Arooooo!

So, after Sunday's dejection, I have repaired my wolf riders. And I'm still pleased with them, even though the poses aren't *quite* right.

The first unit of five has no boss - all a boss gives you is +1A; not much use in a 5 man scout unit with bows. I did include a musician though. That +1 to rally attempts will be handy, especially if they end up out with the general's Ld range.

The musician's shield was a casualty of Sunday's windy disaster, but making lemonade from that metaphorical lemon, I used a Bretonnian shield graciously donated by Andy Lawhammer. A few scuffs and nicks added, and now it looks like it was scavenged from the corpse of a reckless Knight Errant.

Wolf Rider Musician with looted shield

Wolf Riders

Hang on tight!

Musician from the front

Arachnophobes, beware!

Unit #4: done!

I painted my Spider Riders a little brighter, to make the army as a whole more colourful. I'm not 100% happy with the effect, but it definitely fits the army colour scheme. I may, when I do another batch, opt for a different spider-effect.

Not as professionally photographed as Andy's!

One of the things I'm not sold on is the eyes. Red on red is a bit weird, but I couldn't think of another colour I wanted to do them. I could do green, I suppose? I may go back and do that later. Another thing is that they don't photograph well: the standard in particular is leaning forward at a weird angle.

So that takes me up to over 600 points.

That's all for now, first practice games tomorrow... (or later today, I should say!)

Mord's Ladz

Waaagh!

Second unit: done.

As I mentioned last post, I elected to make a unit of Goblins my second unit choice. Mostly because I like the sneaky devious beggars, but also because I wanted to try out some proper army painting.

While I wouldn't describe my Savage Orcs as masterpieces, I did spend some time on them. But a Greenskin horde is, well, as horde, and if I'm going to get it painted, I'm going to need to relearn the skills I honed working for GW: production line painting.

And behold, the slightly blurry results...

Goblin Archers. Fear us.

I'm pleased with how they look en mass. Taken individually, they're a bit scrappy, but as a unit they look good. The bows and skin tones are fairly consistent. The clothes are mostly brown, of various shades, with a little grey in there too. Most of the top knots are grey too, with a little red here and there for a splash of colour. The shields are all different too, with different coloured skulls on them etc.

I didn't want any sense of uniformity: this lot are the scavengers of the Old World, stickin' folks with arrers, then lootin' their corpses. Indeed, I may ask Andy & Lindsay Lawhammer if they have any spare shields or helmets etc. that I can mix in with my next gobbo unit for a bit more variety.

Another reason for the more basic paint job, and production line painting, is that they're much smaller than the Orcs. Less than half the size!

So, with 2 units and a hero choice painted, I've got myself a legal, albeit tiny, army.

So, what's the damage, points-wise? As I track the running total, I'll assume full command groups, but no magic items. When it comes to playing, there will be shinies, and I may not always need bosses in units, but for now, they're in.

No magic items, precious?

Here's my list so far:

Mord: 90 points
Goblin Shaman (55)
Level 2 upgrade (35)

Savage Orcs: 125 points
10 x SOs (80)
Additional Hand Weapon (10)
Boss - Skargutz (15)
Musician & Standard Bearer (20)

Goblins: 110 points
20 x Goblins (60)
Shields (10)
Short Bows (10)
Boss, Musician & Standard (30)

TOTAL: 325

Mord's Ladz: Waaagh!

325 points, eh? That's... not a lot. And both units are only MINIMUM sized. Wow. 

Still, onwards and upwards. I reckon I'll probably invest in another battalion box later, not to mention the converted wolf riders. And I'm definitely getting some nasty skulkers. And maybe a Wyvern. Or an Arachnorok Spider. Or both. But that's all later, when Uncle Visa is feeling less stressed. 

For my next unit, I've opted for Boar Boyz. Orc heavy cavalry. I'd love to say I picked them because they're high points value, but the truth is I picked them a: because the models are wicked, and b: because I knew I was going to give them spears and shields. I'm not sure yet how I'm going to arm my orc boyz or spider-riders, so this option allowed me to delay deciding for a while. 

Until then, Waaagh, and all that.

What a difference a base makes...

Oh yes, I went there.

Today's post is about basing: it's incredible the difference it makes to how "finished" the model looks.

There's far more variety available, nay expected, these days. Back when I worked for GW, it was either green flock with goblin green on the side, or sand, painted goblin green, drybrushed sunburst yellow, with goblin green round the side. Nowadays though...

There's a bewildering array of choices: I opted in the end for grey "on top", drybrushed to white, with clumps of brown bracken to break it up, and brown on the side.

My Waaagh, so far.

I like the rocky scree effect. I tried painting the sides grey, but it looked too much like concrete. Then I tried green, but it was too bright. Brown looked good though. :)

You may also notice that in the forefront there are some new models: my first 5 goblin archers (there's another 5 half-done already). The little blighters are pretty fast to paint, and I'll talk more about them next time. (I'll also try to get some better photos: the flash is playing silly buggers just now for some reason).

Gobbos

So having painted up everything I owned, by completing my shaman, yesterday I picked up my battalion and began putting them together.

Mord

My choices were Orc Boyz (infantry), Orc Boar Boyz (heavy cavalry), Forest Goblin Spider Riders (fast cavalry) and Goblin Boyz (infantry).

While I love fast cav, and spider riders in particular, they're going to need a little conversion work to make them look less static, so I opted for my Goblin Boyz.

Goblin archers

I gave them short bows - Gobbos have a WS of only 2, but a BS of 3. While ranks of Gobbo spearmen look cool, they're not much cop, unless you're using the unit as a meat shield to deliver characters into combat. As that's not my style, I wanted a unit that would look good, and would make sense, character wise.

Gobbos are sneaky gitz, so short bows it was. A musician is a must, to reform to maximise shooting / combat, and they're so cheap I gave them a standard too. I also opted to give them shields (1/2 a point each!). I put a boss model in there, but truth be told I'm likely not to bother with a boss.

They were tricky as hell to get to rank up, but they look awesome.

There were also loads of bitz left over, which got me to thinking...I mentioned before, that I'm not a fan of the wolves that come with the Goblin Wolfriders. And honestly, can you blame me?

Wolf Riders are awesome: these wolves are not.

GW did recently release some outstanding wolf models, for 40K, in the form of the Space Wolves' Fenrisian Wolves.

Fenrisian Wolves from GW: raaaawr!

Baz mentioned he'd seen them converted to carry Gobbos, but the cost of converting Wolf Riders onto those is prohibitive, if I need to buy boxes of wolf-riders, throw away (or try to resell on ebay) the rubbish wolves and buy the cool Fenrisian Wolves. If, on the other hand, I had the bits for wolf-riders left over...

So I checked my sprues. I have tons of Goblin heads left over, as well as some bow arms, lots of spear arms, command arms and shield arms. I have shields. I have heads. I have cavalry legs - this is looking promising... I have everything I need. Except torsos. Dammit! No torsos.

Luckily, I found a bits seller on ebay, and for just over a tenner, I've got 20 goblin torsos winging their way to me. They'll still be expensive wolf-riders, but not nearly as expensive, or as wasteful. But I won't be converting those until next month at the earliest. This month's budget is well and truly spent!

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. :)

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...