Mord

A quick follow up to yesterday's post, "Who's the Boss?"

Yesterday I painted Skargutz, my Savage Orc Boss:

Skargutz - Savage Orc Boss

 Today, I've painted my first "hero" level character, Mord - Goblin Shaman:

Mord - Goblin Shaman

Mord - rear view

He's the sneaky git who is manipulating Skargutz's boyz, bringing them to the greater Waaagh, and here they are together:

Characterful...

I really wanted to post this blog for that last shot - the scale difference between the Orc boss and the Goblin is really pronounced!

Who's the Boss?

Yay! I've finished my first unit: Skargutz boyz. I'll post pics of the whole unit once I've based them, but for now, here's the main man ORC himself, Skargutz.

Skargutz: Savage Orc Boss

Not that kind of cold one!

 I'm pleased with how the unit, and Skargutz himself, have turned out. A few of the models, including Skargutz, have scaly skin for their "clothing", rather than fur. As I'm trying to keep these Orcs Old World style, exotic creatures like alligators are out (hence the fur looking like wolves, rather than zebras or tigers). I was stumped as to how to paint the scales, when I remembered that Lindsay Lawhammer is collecting a Dark Elf army. A quick message later, and she told me her corsairs' cloaks (and probably cold ones too) were a dark red up to orange. So now it looks like my boyz took down a cold one or two.

That's the fella...

I made a few other changes to his paint scheme to make him stand out. His face got a slightly brighter highlight, and I painted his top knot red. I also did his weapons differently: I may decide to give him a magical weapon, but his blades are very clearly chipped stone of some type. I considered obsidian (which has anti-magical properties in Warhammer canon), but instead I opted for Warpstone. Orcs are less prone to mutation, right?

Skargutz from above

I also discovered that his right eye is missing, making the eye stripe warpaint that most of my unit have make more sense. On the subject of inspirational warpaint, I tried to think about what Skargutz should have. As well as some on his face, and lightning bolts on his legs, I thought he needed something to motivate his ladz. Since Orcs lead from the front, this meant an impressive warpaint display on his back:

Skargutz from behind

Waaagh! I've used the orc skull glyph on most of the unit, and so it seemed fitting for Skargutz to have it on his back, so all the boyz can see it, and be whipped up into a frenzy. 

So, first unit done, it's time to think about what next.

I've decided to go for a general, multipurpose greenskin horde. While a themed army can be fun, it's also quite limiting. When I worked at GW and so could afford to buy - not to mention borrow - multiple armies, that was fine. But as this will be my only army, a little versatility is no bad thing. That being the case, tomorrow I'm going to pick up the Orc & Goblin Battalion box. It's pricy - at £70 - but the troops included would come to about £85 separately, so it's a decent saving. Plus, its contents - Orc Boyz, Orc Boar Boyz, Goblin Boyz and Forest Goblin Spider Riders - are exactly the units I would take for a starting Waaagh anyway. 

"Battalion" sounds too formal, no?

I've also made one other purchase in the interim - yet to be painted. I've been thinking about characters - all joking aside, Andy Lawhammer has been able to convert a pegasus riding general because he's an extant character in our Warhammer roleplaying campaign. I don't have that basis, so I need to choose something characterful and effective. And, to be honest, right now I don't know what that would be. Do I want a sneaky Goblin Warboss hiding in a big unit of boyz? A powerful Orc Warboss on a boar to lead the cavalry on a charge? Or a Warboss or Shaman on a wyvern? (Ooh, a wyvern...)

But I had a hankering for a character to paint. But what kind of character could I pick, that wouldn't nix any of the other options? Then, it struck me: a Goblin Shaman. He can go in a unit later, if I want, or he can skulk about on his own. What's more, when I saw the Goblin Shaman model, I noticed something cool...

He has a little skull, with a bone in it, like a mortar and pestle. No doubt it's intended to be him crushing up mad cap mushrooms or somesuch, but another thought occurred to me. What if he's the shaman applying the warpaint to Skargutz boyz. That's unorthodox, true, but Goblins are cunnin' and sneaky gits, after all. What if this devious shaman has stumbled across a small mob of Savage Orc boyz, and in that uniquely goblin style of being simultaneously desperate and tricksy, he ends up tricking their boss, leading him out of the depths of the forests and towards a greater Waaagh...?

So I bought the shaman. :)

Meet Ugg...

In a shameless rip off of Andy Lawhammer's "Meet Karl", here's my stage by stage painting guide. I'll assume everything's straightforward; any questions (or indeed advice) much appreciated. See you in the comments. ;)

Stage 1 - Undercoat
Because I am not a crazy mentalist, I opted for a black undercoat. Sprayed black: you don't need to see that, so on to...

