Spring Cleaning 2025 – Reviving my old Warhammer Empire for Old World to a standard my teenage self wanted now that I’m old.

Progress was made on the Knights of the White Wolf and I’m hoping to have them done by the end of the week. Watch for updates. I also got another 5 crossbowmen into the line, and remember, feathers and hair will all be done at the end of the project.

I was also thinking about working on the single unit and characters for this first round of the army. 1st up was the steamtank.

I also started working out the next unit to get the stripper, uh, paint stripper treatment. As Steve Buscemi stated in the Movie “Desperado” Hand cannon time…

After doing my parenting duty for kid’s school projects, I was back free to focus on the Spring Clean Challenge. As I was getting ready to decide on what was going to get the paint stripping treatment, I figured I should go ahead and paint up another five crossbowmen I had already brought back down to bare metal. I also decided to figure out how I wanted to paint the Knights of the White Wolf.

Several of the knights needed to put back together after 30 something year old super glue finally gave it up, especially after going through the paint stripping process. It was time to break out some tools, wire, a pin vice and glue to properly pin and reglue the minis.

For the knight’s noble steeds, I needed to decide if I wanted to assemble new on sprue horses or repropose their old mounts. I decided on sticking with the repaint plan and went for the ones with tabletop experience.

Now, one of the things I don’t think I’ve really written about yet is my vision for the look of the army. I wanted to paint the army to a good tabletop standard but not go too far on the highlights. I wanted these solders of The Empire to look like their living and fighting in the forests of the Old World. A little dark and gritty. Not full “Grimdark” I suppose but touching it ever so slightly. As I started to work on the first horse for the Knights of the White Wolf I was going to stick with the classic red armor. I was liking the buildup on the first run, but after taking some photos and staring at it for a minute, I decided the paint did look cool, but I was going the direction of a single piece framed in a way requiring it to be looked at from a particular angle. I didn’t think this would look good for a unit being pushed around a table. The highlights popped and the purple wash pushed everything, and this made it easy to build on.

I went back to my mid-tone and thinned it down to almost a glaze. I started on the high points of the model where the natural light would be hitting it and started pushing down. With this new layer begin fairly translucent, it allowed the previous highlights and shading to peak through.  I added in my highlight tone and slowly built up to a level I was pleased with. I’m hoping to go for a feeling as if the army is being dimly lit through the canopy of the Old World’s deep and dark forests. Now I just need to repeat the process.

Forward progress had been made with the first group of swordsmen painted up to a tabletop standard. I should mention, if noticed, but I have not completed the various feathers in caps and helmets. The reason for this is I want to tackle them all at once for the different units so I can either match or mix up the pattern, I haven’t decided yet.

I started working on the next group of 5 infantry, Reiksguard, which I don’t think are currently in the army list, but they’re part of my old army and I’ll find a use for them.

I also started prepping the Pegasus, which involved completely breaking it down, smoothing out seams and filling gaps. You know, those silly things one never did as a kid.

Then there was a pause for parenting. My 5th graders school does a “Worlds Fair” towards the end of the school year, every year. More on that issue. Each grade is assigned a topic, and they have to research it and do presentations. The topics range from nature, to a broad point in history, to a singular historical event, or to a country. When they have the event, each class/grade sets up a tent for their topic and give presentations. Depending on the topic the class may even have to make props or costumes. In past projects I have helped for my oldest produce props that can be seen occasionally in the background of my photos in these project blogs. Normally of the bigger terrain ones. In particular a Roman gladiators shield and a gladius.

So, with that background out of the wat, about a month ago the school lets the parents know what the topics are for this year’s World’s Fair, and for my 5th grader its “Japan”. She’s very excited. This is where I’ll note, 5th grade last year also did “Japan” as a topic and seems to be a reoccurring topic. My daughter asks if I can make her a samurai helmet, but it’s just because she wants one, the teachers have not assigned specific projects within the topic, but she want’s the helmet anyway, so, no problem. Back to the spring cleaning challenge for me. or so I thought….

Two weeks ago, class email goes out:

School, “Parents the 5th grade topic for World’s Fair is “Japan” and we need extra items for the tent, and we haven’t figured out what food snack we’ll offer, and we still need volunteers to help set up/take down the tent. Also, all the kids need to have a costume.”

Me, “Costume in two weeks? Hold my beer.”

