Giant goblins old and even older

These two miniatures were designed within a year or so of each other, both by Tom Meier. Both are "giant goblins" (i.e. Uruk-hai), the elder from the Wizards, Warriors and Warlocks range, and the latter from 1979's Fantasy Collector Series. 

The right-hand figure is obviously much more advanced sculpturally and is part of a classic range. But I rather like the cruder but charming earlier figure. For roleplaying games especially, I think simpler, older miniatures are often better than their modern equivalents: they leave more room for the imagination.

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A Ral Partha giant goblin

 Tom Meier's Ral Partha giant goblins are one of the all-time great fantasy miniature ranges. They're essentially Tolkien's Uruk-hai (and sport both White Hands and Red Eyes on their banners), which are introduced in The Lord of the Rings as "goblin-soldiers of greater stature".

Ral Partha's earlier Wizards, Warriors and Warlocks range also contained giant goblins, more crudely sculpted, which bore the White Hand; the progress in Meier's sculpting style in a year or two was astonishing. 

Citadel later sold the giant goblins as "half-orcs", and Ral Partha relabelled them as "orcs" at some point. 

They're a terrific set of figures that are still up there with the best around today. They're still available from Ral Partha Legacy (and regularly on eBay), so they must be among the earliest fantasy miniatures still in production, along with Minifigs. 

The Battle of the Five Armies for Hordes of the Things

 A little project I'm working on at the moment consists of opposing forces to fight the Battle of the Five Armies with the Hordes of the Things rules, for a friend.

These are the first few elements: a warband element for Bolg and his bodyguard, and a couple of goblin horde elements (many more to come ...). 

I'm using a mix of miniatures for the goblins: EM4, Wargames Factory, Oathmark, BattleMasters, Citadel, Warlord Games and Wargames Atlantic, at least. I'm kitbashing a lot of the EM4 figures to vary the three poses as much as I can. 

Other elements are close to completion too: Beorn (a god in HOTT terms), two bases of wolf riders and one of wargs, Dain's dwarves and Thorin and company. The other elements have been procured, so it's jut a question of working through them all now ...

A Minifigs knight

 This is a Minifigs knight that I've painted up for use in RPGs: an old-school D&D fighter, I fancy. 

I find Minifigs miniatures interesting to paint. They were sculpted with solder, I believe, so they're quite unlike modern miniatures, and there's plenty of room for freehand and imagination. I think they also work particularly well for RPGs for the same reason: there's no oversupply of detail, so there's plenty of scope to imagine what the character looks like aside from the miniature representation. 

I'm experimenting with a very basic form of non-metallic metal on these figures; I hope to improve as I go. As they're based on 20mm squares, they'll also form up nicely in threes as Hordes of the Things elements with 60mm frontage. I plan to base cavalry on 20 x 40mm for that reason and to make them more manoeuvrable in RPGs (big bases are quite limiting in that regard).

I've got quite a lot of Minifigs knights to work on (eBay acquisitions over the years). I'm also going to be using other old-school figures in the same project: Lamming, Heritage and very early Ral Partha (the cruder Wizards, Warriors and Warlocks range from before Tom Meier really hit his stride).

Fangor Gripe and friends

 These are three retouched orcs finished today. I originally painted Fangor Gripe, the cyclops-orc, seven years ago: you can see him here. The early photos flatter the old paintjob; he looks a lot better now in the 'flesh' and considerably less washed out. My previous post shows the female orc on his left; the orc chieftain on his right was first painted around 1991 and is also shown in that post in his decades-old state. 

Fangor is a classic from the first Citadel range of slottabased orcs. These are among my favourite miniatures. 

The chieftain with sword and flail is an earlier Fantasy Tribe orc. His sword was broken when I acquired the figure in the late 80s or early 90s, and I replaced it with one that might have been cut down from a bit of scrap or something. The Fantasy Tribe orcs followed the AD&D Monster Manual in the weapons they =carried. 

Improving a decades-old paintjob to start 2026

This is an old Citadel armoured orc from the early 80s. It appears to be a female orc - a real rarity from Citadel - judging by the ample bosom beneath the hauberk (and perhaps the unusually long hair), although the head and most of the body were used for male orcs elsewhere in the range.

I painted this figure when I was a teenager, to form part of my first Hordes of the Things army. You can see her (?) below here:

Fairly recently, I rebased these orcs individually. I've decided to touch up their teenage paintwork a little bit. On the evidence of this morning, it doesn't take long - and I'm pleased with the results:

All I did was wash the flesh with Army Painter Strong Skin Shade, highlight the flesh a couple of times with magenta washes over the nose and lip beforehand, redo the eyes (I prefer glowing red eyes on my orcs as the one unifying factor in their otherwise disparate appearance) and add a few other highlights here and there.

I think there's an undeniable improvement from the paintwork of almost 35 years ago:

Next up is the fellow on the right!