Stage 2 - Basecoat Flesh
For this I used Waaagh! Flesh. I applied a neat first coat, followed immediately by a second, very quick "wet brush" (like a drybrush but with more paint on the bristles). This ensured a smooth coat, especially on the larger, flatter areas of skin (like the back muscles).

2 - Basecoat of Waaagh! Flesh

Stage 3 - 1st Highlight Flesh
For this, I drybrushed Warboss Green.

3 - Drybrush Warboss Green

Drybrushing, in case you don't know, is when you put paint on the brush, then wipe most off, before flicking the brush over the areas you want to highlight. It is a very quick way of highlighting. It looks great on sharp angular surfaces, but can look dusty if the surface is smoothly curved, like a space marine shoulder pad, or, say, savage orc muscles...

Stage 4 - Shading

As drybrushing can leave a dusty effect, and there's lots of mice musculature detail, I applied a wash with Athonian Camoshade, a very dark green ink wash. This runs into all the crevices, as well as smoothing and deepening the overall colour.

4 - Wash with Athonian Camoshade 

Stage 5 - Finishing the flesh

The final stage of the flesh is a final highlight of Warboss Green. This is a fairly minor highlight, just drawing out major areas that look too dark. The face gets the most attention, so that all the edges are sharply defined as Warboss Green. 

The beauty of savage orcs is their warpaint. Any mistakes made on the skin tone can be covered by a glyph. Lazy? Moi? 

5 - Flesh re-highlighted with Warboss Green

6 - Basecoat Details

I've always found the key to army painting (that is, painting an entire army to look decent together, but primarily to play with, rather than for display) is to limit your palette and choose straightforward colours that are easy to apply. So my bone and leather details use the same colour range, with the leather essentially being one tone darker.

Leather - Gorthor Brown --> Tallarn Sand --> Ushabti Bone

Bone - Tallarn Sand --> Ushabti Bone --> White Scar

So for stage 6, I basecoated the leather Gorthor Brown and the bone Tallarn Sand. I also basecoated the fur Eshin Grey. 

6 - Basecoat the details - Gorthor Brown, Tallarn Sand, Eshin Grey

7 - Shade the details

Again, when army painting, laziness is a virtue. It's all about efficiency, and Agrax Earthshade is very efficient. It's a brown wash, which, conveniently, works on my bone, leather and even fur. What's more, if a little seeps onto the orc skin? It looks fine. 

So, a quick wash over the bone, leather and fur really picks out the sculpted details.

7 - Shade the details with Agrax Earthshade

 8 - Highlight the details
Now it's time to highlight the details - the end is in sight! I use the colours listed above to finish off the various savage orc accoutrements.

Leather gets a highlight in its base layer of Gorthor Brown, before getting a fairly heavy highlight of Tallarn Sand and a final edge highlight of Ushabti Bone (in some places - don't want it looking too pale.

Bone gets a Tallarn Sand highlight, followed by a fairly heavy Ushabti Bone highlight, with White Scar to finish.

Fur gets drybrushed with Fenrisian Grey, then White Scar. I don't rehighlight with the Eshin Grey, as I want a starker contrast on the fur.

8 - Highlight the details

9 - Flint Weapons

I left the flint weapons to last because they're the aspect I'm least happy with. The box art has them painted a bright grey, almost concrete in colour, and I don't like that. I've opted for a darker grey, highlighting black with Eshin Grey and Fenrisian Grey, then washing with Agrax Earthshade. I'm still not 100% sold on it. 

The problem is that there's lots of chipped flint detail, but it's not sharp enough to really require a line highlight. 

I'm reasonably happy with the effect, but I may revisit them before I varnish them.

Highlight the flint weapons - Eshin Grey then Fensrisian Grey, then Agrax Earthshade Wash

10 - Finishing Touches

The finishing touches really make the model - eyes and warpaint (plus any tidying up required). 

The eyes are Screamer Pink, Evil Sunz Scarlet and a tiny dot of Squig Orange. You may think you can't see three colours there, but trust me, if I missed any of those stages out, it would look worse!

The warpaint is Fenrisian Grey, then a White Scar Highlight. I've opted for an arm band on the right arm, and a lightning bolt on the left shoulder, plus some face paint. That's the general theme for the unit, with variations on each orc as the fancy takes me.

10 - The finished Ugg!

Ugg rear view

 Part of the fun of savage orcs is their crudeness (not that way! Although, that being said, also that way!). So my clumsy, childlike attempts at drawing symbols and glyphs look authentically orcy and "in character". Score!

