A few more goblins

Here is the last batch of goblins I finished before we played the Blood in the Mud scenario. They are all of a very nice vintage, however, I must admit that the star among them is the standard-bearer. He is, of course, sculpted by the always enigmatic Bob Olley. I love this mini and the two-faced banner, which Goblin Lee rightly has pointed out, is very reminiscent of something Ian miller could have created.

As with the other orcs and gobbos I finished over the last months, I changed the skin tone slightly to make them more diverse. There is really no plan to the colours I choose, which is a bit of a gamble, but in the end, I mostly like the result and I really appreciate the diversity this adds to the gobbos.

Now it is time to work on new painting projects, which I am fairly excited about, as greenskins have started to bore me rather much.

 

Blood on the Snow… or the mud

A few weeks ago we had the chance to play the 2^nd ed. WFB scenario called “Blood on the Snow” by Matt Connell, published in White Dwarf 91 (1987). It is a four player story which, at least on the surface, pitches dwarfs and humans against a band of respectively orcs and goblins. It is a rather fun scenario with lots of potential as each player has objectives, which very likely will run contrary to otherwise obvious alliances.

The backstory is basically that a keep, built to guard a cave connected with the cult of Sigmar, has fallen into the hands of vile greenskins. The keep was manned by dwarfs, when it was overrun, and now two small armies of men and dwarfs trying to reclaim the place from the invaders.

My battered copy of White Dwarf 91 (1987)

The scenario takes place during the early winter and it thus suggests the use of snow terrain, which is cool, but I did not have any and we therefore renamed the scenario “Blood in the Mud” and placed the story during the early spring instead, when the valley was filled with mud, not snow.

Beyond this change I also added a few components to the individual armies in order to create a bit more diversity and invest the game with further dynamics. A few simple things, such as giving the orcs an owlbear for instance. Otherwise we ran the thing more or less as written. With some banter, beer drinking and smoke breaks it took us roughly seven hours to play, which was longer than expected, but perfectly doable for a Saturday where we began around noon.

The table lay-out as depicted in White Dwarf

It was a close shave, but in the end the dwarfs and humans conquered the keep and kicked the orcs and goblins out of the valley. This was by no means a given and the game thus had a lot of great tension. The overall winner was the human fraction, who succeed in gaining most of their objectives, and the bigtime loser was the orcs who undoubtedly have the toughest task in the scenario, as they pretty much are left to defend the keep while the goblins are allowed to roam the battlefield as they please.

If interested, you can find the individual rosters here:

Blood in the mud_dwarf roster

Blood in the mud_human roster

Blood in the mud_orc roster

Blood in the mud_goblin roster

And here you can see the checklists for the individual objectives:

Blood in the Mud_Victory Points

For the whole backstory you will have to dig out the old issue of WD.

This is what the game looked like. I am sorry for the slightly dark pictures. We played in a somewhat murky room, which did not allow for good photos.

The battlefield as it looked in our interpretation

The armies are advanciong

 

Singing pilgrims on their way to free the captured Cave of Sigmar

Dwarfs marching into the valley

 

The goblins rushing out from their Winter camp in Sigmar’s sacred cave which probably would need a reconsecration after having housed the little gobbos for an entire winter

Wolf riders were the first to leave the cave. Note the stone thrower in the background. This machine really proved lethal during the game

Wolf riders again

Humans moving into the valley

Orc archers leaving the keep to take up a position outside the walls

Humans advancing through the small farm established by the dwarfs in the valley

Orcs with spear ready to defend the bridge

Wolf riders fleeing in panic through the farm after having been hit with a stone from their own stone thrower…

Goblins fleeing towards the advancing dwarfs after having seen their wolf ridring friends on the run

The owlbear slowly moves across the bridge

The dwarfs have to make up their mind – should they face the owlbear or go straight for the bridge?

The troll, a part of the goblin army, was more or less stupid the whole game, but it still managed to hassle the human troops quite a lot.

The dwarfs ready to cross the bridge

Humans and goblins clashing

Human Archers and men-at-arms fighting the stupid troll who kept regenerating wounds

Enemies facing each other while arrow flew both ways

Goblins approaching the dwarfs

The dwarf crossbows succeeded in killing enough orcs to make them flee back into the keep, which inflicted more panic and thus dissolving the orc force, leaving the keep wide open.

The final combat ends. The pious monks ran the last goblin unit off the table and thereby the cave and the keep was recaptured from greenskins

 

A few, old gobbos

Here’s three old, early 80’s pre-slotta gobbos finished a while ago. They look rather different from each other, however, the Ral Partha one on the right is really the odd one out. This one is, of course, sculpted by Tom Meier; an old favorite of mine. While painting the Meier goblin it suddenly dawned on me that the little chap is going commando, so to speak. You can almost see it in the photo. Tom Meier sculpted a number of trolls with a bare bottom, but I didn´t know that he did the same with at least this goblin. Perhaps he did more; semi nude orcs? Elves?

I really love these old goblins and the sense of wicked menace they convey. Particularly the Meier goblin is really oozing grim evil, but the other two have something of the same. Most will probably prefer the humor Kev Adams brought to the greenskins, but I really dig this early stuff.

