Wolves Of The Old World

In the early hours of this morning (UK time), when sensible folk were still abed, Games Workshop rolled out another of their big previews. I didn’t set an alarm for it but I did enjoy taking a look at it over a cup of coffee and needless to say, now I’ve given it all some headspace, I have thoughts ready to inflict on you, my gentle and long-suffering readers. We saw quite a mix of stuff too, from World Eaters (which I may – or may not – talk about in a future blog once I’ve got my ideas in order) and some walkers for House Cawdor which seem to be a real “marmite” release which some people (like me) love and others hate. However today I’m going to talk about the green lads and their good boys; the new Goblin Wolf Riders for the Gloomspite Gits.

Well would you look at that! Somebody stop the presses and hang out the bunting – Games Workshop have managed to sculpt some decent wolves at last! Well done guys, pity it’s taken you 40-odd years but persistence beats resistance and these shaggy beasts were worth the wait! (Pedants will currently be desperate to remind me of the existence of Rippa’s Snarlfangs and the Soulblight Dire Wolves – both of which are ok – and the two wolves which hang out with Belladamma Volga which are actually really nice, but still, GW does have a reputation for missing the mark with their wolves on a regular basis so it’s still novel enough to be a relief when they get it right).

These weren’t the only new Goblins to put in an appearance either. We also saw the previewing of Grinkrak’s Looncourt who for some reason have the exact same back story as the Flesh-eater Courts – that being that they believe, against the evidence, that they are in fact chivalrous knights. I know it can sometimes be tricky to think up new lore but this is a direct copy and paste, and much like with the ghouls it’s not really reflected in the models. I guess “identifying” as a noble knight is the new in thing in the Mortal Realms and we should go along with it rather than risk causing offense – what harm could a goblin or a ghoul do to a damsel in distress after all? Not naming the warband “the Green Knights” is a missed opportunity too – and if there’s one faction in the setting that can run with the puns it’s the Gits. At least the models are cracking.

More and more lately however I’m wondering if the Old World ever really went away. Were the last eight years all some kind of bizarre dream in which my fevered imagination conjured up magical realms and Stormcast Eternals whilst the Warhammer that was has rumbled on much as it ever did? Looking at GW’s release schedule you’d be forgiven for thinking so. The new Wolf Riders are a classic example of this – they’re awesome but conceptually they’re lifted straight out of the old Orcs and Goblins range without the slightest tweak to bring them into the Age of Sigmar. Now I don’t mind this – I liked old Warhammer – but wasn’t the point of Age of Sigmar to create a new world in which new ideas could be brought forth and explored? Sure, in the early days we didn’t have a whole lot to work with, it takes time to produce a whole new range of miniatures so models from WHFB were reused to flesh out the setting, but come on – it’s been eight years guys! In that time GW has churned out a lot of kits, many of them fantastic, and of those very few would look out of place in the “World That Was”.

By the time 8^th Edition came around Warhammer had a lot of problems. The size of armies had grown so vast that new players could easily find themselves looking to paint hundreds of miniatures before their collection was ready for battle. To survive it needed to become more flexible, and desperately required a skirmish spin-off to serve as a stepping stone. Meanwhile the lore was a strange mix of cliches and ideas which were uniquely Warhammer, which the writers had to wrestle into shape whilst desperately seeking to ensure they had their own voice and weren’t trading solely on nostalgia. The range of models had grown large, and needed plenty of resculpts to keep it fresh, and the constraints of making models that rank up on square bases was clashing with the posing potential of the plastic models and new sculpting techniques. By the time the End Times rolled around Warhammer was desperately in need of some kind of soft-reboot. However absolutely nobody was saying “I really love this setting, but wouldn’t it be better if it was set on floating magical space bubbles. Oh and the Lizardmen need a silly name. Other than that it’s perfect”.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those who’s still sore about the destruction of the Old World, it’s just that the more time passes the more I wonder what the hell the point was. Much of what we’ve seen since 2015 would have fitted into the previous setting. Old Warhammer was an odd mix of the very generic and the uniquely creative – Age of Sigmar was an opportunity to break away and do something really creative but they seem to have lost their nerve. Now with The Old World project coming it’s harder than ever to differentiate AoS from WHFB. If, for example, I wanted to start an Orcs and Goblins army for WHFB I could find pretty much everything I might want amongst the ranks of the current Orruks and Gits. Wacky spelling does not new models make! Things like the Stormcast Eternals, Idoneth Deepkin and Kharadron Overlords serve to demonstrate what they can do if they want to but in the main they seem to be afraid of pushing the envelope.

