Goblin soldiers of lesser stature

 I want to put together a few units of goblin 'spitters' (archers) for Kings of War. I have some Oathmark, Wargames Factory and Wargames Atlantic goblins with bows and slings, but I want a bit of variety. A couple of cheap sprues of Marlburian infantry give me goblin musketeers once heads are fitted under hats and legs are cut down to size (which the wide-skirted coats facilitate). 

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.

Kitbashed orcs (part seven)

 And on they march! Here's the latest batch of kitbashes. I'm most pleased with the axeman and the spearman in the centre. The former benefits from repositioning at the waist while the latter has a repositioned left arm and a new fist to add a bit of dynamism.

Kitbashed orcs (part six)

 And a few more orcs to keep the dwarves in the previous post busy!

Dwarf kitbashes in progress

 

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!

"Goblin-soldiers of greater stature ..."

 Some newly kitbashed orcs: I bought these stumpy Hail Caesar Romans some time ago with the notion of turning them into the Uruk-hai of Isengard. They have the short stature, the short swords and broad builds of Tolkien's descriptions. 

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:

'Mincer mob' work in progress

It's been a glorious day today - my son and I blitzed round the hill on our bikes while my daughter was playing tennis. But what better antidote to fresh air and exercise than some early-evening outright geekery in the form of some light kitbashing?

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.

Kitbashed goblin king

 

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. 

Kitbashed orcs (part five)

Here are yet more, including a kettle-hatted axeman and a fur-hatted archer. There's something peculiarly satisfying about converting an archer to be ... an archer. The spearman on the left was also pleasing - a sliced-off spear-arm fitted seamlessly onto the torso of a swordsman.

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.

Kitbashed orcs (part four)

 Three more kitbashed EM4 orcs - a couple of scouts/archers and a swordsman.