Great Menacing Hammerheads (Wars of Ozz)

In my painting scramble to get ready for HUZZAH! 2023, I painted a number of regiments, leaders and individuals for my Wars of Ozz games. You may have noticed several of them in my last post. Most of these projects involved regiments from the Great Land of Harvest. One of them was the Great Menacing Hammerheads, SKU#528. The unit is composed of 10 figures to be based each on 5 stands.

The photo of them on the Wars of Ozz website intrigued me:

What exactly are these?

They are listed in the rules as part of forces available to the Great Land of Harvest. Still, again…

What exactly are these?

The rulebook is silent on this, except to suggest that these creatures may be one of many mutations that occurred after the Madness Bombs fell 300 years ago. I am by no means expert on the original Baum Wizard of Oz works that inspired the game. With a little digging on the old internet, I found a couple of clues. Apparently these do appear in the Oz books around the year 1900 – and are quite xenophobic and weird. There is an Oz Wiki site – and there I found this:

“They had nearly reached the first rock when they heard a rough voice cry out, “KEEP BACK!” “Who are you?” asked the Scarecrow. Then a face showed itself over the rock and the same voice said, “THIS HILL IS OUR HILL, THE HILL OF US HAMMER-HEADS, AND WE DO NOT ALLOW ANYONE TO EVER CROSS IT!” “But we must cross it,” said the Scarecrow. “We’re going to the country of the Quadlings to see its ruler, Glinda the Good Witch, so we must.” “BUT YOU MUST NOT!” Replied the voice, and there stepped from behind the large rocks the strangest man the travelers had ever seen. He was quite short and stout, standing no more than three feet high and had a big, oversized head, which was smooth on the top and as flat as a hammer. The head was supported by a thick, long, fat neck full of many layers of wrinkles. But the body had no arms at all, not even stubs.“―The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900)

from the Oz Wiki

A little more digging found these images from the original books:

It appears that their attack mode is a whipping-extending forward-head-butting action. How they button their clothes, tie their shoes, or perform acts of personal hygiene are certainly left to the imagination…

Another site (The Creature Codex)shows an interesting artist’s concept of these as monsters as shown by the photo below:

These look more menacing and Ozz-like, but lack the “hammerheads”. As for why the Great Menacing Hammerheads (let’s call them the GMHH) are listed as part of the Great Land of Harvest forces, I am not 100% sure given the above. I can accept that given the previous quote and their alleged xenophobia, they probably would only fight alongside their nearest neighbor mutants? In any case, I happily bought them and proceeded to build and paint the regiment.

Similar to some other Great Land of Harvest regiments, the GMHH unit is comprised of 10 metal figures, and each is unarmed – save for their heads, which are different types of hammers. The figures are of different heights, and needed assembly insofar as each figure came in two pieces – a torso and a long neck/head combination. The figures reminded me a bit of malevolent sneetches – if Dr. Seuss had disarmed them…(sorry for that)…

Let’s move on to the figures shall we?

I needed to assemble the unit and affix the two pieces. I decided to channel my inner Roger and use green stuff and sculpt a type of sneetch-inspired ruffled collar on them which would also serve as a bond for the models. I varied the heads so that no two bases would be the same. They are based in the game on five 2″ square bases without a Regimental Commander. Their melee value is pretty strong at 7 out of 10. Their Elan and Resolve values are the same as the other Harvest units at 6 out of 10.

I wanted them to look wild and crazy – and certainly as “menacing” as I could. Their varied head positions helped with this as did varied base flocking. Lastly, to match my other Harvest troops, I did paint the eyes with a glowing yellow-green (Tesseract Glow).

As before, I’ll share a few WIP shots and then some eye candy of the GMHH regiment. I’ll start with assembly of the figures and then move to describing the painting process. I used a number of contrast and speed paints, but did also use highlights and washes. All of the paints that I used will be listed at the end as I normally do for those interested in that level of detail.

WIP Shots…

I varnished these with a coat of gloss followed by one of matte. Then I flocked the bases with the same color themes as my other Harvest troops. How about some…

Eye Candy

Stand 1

Stand 2

Stand 3

Stand 4

Stand 5

Group Shot

Photographing these was difficult due to the number of heads that were downward facing – such that illuminating them was tough – let alone catching their faces – but I think you get the idea of how they look in the group shot. From above their hammerheads resemble – well – actual hammers. And I think that is the point.

I don’t think they are the best I have done – but they are ok, and will be fine on the tabletop.

That’s all for the Great Menacing Hammerhead Infantry Regiment. I hope that you liked their wackiness as much as I did. This makes 128 figures that I have painted for Ozz this year! I do have three more posts in the queue and then I can get back to painting more stuff. The next one will be quite fungal…

Thanks for taking a look and any feedback is always appreciated

And yes, I still have more to come…

Miscellaneous details and references for those interested in that sort of thing:

For all of my previous posts on Wars of Ozz games, figures, units, and other related projects – please see this page.

PAINTS, INKS, GLAZES, SHADES, WASHES, PIGMENTS, FLOCKING, GLUES AND MORE THAT I USED ON THIS GREAT MENACING HAMMERHEAD INFANTRY REGIMENT:

1. Green Stuff (kneadatite)
2. Gorilla Glue
3. Poster tack
4. Vallejo “Flow Improver”
5. Vallejo “Airbrush Thinner”
6. Vallejo Premium Surface Primer “White”
7. Vallejo Mecha Surface Primer “White”
8. Army Painter Airbrush Primer “White”
9. Citadel “Tesseract Glow”
10. Citadel “Contrast Paint – Baal Red”
11. Battlefront “Black”
12. Vallejo Model Color “White”
13. Army Painter “Speed Paint – Forest Sprite”
14. Citadel “Contrast Paint – Gore Grunta Fur”
15. Citadel “Contrast Paint – Contrast Medium”
16. Army Painter “Speed Paint – Zealot Yellow”
17. Vallejo Game Ink “Yellow”
18. Vallejo Model Air “Gun Metal”
19. Citadel “Runefang Steel”
20. Army Painter “Speed Paint – Dark Wood”
21. 2″ square steel base from Wargames Accessories (#21)
22. Citadel “Nuln Oil GLOSS” (wash/shade)
23. PS Model Color “British Brown Drab”
24. DecoArt/Americana “Honey Brown”
25. Citadel “Contrast Paint – Gryph-Hound Orange”
26. P3 “Blazing Ink”
27. Vallejo Model Air “Chrome”
28. Army Painter “Light Tone” (wash/shade)
29. Vallejo Mecha Varnish “Gloss Varnish”
30. Vallejo Mecha Varnish “Matte Varnish”
31. Elmer’s PVA Glue
32. Army Painter “Battlefields Grass Green” (flocking)
33. Army Painter “Battlefield Field Grass” (flocking)
34. Army Painter “Battlefields Field Grass” (flocking)
35. Army Painter “Battlefields Meadow Flowers” (flocking)
36. Shadow’s Edge Miniatures “6mm Dark Forest Orange Tufts” (flocking)
37. Gamer’s Grass “Orange Flowers” (flocking)
38. Small stones (flocking)
39. Small oak twigs (flocking)

Again, as you may want to check out the Wars of Ozz figures’ range – there are two places to get them (and I make no money from this btw). The game rules and the figures are available from the following two places:

In the US Old Glory has a site – Wars of Ozz Miniatures.

In the UK go to Sally 4th.