This isn’t just an issue with the goblins either. Today also saw the previewing of a new Beastlord for the Beasts of Chaos. Again, he’s a really nice model – although the beasts need a hell of a lot more attention than just one new hero – but he’s no different to the kind of beastmen we saw in pre-End Times Warhammer.

Likewise the new Slaves to Darkness are just a revamped kit for Warriors of Chaos – they look cool but there’s nothing different here.

Some people might be saying “So what?”. The Warriors of Chaos and Beastmen were cool before and they’re cool now. Why reinvent a perfectly serviceable wheel? If it ain’t broke and all that. Now that’s fair enough but the thing is, they did – dramatically and unashamedly – blow their old setting to bits, burn their bridges and declare that this was a whole new era in which everything you had known before had been devoured by daemons. This wasn’t gentle – this was as subtle as Angron. Soft reboots, GW clearly thought, are for wimps! Yet here we are, almost a decade later in the real world and tens of thousands of years in the timeline of the game, and half the old characters are still around and everyone still dresses the same.

Lately Games Workshop has been previewing concepts from the forthcoming Cities of Sigmar revamp. Except is it a revamp? Everything we’ve seen so far, and I’ll admit it isn’t much, is very similar to what we used to know in the Empire.

Now I’ve got nothing against nostalgia (although I’m pretty sure it used to be better) but if I’d slipped into a coma in 2014 and woke up now would I see any difference between the Warhammer of now and the one I used to know? Of course given the state of the world otherwise this might be comfort, at least some things don’t change for the worse, but if you told me it was a whole new setting I’m not sure I’d believe you.

When the End Times was in progress I suggested that what we’d probably see was a partial apocalypse, shaking things up ahead of a new and refreshed setting. Chaos would come close to destroying the world but, at the last moment, the Gods would withdraw, laughing, to their own realm, leaving the survivors to fight it out amid the ruins. GW would have the chance to change anything they wanted, old characters with old models could be killed off, new characters and factions could arise, new rules – even a whole new game system – introduced. It would give the End Times some kind of significance, without needing to wipe the slate clean. The bathwater could be poured away without needing to send the baby with it. Afterwards I was (mostly) willing to give Games Workshop credit and let them do their thing, hopeful that the passage of years would create a setting that I could believe in and which would make the whole exercise worthwhile. I’m still waiting. Of the 24 factions currently present in Age of Sigmar all but 8 of them are essentially unchanged since before the axe fell on WHFB. Sure, some things have changed – breaking up the Orcs and Goblins into two separate factions, and dividing out the Warriors of Chaos into five new armies (one for each god) has given them room to grow and the results have been well worth it. However that, and the new rules for that matter, could easily have been achieved without the wholescale destruction of the world.

Let’s take a quick look at the eight new factions. Could any of them have existed in the World That Was? I would argue that all of them could. The Stormcast Eternals are perhaps the most iconic AoS army – and the one which, I suspect, precipitated GW’s decision to go through with the whole exercise. Space Marines sell – so why not have Space Marines in fantasy too? Double your money! It’s an understandable decision for a business to make but I reckon it could have been done just as well in a post-End Times Old World with nothing more than a few tweaks to the backstory. The Bretonians were in dire need of a range refresh and with Game of Thrones dominating screens around the world people were excited about knights. Most of the Stormcast concepts are not a million miles from a re-envisioned Grail Knights, granted superhuman power by the Lady to restore the realm.

The Kharadron Overlords and Fyreslayers could easily have been part of a re-envisioned Dwarf range, especially if some of the concepts were dialled back a little. Dwarves in Warhammer were traditionalist to a fault and extremely resistant to change but with their holds smashed and ransacked by daemonic hordes and many of the old guard killed and strung up by their beards a few young upstarts might be able to promote new ideas (ready to be patented by GW of course) onto a suddenly less recalcitrant population.

Fishmen were rumoured for years – apparently springing from a design studio in-joke that spread to tinfoil-hat-wearers and online theorists and never really went away. They too could have come to the surface in the form of a slightly tweaked Idoneth Deepkin. The Kruelboys could well have been lurking in the swamps and caves of the Old World, the Lumineth Realmlords tweaked into something closer to the High Elves and the Nighthaunt added to the undead ranks commanded by the Vampire Counts. Aesthetically speaking the Ossiasrch Bonereapers are the faction most unique to AoS – although ever here there are similarities to the Tomb Kings of old. Are they enough to justify the risky, and still controversial, decision to destroy a well-loved setting and start over from scratch? Those aside absolutely everything else from the mightiest Son of Behemat to the smallest gobbo could have been released in the old setting without stretching the lore one inch.

