Common Goblins

In spite of the name the common goblin is the scourge of many a fantasy realm.  I though it was fitting to muse about the GW version which may be the most common goblin of all!

After painting the horde of Night Goblins from The Battle of Skull Pass I found some loose sprues of the goblins that were included in the WFB 4th edition starter set.

These goblins were produced in huge numbers and the game shop I owned at that time ended up buying these goblins back from some of the more frugal customers so they could get the rules at a better price. I then sold these as loose sprues for a dollar per sprue or about 25 cents a gobbo alongside the candy bars and chips at the checkout. Everybody won and this pile of gobbos... 12 archers and a block of 48 spear... represent all that is left from those broken up starter boxes.  Pretty good rate of resale!

I think of these as "Common Goblins" not only because they don't have all the special effects that make the Night Goblins or Forest Goblins so dangerous but also, in no small part, because this whole pile consists of exactly 2 sculpts... one archer and one spear... and an assortment of shield designs.

These goblins represented the worst of what the hard plastic revolution had to offer.  Monoblock and conventionally sculpted for regular metal casting they took no advantage of the many features that have made hard plastics so popular in the decades since these gobbos made their appearance in 1992. I know, I know, my backlog is a little bit ridiculous but hey! I AM getting round to it!

 They have very sharp spears... and were very inexpensive to produce but otherwise could have been cast in metal.  Now days the hard plastics deliver sculpts that are simply impossible to do in metal... the weight to strength ratio makes models that really appear to fly a regular item... and so much more!

 These stalwarts though will continue to serve.  I've painted them as part of a marauding horde dressed largely in the tunics of the places they have visited... and looted!  The archers I'm calling Redcaps... and harken back to my favorite edition of WHFB which is to say 3rd edition... where its very possible to build elite troop types even for the lowly Common Goblin... The Redcaps will make fine missile elites for the horde. 

Next on the desk is an old Chaos Dwarf Whirlwind that I'm reviving. Some repairs to make and a change of base from a cardboard rectangle that is coming up at the edges to a plastic oval. Of course other new stuff will be added as well.

Back to the desk!

Epicast Stompa revisited

While unpacking the workshop I rediscovered an old friend from 40K 2nd Edition... Its from Epicast back in the bad old days when GW licensed a few outside companies Like Epicast, and, later, Armorcast to produce stuff that occurred in the fluff but GW itself was not producing.  Eventually all of those licenses were withdrawn and consolidated back into what we now know as Forge World.

These early models came with rules in the form of Data Sheets so they could be played, with the consent of your opponent, without any new rule books being required.

Second edition was the high water mark of the cartoon style for 40k and my Orks were as cartoon-y as they come. These first couple of pictures are of the Stompa appear (with the addition of the beginnings of some lining that I started before remembering to snap a photo) as I played it for decades.  Bright primary colors and almost zero weathering, highlighting, or shading.  The roof tiles over the rear assualt doors were perhaps the only attempt at weathering.  

This was not entirely a sacrifice on the altar of speed.  The cartoon style really relied on mass color coding with a very small number of spot details as focal points... much like Anime does even now. I wanted to update this old can a bit so it didn"t look super incongruous with my current Orks but retained its 2 ed. roots.

Below is the result.

As you can see I chose not to start over from scratch and just continued on over the old paint.

I started with a lot of Brown Rust (Secret Weapon(SW)) to move the nearly monochrome green into a two color scheme, jazz up the freehand chevrons, and to make the iron jaws of the skull a bit more fearsome. This was all large brush stippling.

Following the Brown Rust I did a full model Drybrush with Silver (Vallejo(V)) followed by a full model wash with Armor Wash (SW) and then wiped away the excess wash with a paper towel.  

Orange Rust (SW) was stippled in the central areas of any Brown Rust areas, Phoenix Red (V) stippled over red areas. 

Brass Casing (SW) was used to touch up and shade gold areas and Engine Metal (SW) touched up and highlighted all metal areas. The battlecannon barrel mouth got some thin coats of Orange Heat (SW) fading into Purple Heat (SW) fading into the base green.  The entire model then was lined with Rust Shadow (SW) with extra effort directed at establishing a more detailed impression of a blade track for the chainsword.

