The Green Horde: a Goblin Skull Crusher

 Hi!

I know that this blog is meant to be mostly dedicated to 1/72 figures, but these days I'm in the mood to work on my 28mm Orcs and Goblins army for Kings of War. I have to say that the comments, here and on various forums, have been rather positive, and I took them as an encouragement to go on.

Today, I want to show you a War Machine, the sort of things that Orcs usually don't use - they leave the sophisticated and bizarre things to lesser warriors, meaning Goblins!

The machine is called a Skull Crusher. It was sculpted by Kev Adams and released by Citadel in 1986. The machine itself is full of small details as you can see below.

There's a team of 4 Goblins to handle it. From left to right: Winder1, Winder2, Boggrub Legbiter the team leader and Loader.

I love these funny Goblins, and probably will add some more of them as allies to the Orcs. I have a troop of warriors, a few archers and a War Chariot to paint. Hmm, makes me think that I also have a DBA Gallic army to base, all the figures are painted.

See you soon for a post dedicated to Celts, and for a bigger Orcs army!

Goblin War Chariot: The Solution

 Dear fellow readers, 

you will all remember that, in the last post, I asked you to find the origin of the pieces I used to convert the Goblin War Chariot. Many of you have recognized the venerable Ancient Britons chariot by Airfix, but what about the other parts ?

Here you are, at last, the answer!

 

A bit of zoom to see better. First, as written above, the Briton chariot.

I wished to replace the wheels with larger ones, but my range of chariot is rather poor, so I chose the wheels from the Atlantic Egyptian cart (a recast by Nexus, my Atlantic originals are still complete :)).

It proved a wrong choice in the end, because these wheels are not that taller, and the original ones are more "Goblinish".

The horses were replaced by Wargs (by Dark Alliance), as everybody found out.

I wanted something like scythes on the sides of the chariot, and a spear on front. I first tried to build some, but the result was absolutely ridiculous... Where to find large blades in 20mm ? Easy, have a look at 25mm (or more) spare bits. Then I chose those spears from the skeleton box by GW (7th edition).

The last part to find was the skeleton used as a banner. You may say that I cheated, because I used a resin 1/72 set by Nikolai.

And here you are! Maybe some of you will find this explanation interesting. Let me know if you have any question.

See you!

My contribution to Orctober 2021: Goblin Chieftain on War Chariot

Hi gents! My project for Orctober 2021 took me much more time than expected, but it is complete at last.

Everything is in the title:

This year, my Orc army received some reinforcements from a Goblin clan whose leader goes to war on a chariot pulled by two Wargs (yes, it seems that they can run side by side without fighting each other), and especially equipped with blades: one at the front, and two on each side of the axle. They're designed for hunting - Troll hunting, I mean.

The driver has to be harsh with his Wargs, hence the whip, while the chieftain looks fierce with his clubs.

The frequent visitors of this humble blog will have notice that this chariot is only the second one that I've assembled so far, after the Celtic one on the previous post. This one is a bit more customized, will you guess where all parts come from ?

 

If I find time before the end of the month, I will try to add a few more Goblins, but not for sure - we'll see.

See you, and happy Orctober :-)

Orc army completed for the last day of Orctober, Waaaagh!

Ok, let's resume the situation here. Every year, lots of figure painters and wargamers around the world paint some Orcs (or their kin) during the month of Orctober. I don't when this tradition begun, but I like it. I imagine that at the end of the month, all painted Orcs gather for the Orctoberfest, an orcish variant of Halloween maybe.

Last year, I proposed a challenge for 1/72 fantasy painters at Benno's: to paint some Orcs for Orctober 2019. Several persons answered the challenge - you can see the result here.

My personal challenge was to complete an Orc army for OTT / AdG Fantasy, and for once... I succeeded! I'm a happy general.

So, what do they look like ? Are they more impressive when they are together ?

Let's have a look in detail. Last painted but first because of his rank, the new leader of the army, Vorgorog the Insane, surrounded by the elite of his warband, the Skull warriors:

No, the Uruk-hai are not their allies

Any general needs cavalry, hence a unit of heavy Warg riders, good for scouting and as a fast shock troop.