Ultimately I’ve got nothing against Age of Sigmar, it was a bold move and an opportunity for great creative strides, but since then their courage seems to have deserted them and as a result the whole thing starts to seem unnecessary. The wolf riders are amazing models but when it comes to their fantasy settings Games Workshop are living in the past.

Rock Bottom

Why yes, I did paint a stone troll and name him Rock Bottom. Don’t judge me, you’d have done the same thing if you’d thought of it! 

Once again this is a model which has lurked in the pile of shame for some time, and now comes stomping forth at long last as I continue my efforts to work my way through the backlog. Somewhere I have a couple more of these trolls, expect to see them… someday. 

You Gits!

Unexpectedly, I decided to use the weekend to churn out another Warcry warband. This time it’s the turn of those cheeky little rascals the Gloomspite Gits (that’s Night Goblins to old timers like me). The Gits are, for me, the crux point at which I learned to stop worrying and love the Age of Sigmar. Up until they received their army book and expanded range of models they were a jarring oddity in the Mortal Realms, as one of the most iconic races of the Old Warhammer world they felt very much shoehorned in, as unwelcome and out of place in the new setting as Stormcast Eternals would be if they showed up in Necromunda (or perhaps its more accurate to say that the new setting was unwelcome, I’ve never lost my love of Night Goblins – AoS on the other hand took a while longer to work its magic on me…). Their armybook, released back at the very beginning of 2019, gave them a new lease of life – and finally won me over. After all, if the old Night Goblins could be successfully reinvented for the Mortal Realms then maybe it was time for me to let it into my life – at least a little? Now that’s not to say I’ve turned my back on old Warhammer, but there’s no reason why I can’t enjoy both (after all, the world of square-bases and flank attacks was always my ‘bit-on-the-side’ in comparison to the grim darkness of the far future, it’s far too late for WHFB to try to hold me to monogamy now!).

Anyway, getting back on track (although that intro will prove to be important – see below!) this little band of miscreants all began when I spotted this part painted squig-herder lurking about on the painting desk and decided to get him finished.

As I was working on him it suddenly struck me that I could make myself another Warcry warband, and what could be more fun to unleash that the madcap japery of these evil little so-and-so’s? Now usually these new ideas blaze gloriously across my brain every hour or so, and most die with their passion unrequited in a dusty corner of my subconscious, but this one found fuel in my love of all things greenskinned and took off like a hurricane. Before I knew it I’d painted up a leader for the new band, a crazily bouncing Boingrot Boss riding on a big old squig.

Next I knew I had to incorporate a Sneaky Snuffler. I’ve been loving these models from afar since they were first released and was pleased to see them given rules for Warcry (after being left out of the original rules for the faction). Honestly they don’t seem to do anything particularly cool in the game, they just snuffle around looking awesome, but there’s no way I was going to miss the chance to include one all the same. Truth be told the backpack with all those little mushrooms in it, wasn’t the easiest thing to paint so I’m in two minds over how excited I am to paint the rest of them, but I’ll get around to them eventually.

Next I needed to bulk out the ranks with more nasty little gits. For this I turned my attention to my unfinished WHFB Night Goblin army. I’ve wrestled over the last couple of years with whether or not to add the new models to the old army, or rebase the old army and make them into an AoS army. Lately I seem to have settled on the idea of making the Gobbos into Gits and unleashing them on the Age of Sigmar, and instead painting up an army of Dwarves for WHFB instead. I know I’ve currently only painted one dwarf but Rome wasn’t built in a day, and presumably neither was the Ungdrin Ankor (that’s the dwarven underway for those who don’t speak dwarf). Starting as I mean to go on (although probably – let’s be honest – not for ages, I’ve got loads of other things I’m planning to tackle, but we can all have a good laugh about this when I finally get around to it in 2037) I grabbed a calculator, wrote a list for the warband, dug a few goblins out of the box where they were being stored and rebased them.

Lastly, the warband needed a pair of squigs. In my opinion squigs are a vital component of absolutely anything Night Goblin themed so there was no way I was going to leave them out.

And here we have the whole lot ready for mayhem!

