Squabblin’ Goblins – Part 1

I’ve spoken before about the goblin army that’s been gathering on the edge of my desk, now it’s time to do something about it. In the past, when I was young and ignorant, I would decry people who ended up with heaps of unpainted models cluttering up their homes. “If you’re not going to paint it”, I would say snobbishly, “why are you buying it?”. The target of my ire wasn’t people who only want to game and find painting dull or a chore, fair play to them really. No, I heaped my disgust on people who like to paint but who lacked the self-control to not buy more than they can deal with – people like myself essentially, and probably most of my readers. Naturally, time has made a fool of me and my loudmouth assertions.

Furthermore I claimed that I would never buy any fantasy greenskins because my heart was already sold to the orks of 40k. The goblins, little devils that they are, gathered anyway, a great horde massing in the corner of the room whilst I was busy denying it’s existence and burying my head in the sand. In the end, of course, you can’t keep ignoring it any more, but by that point it had grown so big and imposing I found myself a little frightened to tackle it. Some people call it the grey tide, others the lead mountain, in my case it’s actually a combination of the two, so the question is; what to do about it? Ignoring it has got me this far but that won’t make it magically paint itself. Plus, I want to paint it, it’s just that the thought of starting is quite overwhelming. The tricky part in a situation like this is breaking the inertia. Once an army is underway it’s easy enough to add a few more models as the whole project begins to develop its own momentum. I could try the technique of adding at least one model every month, as has proved so successful with my Skaven but as I’m still doing that with the rats trying to do the same thing at the same time with the gobbos feels like asking for trouble.

How about option three then; taking a run at it. After all they’re only little, and relatively easy to paint. How hard could it be (he said with a note of hysteria in his voice). Plus Azazel has set this month as Neglected Model Month in his series of monthly challenges, and this isn’t just a neglected model it’s a whole neglected army.

Before I launch myself into battle with the little greenies let’s take a look at what’s already been done. First of all here’s the goblin boss I painted earlier this year:

And here’s the fanatic that escaped from a demolished garage (or, in my mind at least, brought it down around his ears!)

Then we have all the various goblins I’ve painted in dribs and drabs over the past few years, always during my brief spells of enthusiasm when I would claim that this time I really, really would get them done.

None of them are perfect but for the moment I’m focusing on the fact that they’ll be hidden amongst a huge mob of their clanmates, and that if I go back to touch them up now I’ll never get anywhere.

I’d also add that these are Night Goblins and not Moonclan Grots. Age of Sigmar is an exciting world in its own right and so was old Warhammer. Few things were as iconic of the old world as the Night Gobbos and although I appreciate why GW transferred them across, indeed I’m glad they did, they don’t feel as comfortable a fit in the new realms as the races which were born there, like the Idoneth, or those which are a bit more generic like the Ironjaws or the Undead.

I don’t really have a defined goal with these, I certainly don’t expect to have everything done by the end of the month, or even by the end of the year. I would like to be able to say, by New Year-ish, “I have a little Night Goblin army” rather than “I have a load of unpainted models I’m faintly ashamed of”. Exactly how many I manage to deal with before the end of September however remains to be seen but I’ll count anything more than a handful as a victory and go from there.

Rodents Of Unusual Size – July

It’s that time again, the moment I take a look at the progress of my Skaven army this month. To recap for newer readers, back at the end of 2016 I realised that my Skaven army was going nowhere. Rather than the mighty horde of painted rodents I dreamed of it was a big heap of unpainted plastic. As it was the scale of the project that was putting me off, rather than attempt to tackle it all in one go I decided to add a minimum of one model to the army every month. In 2017 this proved so successful that I’ve kept at it in 2018.

This month my attention was also grabbed by the latest of Azazel’s monthly challenges; the Jewel of July. Again, for those new to the idea, blogger extraordinaire Azazel has been setting a challenge to himself and anyone else who fancied joining in, every month of the year. For July the aim was to paint a centre piece; a hero, a big monster or a warmachine. I had great plans for this but sadly the trials of “real life” put paid to the deff-dread, Goliath boss and others for this month. One model however just couldn’t be left behind, straddling as it does both challenges; the warp lightning cannon.