The extra heavy shock troop, not as fast as the Wargs, is this one, the troll unit, super massive and with dark armours.

the most dangerous place in this army

 The Orcs can find allies in the mountains, such as these goblins, nasty little troglodyte creatures. Not very reliable allies, but allies nevertheless, at least before the beginning of the battle.

The whole army: not very large, but more than enough for HOTT.

The army list:
- 1 Orc general
- 1 unit of skull warriors, 3 figs
- 1 unit of Warg riders, 6 figs
- 1 warband of Orc warriors, 29 figs
- 1 unit of archers, 4 figs (including an old green Orc - wasn't convinced with this color)
- 1 unit of Goblins, 7 figs
- 1 unit of Trolls, 4 figs
- 1 unit of lesser Goblins or Imps, 2 figs

16 of them have been painted this month. And you know what ? I'm happy with the result, and it's time to move on. I have a lot of other projects in mind, it's time to go back to historical minis, such as Napoleonics (the variety of colors in the Peninsula troops is very attractive), Ancients (any Ancient) or maybe a few more ACW soldiers. What do you think ?

A couple of pictures to conclude. Happy Orctoberfest!

A few more Goblins

In the previous post introducing a Goblin drummer as the musician of the month, I wrote that I was also painting other Goblins from the same set. I could spend some time today to finish 3 of them, so that I could take pictures and show them as reinforcement for the lonely drummer.

Here they are:

To tell the truth, I was not very happy with the drummer. Remember, I wanted to paint a very pale skin for this underground dweller, but there was a lack of contrast in the result - the skin looked the same everywhere - too plain, too clean.

So for the next Goblins, I decided to add a layer of watery white, with only a little bit of red - and I painted that layer on the drummer too. I also used yellow and blue washes in some places on the skin to simulate skin disorders. And last but not least, I painted some dirt on their legs, arms and bellies.

Some close-ups to see the result:

I think that this one might represent a halfling, with another color scheme

These minis were an excuse to paint some rusty weapons - once again, I wanted to go a bit further than usual, and added some orange highlights to the rusty parts.

Maybe you would be interested in a size comparison with other minis ?

First picture: Goblins and Orcs, same manufacturer (Dark Alliance):

They are approximately the same size - the Goblins look much uglier, is it the figures or the painting? :D

Second picture: Goblins from two different manufacturers (Dark Alliance and Caesar):

The Caesar are much smaller. In my eye, they really look like Imps rather than Goblins. And the color scheme I chose in not that interesting, I should find another.

As a conclusion, I would like to list what I've learnt with these minis:
- a very pale skin with a lot of white is possible, but you need contrast and splatters of color in some places - it is a bit boring without
- the rust can be very orange
- I like monsters

That's all folks!

Musician of the month: Goblin drummer

Hi everyone! For the first post of 2019, since we're are already late in the month, I must carefully choose my priority, so let me introduce you the musician of the month: a Goblin drummer.

This guy comes from one of the last sets by Dark Alliance, Goblins set 2, that I bought 2 days ago.

I've chosen a color scheme that is meant to recall the Goblins from Goblin-town as we can see them in "the Hobbit" first opus. These creatures live in the depths of the Misty mountains, so we can imagine that their skin is very pale - I never used so much white to paint a skin.

Some more pics:

Oh, I've just realized that I chose the same colors as Paul (from Paul's Bods) for the drum! It must be the only common colors :-)

Well, I hope I find time to finish the others soon.

My plans for 2019 are still vague, but this is a first wishlist:

- finish my Late Crusader army: I didn't take pictures recently, but I only need to paint 2 minis (1 foot, 1 horseman) to finish this army according to DBA (with some personal adaptation), so I should write a post about them rather soon

- paint some ACW figures: YES, something very unusal on this blog, but I see so many interesting pictures everywhere... 6 old references are already painted

- paint a lizardmen troop, including conversions to get some cavalry... I mean, lizardry :)

- add some Mayas to my 3 men Maya warband (a bit short)

- paint a second Frost Giant (work in progress!!)

And I don't say anything about 28mm figures, I have at least fantasy 4 armies for Kings of War to paint.

I wish you a year full of minis, and of many other good things too !!