The model has always been unsteady on its feet and prone to falling over so in a final omage to 2nd ed., and to play with my newly rediscovered static grass applicator, I  grabbed a big oval bass and loaded it up with 2mm static grass.  In 2nd. ed almost all the armies I encountered, including my own, were straight up flocked unlike the more significant efforts expended on modern bases.

Here is the completed model with some Ork Burna Boyz making their wicked way into the Undertown... gonna be a bad day for someone!

 Back to the desk!

Cheers

Joan of Arc 15mm Core Game, GW Forest Goblin Spider Riders, an Epicast Stomper Tune-up in progress and fun with static grass!

The Joan of Arc game is so ambitious!  Its a board game, a Tanletop Mini Game, its a Historical Game, its a Fantasy Game. It has an RPG and its almost an action RPG right out of the box... It even has aerial combat because.... Angels and Dragons... whew!  Its gonna be a fun ride!

From the core box: The Tarasque, The Unicorn, The Archangel Gabriel, 4 Angels, 2 Bullock Wagons.

As you can see you can go full on fantasy right out of the starter box... I think one of the scenarios is a werewolf hunt even... or you can stay with the historical scenarios. Its a great transitional game.

These were all sprayed a dark camo green primer (Rustoleum), damp-brushed with white craft paint and washed with Secret Weapon (SW) Washes.  The wagons then got a dry-brush of Sunny Flesh (Vallejo(V)) to make the wood pop.

Below is the tray ready for re-interment in the game box... In this Golden Era of Mega-Games I'm going to have to put some thought into how to condense the numerous expansions.

The angels got sky themed bases to go with the sky tiles in the aerial combat portion of the game.  Sky Blue (Warpaints) Stipple with white, wash with Blue (SW).  White robes are layered Graveyard Bone and Splintered Bone from the (Reaper) Bone Triad.   Gold is Brass Casings (SW) Flesh Wash (SW) dry-brush Silver (V).

 Being easily distracted by shiny things... I was unable to simply put the static grass applicator back into its box and decided to fix a long standing problem... namely my ancient 40K second edition Epicast Stompa!  Its never stood well on its own and is heavy enough to take out models it happen to fall on...doh! So I thought I'll just slap a base on it and its "problem solved!" ... 

...then I noticed that the old second edition paint-job looked really, really, dated so... doing something I very rarely do... I decided to do a bit of an update.  These are the pictures of its original state except for some black lining I started to do before remembering to snap a photo.  I'm going to preserve some elements of the original and bring it up to date without starting from scratch.  Well, that's the plan anyway!

The completed Forest Goblin Spider Riders. Ready for an Oldhammer rumble!

Speaking of a rumble I literally hate this new Blogger interface!  Its more primitive than its predecessor and seems specifically designed to be rigid and unwieldy.  For example I'd like to put this sentence at the bottom of the page... but I can't do that without actually removing the picture below... fabulous improvement... This update would normally have taken be about 15 minutes to compose on the fly but I've been at this now for three hours and still can't get the words and the pictures to go where I want them.

MADE
  OF

 FAIL  

WiP Oldhammer Orcs and Gobbos

 Starting to think about painting again and began by tackling some projects that are lingering around the desk. I dislike having unboxed, unpainted, minis hanging about unless I'm working on them so when I came across an old Battle for Skull Pass box... stuffed with some extra bits I thought it would be a good way to knock some rust of the painting skills and clear some open box minis.

In previous, pre COVID-19 posts I knocked out the Night Goblins and Dwarves from the set... sans a Baggage train that is still sitting on the desk...

 Today I went to work on the Forest Goblin Spider Riders from the set and delved into the odds and ends that had hitched a ride in the box.

Like the rest of this project these are, in part, an experiment with painting directly on the plastic.  So far there has been no problems with adhesion but how durable this approach is remains to be seen.