I’m quite pleased with the range of warbands now available to me for games of Warcry. There’s the Iron Golem and Untamed Beasts that I painted from the original boxset, three warbands from the Destruction alliance (Ironjaws, Ogres and now Gloomspite Gits) and enough models already painted to field daemons of both Khorne and Nurgle, and a plethora of Skaven options (assuming I don’t mind them being on square bases – which frankly I don’t, as it means some of my WHFB Skaven army gets to see battle more regularly than it would otherwise). All being well I’d like to finish up the Flesh Eater Courts and Nighthaunt warbands soon too, then perhaps turn my attention either back to the factions that make up the core game (the Spire Tyrants are the current favourite) or perhaps someone to fight in the name of order and civilisation for a change…

Getting Squiggy With It – Part 2

It’s been absolutely ages since I painted any squigs and it’s high time I did something about that. Here’s three more bouncing, mayhem-fuelling fungi ready to munch their way through anything that takes their fancy.

And here they are in the company of the rest of their nest.

The eagle-eyed will have spotted that I’ve based them on round bases rather than square. Currently I must admit I’m very tempted to rebase my Night Goblin collection and make myself a Gloomspite Gits army for AoS. Whether this proves to be a flight of fancy or a serious plan only time will tell, although fans of the Old World need not fear, I’ve also got a plan to paint up a dwarf army for WHFB. Surely having more plans than there’s time in a normal lifespan to deal with is standard practice for every hobbyist! Whether any of these ideas ever sees the light of day is something that only the future can reveal.

Whilst I was working on the squigs I also spotted the poorly little goblin who comes as part of the new fanatics kit. I didn’t buy the new fanatics and I probably won’t, as I’ve already got five of these mad dervishes and I wasn’t feeling a particular draw to get any more, at least not straight away.

However I did end up acquiring the sick goblin alongside some bits somewhere along the line, so I whisked him onto the painting desk alongside the squigs and got him painted up as well.

Poor little fellow – that’s what happens when you get tanked up on fungus brew and start throwing yourself around like that!

Whither Now Destruction?

What with it being Orctober I find myself thinking about greenskins even more than usual, from hulking boyz to stabby little gobbos, and even their big – and distinctly pink skinned – friends the ogres. In combination these form the Destruction Grand Alliance, the warlike hordes who smash their way through the Mortal Realms in a riot of brute strength and low cunning.

Over the past year or so Games Workshop have given Age of Sigmar some much-needed housekeeping. The myriad factions of yesteryear have been pared down into something much more manageable and less intimidating to a newcomer. In the early days of AoS each Grand Alliance (for the uninitiated that’s Order, Chaos, Death and Destruction – the overall groupings of factions by which the setting is defined) contained dozens of mini-factions, some of which contained only a single model (the Shadowblades or Firebellys for example). For a veteran of the Warhammer era that had gone before it was totally baffling and formed an almost impenetrable barrier between people like me and the brave new world that GW were developing.

Naturally they wanted to look to the future and to get to work on the new and creative ideas they had been cooking up. However before they could really get on with it they needed to put their house in order. If you want your pudding you have to eat your greens and if they wanted to concentrate on the next Idoneth Deepkin or Stormcast Eternals it was getting harder and harder to do with the survivors of the Old World hanging around and embarrassing GW in front of their fancy new friends.

In order to resolve this many of the small factions, with only a handful of models to their name, were rolled together and, unlike the higglety pigglety, anything-goes approach of the early days, found themselves combined like with like. The humans, elves and dwarves who survived the destruction of the Old World have been clumped into the Cities of Sigmar for example, whilst the disparate clans of the Skaven have been reunited into a single faction. At the same time various models were removed from the range, some not a moment too soon, some well before their time, and some were kept on which surely should have been replaced decades ago. At times the logic behind which models were cut and which were kept was hard to fathom for a fan without insider knowledge of the company. The orc boar boys for instance got the chop as part of the dissolution of the greenskins faction. At the time it made a degree of sense to me, despite being relatively modern – not to mention rather nice looking in comparison to many of the other greenskins kits – they didn’t really fit in with either the Ironjaws or the Bonesplitters, both of which had their own version of boar boys anyway. With the arrival of the Orruk Warclans army book however one wonders if more could have been done to save their bacon. With the orc factions rolled back together again surely the boar boys could have found a home amongst them? Most likely the answer comes down to shelf space, combined with the aforementioned alternative boar boys but I’m still sorry to see them go.