Spring cleaning hobby challenge on hold, because I’m making an 11-year-old a set of samurai armor. Is it going to be historically accurate? No. I’ve a about two weeks to make it, no patterns made, and the armor itself has limited use time being that its’s for a child who is currently out growing her clothes on a daily basis. It might make it for this year’s Halloween costume.

I did manage to squeeze in a little more work on the spring cleaning though as various glues and paints were drying and got the bulk of the work done on a cannon and crew.

Enough talk and on to some photos

And parenting break…

I’ll be finishing up the Reiksguard and I’ll need to be deciding on what unit to work on next. I for sure will begin the disassembly of the steam tank so it can get a full cleaning and rebuild.

A few of the metal miniatures 33 year old paint was being stubborn about coming off and the Simple Green just wasn’t aggressive enough to get the job done. Time to bring in the serious stuff.

When using this paint and epoxy remover I recommend a few things. A glass container, ventilation, pliers for miniature handling and a stiff bristled brush you don’t care about.

First the glass container. If you miniature is small enough, I recommend a glass container you can seal, like a mason jar. If you’re doing a larger miniature or a large batch of miniatures that you don’t have a sealing container for you really need to make sure you have more than enough ventilation because these stuffs fumes are not pleasant, or healthy for you, your friends, your family or your pets.

This particular paint stripper works pretty fast and depending on the type of paint, works pretty fast.

After you miniature has soaked for its prescribed time, I highly recommend using some sort of metal instrument (pilers, forceps, alligator clips) when handling the miniature for the brush scrubbing. I say this because the paint stripper, or at least this brand, will eat through common nitrile protective gloves we commonly use for basic protective purposes.

The stiff bristled brush should be able to work any paint that doesn’t just slide off out of nooks and crannies and have a set of picks around can help if needed.

Also of note, this paint stripper does a pretty decent job of breaking old super glue bonds, which I find helpful since you can then go in and make better connections if needed or repaint a more complex multi part miniature in stages like a mount and rider.

After the first batch of paint stripped miniatures were brushed, they were washed with a little soap and water and left to dry.

I then started on the swordsmen that had been primed….

With the City State decided on it was time to think about how I was going to start the painting process. I selected a crossbowman and began giving him life. I wanted the state troops to paint fast but still have a minimum of 3 layers for each color. So, let’s see how the test miniature turned out.

With the first mini painted to a decent tabletop, rank and file standard I was pretty happy with the results and the time spent to get there. It was time to start light…

I started with the rest of the crossbowmen and prepped the swordsmen. I like to undercoat black and do the zenithal highlighting thing. Does it help with the end shadows and highlights? I’m not sure but what it does do, at least for me, it to help pick out details and sculpted separations, like shoulder to leather straps, on these smaller and highly detailed minis. As the title of the project mentions, this is me painting at an older age, so all the help my eyes can get the better.

The crossbowmen were to an acceptable, to me, standard and were painting in a couple of hours. I started the swordsmen and began to address some of the more stubborn paint on my old metal minis.

After much thought, I have decided to revive my old Empire army from me teenage years for the 2025 Spring Cleaning Challenge. I loved Warhammer Fantasy as a kid and that game and this army is really what started my war gaming hobby. Unfortunately, it’s also the army I started to learn how to paint on. In one’s formative years what is seen in the mind’s eye doesn’t always make it into reality. Now that I have, gracefully aged and grown in skill, I felt with the return of Warhammer, The Old World, it was time to make my first army look more like what my younger self had always dreamed of. Maybe…

So, break out the paint stripper and get ready to go on a journey, it’s time to time travel.

This army has gone through several repaints. Some with proper old paint removal and some, just reprimed. Not recommended.  My original paint was based around the red and blue of Altdorf, but going forward I decided on the red and white of Tabalheim.

First things first though and into the bucket with undiluted Simple Green to try a loosen up that old paint the gentle way.

Next, and should have been first, I needed to select at least 25 miniatures to make an “army”. I wasn’t looking for tabletop playable, just a mix that would be fun to paint and representative of what I was hoping for. I decided I want to start with the metal miniatures first, typically the oldest in the collection and work up to plastics and newer sculpts. You’re going to see a lot of Perry sculpts for a while. Also, you’ll be seeing a bit of…

And with that it was time to start figuring out paint.