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.

The Git-Killaz – Part 5

Right you horrible lot! Did you over-indulge at Christmas? Good!

As it happens I’ve been a busy boy. With the end of the year looming I decided to finish off my Black Orc Blood Bowl team (minus the troll – for crying out loud will you stop going on and on about that bloody troll!). The team had reached the stage where although there were still several models to paint they were all fairy small, nothing I couldn’t handle before we reach 2022 right?

First things first we have the three remaining goblins that complete the squad of players able to take to the pitch. Let’s take a look at them.

This one seems to think he’s a bit tough. Let’s see how well that holds up when a chaos warrior is thundering down towards him…

I do like this lad’s headgear, very stylish indeed sir!

Gathered together with their mates from a couple of weeks ago, we have the goblin half of the team (joining the Orc half which I painted – appropriately – back in Orctober).

Of course we need a full-team group shot but that will have to wait because we have a few other things to look at first. Each team comes with a couple of coin-shaped counters with the team logo stamped on them.

And then we have a couple of balls. Again each team comes with balls in the style of the team. Do you want to see a goblin playing with his balls? You do? Well ok then…

A clever thing about a lot of the recent Blood Bowl teams is the way that each miniature can be built in one of two very distinct ways. Two sprues of models therefore give you two sets of pairs of models. In the first Orc team I painted you ended up with two sets of “clones”, each Orc was the same as their partner, until I set about converting with gusto of course! With this team there was no need to do that, and in my book that’s a very good thing. Much as I enjoy converting models it should be something that you do because you want to do it, not because you feel you have to just to end up with an aesthetically pleasing collection. Anyway, just for interest here’s all the pairs of models from the Black Orc team. Despite the name of this blog I can’t recall doing anything in the way of converting with these.

And there we have it, the Black Orc team is ready to roll. Want to see a group shot? Of course you do!

I’ve still got plenty more Blood Bowl to tackle in 2022 of course. There’s that half-painted elf team, my long-neglected humans and various undead monsters all clamouring for attention. And that troll of course but the less said about him the better!

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 9

Not wishing to rest on my laurels – suitably green though they may be – when it comes to my Night Goblin army, I’ve added a couple more recruits, a pair of fanatics whirling destructively into battle. These two were half finished at the end of October and rather than allow myself to get distracted and leave them incomplete for who knows how much longer I wanted to put brush to model and finish them off properly.

Unleash the fanatics!

Something I have been keen to avoid, especially after pouring so much effort into the army over the past few months, is allowing progress to stall entirely whilst I concentrate on other projects. Thus, whilst I was working on the fanatics I decided to press on and paint up this goblin shaman as well.

With these latest additions the heap of unpainted greenskins continues to reduce in a pleasing manner but there is still plenty more to finish and, with signs of a forthcoming Moonclan/Night Goblin release from GW which may well lead to me relapsing into my old goblin-purchasing ways, I’ll keep chipping away at them for now.

Squabblin’ Goblins – Part 8

Back at the end of September I showed a whole load of unpainted night goblin spearmen and archers and swore to have them all finished by the end of this month. As ever at least part of the credit for this rash decision lies with Azazel and the latest of his monthly hobby challenges. This month the goal is to complete a unit (or more than one if one is so inclined) and that’s exactly what I was hoping to do. Let’s take a look at how I got on.

First up there were a few more spearmen needed to round out the ranks of the malevolent little gits.

Such a rowdy bunch of goblins need a boss to keep them in line, a musician to tell them when to march and when to stab and of course a banner with a suitably impressive moon on it.

However that still wasn’t enough bodies to complete four whole ranks of the gits so a couple of quirky unit fillers were needed. This poor gobbo has looted so much he can barely stand up…

And then there’s this clump of friendly looking mushrooms that have sprouted from the floor of the gobbo’s cave…

And with that the whole 40-ish strong mob is ready to make mayhem!

On top of that there were a whole heap of archers to paint…

And they too needed a musician and a banner to round out the squad.

And with that a second goblin squad is ready to defend their cave from any wandering adventurers…

Readers who recall my summary of the gobbos at the end of September will remember that I didn’t get the last squig finished in time. Not to worry here he is now.

Needless to say I’m really proud of the progress I’ve made over the last couple of months. Here’s a reminder here’s how the army looked at the beginning of September…

…And at the end of September…

And here it is now.

Big thanks once again to for Azazel encouraging me to tackle this heap of unpainted models and turn it into a little army that I’m feeling justifiably proud of. Of course there are still various other little greenskins hanging around and waiting for attention – you’ve not seen the last of these boys yet!

Squabblin’ Goblins – Part 7

I planned to paint this very old spider-loving goblin shaman for Neglected Model Month but alas he was so neglected I didn’t even manage that. Never mind though at least he’s done now!

Oh, and for anyone who thinks that an overabundance of skulls is a modern phenomenon amongst GW’s miniatures there are seven of them on this little dude. Indeed his love of both spiders and skulls puts him on a par with most goths I know (which needless to say is a very good thing indeed).

