Orctober fest

 

Since this month's subject for the Bits and Bobs Challenge is 'Heroes' I have a bit of space to complete some extra 'rank and file' for last month as well. It's orctober, I need to do orcs, they're not really heroic now are they? :D

These are all Bob Olley Mountain Orcs currently available from SHQ Miniatures (except the armoured guy at the centre of the top image, he's RPE) and are joining the bunch I have already painted for my non-green orc army. They're pretty big chaps, I have half a mind to count them as ogres.

These were a late addition to the army as I picked them up in a cheap ebay lot and they have lounged around at the back of the shelf for two years whilst I waited for the impulse to get back to finishing the army. They're all open-handed sculpts and came with a selection of weapons so I was able to bend arms and give them different equipment for variety. Sticking with the same basic colours as the rest of the army and trying to keep them very muted.

I've also added to the ranks of the goblins in the army. The unit has a kind of hobgoblin/Mongolian vibe so these Giaks fit nicely.

Most are Citadel Giaks, one of each, with the same red eye iconography as the previous models. These are such lovely models to paint. The poses feel really natural despite the limitations of two-part mould metal casting and the character and detail in the faces is wonderful.

These three are a pair of more recent Giaks (from Minifigs) and a Grom's Goblin Guard whose equipment and face blend in perfectly. This little chap was a gift from a generous BOYLer, I forget who but thank you!

Orctober fest

We are the fighting Uru Lukinnat!

Happy new year settlers of blogsphere! This Christmas was a bit of a first, with no need to travel and the big day falling in the middle of the first week I had 9 clear days which translated (with a cold and impromptu days out and housework) into a solid 5 days of paintingand sculpting. :)

Thus was I able to expand my Orctober efforts to a mighty 2000pts of not-green skins. The mighty, fighting Uru Lukinatt, greatest goblinoid horde of Morrrrrrdooorrrrrrr! To be fair, not all of these were started and finished in the holidays, the crossbow arrer boyz has been creeping towards being finished for most of November and December. 40 odd goblins and 15 orcs, however, are a pretty good turnover for 5 days, even if they are definitely tabletop standard!

Speaking of standard...

I'm not totally sure, but someone fluent in black speech told me the approximate translation is "Oo are yoo lookin' at? Boris is my aunty", whatever that might mean. I figured it was a good moment to revive a truly oldhammer tradition, putting detested leaders on banners! The stone tablet afixed to the pole carries the regiment's official motto "Break shit, done". The reverse of the banner, designed to spur on the following unit, carries the unofficial motto.

I realised I needed to double my number of goblin warriors to make it effective, but was having difficulty finding an economically viable way of doing this. Luckily I had dug out some Moria goblins to paint and had been playing with Prince August home casting moulds that Harry gave me. The worst thing about both these sets of models was the heads, so I experimented replacing them with the very Angus McBride-style orc heads once released by Wargames Factory. They're oversized, as fits a goblin, and really helps lend them a LotR vibe. A short amount of superglue on fingers and broken knife blades later and...

Not too shabby. I had the bow goblins left, so thought I'd get myself a small unit of wolfriders to harass enemy flanks. Because they have a bit of a steppe goblin look I thought I'd put them on the Tibetan mastiffs I sculpted a few years back, with two huge RAFM wolves as mummy and daddy. Really pleased with how how the poses worked out.

This was also a great opportunity to paint up a recent acquisition. I've had my eye on an old Asgard Half Troll Chieftain for some years and last year finally got it together to collect a small group of buyers together and order from Viking Forge who still make them. He's too small to be a proper troll, of course, but makes an excellent Orcish Warboss.

The rest of the orcs are a mish mash of still-available miniatures and a few oldies I had available. I had ordered from SHQ at the start of December, but sadly still no sign of those despite being assured they were on their way. As it turns out I think I have enough orcs, I was just hoping a few of their mountain orcs might go with Alternative Armies one to make a small unit of Black Orcs and allow me to field my warboss as one. I still have some boarboyz to add, and am looking for the savage orc boarboy boss if anyone has one for trade or sale in the UK. He was my first metal Citadel Miniature, painted in Humbrol enamels and car body paints, and I would love to have another crack at him.

The background, in case you are wondering, was the product of the wife and I having our first lesson with Bob Ross to celebrate our 10th anniversary. Still lots to work on (it really isn't as easy as it looks!) before I try to tackle anything specific, but works nicely for a soft-focus backdrop.

The photo at the top shows the whole horde, this shows just the figures completed since Christmas (including 14 arrer boyz started in November).

We are the fighting Uru Lukinnat!

Orctober Fest 2019

I painted some orcs.

I realised that I only had two sets of orcs- my Goblinoids set which live in their nice display cabinet and my Heroquest orcs. What I needed was some gaming orcs!

Sadly prices of classic Citadel orcs seem to have gone up even more than when i was doing the Combat card thing a few years back. In fact I don't think I could have begun to do that project with today's eBay prices for these chaps. There must be thousands of them around, I guess people just love them and hang on to them. I did have a couple kicking around and managed to pick up a few broken models but it seemed that the best way forward would, like with my undead, be to find old-school still-in-production miniatures. This seemed quite difficult. Most of the available orcs were knock-off red era cartoony without being anything like as well sculpted. Those that caught the look exactly (like Knightmare Miniatures' Kev Adams-sculpted, ex Crooked Claw) are still too pricey for me to get more than a small warband's worth from, I may as well get the classic Citadel ones.

In the end I decided that rather than try and capture the Citadel look I should go for another orcy classic, Angus McBride's LotR illustrations. This was especially relevant as I've just got back into playing the ICE Middle Earth CCG and GW LotR skirmish game again.

Many years back I bought some Wargames Factory plastics to make an Angus McBride orc force, but they were really too spindly in my view to do the job well. For this attempt at an orcy rabble I turned to Alternative Armies, Ral Partha Europe, Denizen Miniatures (Paul Strivens goblins) and a Westfalia goblin that fitted nicely with the Citadel Monster Starter Set I'd wanted to paint for a while.

I think they turned out as a nice orcish rabble.

This is all I've managed for Orctober, I have another 40-ish orcs waiting to go (archers and boar riders mostly) but time is in rather short supply at the moment. Nor are these strictly finished, there are some details left to pick out and a couple of broken weapons still to fix. I want to put a big banner on the Monster Starter Set ogre. They'll do as my Orctober contribution though. :)

The orcs (and goblins) on the right are based on 20mm slottas and will probably count in WH as goblins but to my mind they are all orcs. After all, Tolkien didn't draw a clear distinction and there are clearly orcs and goblins of various sizes in his writings.

Orctober Fest 2019