Everyone of a certain vintage knows of this legendary army. The iconic full army shot from the back cover of White Dwarf 179 is the stuff of legend. An (at that time) obscure chapter in a quartered (!) scheme featuring 2 of the (at that time with the paints as they were then) hardest to paint colours, across a full company of space marines…it was mind blowing.
I have seen the full army shot on the internet many times, but I have not seen some of the other times Fred’s army featured in White Dwarf, so I have located and scanned those for your nostalgic viewing pleasure.
Fred’s army also featured in a battle report “A Bitter Harvest” in the next issue of White Dwarf, issue # 180.
I have scanned the full battle report below.
Glorious stuff, I’m sure you agree. Fred also painted several other armies which featured in White Dwarf and some models featured in some of the codexes released in 3rd edition. I will post up further Fred Reed nostalgia in due course.
Classic Warhammer 40K 
The pix for the battle report didnt open for me but I vaguely remember reading and seeing it years ago. Very cool stuff mate. Thanks for sharing.
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Weird – I checked it from a couple of different computers and it’s all working for me. Anyway the best photos are the two back covers—the rest is just there to be completionist. Hope you enjoyed anyway and looks like I might get at least one ork painted for Orctober 🤘
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Saw them mate. Must’ve just been a bad connection when I looked the first time. I look forward to seeing that solitary Ork mate hehe
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They are hi res pics too—anyway got to get that ork painted!!
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The images opened fine for me – slower than usual, but they opened. Thanks for sharing this classic article. My own WD179 has long since been binned, but this army was always memorable.
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Such a classic isn’t it. Glad you enjoyed this nostalgia hit.
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If I’d painted troops like that myself I’d consider them gaudy, but these just look so good! 🙂 Thanks for sharing! Everything opened OK for me on a Chromebook!
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Glad you enjoyed it and yeah they are pretty gaudy but somehow it works—I’m not sure I’d choose the mid-blue accent colour even back in the 90s but they look good…!
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Awesome stuff. I vaguely remember that army from the old days, but I’ve never seen the battle report before. Very cool indeed!
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Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it. I definitely thought a lot of people may not have seen the battle report or other appearances of this army so I’m glad it’s been worthwhile. Stay tuned for further nostalgia in due course of time!
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[…] A Bitter Harvest: Fred Reed’s Old School Howling Griffons Space Marines Army @ Classic Warhammer 4… – What a beautiful, vibrant army. I always loved seeing people’s interesting armies in White Dwarf. This one is an absolute classic, and looks amazing. […]
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I remember this Batrep from back in the day. Well, not anything that happened in it, but this Howling Griffons army does remain etched in my memory – especially those back covers. Thanks for putting this trip down nostalgia lane together. Kind of makes me want to paint a small force of Griffons… or at least some Space Marines!
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Very cool to shine a spotlight on this army. I rememeber these aricles well – from the days when I used to rtead every page multiple times and pore over the artwork and the photos. I’ve even still got these issues still in a bookshelf in the war room! 🙂
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Thanks mate – these oldies still slap every time.
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What a service to the hobby! Thanks Warburton.
Just yesterday, I was trying to figure out the difference in Photoshop between saving JPEGs as “Progressive” or “Baseline Standard” — which is a choice you’re given when using SAVE AS. As I understand it, large images saved as Baseline Standard may download slowly and when they do, they appear from the top down. That’s what happened to me when I viewed your post — the big images took a while to download and then appeared top down. JPEG images saved as progressive files work slightly differently – they first appear as a low res version of the *whole* image before slowly (“progressively”) downloading greater resolution and detail. Anyway, I’m no expert in these matters, but it seems to relate to what happened with your WD scans.
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Thanks Matthew, very useful, and glad you enjoyed the pictures!
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Sorry – I seem to have accidentally left three identical comments on your blog. Please delete at least two of them (since I don’t seem to be able to do so myself). Burn after reading!
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These vivid armies was a blast! Those pics in WD was something what lured me into wargaming back days. Thanks for excavating the memories 😊
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My pleasure!
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