I painted another orc at the same time as Ugg:

The Third Orc

So my little unit is up to three painted orcs, with two more half-done. Here's how my boyz are looking now:

Waaagh!

All in all, I'm feeling pretty damned chuffed. Next post will discuss my plans for the army, as well as my painting set up.

Thanks for reading!

One down...

...and significantly more than 3.6 to go!

So I've painted my first savage orc boy (photo below). I'm reasonably happy, though I'm going to hold off on a stage-by-stage breakdown, as I'm going to try and refine my technique to make it a little quicker. But on the whole, happy days. :)

Waaaagh!

Slightly tilted so you can see the jawbone

So a fairly standard looking orc. I used grey for the furs - I'm thinking wolf-pelts, which may explain why I won't have any wolf-riders early on!

The warpaint here was limited to an eye-stripe, mandibles (to echo their boss's jaw), a thorned arm band, and a lightning bolt. Suggestions for other simple, orcy designs greatfully appreciated!

Skargutz's Boyz

OK! So, now the boring preamble is out the way - phew! - we can cut to the chase: the ladz. 

As I mentioned before, I went for Savage Orc boyz to start with; partly this was born out of nostalgia for a previous greenskin army, but also I have an empathy for wild berserkers that cover themselves in facepaint. Indeed, it's a good thing that my time frequenting the Scottish Claymores games predated facebook. 

"Historically inaccurate", you say? "FREEEEEEEEDOM!", I retort.

So I took my savage orcs home, dug out my clippers, unscrewed the poly-cement, opened the box, and reveled in the joy that is multipart plastics. I love 'em. I know some people prefer lead, or tin, or white-metal (or, nowadays, resin), but I've always loved multipart plastics. I think it may be early memories of airfix kits and weird knock-off Gundam mechas, as well as the ability to give your models character. 

That comes from the sheer variety on offer. There may only be, essentially, two different body poses, but with the different arms, weapons, heads and accessories, there's lots of options.

Ah.

Options. 

Right, I have to make decisions before I get to stick 'em together, don't I. Bugger. 

As I haven't picked up the army book yet, or indeed the rulebook (coming soon - Baz tells me 8th edition has some significant changes in it) I'm going on historical information and the collective wisdom of the internet. Neither especially reliable. Then again, I'm building an orc and goblin army, so that goes with the territory. I did find this blog to be a really useful source of advice, and I expect I'll be visiting it quite often!

Now, Savage Orcs get frenzy - it's part of their charm - giving them 2 attacks. Not bad. I recall that popular options in the past for them were spears, as in previous editions, that allowed you to attack with a second rank, giving you even more attacks if you were charged. However, some rudimentary investigation implies that things are more complicated now. 

The other popular option was additional hand weapons, giving the models - you guessed it - yet another attack. Quite aside from the tabletop benefit of Orcs doling out 3 attacks each, the image of these maddened, frenzied orcs flailing around like maniacs with both hands is just too awesome, so additional hand weapons it is. 

My first unit - Savage Orc Boyz with additional hand weapons

Now, as I mentioned before, what I love about good multipart plastics, is the ability to build character, as well as choose effective combos, aka being beardy - long story. Now, unlike my beardy mate Andy, I'm not ready to start thinking about army generals yet. I'm not sure if I'm going for an all primitive army (savage orcs and forest goblins), an all orc army (no stinkin' gobbos!), or a more balanced Waaagh. I'm expecting to go balanced, just because that will give me more options, but we'll see.

But a unit needs a champion - or Boss, in orcy terms - and this unit was no exception. The champion model has an exposed torso, and the name "Skargutz" just popped into my head. So, I whipped out the modelling knife, and scarred his guts.

Someone's been in a tussle with Hugh Jackman...

I realised that three thin scores wouldn't actually make any difference once sprayed, painted and varnished, so I actually cut out thin slivers from his body. Hopefully they'll give it some definition when I paint it. 

In terms of back-story, I'm thinking that given orcs resolve their disputes physically, maybe Skargutz got his scars in a leadership bid. Possibly he'll have received them from whichever suitably impressive orc I end up using as a warboss. 

Something else I noticed in the box was the prevalence of jawbones, both in the weaponry of the orcs, and also in their accessories. Skargutz has an extended mandible tusk rig, and some of the others do too:

Skargutz, musician and unnamed accomplice

Now the exaggerated square jaw and protruding tusk has long been a staple both of orcy faces and their iconography. See exhibits A through C:

Evil Suns orc tribe

Old orc icon

Waaagh etc.

