on here, but I know who to blame: RICK PRIESTLEY.


Empire of the Petal Throne referees should totally add these dudes to their campaign immediately.


Nice comic book style sound effect.  Note that Our Hero is attacking this dude from behind.


My greatest hope for this blog post is that some gamer named Mark sees this pic and starts a new blog named The Mark of Chaos.  Come on, Mark!  You know you want to!


There is nothing about this picture that isn't great.  Two details I love: 1) the orc in the back with both his jaw and weapon dropped, 2) the shooter's left hand making a "don't worry, I got this" gesture.

I'll close with three absolutely wonderful Chaos Mutant creatures.  Enjoy.




If you meet any of this trio in my dungeons, remember BLAME RICK PRIESTLEY.


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Posted by Jeff Rients at 12:57 PM
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19 comments:

  1. Anonymous1:12 PM

    Warhammer probably has more influence on what I think of as fantasy than anything else. These are truly fantastic pieces.

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  2. Jack Guignol1:18 PM

    Are those last three illustrations by John Blanche?

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  3. matt1:39 PM

    Those are some of the most wonderfully strange pieces of gaming art I have seen. Neat find!

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  4. Coopdevil2:14 PM

    Last three are Blanche. Excellent find Jeff!

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  5. R Parker2:21 PM

    Zygor Snake-Arms is certainly going to make an appearance in my future games.

    Thanks for this.

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  6. Miranda3:06 PM

    The Slaan would work well as EPT Hlutrgu, "The Swamp Frogs."

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  7. Jeremy Duncan3:36 PM

    I really wish GW was still producing wonderful, quirky stuff like this.

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  8. noisms4:32 PM

    I remember that Slaan pic from the 1st edition of Warhammer (or it may have been 2nd) that I inherited from my friend's older brother. It's stayed in my mind quite vividly, even though I mustn't have looked at it in 20 years.

    That makes me wonder if there is a Warhammer Fantasy Battle "OSR" going on somewhere on the planet, where people make retroclones of Warhammer 1st edition. I hope so.

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  9. James Holloway4:57 PM

    There are definitely still groups out there playing early editions of WHFB and 40k -- some of the 40k groups even use the term OSR.

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  10. Jeff Rients5:57 PM

    I'm partway into an RPG hack of the original 40K hardbound. You play schlubs in the Imperial Army.

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  11. David Larkins8:27 PM

    noisms: Funny you should bring that up. I just subscribed to a blog that's focused on playing 1st edition Warhammer and it looks like his blog roll has a fair few other "OSR" Warhammer blogs listed as well.

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  12. Devin Parker10:45 PM

    That is so sweet. I've been looking for old Brit fantasy stuff recently, partly because I just dig that stuff, and partly because I've been working on a Labyrinth Lord campaign set in Mordheim for ConstantCon. Thanks for the link!

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  13. noisms4:03 AM

    Interesting. I liked this post. When we played 1st edition (or 2nd edition, I really can't remember) it would always devolve into chaos because we were about 11 years old and not really capable of coming to a fair consensus about what the rules meant. Seems pretty analagous to OD&D, really.

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  14. Jonas7:53 AM

    I really like the one that reads "Warhammer sciense Fiction!" as it really sums up what I want from a game: Vaping orcs with death rays.

    That is vaping as in killing them to death with vaporizing death ray, not skeevy stuff.

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  15. Timothy Paul Schaefer8:18 AM

    I really wish I still had Warhammer 1st edition, what I like to call 'the other little white box'.
    I was thinking about playing some 40k myself. I want to set up on old west sci-fi scenarion.
    Please let us know how you get on with your 40k project.

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  16. Timothy Paul Schaefer8:24 AM

    PS- Dragon # 149 has an article about playing Rogue Trader as an RPG. It's pretty short. The real meat of it is basically a couple tables dealing with what happens to characters who recieve critical hits, killed or knocked out and using a first aid type roll to save them.

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  17. Blacksteel9:45 AM

    Warhammer up through 3rd edition is full of this kind of stuff and doesn't hesitate to mix in some 40k either. The two Realm of Chaos books are full of weird mutated beasties and fantasy creatures with technological weapons. Flipping through those books can definitely put you in a certain frame of mind.

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  18. Lizard9:12 PM

    This is 47 different kinds of awesome. Thank you SO much for this link!

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  19. Gordon Cooper12:27 PM

    Let me take up the call, "Come on, Mark! You know you want to!"

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