I’m just a boar boy, nobody loves me
He’s just a boar boy from a boar family

However whilst I can suggest a logic behind the removal of the boar boys I’m left confused as to why this goblin shaman was shown the door…

… whilst these two weren’t.

Is it just the lack of Night Goblin accoutrements like a big hood? If it really bothers you a head swap isn’t hard to accomplish. Speaking as a fan of the Gloomspite Gits I’d rather have a nice looking shaman with a bare head than this duff-looking duo (although looking again the one in the foreground isn’t quite as bad as I remembered him). At least I have a couple of alternative shamen I can call upon however.

Age of Sigmar deserves to tap into its potential for creativity but it was tricky to do that until the ghosts of WHFB were laid to rest. Now that that task nears completion we can turn our attention to the future and start to ask just where that creativity might lead.

Until now GW have reserved the greater part of that creativity for the Order Grand Alliance. In part however I suspect this reflects the ideas of the past and the areas in which they felt their line was at its weakest. After all the Skaven, or the warriors of Khorne, are far more distinct to GW’s IP than elves or dwarves which can be found through fantasy fiction. Thus the company has focused on Order and Chaos, the former requiring perhaps the most work, the latter already well-formed and desperate to stretch its wings in AoS’s new universe and tap into the vast potential which previous iterations had seen stifled. The other two Grand Alliances fell behind although Death is starting to come into its own through the Nighthaunt and the forthcoming Ossiarch Bonereapers. As it stands order contains eight factions, chaos seven and death just four with the inclusion of the Bonereapers*. Destruction also has four at the moment although it’s safe to assume that two of these, the Beastclaw Raiders and Gutbusters will be rolled into a single Ogors faction soon.  Likewise the Orcs of the Ironjaws and Bonesplitters have recently become the Orruk Warclans (with any old Orcs from the greenskins faction herded to the exits). Similarly the goblins, trolls and squigs have been gathered into the ranks of the Gloomspite Gits. The result is three neatly packaged factions; orcs, goblins and ogres.

*For those who want to check my workings, I’m counting as supported those factions which have been given their own section on the GW website and a book – not anything  that’s currently discontinued or anything from Forge World. Based on that we have;

Order – Cities of Sigmar, Daughters of Khaine, Fyreslayers, Idoneth Deepkin, Kharadron Overlords, Seraphon, Stormcast Eternals and Sylvaneth.

Chaos – Beasts of Chaos, Blades of Khorne, Disciples of Tzeentch, Everchosen/Slaves to Darkness, Hedonites of Slaanesh, Maggotkin of Nurgle and Skaven (treating Everchosen and Slaves to Darkness as one faction and leaving Creatures of Chaos out because that’s not a proper faction round my house, that’s just some monsters conveniently gathered in the same place!)

Death – Flesheater Courts, Legions of Nagash, Nighthaunt, Ossiarch Bonereapers.

Destruction – Gloomspite Gits, Orruk Warclans and Mawtribes (or whatever the Ogors end up being called).

I’m sexy and I know it

Where do they go next then? There isn’t a natural and obvious answer to this. When Khorne, Nurgle and Tzeentch were given army books of their own it was safe to assume that Slaanesh would get their turn sooner or later. The same can no longer be said. A tipping point has been reached and we find ourselves stepping off the edge of the Old World’s map and into the uncharted lands of the new Age of Sigmar.

As hobbyists we often pull at loose threads of information, trying to second guess what might be released in the months and years to come. In the past it was easy to say “this faction or that faction ought to be coming soon” simply because they haven’t had any fresh releases in a while. This was never a very reliable way of divining the future but it had its merits, and those who made a habit of such guesses where right often enough to weave themselves an illusion of foreknowledge. Nowadays you might as well try to read the tea leaves in the GW staff canteen.

By naming the Orc faction Orruk Warclans rather than Ironjaws and Bonesplitters (or some more pleasing and marketable equivalent) the implication is that these are all the Orcs we’re going to be seeing for the next little while. Beastgrave contains a rather lovely looking warband of goblin wolf riders (that’s part of the Gitmob in the modern parlance) but my gut tells me – with nothing more than an intuitive guess to go on – that these are more of a nod to the past than a hint of things to come. The goblins certainly have potential for further exploration – I’m still surprised that we didn’t see a new plastic kit for the doom-diver catapult as part of the Gloomspite Gits release for instance – but much like the Orruk Warclans I suspect that the Gloomspite Gits are a packing up of the existing gobbos, for now at least.

