Grinning Loon Clan- Night Goblins month1

 

I'm taking part in another army painting challenge! Yep, the Odds and Sods challenge is finished and, even better, I am within a gnat's whisker of completing all the 'started' armies on my shelves. That means I can reward myself by starting on the Night Goblin horde I have been slowly amassing over the last couple of years. Really looking forward to getting going on these!

This year's challenge is the 'Tale of 4th Gamers' organised by Dave/Snickit on the 4th Ed Warhammer Facebook group. The idea is to spend a certain amount of 'gold coins' (imaginary ones) per month, making sure after the first month that the army is a 'legal' 4th edition one. I'm going to be playing the legality a bit fast and loose I think as Night Goblins themselves are extremely cheap... but it's a good basis to use to paint the army. The first month is the general so I thought I would go all out early and stick Skarsnik (not actually Skarsnik in the list) on the best wyvern ever.

A Night Goblin warboss isn't a terribly terrifying prospect, not even Skarsnik himself. I wanted him to be a big centrepiece for the army (and eat up a bunch of points since goblins are dirt cheap and I do want this army to rival my undead one in size), enter the mighty wyvern! I think I'm right in saying this is a Nick Bibby sculpt? It has that smack of real-life animal to it which is a sign of the master's work.

My wyvern was short of his horns so I had to make some new ones. Not too bad, but I may swap them out for some actual ones if I can find them. The re-use of components in these kits is such that they are the same horns as the Bibby Khazad Dum Balrog. I have that Balrog... also missing his horns! On that note though, the wings have also been used in at least three other places I know of, can you name them all? I decided his fangs weren't horrifying enough so I puttied some new, bigger ones for him.

I figured the whole 'drive me closer, I want to hit them with my sword' thing applied equally to this model and swapped out Skarsnik's sword for a mighty bow. He might not ever hit anything with it but at least he can have a go! I removed his trident prongs to give him more of a lance, probably unnecessarily but I wanted to make it clear he isn't actually Skarsnik.

The prevalent imagery of the force I wanted to be the classic, grinning face. I have therefore taken every opportunity to putty faces on his bow and saddle and paint one on his shield. In various forms this leering countenance will be present across every unit and character model in the army.

From the second month of the challenge onwards the force is expected to be 'legal' in 4th edition list terms. That means painting a whole lotta gobbos to balance out a boss on a wyvern! Yes, I do have trolls, war machines, doom divers etc. to make up points as well, but there's nothing quite like seeing a sea of goblins going to war! To get ahead of the game a bit I thought I would go for the first unit of 30 in the first month. 

For the banners I am trying a tip from Ryan (ManicMan on the forum) about printing onto fabric using freezer paper. I have printed out a bunch of the banner and shield designs from Forces of Fantasy which are going to form the basis of the banners. This one isn't quite finished here, it needs a bunch more distressing adding to it, but you get the idea. 

Part of the appeal of a goblin army is having enough random elements in there that any battlefield successes or failures can't be laid at the door of my bad generalship. If you're going to play a game that's fundamentally tied to throwing buckets of dice why not go all out? That means Squig Hoppers, Pump Wagons, Trolls, Doom Divers... and, of course, as many Fanatics as I can put in! Three per unit of Night Goblins is the limit in 4th so here are the three for this unit.

As I expect the goblins to be removed from the battlefield in large numbers (routing if nothing else!) I figured it made sense to mount them on unit bases. Thanks to Bil Curd for the big bag of unit bases! It also gives me the opportunity to stick toadstools on them... I might have to go all out on some later on and do Kev Adams style putty plants etc.

I have deliberated over the painting of these goblins for a long time, all whilst painting up my odds and sods last year. I wanted something that would be quite quick given how many of them I would need, but that would allow me to show appreciation for the quality of sculpts and not rush them. I settled early on light coloured robes as black feels either too stark/cartoonish or would take too long to shade and highlight appropriately. These dirty cream robes have the benefit of only needing a base coat (I sprayed them with Montana Elm spray paint, giving and undercoat and base coat in one) and wash with Army Painter Soft Tone to look suitably detailed and grimy. I did a second wash in the darkest recesses and a few spot highlights on important (front rank) models. As that's most of the model done I could then spend more time getting the skin as I wanted it. Hopefully the pale robes aren't so pale they look like Klan...

This unit all have the metal leering face shields GW produced. I don't have enough of them for the full army but have been slowly acquiring them alongside the goblins themselves to have enough to do the monopose unit of spear gobbos I wanted to see most of all. I did consider mixing in the second sculpt in this pose (head variant) but in the end decided that a uniform unit of the same model was what I wanted to see. The other units will be more mixed.

29 Night Goblins with spears and shields, including command and 3 Fanatics is 198.5pts. Their boss is 17pts. The Night Goblin Warboss with lance, bow and shield on wyvern is 234pts. That means so far 251pts of characters and 198.5pts of troops (without magic items). Hopefully my September submission can comprise of another unit of 30 goblins with shields (93pts) and fanatics (90pts) and that should give me a force that is legal and has room for another boss (16pts) and shaman champion (83pts)- 350pts characters, 381.5pts troops, 731.5pts total... almost a quarter of the way to a full 3000pt force! I think I may be going slightly over 3000pts somehow!