As with all the bigger kits even when I thought I was done I found several areas that I’d overlooked and had to take it back to the painting desk for further touch-ups. In the end this one came right down to the wire, and for a while I feared it wouldn’t make it, which would have been a disaster as I would have finally failed to maintain my Skaven streak.

The glowing effect on the warpstone was remarkably easy to achieve; just a quick coat of waystone green technical paint over fulgurite copper, plus a few judicious highlights of moot green. The whole effect only took about ten minutes to complete (minus drying time of course).

Those familiar with the kit will also notice there’s a few bits missing here and there, and the odd addition to cover over it’s various battle scars. The model was sold to me by a friend (indeed, she basically gave it away) and from what I’ve heard it was fairly battered when she got it (also second hand). The price for getting it so cheaply was all of the damage it had accrued along the way but I think I made a fair job of covering that up. Of course part of the joy of the Skaven is their ramshackle warmachines so it was relatively easy to incorporate the damage into the model and disguise it.

Although the heap of Skaven plastic still waiting for attention remains fairly huge I’m pleased to say that finishing it is now starting to look achievable. Of course I’m not making any promises, I’ll just keep chipping away, but it’ll be interesting to see where it stands next time New Year rolls around.

Welcome To The Jungle

I’ve spoken before about my love for Warhammer: Total War, a computer game which combines my addiction to the Total War series (which peaked in my early 20’s but to which I’ve recently relapsed) and that weird old-fashioned hobby where you paint your own models and push them around on the tabletop. Today sees the release of the second instalment in the trilogy, this time focussing on the lands across the sea to the west of the Old World. Whilst the previous game covered the lands surrounding the Empire, stretching north as far as Norsca and the fringes of the Chaos Wastes and south into the Orc infested Badlands, this game brings us the High Elf homeland of Ulthuan, the desolate horror of Naggarond, a suspicious stretch of desert in the Southlands that would be just perfect for some undead kings to build a few pyramids on and of course the teeming jungles of Lustria. Naturally this calls for some kind of celebration or recognition on this blog, if for no other reason than that my (already stretched) hobby time is now going to be eaten up by conquering the new world in the name of a verminous empire. Last time round I marked the occasion by waxing philosophical about the fall of the Old World, the dawning of the Age of Sigmar and the passing of the world of Warhammer from the tabletop to the computer screen. This time, in the interests of showing you a painted model rather than just fobbing you off with my words, here’s the famous Tilean explorer, and discoverer of Lustria, Marco Colombo.

Marco was given to me by my friend Les, long before I’d really discovered the world of Warhammer, and sat unpainted for years – first because I knew I lacked the skills to tackle him, later because a million other projects were demanding my attention (if you’re in this hobby then you know how these things go). A few years ago when Les was planning an Empire army I rescued Marco from his box and started to paint him, intending to give him back as an addition to the nascent force. Alas I failed to get him painted as completely as Les failed to paint the rest of the army and then GW went and blew up the entire Warhammer planet, which rather put the tin lid on things. This, however, is Marco’s hour at last. Now I just need to paint up that Liche Priest that his brother Sam gave me before the release of the inevitable Tomb Kings expansion…

The Ripper In The Gloom

“Skaven society is a tyranny moderated by assassination”

– Bagrian, ancient scholar who was assassinated by the Skaven.

+++

Having felt a little prickling of shame at only finishing one model for my Skaven this month, even if it is a hulking great rat ogre, I decided – before July is upon us – to break out the paints and finish this assassin off at last. Originating in the Silver Tower set I always thought this model would make an excellent Skaven assassin for Warhammer, indeed I’m inclined to wonder if it started out as an unused model for a Skaven release that was abandoned or mothballed with the end of Warhammer.

I kept the paintwork as dark and dirty as I could, the aim was for him to look nice and stealthy in spite of wearing the bright yellow tabard he needed to tie him in with the rest of the army.