Nor are there any subfactions which seem like contenders for establishing themselves as fully-fledged factions in their own right. The trolls have made themselves at home amongst the Gloomspite Gits and, thus established, have really come into their own. The giants may have enjoyed a brief stint as a one model faction in the early days of AoS but the big oafs have been reined in by their destruction colleagues and I’d be surprised to see them go it alone again.

If it was up to me I’d love to see the snotlings brought back and explored in full but I can’t imagine that anything other than wishful thinking. Then again at least they could double up as Orks in Adeptus Titanicus!

Of course, I can’t miss an opportunity to make my pitch for a Destruction themed version of Warcry. Just imagine the fun that could be had shifting the setting from the Chaos wastes of the Bloodwind Spoil to the rust warrens and dank caves of Skrappa Spill. Instead of Chaos warbands we could see examples of the various types of Orc, Goblin and Ogres that must be found in the Mortal Realms, fighting it out for the sheer joy of it.

Meanwhile, lurking in the corner of the Destruction Grand Alliance, overlooked and underloved, we have the Fimir. These weird cyclopean beasts have skulked on the fringes of Warhammer since the early days, never fully accepted into the game, never entirely kicked out. Every time you think they are gone for good they pop up again, shoving their snouts briefly above the parapet every decade or so before vanishing once more into the gloom. Earlier this year I even painted one, a model from Hero Quest that’s almost as old as I am.

With the launch of AoS the Fimir abandoned the overcrowded Chaos raft and found themselves a new home amongst Destruction (rather than vanishing once and for all, as I was expecting, with the purging of so many other things GW wanted rid of). Thanks to Forge World we even have a few Fimir models and as ever there is speculation that they might make a comeback. Honestly I wouldn’t hold my breath (unless I was standing downwind of a real Fimir that is).

One thing the Fimir do however is emphasise that from here on out we no longer need to expect the Destruction forces to adhere to tradition. For these warlike races things have remained pretty much the same for a very long time. The Orcs and Goblins, and Ogres, were well established in WHFB and stamped into AoS as if nothing much had changed. Whilst a time traveller from a decade ago would barely recognise the flying dwarves and fishy elves as descendants of the game they knew the greenskins and their allies remain much as they ever were, just with a few nice new models to show for the passage of time. It’s easy to believe that nothing need ever really change. Yet a glance towards the Order Grand Alliance reveals this need not be the case. The once hide-bound, subterranean dwarves now zoom through the skies, carving out trade empires above the clouds where once they carved mines beneath the roots of the mountains. Some elves are half snake, others are eyeless and aquatic. Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Ulthuan anymore…

I’m not for a moment suggesting that we are about to see aquatic orcs or half-snake ogres, simply that the expansion of possibilities that was applied to Order could just as easily be lavished upon the other Grand Alliances. What is certain is that GW aren’t done with the brutish followers of Gorkamorka, and that, after decades of popularity they’ll be cast aside. Equally we can’t guess with even a scrap of accuracy what form those future releases might take. We could see orcs, goblins or ogres of a kind completely unknown to us, or we could see something entirely new. Good or bad the future is looking like a very different place from the past. After so many years of seeing the same old factions from one decade’s end to the next that’s something that we’re going to have to get used to. I still can’t begin to get guess what it might look like, but I for one am agog to find out!

Getting Squiggy With It – Part 1

If the blog seems particularly busy at the moment, that’s probably because it is! Over the summer months I spend a lot of time working outdoors. I paint miniatures here and there but not half as much as I might otherwise. Models are started and then set aside and by late summer the heap of part-painted stuff on the desk is higher than it has any right to be. Rather than allow the situation to worsen I’m trying to make a concerted effort to clear away some of these unfinished models and this week I’ve identified several which are within a hair’s breadth of completion and can be knocked out with relative ease – surely better than leaving them to gather dust any longer!

With this in mind the next targets for my brush were these three squigs.

It’s fair to say that the old squig models varied in quality – some were character-packed bundles of fun, others were a little harder to get enthusiastic about. One thing they did struggle with however, being metal models, was the degree of dynamic “bounce” that is central to their character, and which has been fully captured in this latest iteration.

This one is a real favourite of mine – pity the poor goblin as he vanishes into the mouth of his pet!