The spider bases were dry-brushed Stormy Gray (Reaper (R)), dry-brushed White (Apple Barrel craft paint (CP) washed with Sewer Water (Secret Weapon (SW)), Stumps are Sunny Flesh (Vallejo (VP)) with a wash of Seraphim Sepia (Citadel (GW)) Stones are Sky Gray (R) and sky gray lightened with White (CP) tiny spiders are Marigold Yellow (R) Brushed with Sunny Flesh (VP).

The spiders were intimidating to look at but turned out to be fun and easy.

The whole model was dry-brushed White (CP) then the Yellow areas were washed with Yellow Snow (SW), the Eyes painted Hexwraith Green (GW), and the legs/carapace washed with Armor Wash (SW). These were painted on the sprue and the clip joins touched up with Sky gray (RP).

This is a fast Tabletop finish that did not involve much cleaning of mold lines etc.  The casts are relatively clean with almost zero flash.

 For odds and ends there was an Orc Chariot and an Orc Command Group.

The chariot was tricksey to build and seems to have a lot of optional extra bits... added to the bits box of course... For the Command Group one extra set of legs and a boar were in the box and would have permitted a single model to be mounted... I opted to save the bits for later and went with a foot command of Champion, Standard Bearer, and Musician.

Skin was US Army reflective green (Panzer Colors line of Vallejo) and a Thrakka Green (GW) wash, Strong Tone (Army Painter (AP)).  Blood Red (GW) eyes and Standard Horn... this Horn will be revisited for shading before being wrapped up...

Rusty metals are Brown Rust (SW), Strong Tone (AP) and a drybrush of Silver (VP) thinned with Armor Wash (SW).

Hair effects are Rust Brown (SW) Heavy dry-brush of White (CP) wash with Just Red (SW).

Blue Orc Banner... Monster Brown (AP), dry-brush White CP, Wash with Blue (SW) light dry-brush with Sunny Flesh (R).

Exposed wood of the Chariot using Monster Brown (AP) wash with Dark Sepia (SW) dry-brush Sunny Flesh (VP)

Still on the desk: Part 3 of Hab 3, Joan of Arc angels and wagons, Raging Heroes Executrix unit. That should make enough space to set about a revamp of the work space and better organizing the pile of stuff waiting its turn.

Undertown Flats, signs, scatter, a table in progress

With all the COVID-19 stuff flying around I thought it might be time to set a Mantic themed table with some Plague vs. GCPS (Galactic Co-Prosperity Sphere) vignettes.

I'm really digging into the backlog of cool Sci-Fi scenics from Antenociti's Workshop

With my wife home a lot lately I've not been able to work at the painting desk for long but its been relatively easy to sit in the living room, or kitchen, and assemble pre-painted MDF buildings.  Its surprising how quickly a viable table comes together with this stuff!

 GCPS troopers in 3 man teams containing a Plague outbreak in the Undertown while the news boards report.

The quality of the photo print components supplied with these kits is amazing and for the 'small signs' set pictured above you get a set of two triangular signs each face having a different graphic... and there are 9 to choose from in the kit so you have options right out of the box.  With a little effort you can make signs from practically anything so the possibilities are pretty cool.

The Flats are a 3 level structure with a single, full floor, elevator serviced, apartment on each level.  I've not yet done interiors for these so what you see is the kit with no additions.

The rooftop is also accessible via elevator which is shown above.  I've made the top most roof removable and may retrofit lighting to this area... and many others... the better to show the cool acrylic doors and interior graphic details that so many of these buildings sport.

 More views of the sign scatter... large enough to obscure most models and fun to look at.

The acrylic tops and rods are meant to be held in place by pressure lugs but these quickly get knocked off and go missing so I've put a tiny dab of glue on the lower part of the lug to convince them to remain in place.

Likewise the acrylic rods are meant to fit tightly into the base without glue but just slide right through so I glued some of the very good paper left from trimming the photo-prints to the bottom of the sign so the acrylic rods have a floor to rest on.  The acrylic needs careful handling during construction to avoid getting glue on it and ruining the effect.

