Back with the orcs again

Here I am once again with more orcs. I have painted way too many of those lately and they really start to bore me now, but those two I post here and a few more, which in fact are finished, were the last I needed to do at this stage. This means that I will be able to focus on other stuff, the results of which I will be able to show you soon. In fact all I need is some time to take photos of the minis, which sometimes can be a bit of a hassle. You probably know what I mean.

There is not much to tell about the Citadel orcs you see here. Both are really nice models of an orc vintage I love. I chose a somewhat dark skin tone for both of them, which I at this moment seem to prefer over the lighter tones of green I also use. But this varies constantly and in a few months it will probably be the lighter tone I prefer again. This switches all the time.

The orc on the right is of course of Talisman fame. I was not trying to copy the colours used on the character card from the game, but the image must have been on my mind somehow, as there certainly is a lot of similarities.

The orc character card from Talisman, 2nd ed.

I will be back soon and this time not with orcs… or goblins!

The Attack on Linden Way

 

Two weeks ago I had the chance to run the third Orc’s Drift scenario – the attack on the small settlement of Linden Way. In this scenario the orc tyrant King F’yar’s tribe lead the attack and they were indeed joined by the orc king himself and his ten orc strong personal guard. You probably know the scenario, but just to repeat the story anyway: The orcs attack the settlement and the small community of civilians have to flee off the table while a group of 30 soldiers and the village mayor Leofwine take a last stand against the orc horde. 

The orcs are more or less bound to win this one and it is thus up to the human player to make the orcs pay dearly for the attack. The villagers have quite different stats, some are rubbish, some surprisingly strong, which certainly took the orc player off guard a few times during our play. In the end the orcs of course butchered the soldiers. The orcs lost five archers in a whole, not to the soldiers though, but thanks to the inn keeper’s ferocious father who drove them off the table edge!   

The scenario set-up in the campaign booklet

The two first scenarios in the campaign are incredibly hard on the orcs and while this one seems fairly easy, it still took quite some time to play. To catch the fleeing villagers is no easy task and the orcs, moving as units, really had a tough time preventing them from escaping. On whole we had quite a good time playing this but I admit that it at times became quite fiddly and cumbersome when moving the orcs around.

King F’yar was really an indispensable asset here. Having him flying around the village on his wyvern gave the orcs a much-needed flexibility and ensured that the ten archers placed at the top of the watch tower had very little impact on the game. 

The highlight of the scenario is the villagers. They have a ton of character and fostered numerous hilarious situations and jokes during the game. Ranking the three first scenarios this third one comes in second as the most fun. The first scenario is still the best in my book. Now I am looking forward to concluding the campaign – perhaps at some point during the autumn. We will have to see about that.

I took some rather crappy pictures during the game which looked like this. 

Our version of the scenario set-up

Villagers and soldiers leaving the houses in the settlement

Villagers preparing to flee

Archers on the look-out in the watchtower

Advancing orcs

King F’yar flying into Linden Way

Orcs on the move

Fleeing the village while the soldiers prepare to stand their ground

The soldiers

Orcs approaching Linden Way

King F’yar considering a charge

Flee!!!

Closing in on the village

King F’yar changing his position

Almost inside the village

The village baker on the run

Hiding in the bushes

All of a sudden the mad hermit Barrachus charged out from the ruin, attacking his hated enemy orcs. This certainly stopped the orcs for a few turns before the hermit was killed

King F’yar fighting the archers in the tower

Orc heroes taking the lead

King F’yar hunting villagers

Magar Ironfist sensing someone sneaking behind him inside the ruin

And a few moments later the storekeeper was dead

The soldiers taking their fighting position

Orcs closing in ready to charge

The inn keeper’s farther charging the orcs

King F’yar swooping after the cowardly mayor Leofwine who attempted to lure the enemy out of the village

The soldiers receive the first charge

And then finally the orcs swallowed the soldiers and killed them all

 

Gobbos of the Crooked Claw

Here is two goblins sculpted, of course, by Kev Adams for the now defunct Crooked Claw Miniatures. While in action Crooked Claw released a number of fine gobbos and I think Adams did a great job at creating some very colourful and nasty looking greenskins in the style he is known for today.

The two in this post, I guess, were probably produced around 2012. I bought a number of the gobbos from Crooked Claw back then around ‘13 and I almost think that these two were the last single models left unpainted.

There is not that much to say about the minis themselves. The minis are very well produced and they are fun, wicked chaps, which I had a great time painting.

 

A keep of sorts

For some time, I have been working on a tower-like building, some sort of keep, which is going to be used in an upcoming fantasy scenario. What initially started out as a fairly simple project in the end proved to be a rather time-consuming process.

As you can see from the pics below the keep was constructed out of foam board which then was covered in model clay mixed with PVA-glue to make it stick to the foam board and add strength to the surface. From there things became easy but it sure did it take a lot of time to put on all the clay as I only could work on small patches at the time which needed to dry before I could continue.

Well, now the thing is finished and I am looking forward to getting it on to the table in a little while.

 

 

 

Yep, still more greenskins

So here I am again with another mix of greenskins and this time the mix is particularly eclectic. First up is one of Kev Adams’ early 90’s night goblins. I was never really taken with the night goblins from this era, but they are certainly nice and smooth to paint and still way better than the later, plastic incarnations of the gobbos – at least to my mind.

Speaking of smooth painting the next one is an early 80’s pre-slotta so-called Red Orc from the Fiend Factory line. This is a very crude sculpt indeed and somewhat of a challenge to paint, but I must admit that I rather like the odd moon face and the strange body proportions of the red orcs.

Then we have another familiar face from the Fiend Factory line – a pre-slotta goblin archer. The outlandish fishlike face (and feet with only three toes!) of the goblin made me paint his skin tone blueish or turquoise. I don’t know if this was I wise decision but sometimes you just have to go with the flow and see where things end up. This sculpt is in many ways much better than the red orc, but I would still choose the red orc over this fella.

Finally, we return to Kev Adams with a goblin he sculpted for Crooked Claw Miniatures. Like most of his Crooked Claw gobbos this is a fun and wicked looking chap with lots a character. Good stuff.

Luckily I have now finished painting the last greenskins I was planning to do and I am thus now stated painting other stuff. Hurra. However, on the blog the next post will still be showing greenskins as I will post the remainder of my work as well. Nevertheless, bear with me, other stuff is coming down the pipeline.