Militaristic, orange-skinned ape-men with BLUE NOSES!

Or, if you really must, AD&D-style hobgoblins.

I've got a warband of these on the go, using pre-slotta-based Chronicle hobgoblins, Acropolis "Nack Trybe" goblin and Dixon bakemono goblins.

All of these miniatures are fairly crude by contemporary standards, so I haven't tried anything fancy with the paintjobs. Indeed, I've used fewer highlights than I normally would.

Rather than just pick out the noses in blue, I gave them blue around the mouth too. That's to emphasise the simian nature of their faces and because many of the Chronicle ones have nose-guards on their helmets.

My daughter's cuddly golden monkey was also an influence here, as was a memory of noism's post about Yoon-Suin goblins (which also features golden monkeys). These chaps are distinctly less cuddly, though.

I have various other painted Chronicle hobgoblins kicking around. I painted up one of them to join this experimental orcs (using the black-no-highlights technique that Spooktalker uses to amazing effect here), but he's destined for the Biostrip now (he's the one with the topknot on the left). I have a duplicate of the Nack Trybe goblin on the left, so he won't need to be stripped. 

The chaps below, on the other hand, are all headed for the Biostrip. I painted them a couple of years ago, and they've done a fair bit of service in our domestic skirmish games, but I think they'll look better with a weirder colour scheme. I do like the checked cloak, though, so may replicate that on the blue-nosed version.

I also have another four or five Nack Trybe types to add. What I don't have - yet - is the tusked chief, which happens to be based on a quick sketch I did when I was a kid (I was paid in Acropolis goblins and Citadel gnolls/great goblins, a transaction that looks a better deal with every passing day ...). But I see that he's still available from the Baggage Train, so I'll add him to the pile too. Once upon a time, I had a nicely painted version, but he vanished to some charity shop or other many moons ago, I believe.

When I say that these miniatures are relatively crude, I don't mean that pejoratively. I think Nick Lund, the Chronicle sculptor, had a certain genius that often makes his miniatures look absolutely marvellous on the tabletop, whatever their technical limitations. He did some more sophisticated stuff for Citadel (like his slotta-based black orcs, which I'm painting up as "winter orcs" - see below) and then some cruder stuff for Grenadier (like the black orcs with the red and yellow shields above), but there's something about the way the miniatures occupy space that makes them look so much better on the table than any number of more technically sophisticated equivalents.

His ogres are marvellous - great chunks of brutality:

Some of the Acropolis stuff by Paul Henni (who did the massive Ugruck goblins) and Colin Hamilton (who did the smaller goblins, including the Nack Trybe) has a similar power. I really like this Ugruck, for example; he often features as an ogre or troll in our games:

And the goblin khan on the left below is a marvellous miniatures. I have several of him and his ilk kicking around. And that raises another question. Should the orange hobgoblins get some goblins to boss around? And if so, should they have blue noses?