Another month, another band of grinning loonies! Technically these aren't Night Goblins (despite mostly being comprised of Night Goblin champions) since Night Gobbos aren't allowed armour in 4th edition. Nevertheless, since they clearly ARE Night Goblins with armour they have been allowed to join the army. That they are 'technically' Common Goblins (for those who care about such things...) allows me to field Doom Divers, which are also so obviously Night Goblins that I have to have some. Note that in White Dwarf Jervis Johnson himself fields an 'illegal' Orcs and Goblins army which includes Doom Divers without a single Common Goblin unit, so yah boo shucks rules lawyers. And to the 'Doom Divers aren't Night Goblins' brigade I call your attention to the army showcase pages of the 4th ed O&G army book which clearly captions one 'Night Goblin Doom Diver'.
Night Goblin champions with the armour they are definitely not allowed according to the army list... maybe it's made of fungus. Have you ever noticed when collecting miniatures that some specific figures are a lot more prolific than others in a range? For a while it seemed like every command group I picked up had this guy as the champion. I could have traded them out again I guess but I thought a unit of them was more fun.
I wanted to go bright and colourful on the armour whilst still trying to fit with the look of the other units and complement the skin tone. Weirdly, whilst the Molotow undercoat I have put on all my Night Goblins has been fine to paint over on other units, on this one it was really resisting painting over. Just kept sliding off the shoulder pads. It took me a good few layers of pulling paint around on the surface to get it where I wanted. Maybe there isn't as much minute texture on the pads as on the robes so coming out with a glossier surface finish. Definitely something to watch out for.
Big thanks to Dave Gillson of Snickit's Tale for the boss I was missing. He's a badass boss leading a unit of bosses! At least he has equipment he's actually 'allowed' according to the army list! He's accompanied by some enthusiastic characters from diverse places filling out the ranks.
To pad out the unit a bit I have a rear rank of these lovely Heartbreaker Goblins from Ral Partha Europe. Actually only one of them was bought new, the others I picked up in a lot with a bunch of other Heartbreaker models destined for a different unit. With their similar spiky armour and armaments I thought they complemented the champion models quite well. Being a bit taller helps them to see from the rear!
Since the unit is Common Goblins not Night Goblins I couldn't add Fanatics, boo. Although I discovered recently that in 3rd Edition any Goblin unit can have Fanatics (since Night Goblins aren't in 3rd, despite being in 2nd and 4th...) so maybe I need some spares for when we play 3rd... Anyhow, instead I chose some other crazy random-movement troops... the Squig Hoppers!
There aren't that many unique Squig Hopper models so I did some weapon swapping and arm bending to give some variation. The 'champion' is a shameless rip-off idea from someone I saw on Instagram, sorry I don't remember who. I posed Gobbla on one leg, chopping the other and moving it back a bit to make him a look bouncier. The rider is a Fanatic chopped at the waist, reposed and pinned, with his ball and chain swapped for one of the other Squig rider's clubs. He's gotta be careful where he bounces with that horn front and centre on Gobbla's head!
For one of the early Golden Gobbo competitions I did a Chaos Warrior conversion whose head was the Squig on one foot (with his feet removed) and now it always surprises me to see one without his 'body'! On reflection I really like the more yellow colouration for the Squigs, they remind me of the Golden Demon artwork. Hey ho, not repainting them now.
Two Snotlings are trying to get in on the Squig Hopper action... being later Kev Adams sculpts they're actually a bit larger than the average Night Gobbo! These are Orcling Space Hoppers from Foundry. A few years back GROG ran a Space Hopper race game at BOYL using Foundry's Orcling Space Hopper miniatures and Marcus Ansell liked it so much he asked Kev to convert some to represent two of the common 'upgrades' from the game- Stompy Boots and a Spiky Helmet. They're now a part of the Foundry range, perhaps we should dig the race game board out again...
For those who care about points and stuff that gives me:
19 Common Goblins with Light Armour and 2-Handed Weapons- 85.5pts, 12 Gold Crowns
Plus Command Group (the football hooligan sings badly)- 5pts, 2.5 Gold Crowns
Plus Champion with Light Armour and Shield- 3pts, 1,5 Gold Crowns
8 Squig Hoppers- 400pts, 24 Gold Crowns
Shaman Champion- 83pts, 2 Gold Crowns
Army total so far- 1701pts (1070pts Mobs, 631pts Characters), 6.15 Gold Crowns in the bank.
nice ^_^ As for the rules.. the Battle report printed in the 4th Army Book (The Battle of Iron Peak) which.. was either from White Dwarf or later used in it, Has Jervis Johnson using Doom Divers with only two units of Night Goblins and yep, photo page all on Night Goblins clearly list Night Goblin Doom Divers and despite claiming you need normal Goblins, they are soo clearly Night goblins.. They even pretty much state so in the favour text for Night Goblins.. they get drunk before battle to be fearless (apart from against Elves) which allows them to do things like Suicide runs of the Doom Divers.. Personally, I think they just kinda changed it for balance but it wasn't much of a sensible change.
ReplyDelete