So I'm intending to use that iconography throughout the army, and in the case of Skargutz's boyz, I'm thinking about having those orcs without enhanced mandibles to have their warpaint along the jawbone. I'm not sure where, or how exactly, and it may look guff, but we'll see.

I'm also toying with colour ideas for warpaint. Blue is, I feel, a little too obvious. Been there, done that. Red could work, but I'm currently leaning towards white. That would tie with the bone / tusk motif quite nicely, though I'm not sure how well they'll stand out on green.

This chap has done some lovely warpaint, but there's no way I've got the patience (or steady hand) for that! 

Whereas this chap has done some minimalist warpaint, and it looks good.

So, decisions to be made. I plan to pick up paints and brushes tomorrow, so I should have one painted sometime next week. Think I'll paint a basic boy first, rather than starting with the command models. If it looks bad, he can be a back-ranker.

Until the next update...

Why Greenskins?

This whole Warhammer thing gathered steam pretty quickly: we've been playing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay for years (starting with 2nd Ed, evolving to +Andrew Law's homebrew rules), but not tabletop gaming. When Baz came back to GW Edinburgh, he got in touch with Andy, +Ross Lorimer, Harry Wright and I to come in and work on something. Years back, GW had all their retail stores collaborate on a display of the entire Ultramarines Chapter, all 1,000 of 'em. This year they're doing it again, and Baz has got a Terminator squard - the elite veterans of a Space Marine army. He thought it would be nice for us to contribute, so we did.

Terminators: mine, Ross's & Andy's

We were pretty pleased with them.

That was only 2 weeks ago, and here we are collecting an army: I thought long and hard about which force to collect: initially I was tempted by Skaven. They are sneaky and fun characters, and most of their models are cool (see exhibits A + B below).












Skaven Warlock Engineers. Awesome.

But, while they are cool models individually, collectively, there's a lot of brown there, which can make the army a little samey from a distance. Also, while the whole army is quite fast, they don't have cavalry. and I like me some cavalry. So that ruled out the vile ratmen.

Next I considered Chaos: some lovely models, such as the new Warriors unit, but given I only had interest in Marauders and Warriors, and not in trolls, daemons, giants, etc, the army would feel quite limited.

I briefly toyed with Bretonnians - I've wanted an army of them since I was a kid, reading White Dwarf when I was off sick from school. But they're fiddly to paint, so they can wait.

Which led me to Orcs.

I've only had three Warhammer Armies that I've collected fully. I've started and abandoned loads, but only three ever stuck: Empire, Lizardmen and Orcs and Goblins.

The Empire are great fun: I loved playing with them, and given our roleplay characters are from the Empire, there's lots of fluff reasons to choose them. But they were the last army I played, and what's more, Andy's doing Empire, so that's them out.

Lizardmen were a strange one. I played well with them, they were easy to paint, but I had no real love for them, fluff-wise. I found them a bit cold (appropriately enough, I suppose!).

Which led me to Orcs. Back in the day, I had a big old Savage Orc and Forest Goblin army. I never did very well with them, but I always had fun. I spent some time looking over the models, and the new plastics are great. The range is wide and diverse - lots of cavalry too! - and I like almost all the models in the army (only the Goblin Wolf Riders are let down by the old plastic wolves, but if I decide I need wolf-riders, some conversions may be in order...).

So...all that's a very long-winded way of saying...I like Orcs. ;)

I opted for a unit of Savage Orc Boys to start off with.

They're assembled now, and I aim to start painting either later this week or next week. Next post I'll pop up some pictures of the assembled Orcs and discuss their equipment...

Waaagh!

So, I've finally succumbed and started a blog. Why, you are almost certainly not wondering. I'll tell you anyway.

After a not insignificant break, I'm starting to collect a Warhammer army again. I used to play - indeed, I used to work for GW - but I got old, I got busy, and my friends stopped playing, so I gradually sold off my painted stuff, and when I moved house I dumped what I had left. Decluttering and all that.

But now circumstances have conspired against me (or with me...?): my mate Baz (@Bazkull) is back managing the Edinburgh GW store, while my other mates Andy (@hapimeses) and Lindsay (@tyritha) have started collecting new armies, partly on the strength of their daughter also wanting to start playing.

Man, we are old.

Anyhow, the purpose of this blog is just to chart the growth of my new army. There'll be pictures, some painting discussion, tactical thoughts, rough battle reports (eventually) and maybe some fluff too. Can't imagine it'll be of much interest to anyone other than me, but you never know.

Next post will discuss why Orcs.

'Til then, adieu!