The stolen shield and severed head are sufficiently ambiguous in scale that he'd work fine in 28mm too - perhaps in the 'minotaur class' (guardian beasts?) in Kings of War.
I also plan to combine him with smaller beastmen as a 'unit filler', perhaps as the central third of a 120mm-frontage unit in Impetus or as the command company in a Fantastic Battles group.
These are terrific 15mm bugbears sold by CP Models. Although originally designed by Bob Olley as 15/18mm, they're marketed as 20mm, but to my eye, they're a bit short to be 7'+ in that scale (though they would make great hobgoblins. They would also make terrific 28mm goblins (of an especially fierce and hirsute sort).
I'm going to base these together on a 40mm square, so that they can be used as brutes (doubled warband) or behemoths in Hordes of the Things or as some sort of super-heavy infantry in Fantastic Battles. As I have at least three more bases to do, they'll be able to double up to give 80mm frontages for Impetus or work as goblin 'luggits' in Kings of War with a couple of individuals on 20mm squares between two 40mm bases (thus giving a 100 x 40 footprint). And for Hobgoblin, I'll just throw a few bases together to make a unit.
I've been trying out this simple yellow skintone on a lot of 25mm goblins for D&D. I'm quite happy with it - despite being such a bright colour, it's somewhat subterranean-looking, somehow, and it just squeezes into Tolkien's 'sallow' bracket for orcs.
(Below is a scale comparison with 1/72 Dark Alliance orcs and "15mm" Battle Valor orcs - base still to be painted and matt varnish still to be applied!)
These are Battle Valor orcs. They're absolutely huge by 15mm standards and would even work as 4' tall D&D-stye goblins in 25 or 28mm. I'm aiming to paint up a few bases with some command figures on 20mm squares. That will allow four bases and four command figures to be used as a goblin regiment in Kings of War.
I originally conceived this as a 1/72 project; I'm using the same monsters and even some of the same character figures (especially elves and dwarves). But there are just so many better character options in 25mm.
Here's an old Minifigs gnoll. This range is clearly based on the Tom Wham illustration from the Basic D&D set:
And the Wham drawing is based on Dave Sutherland's illustration in the Monster Manual, though the former seems to have lost some of the more hyena-ish elements along the way:
Dwarfs are villains ... or at least they should be a great deal more.
Dwarfs in Norse myth and Germanic folklore tend to be surly at best and downright wicked at worst.
They issue curses, lust for goddesses, betray heroes, resemble corpses and turn to stone.
They murder sages, work magic, commit fratricide and become dragons.
They are black elves and dark elves and groan before their stone doors.
They are the maggots of Ymir and, through the works of George MacDonald, as much the ancestors of Tolkien's orcs as any folkloric goblin.
These things make them much more interesting than short, brawny Scotsmen or half-sized Vikings.
Here's the latest beastie from my son - a reimagining of the D&D bulette or landshark. And here's how he did it:
I've had little time for painting of late, but I have used the odd break to rebase and touch up some old orcs. I painted most of these around eight years ago; they were originally on rather garish green bases. These will probably get some tufts of greenery sooner or later. The square bases render them suitable for Kings of War and Impetus (among other games) without harming their skirmish or RPG potential.
These four are only a fraction of those I've rebased in the last couple of weeks - I reckon I've got two KoW 'regiments' and a couple of 'troops'. A new batch of MDF bases arrived today, so their ranks will swell even more fairly soon.
For the first soldier, I carried out a face transplant from an Oathmark. It worked OK, but was a bit fiddly. The Wargames Atlantic goblin heads already sit appropriately low on the Marlburian necks without adjustment, and a quick double scalping allowed the hat to be added. If I do the same with Oathmark goblin heads, I'll need to add a neck, but a bit of spare spear shaft from the EM4 orc conversions should do the trick.
Painting time has been scarce (though, with the current weather, who's complaining?). But I've started to explore kitbashing possibilities with the EM4 dwarves. Along with lots of spare Oathmark heads, I've got quite a few GW bits and bobs of a dwarven nature. So, having bought a bag of EM4 dwarves on a whim some years ago, I have an opportunity to use them up. The plan is to make a few Kings of War-style multi-based units. I also have some painted Oathmark dwarves that may very well find themselves rebased for KoW, and I have lots of old Citadel dwarves to use for characters.
We do most of our rank'n'flank gaming in 1/72 scale, but with fantasy games, it all becomes a bit slippery. Because of the Warhammer-legacy basing in Kings of War, orcs have to be significantly bigger than humans to justify 25mm base sizes. Older orcs - like those from Mithril, 80s Citadel and EM4 - fill the bases nicely and look suitably imposing next to 1/72 humans. They're still sufficiently muscular and brutish-looking to justify their KoW 'Crushing Strength' in 28mm, though. So they work at both scales.
And happily, that means that 28mm dwarves like these chaps fit in fine too. Actually, we wouldn't balk at fielding them with 1/72 humans - the dwarves are still a head shorter than the humans, even if they're twice as broad!
