An Orc-ward Moment...



 

Well thank goodness we've finally got January out of the way - now I can make some New Year Resolutions safe in the knowledge that they won't have to survive the rigours of the grimmest month!

 

As you might gather from the post title I'm going goblinoid again.

 

 

 Have no fear though, dear reader - Lustria has not been forgotten and nor have the Trolltooth Wars. I have an update on the completion of the shell of the ground floor for Shrine of Rigg once I get round to taking some pics. Admittedly work on casting bricks has ground to a halt thanks to the dear wife seizing back control of the Dining room, which had previously been my centre of operations. With Christmas well and truly over and no more incursions of family and friends wanting to be fed and entertained likely to occur any time soon, the time is right for another hostile takeover...

 

The Trolltooth Wars project is still on my radar - just working out how to squeeze it in. First steps will probably be some modelling experiments on how to produce a cheap Rhinoman legionary that resembles the illustrations from various Fighting Fantasy game books.

 

But back to the Orcs. Thanks to my old Orc's Drift project I ended up with a large amount of painted Orcs - three tribes who made up quite a nice little army. However, there was one little problem. I had lots of bog standard infantry and a few archers along with the odd Wyvern Rider and pack of Hobhounds.

 

Not really reflective of the multicultural extravaganza on show in the old Armies book however. Where are the multitudes of Goblin-kind, Snotlings, Half Orcs, Savages, Black Orcs and Hobgoblins? Where indeed are the more exotic troop types like Snorta's and Grunta's, Gobbo Sticka's, Fanatics, Pump Wagons, Wolf Riders, Chariots, Trolls and so on?

 

Well this is some way to redressing the balance and reorganising my Orcly Horde to make it a little more interesting. You'll see a lot of painted stuff in the pic - I always feel a bit of a cheat posting pics of WIP/unfinished stuff! You'll also see a load that isn't, which represents a few additions I want to make in the near future.

These range from old mini-projects I never got round to finishing like painting up the rest of Ugezod's Death commando's - aborted during last year's Lead Painter's League!

Finishing off Golgfag's Mercenary Ogres having finally tracked down the champion and a few more troopers to make this stupidly expensive (in terms of points) unit ten strong. I'm also going to rebase them with smaller 40mm scenic bases of the same type the finished guys are on here.

More finishing off... this time 36 Gobbo Sticka's along with some fanatics. These were intended to be painted up for the Orc/Undead game I played with Warlord Paul last year but energy levels waned before that happened! The three extra fanatics will be used with a large unit of Goblin Warriors who haven't been started yet.

Give my Greenskins some artillery! I painted up several of the crew for Skullcrusher ages ago as part of an Easter themed Lead Painter's League entry and now it's time their colleagues joined them, along with the war machine they crew.

Grunta's! It's about time my Goblinoid horde had some shock troops and what better choice than these well 'ard Boar riders? Most of these chaps have been with me since the old days, although I have now bulked out the unit to twelve and finally got my hands on the standard bearer.

I could do with one more citadel boar for the archer making do with a Marauder one, but hey ho, nevermind - it's about time they got painted again.

Talking of Marauder, I also have a unit of ten or so Marauder boar riders who will feature as regular Snorta's once I get round to them.

Eventually I'd like a selection of all the units featured in the Warhammer Armies book. I have most of them but just need to paint them up. Also waiting patiently in the queue are several Pump wagons and numerous bases of Snotlings, a squadron of Goblin chariots, more Goblins than you can shake a stick at, the Marader giant, Jes Goodwin Ogres, Trolls, assorted Shamans, a shedload of Rock Throwers, Lead Belcher, Man Mangler, a growing assortment of Bob Olley and Nick Lund Black Orcs, Goblin Wolf riders and much much more.

The main idea is to firstly tart up my Orc army as I reckon there'll be a fair few games to be played this year with them. Once this first batch is done I'll be going back to Lustria to finish off the Norse unit I started a while back.  I'll maybe throw in the odd Goblinoid unit to mix things up a bit after that - not to mention bits of Undead to bolster the ranks of that army and the odd bit of modelling for the Trolltooth Wars. I'm also quite excited at the idea of playing some Warhammer siege now that I have a large amount of Orc artillery and a second Mighty Fortress!

Sounds like a plan - what could possibly go wrong?

Certainly not the large amount of 15mm Steam tanks and Martian Tripods heading my way courtesy of the All Quiet on the Martian Front kickstarter, which will hopefully be shipping in the next month or so. Nor will my old mate Ollie's suggestions of 6mm Sci Fi tempt me to dig out my old box of Space Marine and start painting tiny little Eldar and Space Orks...