Blog William's 5th edition lizardmen painting journey

Hi all,

Back when I was a kid, I loved to collect warhammer models but never played a game.
The main models I bought were 5th edition lizardmen. I collected them in a haphazard way, one terradon, one cold one... couple of skink archers etc.. very random but fine considering I never gamed with them.

That has now all changed now with the introduction to my wargaming club (wycombe warband - https://www.facebook.com/groups/397460790427301) of the game Dragon Rampant. The game doesn't have lizardmen but instead works on generics.. "heavy infantry", "big monster" etc.... which is great as everybody is fielding some very old school Ral Partha minis from the 70s...

So with this in mind, I took a visit to my parents and dug out my ancient lizardmen models. Some were in pretty poor shape but nothing that I cannot fix. Luckily the paint I applied as a 13 year old kid wasn't overly thick so I have been having success with overpainting. I managed to source some additional models to bulk out the force such as two extra Kroxigors a terradon and a load of saurus spearmen. Unfortunately the original cold ones are extremely expensive but I needed cavalry so had to opt for the new lizardmen saurus knights. They are OK but the cold ones are a bit dorky with all the same tail pose.

I don't like the slanted bases they come with, so have bought some straight slotta bases, which means I need to get a bit creative with bending tails etc.. so that they can be placed in a mass formation.

The rescued models


A test paint on top of my old paint job. I think it Looks OK!


The new models I bought.. seems a shame to open the blisters but there we go..

A squad of three kroxigor. With only two models to choose from, I had to get creative to make sure they were not a bunch of clones with the same pose.


The cold ones knights, quite happy with how they came out.
I forgot to add on the banners for the shot above! I decided to chop off the hands that were holding these and then drill a hole into the cold one to hold the banner. It looks OK from the other side as it looks as if it is part of the sadle.

 

Great paintjob on those cold ones. And as person not really familiar with those old minis, I must say that I like them more than "new" plastic warriors.

 

Agreed! I have a pile of them that I want to paint up someday.

The only issue with them for AoS is how small they are; roughly the size of a "modern" skink. But if you have 5th edition models across the board, it shows how big a kroxigor really is!

 

Oh for sure.. the old 5th edition skinks are tiny in comparison to the modern skinks... I wish they never got rid of the bows though.. skink with a bow is just too iconic for me.

 

Great work! Love the posing you did on the classic krox (and the conversion); and those saurus cavalry units look great too

 

Thanks everybody for the support!

At a recent gaming show in Farnbrough, I luckily found some of the old saurus, which I quickly bought up to bulk our my rank. The original paint wasn't too thick so I decided to paint over and adapt the scheme. My current saurus are all green, but why not have a squad of blue too? So far I have just been painting the red armour plating as dark blue. The plan is that they will eventually look like my kroxigors.




The army as it currently stands, I am yet to open up those precious blister cards!

 

So. Time to work on the temple guard. Nice models but very monopose. Has anybody been able to modify them a little to break up the uniformity?

 

My regular plastic saurus are all done! Whoohoo! I am happy with how they all turned out.
My attentions are now on the temple guard above, who are a massive pain due to not wanting to stand back to back due to shield placements... time to really twist some tails.

 

Great looking saurus! I do love the old stegadon helmets. I haven't seen many conversions with those, I assume it would be hard to do judging by how the arms are cast in metal?

 

Yes, it would be difficult if one was to attempt it. I don't have the time so have just gone ahead and started painting them.

 

I really need to commit to fixing and painting my vintage lizards

 

I played a game of dragon rampant with them over Christmas.

 

I love vintage lizardmen models! I'm excited to see where you take this!

 

Didn't realise the Cold One Riders were THAT old, daymn.

 

I trust that was Warfare?

A Hampshire hog by the sounds of it! Do you live around there or elsewhere nearby?

Nope, the Saurus Cavalry models originated in late 6th or early 7th Edition Fantasy, so are newer than the rest of @pikapoka's army, but I imagine he picked those up because of the scarcity of older models.

 

Thats right, the bring and buy section at Warfare was excellent! I also found that the old plastic saurus can be bought pretty cheaply from troll trader.
I live up near High Wycombe and go to the club there. https://www.facebook.com/groups/397460790427301

But yeah, I went for the newer saurus cav just because of the extreme cost of the originals. I do have one of them who were then known as tichi raiders. Crazy expensive and I like the new ones well enough, although they are a bit too big and chunky in comparison to the rest of the army.

 

Little bit more progress on the temple guard. Basic colours are done. Now I need to shade the blue skin and do corrections.

 

Highlights done and I decided to make the sword the blue/obsidian colour too.

Now just do some little touch-up corrections and base! After these guys I will move onto working on the terradons.