To go the whole hog, I'd need to give them long bows of yew, but I may end up keeping them much as they are to be deployed as 'blades' in Hordes of the Things and, en masse, as goblin rabble buffed with some magic items in Kings of War. And, when I have enough made, they can be used as 'Romans' in Impetus (with less disciplined goblins acting as auxiliaries). I'll probably give them the White Hand on their shields, though. The description is of "a small white hand in the centre of a black field"; the large bosses of the scuta makes it difficult to place a small hand in the centre of the shield itself, but by putting the 'black field' in the upper half of the shield, I can probably achieve the correct effect (and take some artistic licence in the bottom half - checks or other colours or whatever).
It's the "short, broad-bladed swords" that have always made me think of Roman legionaries - though I'm doubtless influenced by this old White Dwarf cover by Angus Fieldhouse:
These are 'mincers' for Kings of War - essentially snotling pump wagons (I think). I'd bought and based up some Armourfast tanks for a lockdown project: Alien Squad Leader in 28mm. But that hasn't come to anything (I have plenty of 15mm sci-fi stuff and 50mm sabot bases for it), so I'm recycling its components.
This portly gent is a kitbashed goblin king for Kings of War. He's made from an Oathmark dwarf body with Oatmark orc arms and heads and an Oathmark wolfrider crest.
Although this isn't a Middle-earth project, I wanted a slightly Tolkien-esque feel, with the big head, bow legs and long arms that Tolkien's orcs have.
I'll assemble these in Kings of War 'troops' - eight to ten figures on a 125 x 50mm base. When they're fielded as larger units, the front element can designate the specified troop type if that's in short supply.
As base depth is variable in HotT, I'd probably field this as a horde in 28mm and a warband in 1/72 (a scale in which these small-by-28mm-standards goblins are quite hefty).
Meanwhile, the 40 x 40 unit works as a beast or behemoth unit in 15mm HotT - ogre hunters or whatever.
I've got already got a few 1/72 goblin units using this scheme (they'll mix freely with these, as the big 1/72 Caesar orcs are only slightly smaller than Oathmark and Wargames Atlantic goblins - I often give the Caesar orcs Oathmark or WA heads). I find that the 40/60 basing is very handy in a game, as by aligning the first rank 60/40 and the second 40/60, you get a nice, coherent unit that's easy to move on the table because the offset basing holds it together.
Here, I've gone with an obvious leader (the chap with the spiky helmet and long sword) at the edge of the 60mm base. When the unit forms up for a 100mm frontage, he marks the 'leader point' for pivoting in Kings of War.
As I put together more of these, they'll also form 120mm units for Impetus: two 60s or three 40s.
And, finally, the 15mm orc warbands on 40 x 20 bases that I'm working on will double up as 40 x 40 orcling bases for Kings of War - helping to achieve maximum flexibility!
This is the start of an orcish unit for Kings of War - and possibly for Impetus too. I suspect Impetus may be fairly forgiving of minor variations in frontage, which would mean that the 125mm frontages of KoW orc and cavalry units won't matter too much alongside doubled-up Hordes of the Things bases (so 120mm) for most units.
Kings of War's Warhammer legacy in having 20mm and 25mm bases for various humanoids is a slight annoyance when basing for maximum versatility. For the most part, I'm now basing regular infantry units on a mix of 60mm and 40mm frontages, which allows the two to be used together to create a KoW 100mm frontage, and then two of the 60s or three of the 40s can form Impetus units. Meanwhile, the 60s and 40s can be used in Hordes of the Things in 28mm and 15mm respectively; we tend to use 1/72 figures for regular humans in massed-battle games, which means that they work in both 15mm and 28mm HotT.
These orcs are based mainly on the EM4 monopose plastics, with bits added from Mantic orcs, GW Skaven, Frostgrave demons, Fireforge Mongols and Oathmark orcs and dwarves. The leader is a Frostgrave demon with only a minor conversion to lower his head into his shoulders for a more orcish look. The fellow with the two-handed axe is a Frostgrave demon with a Fireforge cataphract head. He'll probably end up in a different uinit.
And here are the next three kitbashes for the Realms of Chaos/Mordheim warband: two Skaven with prehensile tails and another human with a beweaponed limb.
Why not use Realms of Chaos warbands in Mordheim? The thought struck me the other day, so I rolled up a warband using the tables in Slaves to Darkness.
The result was a largeish warband by Mordheim standards, but not one that looked grossly unbalanced. I ended up with a normal human champion of chaos, blessed with four arms. His followers are 11 humans (with a dominant attribute of beweaponed extremities) and five Skaven (with a dominant attribute of prehensile tales and hatred of elves).
So that gives us 17 individuals, none of whom have exceptional stats except for the extra attacks from the extra arms, weapon-limbs and prehensile tails. The latter two are dominant attributes, so I gave half of each group the traits, rounding down for the Skaven and up for the humans. That leaves two Skaven with prehensile tails and six humans with beweaponed extremities (who'll work very nicely as mutants with the 'great claw' mutation in regular Mordheim). All regular Mordheim bands will have more powerful individuals and - often - better equipment, so I'm going to throw these chaps into a game and see how they do.
I have to kitbash the rest of them first, of course ...
Some Oathmark orcs. They're not quite done - I'm going to add some vegetation to the bases and probably dull and weather the shields a bit.