I would argue that there are very few things as iconic of Warhammer as a squig. I’ve always been a big fan of the bitey little dudes, indeed I’d question the judgement of anyone who isn’t, and so I was thrilled to see them at last honoured with a proper plastic kit back in January of this year. Given the above, and acknowledging how little effort is required to get them painted, I’m surprised it’s taken me until now but here we have them, three vicious, snappy cave-fungus ready to chomp their way through whoever they please.

Right – let’s see what else I can clear from the backlog!

Squabblin’ Goblins – Part 11

Last weekend saw the long-awaited release of new plastic squigs from Games Workshop. Formerly part of the Orcs and Goblins range these crazy little beasts have now found a home amongst the Gloomspite Gits, a re-imagining of the old night gobbos in the Mortal Realms. As a long-standing fan of greenskins in general and squigs in particular it’s fair to say that I’ve been looking forward to this release since long before the models were even sculpted, let alone announced. Having got my hands on them* I wanted to take the opportunity to share a few thoughts regarding my early impressions – illustrated with a few moody and atmospheric black and white images to compensate for the fact that I haven’t painted anything yet.

*I know I have plenty of other things to paint at the moment, and I know buying new models when I haven’t painted what I have is profligate, but how could I resist after dreaming of them for at least a decade?

The new Gloomspite Gits are an interesting proposition. Despite it being three years since the arrival of Age of Sigmar this release would have fitted quite comfortably into the Old World of Warhammer. Previously Age of Sigmar releases have either been entirely new races, such as the Stormcast Eternals or the Idoneth Deepkin, or have evolved old races into new forms, such as the Daughters of Khaine or the Sylvaneth. Sometimes models for this latter group would have fitted in well in the Old World, and some might even be effective proxies for older units – like Ironjaw Brutes as Orc Big ‘uns, but never have we seen such comprehensive coverage of models widely desired for an old Warhammer army as part of an Age of Sigmar release. Long before the End Times, before Nagash returned and with the Stormcasts no more than a games developer’s fevered imaginings, people were crying out for new squigs.

Having waited all these years for a nice plastic kit for the squigs (surely always a glaring gap in the Games Workshop roster) I found myself giving in to temptation and snapping them up as soon as I could. Acquiring them however has led to considerable food for thought. Many old school players will be rejoicing at the opportunity to add this iconic creature to their Orcs and Goblins armies but with the scale of many GW models creeping larger every year will these newcomers even fit on an old 20mm square base? They, at least, can relax, the answer is a firm “yes”.

Indeed although many things have become bigger over the years the boisterous squig remains roughly the same.

For myself I’m still debating exactly what to do with my newly acquired squigs. Long ago I started to build a Night Goblin army for WHFB and last year I actually got a sizeable chunk of it painted. When I painted the army last year I threw in a handful of squigs but left the squad incomplete in the hope that sooner or later more would come bouncing along. All too often such manoeuvring proves to be wishful thinking but this time it seems I guessed right.

As squigs were always intended to be a part of that army surely I should just pop the little beasts onto square bases and get painting. On the other hand however the style of base very much directs the game for which the model is intended. As it stands I’m unlikely to actually play with these, so the point is probably entirely academic. Nonetheless the idea of some AoS skirmish has a distinct appeal. In the unlikely event that I do ever decide to play some old fashioned Warhammer it’ll be my Skaven that hit the tabletop.

It’s also worth considering that despite the aesthetic punch which an old Warhammer army with its ranks of troops neatly defined possesses, a quality which no AoS army can quite capture, some models just don’t look as good in ranks. By putting them on round bases I’d be able to really enjoy and show off everything these dynamic models can do, rather than struggling to make the best of things and force them into ranks which they were never intended to form. After all “ranking up” was a rightly cursed aspect of old Warhammer, a chore which impeded miniatures design and made hobbyist’s lives a misery in equal measure, so burdening myself with it unnecessarily seems like foolishness.

A release as long awaited as this was always going to be of key importance to GW. This was a chance to win over lingering WHFB sounds to the new world of AoS. Furthermore there must have been a temptation to indulge the freedom of the new realms to push the Night Goblins in new and crazy directions, an urge they have wisely resisted. The Night Goblins and Squigs have always been amongst the company’s most classic and iconic races and as the old saying goes “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Look no further than the wailing and gnashing of teeth that accompanied the upscaling of the space marines, a range who’s undersized proportions meant it certainly was broke and did need fixed.