Squabblin’ Goblins – Part 5

The trouble with batch painting is it doesn’t leave a lot for anyone not involved in the process to look at. For anyone desperate for an update however here’s the state of play on the night goblins and the heap of models still to be completed.

As you can see there’s a lot of partially done robes and the early stages of a lot of green skin, but also plenty that still needs attention. Honestly I think I might abandon my plan to get them all done by the end of the month – nice though that would be to achieve my enjoyment of my hobby shouldn’t be restricted by the struggle to meet self imposed deadlines.

With so much still at the WIP stage however there’s not a lot to show in the way of progress this week – but not much doesn’t mean nothing at all. This little dude, a goblin champion from Avatars of War, may actually be the first goblin model I ever bought and he’s been sitting around part painted for a very long time indeed. As probably the longest neglected model that I’ve tackled as part of these challenges so far it was imperative that he saw the finish-line this month.

I also added two more squigs, bringing their population in the army up to four.

I know that technically speaking squigs come in units of at least ten, and who wouldn’t want a huge mob of bouncing mouths to gallop in disorderly style through the enemy lines, but I only own five of the little chaps so (once the last one is painted) I’ll be leaving the squad as is for now. Hopefully someday in the not too distant future Games Workshop will recognise the demand that exists for new plastic models for their most iconic race (the humble squig) and will see to it that the squig-faithful are rewarded at last.

Next week my priority will be finishing off my plague furnace for the Skaven (something of an all or nothing challenge, and failure would mean not meeting my personal Skaven goal for the first time in twenty-one months). However I’m sure one or two gobbos will also manage to scamper over the line to contest the rats’ dominance of the Underway even if I don’t get the whole mob done.

Squabblin’ Goblins – Part 4

It’s time for this week’s progress report on the night goblins (not including the Battle Standard Bearer who got his slice of the limelight earlier in the week). I’m planning to anchor the army around a horde of Night Goblin spearmen, backed up by a smaller unit with shortbows. Together these will represent the rank and file of the clan, who’ve been driven from their mushroomy lair by the call of the Waaarg! This week it’s been very much a collection of odds and ends as most of the models in these two squads are still halfway through being batch painted (something I would previously have shuddered to consider but I’m giving it my best shot nonetheless).

However, in the interests of having something to show you, I cracked on with these three spear-gobbos to get them finished (which also results in a pleasing, albeit only small, reduction of the pile still to be done).

I’ve also started work on the unit of archers with six of the little rascals ready for action.

This chap used to be a spearman but somewhere along the road he got careless and broke off half of his spear. Enter a quick and thematic repair and he’s ready for action again.

When it comes to Night Goblins there’s few things as thematic as a fanatic (try saying that five times quickly!)

Night goblins are always looking to even the odds against stronger, braver opponents (that’s basically everyone). Chucking a net over them is hardly honourable but luckily goblins are sneaky gits and don’t get worried about things like that.

And of course any night goblin army needs a few squigs around.

Overall then progress has been fairly solid, although I could probably have used to break more ground on the spear-gobbos and archers if I’m going to make my target of finishing the unit by the end of the month. We’re roughly half-way through the month now though and, although there’s still plenty to do, I’m pleased with the progress so far.

Squabblin’ Goblins – Part 3

I’ll save the rest of this week’s goblins for a round up on Friday but having finished this little guy over the weekend I thought it would be remiss not to show him off straight away. I picked him up (broken) from eBay for barely more than it must have cost to post him. He’s such a characterful little chap I knew straight away I wanted to give him a suitably important job in the nascent army. Given the size of the banner he was clearly meant to carry I promoted him on the spot to Battle Standard Bearer.

Back in the old days, before Sigmar was a real god, when human heroes wore big hats and bigger mustaches rather than golden armour and everyone trudged around on square bases, a battle standard bearer was something that every army simply had to have. Even I, with my less than nuanced understanding of the Warhammer rules, know that a battle standard bearer is one of those people that you simply don’t leave home without if you wanted to be taken seriously on the battlefields of the Old World, especially if you belong to a race of cowardly little runts like the gobbos.

Some would say the skull-weighted strips are falling counter to gravity but I reckon he’s either halfway through a titanic effort to get the thing upright to being pulled over backwards by its weight (or most likely a combination of the two) and the whole thing is flapping around in the wind anyway.

Of course, it’s very much in the nature of goblins that even when you think they’re under control  more of them spring up from the shadows, or in this case the Royal Mail. That’s right, as soon as I set about getting the little greenies already on my desk painted a load more arrived via a wonderfully heavy box full of lead courtesy of the most recent Greenskin Wars kickstarter.

Some are quite small really…

…others are rather larger…

This chap doesn’t care about greenskins or their wars at all – he just wants to play some Blood Bowl. If only there was a team he could join…

Now technically speaking none of these are neglected models (yet!) but I’ll try to sneak one or two in before the end of the month anyway.