 

  

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.

 

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.

Hoowee! Off to find the rest of the pack

These two goblin wolf riders are off to join the rest at the pack I painted a few years ago. Now there is 12 of them. I had forgotten how time-consuming these minis are. At least I have a tendency to underestimate the time it takes to paint mounted minis – even such simply models as these wolves. But then again, I know that I am a sloooow painter. I cheated a bit this time though and went with some slightly boring, generic shields. Usually I prefer to do a bit more impulsive stuff on shields, but I guess I just wanted to be done with these two guys and get on with the rest of the greenskins still on my to do-list.

As I am writing this I still have six goblins and one orc to go, which should be fairly manageable given the fact that I need them to be done by October. However, I am really looking forward to paint other stuff and hopefully I will have these last minis finished soon so that I can focus on other things.

I will be back with the next instalment in our Isle of Dread-campaign soon.

To base or not to base?

I am pondering a little problem at the moment. It has been quite some time since I ventured into painting any fantasy war machines, but I am now working towards finishing an old project of mine (more about that at a later stage), which involves a goblin stone thrower. For this I roughly two years ago got my hands on the lovely Skull Crusher, sculpted by the one and only Kev Adams and released in 1986 as part of the Machineries of Destruction series. Cool stuff.

The Skull Crusher box cover

Now, as suggested by the title of this post, my problem is if I should base stone thrower or not. I’m really in doubt here as both solutions have benefits and drawbacks. To base it would allow me to do all sorts of fun things with the model as a whole and turn the thing into a little mini diorama, just like Mr. Adams did when he painted the Skull Crusher himself for the box cover.

The Skull Crusher as painted by Kev Adams. Lopvely, lovely Work in his classic style. Photo by Steve Casey.

However, these bases can be slightly clumsy in actual gaming situations and somewhat limit the integration of the model on the table. For instance, the classic problem of wanting to put the stone thrower on a hill, but the base is too big for the hill, while the model as such alone would fit nicely. You know the problems. And then there of course also is the crew – should they be integrated into the base or not?

So many decisions to make.

If you have any advice, let me know, I would be glad to hear it, while I slowly start prepping the model.

 

 

Look out! Raiding goblins approaching

Wow, it has been awhile. My mojo for blogging about minis more or less completely disappeared as I was preoccupied with other projects. I guess everyone blogging at times loses the perspective and starts questioning the whole purpose and the time spent on this. However, I have been painting and gaming regularly and things have thus not been quite on the hobby front as such. Yay to that. Now I think the time has come to try and do some writing again, not least because we are starting a new fantasy campaign, which I am psyched about and very eager to present to all those who might still be interested in this blog. But more about this in another post.

Here I just want to show you a nice little band of very old gobbos I finished painting a few days ago. It is, of course, the splendid Goblin Raiding Party, released as a so-called “speciality set” (no. 4) back in the early 80’s – in ’82 Stuff of Legends informs me.

They are pre-slotta and very different from the cartoony goblins to come. Some of them look more or less like little humans with pointy ears while others carry characteristics closer to future green skins. I must admit that I really love these minis and their somber vibe of quiet menace and restrained approach to weapon sizes etc. They are definitely among my favorites from the old Citadel box sets and I have been looking forward to painting them for quite some time now. The box had been resting deep within my lead mountain for some time and it was a sort of spur of the moment thing which made me dig them out. Something I definitely do not regret. They were a blast to paint and my love for these minis only grew during the process.

A look at the shields

Well, that’s all for now. More soon about out upcoming campaign.

I hope someone is still out there to reads this!

– Martin

     

Aggressive, green hoi polloi

This is my latest effort; yet another small band of greenskins. Painting them was pure comfort food as these models simply sparkle with character and overall greatness. There’s not much to tell about them. All except one are classic Citadel greenskins from around ’87 – although the goblin with the shield might be a year or two earlier.

The exception is a fine goblin by Crooked Claw Miniatures. The mini was clearly sculpted in a classic punk outfit with studded leather west, mohawk and a Sid collar. Picking up on that I decided to do the paint-job in the same spirit, keeping the leather black, the studs steely, the nails red and plenty of eyeliner for the guy. What fun.

I hope you like them. I certainly do.

Cheers

Martin

 

 

 

 

More mean, green dum dum boyz

Yep, I’ve been painting greenskins again. As always they were a joy to paint. The goblins are not among the greatest figures of their kind but I really do like the little skinny fella with his hair in a knot. I guess he is one of the gobbos sculpted by the Perry twins but here I might be mistaken. The mini looks like a miniature orc and especially his face is very different from the usual facial features sculpted by Kev Adams.

And speaking of Kevin Adams, the heavily armoured night goblin champion is undeniably not one of my favorite goblins. The mini is clumsy and lacks both character and a sense of dynamic quality. A trait which I think is characteristic of the goblins from around this time (the early 90’s).

The two orcs were sheer pleasure to paint. Especially the hooded orc is great with the ragtag spear and his evil yet slightly stupid facial expression. Minis like this one is exactly why I keep returning to the Citadel greenskins from this periode.

 

 

Well, that’s it for now.

Cheers

Martin