Revisiting old armies?

[guillotine 16039xp 2]

I have a dilemma, and I thought to ask OTT community’s thoughts.

We’re going to have a go at the Warlords of Erehwon game this weekend, and for that I dug out my old Warhammer armies. I’ve had the minies in storage for years and I was expecting to be underwhelmed by the paint jobs. But quite the opposite, I was positively surprised especially on my Undead army, considering I painted it 20 years ago as a teenager.

Now, some models are broken, un-based (apparently I was dumb enough then to not glue the sand on the base before priming…) and only partially finished (I might have gotten burned out with painted all the skellies and zombies, and then not getting the characters completed), so I will be fixing them up and that’s fine.

But given that I’m much better painter now, and all the advancements in paints and techniques, there’s the temptation to revisit the whole army with some washes, extra highlights, adding tufts to the bases etc…

Would that be a crime against the work I did back then? Should I think about preserving my personal hobby history? I certainly did enjoy getting the minies out now and inspecting what I did well and where have I progressed since. On the other hand, I could, with very little effort, make the army whole lot nicer, while keeping the original style.

 

[totsuzenheniParticipant 5651xp 1]

I would buy some new miniatures and keep the old ones as they are if i could, but of course perhaps you can’t. If you are going to ‘revisit’ the undead then i suggest keeping a few of those miniatures ( a skeleton, a zombie, a couple of the ‘heroes’ ) as they are as a historical record.

[orlandothetechnicolouredParticipant 4380xp 1]

I’d be tempted to leave the paint alone but consider rebasing (or redoing the bases),

& maybe add a new unit or two that you can paint in a similar scheme but using your new techniques and skills

[mageParticipant 20596xp 1]

I think, ultimately that is only a question you can answer yourself.

 

Personally, if I was happy with them now with how I did them back then I would either:

 

Redo everything

Or complete everything up to the same standard.

[phaidknott 7023xp 0]

Sometimes just a rebase can “freshen up” an old army, for example if you had just done the old goblin green and flock bases of old…but now did it with static grass and/or rocks and tufts it can update the whole army.

For the unpainted minis, could you do a more basic job to match your earlier efforts so they match? The most important thing is that all the units in the army look similar (to get that mass impact appeal), having different standards of painting in the same army tends to break them up.

[somegeezer 18431xp 0]

This is a splendid thread. I’d echo the advice above: leave the paint jobs, spruce up the bases, and do the characters in the old colours bit with all your skills.

And make a project so we can all see ???

 

 

 

[angelicdespot 4689xp 0]

If you have the skill to improve your old minis – and relatively quickly – I’d be tempted to do so.

I think it’s nice to keep some old painted minis so you’ve got a record of them, but unless you feel very strongly about a whole army, you don’t need to keep the whole thing.   If it was going to be a lot of effort I’d say to just start an entirely new army.   But if you’re going to rebase them and add minis to the army then you’re effectively not just bringing an old army out of storage but incorporating them into a new army, so why not freshen up their paint jobs while you’re at it?

[guillotine 16039xp 1]

Good points from everybody!

Yesterday I painted the unfished bits from the characters, trying to stick to the original style as much as possible. This was actually quite easy.

And today, I got the army on the table! Below are some photos of the game. I’m actually quite happy how the old models look on the table, and I’m fairly sure now that I’m going to leave the skellies and zombies alone.

I figured from the game that for Warlords of Erehwon I want to add some shooty units. I will probably paint a unit or two of skeleton archers up to my current standards while sticking to the original colour scheme. They’ll probably go on round bases, I’ll  then see how much I’m bothered by the different base styles and consider re-basing some of the old minies.

 

Oh and Erehwon seems like a really fun game. It surely won’t be another 20 years until my Undead rise again.

[orlandothetechnicolouredParticipant 4380xp 0]

Excellent

[somegeezer 18431xp 0]

They’re a fine sight!

[civilcourageParticipant 11134xp 0]

I’m really excited about all the new ‘open’ fantasy games coing aout at the moment, like you i have so many old warhammer fantasy armies kicking about that i just cant bear to get rid of but havent seen a table in years.

Now they are all gettting a dust off and the odd spruce ready for war once again.

Thats a lovely undead army you have by the way @guillotine

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