On the other hand as a species so intrinsically associated with the Old World there was always a real danger that these little dudes would seem glaringly out of place amid the Mortal Realms. Luckily good models save the day. Just as the sudden availability of truescale marines made it easier for many of us to swallow the new landscape of 40k so too do Night Goblins in the Mortal Realms seem much more palatable when accompanied by these glorious new squigs.

This is not to say that everything is just a rehash of the “good old days” however. New ideas have been brought in but they’ve done so in a way that sympathetic to the old. Take the new Boingrot Bounderz for instance. Again old school WHFB fans could use them as alternative squig hoppers (which the kit also makes) but there’s something irresistible entertaining about goblin knights. Picture, if you will, a whole court of them in full heraldic pageantry, with the squig hoppers as squires and a suitably deranged-looking king bouncing in the lead. Of course, in a process which will be familiar to all hobbyists, now I’ve thought of it I can’t stop thinking about it. Bretonnia may be gone but there is still room for a green knight or two.

The only thing I’m not entirely happy out regarding these is the way they are held aloft on heaps of mushrooms. It’s just a little over the top for my tastes, although I stress that’s just a personal opinion, but it’s also rather tricky to do very much about it. The fungi are sculpted directly to the legs of the squigs, probably a sensible move when it comes to supporting the weight of the model but making it distinctly tricky to separate them. I did manage it with this one but, given what a faff it was, I don’t think I’ll be losing too much sleep over the others.

The Night Goblins were always a race which combined spite and silliness with aplomb. there was an element of slapstick comedy about them that brought something uniquely enjoyable to their murderous ways. Whilst still clearly evil creatures this cheeky, quirky element put them in a class of their own, a long way from straightforward baddies like Chaos or the Vampire Counts, whilst their status as weak yet cunning distinguished them from the loutish Orcs. Again it’s pleasing to see that this trait lives on in their new iteration. Goblins of all kinds have always enjoyed seeing their mates suffering misfortune and goblin fans are no better. Can you imagine Stormcast fans universally applauding a model of a liberator being swallowed by a dracoline, as this poor little grot is gobbled up by a squig?

Amidst all this praise for the new models it would be remiss of me not to take a moment to mourn the passing of the Doom Diver from the range. It was a true icon of the old Orcs and Goblins army which seems not to have made the cut for a new model and has been quietly shuffled into retirement. Luckily for me I was given one a few years ago which will be joining my Night Goblins sooner or later.

Likewise goblin wolf riders, a staple of many childhoods thanks to The Hobbit, have been shuffled off into the great dank cave in the sky. These days if you want to go riding into battle on a big bad wolf you need to be a power-armoured futuristic Viking with a questionable hair-do’s.

Few things are as evocative of GW’s stable as Night Goblins and Blood Bowl, so I’ve also found myself pondering how the two could be combined, a subject I’ve found myself returning to lately following conversations with fellow blogger and blood bowl enthusiast Faust. So far I’ve only dipped my toe into it but as this combination of Blood Bowl player and the (now retired) Night Goblin Fanatics shows, there’s certainly room to create some alternative members for a diverse looking team.

Once again though I’d like to emphasise that I have plenty of other projects I ought to be concentrating on so although these squigs and gobbos will definitely get a turn on the painting table it won’t be straight away. In many ways however this is a blessing. I’ve been thinking about what to do with a release like this for a number of years so I won’t be rushing into anything, but instead will be taking the chance to explore the models, see what other hobbyists do with them, and bounce a few ideas around before I commit to anything. At this point I often say watch this space but this time I’ll add don’t hold your breath as well. However if you have any suggestions, ideas or words of wisdom, I’m all ears.

Squabblin’ Goblins – Part 10

I think it goes without saying that I’m hugely, childishly overexcited by all the new Night-Clan Moon-Gits or whatever it is that GW are calling Night Gobbos this week (I know it’s Gloomspite Gits but I was only just getting used to calling them Moonclan). My fungus-addled brain has already gone into overdrive coming up with uses for the new models so expect to see them popping up here over the coming months in various guises. Naturally however this enthusiasm can’t be kept entirely bottled up so I’ve channelled it into getting this spiteful little chap painted.

I got him a while back as part of one of the Greenskin Wars kickstarters and he may actually be my favourite Night Goblin of all time. Plus, inspired by all the new models, I hammered through painting him in no time flat.

I have been chipping away at other models over Christmas and New Year so expect to see a few more appearing soon(ish), once I’ve got the finishing touches on them, starting with a round-up of my current Necromunda projects later in the week.