 The benches are resin components that require a little paint which was as simple as spraying them with Rustoleum Hammered Metal, giving them a wash of Secret Weapon Armor Wash and a quick drybrush of any silvery metallic.

 The Undertown starting to take shape on a small table we usually use for card games.

Lots of scatter elements like street lights, info kiosks, adverts of various sized, vending machines, mail boxes, dumpsters and recycling bins.

The Plague erupted at lunch time with a move on the Spicy Pupniks food cart parked outside the Neo-Tiki Motel Office.

 A GCPS team clears the main building of the Neo-Tiki Motel and moves to assist the situation developing at the office.

Red Oni Sake has a location right next door to the Neo-Tiki Motel and also provides vending machines and mail drops.

 A view across the plaza.  The Game Mat is the small Undertown Mat from Antenociti's Workshop and is printed on mouse-pad material.  There is also a large version of this mat that joins nicely with the small mat for an even larger set up.

Plague taking cover behind the various bins. 

 The Undertown is relatively free of graffiti at the moment but will get tagged up... possibly during games!  I think it would be fun to put a blue tack marker on a spot to be tagged and do the actual application between games.  I mean what gang war themed game would be complete without turf and tags?

 I just managed to finish up the set of Large signs.  These are tall enough to obscure Knight Class vehicles or even low level flyers.

 A set of two, triangular, signs with 6 different graphics in the box.  You don't get the extra couple of choices that came with the "small" signs but they are really large prints with great, high quality, art so I'm not complaining.

 They even have a Sci-Fi Nun on this one!  On my table they are chronicling the adventures of the Sisters of Eternal Mercy! Although any Space Nuns would fit in.

I'm working on the Stepped Tenements today and whatever else pops out of the big box-o-MDF!

Antenocitis Workshop Asian Wall Set v2, Neo-Tiki Motel Office WiP, and the Accidental Dwarf Army

 Antenocitis Workshop has a couple of new prepainted MDF releases in their Made for Infinity line. 

They are well designed and are sized to be LoS obstructions even for 40K. These will be great with the Asian Restaurants or the Neo-Tiki Motel that Antenocitis also have on offer.  The wood color is actually laser charred and not paint... which makes this kit have a strong odor of burnt wood even before opening the box.  This dissipates eventually and I hit them with some Dead Flat sealer so they can be handled more casually.

 Our trusty Burna Boy is checking out the rental office of the Neo-Tiki Motel. This is a small building with a GIANT sign that services the Neo-Tiki Motel.  This is a WiP and the Neo-Tiki Motel have detailed interiors sold as a separate upgrade pack that contains both interior sets.

  The Asian Wall Set v2 makes 11 wall section and one (working) gate.

The Prepainted MDF has a covering that is a single color with details laser cut in so its not completely or 'finely' painted but it does make a great surface for adding in those extra details if you like without it looking so much like painted MDF.

 It is recommended to varnish or seal the prepainted MDF to reduce smudging from handling.  I had not though of that and wish I'd seen the recommendation before working on Hab 3 from the Forward Base line.  Once the clear acrylic components are installed sealing becomes more tricky! Its a learning process.  My current plan is to seal the interior upgrade pack before removing the components from the MDF sheet and then do any extra detailing after that... resealing if required.  The reason being that the clear acrylic doors and windows really need to be installed before the model is assembled.  Otherwise there is a significant risk of damaging the MDF.




While we're talking about Hab 3 I'm making some progress on the resin bits.  I'm interested to see what the difference is between the old resin accessorized offerings and the new "all MDF" versions.











Lastly a couple of pictures of the Accidental Dwarf Army that is on the painting desk because I has a paint mix error that resulted in me digging out The Battle for Skull Pass box set and... since I was doing the goblins to eat up the erroneous paint mix I , of course, had to do the dwarves because they were there!










These will initially get some use as Imperial Dwarves in Kings of War but will certainly find their way back onto the table in my Oldhammer games.

These guys are a uniformed army while my Freeholds will be built from Atlantis Miniatures Dwarfs and then there is the giant pile of Mantic Dwarfs to grapple with...





Back to the desk!