A converted space orc

 

Here's the latest in an occasional series of "stick a gun on it and call it a spaceman" - the best and most nostalgic form of miniature conversion. This is a Grenadier orc by Nick Lund; he'd lost his sword and helmet spike, so got a plastic gun and plume as compensation. He should fit in nicely with the converted EM4 (ex Grenadier) plastics in the previous post.

Kitbashed space orcs!

A friend of mine who used to play a lot of 40K suggest that we give One Page Rules' Grimdark Future game a tryout in the summer, so that he can use some of his exquisitely painted armies. I haven't played 40K since the first edition, but the OPR rules look nice and streamlined: a bit of Song of Blades and Heroes (with the Quality stat); a bit FUBAR (with the alternating activations); and a bit Kings of War (the general streamlining): all good things, and the rules and list-builder are free to boot.

I was planning to paint up a lot of first-edition 40K space orks for the summer session, but I'm aware that time and work commitments may limit what I can do (and I don't want to rush those old treasures). But I have no qualms about speed-painting kitbashed EM4 plastic orcs (wonderfully cheap and readily convertible). I converted one to sci-fi a while back, along with an associated metal Nick Lund Grenadier orc, so I thought I'd convert a few more. 

One welcome discovery has been that the new Frostgrave cultists have bulky arms and gloved hands that work nicely with the EM4 orc torsos. The arms (and chainsaw) of the figures in the first photo come from that kit. Stargrave scavenger arms and various other sci-fi bits make up the rest. 

As far as I can see from the Grimdark Future rules, the orc profile is all about aggression rather than toughness (as in the original 40K, where T4 was an ork's main advantage). So these smaller, rather simian orcs should look the part so long as they're armed to the teeth. 

 

A kitbashed chaos warrior

 

Here's a quickly kitbashed chaos warrior with a similarly rapid paintjob (lots of wetbrushing all over with a reddish brown to start with). I put a few of these rogues together the other night to use up various bits and pieces from the bits box. 

I much prefer Citadel's original chaos warriors, with their weird variety and Moorcockian vibe, to the later almost uniform armoured behemoths. So this fellow's a bit of a callback to that sort of thing.

Slightly better shots of that little Grenadier orc (auto-enhance be damned!)

Since I got a new phone (because the camera in the last one was in very poor nick), I've been somewhat dismayed by the photos I've taken of miniatures. Depending on the light, they've been ending up almost "rasterised", with the brushwork looking a lot cruder than it does to the naked eye - as in the bottom photo in this post and in all the photos in the preceding one.

I noticed that when I first looked at a photo, it looked OK, but then an automatic "enhancement" kicked in and made my highlights and shading look a lot rougher (as below). Apparently, this is because of an unstoppable iPhone feature called Deep Fusion. For the two photos above, I got round this in slightly convoluted ways. For the first, I took a screenshot of the photo as soon as I'd taken it - before Deep Fusion had its wicked way. For the second, I took a "live" shot and then went into the breakdown of that and selected a still (Deep Fusion leaves it alone). 

The focus isn't great in either case, and I've downloaded the Halide app to see if that will help. But even the slightly unfocused shots above are better - and more true to life - than the unnaturally sharpened image below.

 

A tiny Grenadier orc

This tiny fellow is from Grenadier's Orcs of the Black River boxed set. He's on a 20mm base with plenty of room.

An odd thing about Grenadier's orcs is how often they changed design. Even those designed by John Dennett (as here) vary considerably. The Black River orcs match up with much larger horse-mounted orc chieftain, a couple of wagon drivers, the dragon rider and the orcish giant, and there are also a couple of blisters of converted Black River orcs. But the other Dennett orcs are a bit different, with longer muzzles, in line with the Orcs of the Severed Hand. And then there are the ranges by various other designers, including Cliff Linton, Andrew Chernak and Nick Lund, all of which are different again.

In any case, they're all good. The photo below shows the Black River orc against one of Nick Lund's later orcs for the Fantasy Warriors range - quite a contrast in size.

 

Another hobgoblin

My mixed force of Chronicle and Dixon hobgoblins (bakemono and oni in the latter case) is growing.

 It's quite liberating to follow the example of Japanese goblins and ogres and disregard any consistency of colour entirely. After all, D&D (and hence Warhammer) hobgoblins are, in their original conception, creatures of chaos.

A Dixon bakemono goblin

 

Dixon Miniatures' Legends of Nippon range is a marvel - especially the superb oni and "bakemono goblins". I gather these figures were designed by Mark Copplestone; they certainly hold up well today.

As far as I can tell, the "bakemono goblin" concept is essentially the creation of Western games designers; Japanese goblins - bakemono or yokai - are weird and wonderfully varied beings, not the smaller oni-like creatures of Bushido and Oriental Adventures. 

But no matter! The Dixon figures are terrific and are perfect for the oni-inflected hobgoblins of D&D and Warhammer's Old World. 

Weekend round-up: dwarf, hobgoblins and orcs large and small

Despite a fairly busy weekend in various regards, I got a fair bit of rebasing and repairs done. I moved eight of my larger Nick Lund orcs onto the sandy-coloured square bases I now prefer for larger skirmishes, RPGs and rank-and-flank (I keep some figures on GW-style rounds for small-scale skirmishes). I also got eleven of his small Chronicle orcs rebased, along with a brace of Chronicle hobgoblins, and I painted a Citadel Northern dwarf berserker.

The orcs give me a unit of six "brute orcs" with great weapons for Nordic Weasel's Elf, Knyghte, Pyke and Sworde, plus a hero and a herald. I also now have a unit of eight "horde orcs" with a range of character options (leader with bodyguard, wizard, herald, champion, etc.)

These lighter-coloured bases never look great in photographs, but I really like how they look on the table. They blend in nicely with dungeon tiles, gaming mats and terrain. I'll probably add the odd tuft to them here and there, although I'm not really chasing a natural effect with them.

 

Night elves and dark elves

 These are Citadel dark elves from the early 80s. The two on the right are sufficiently ancient to be night elves, from the boxed set that was the first Citadel release for these malevolent sprites.

They are lovely miniatures, by the Perry brothers, but absolutely tiny; the night elves are only about 25mm high. These are part of a project to paint up some units for Nordic Weasel's Elf, Knghte, Pyke and Sworde, which uses units of three or six figures, along with individuals. I'm planning to get six witch elves done and six crossbow-elves, along with a cold-one rider or two. 

Some Ral Partha and Citadel gnolls

Gnolls are always handy monsters to have around - whether as generic beastmen or to fulfil specific roles in games such as D&D, Frostgrave and Elf, Knyghte, Pyke and Sworde. 

They are ultimately derived from Lord Dunsany's story How Nuth Would Have Practised His Art Upon the Gnoles. The first edition of D&D makes this plain, along with the suggestion that the creatures were part gnomes and part troll - surely the inspiration for the original Citadel gnolls, which were eventually renamed "great goblins".

So why did they become hyena-men in later editions of D&D? I think it's just part of a general trend by which the "giant class" creatures - essentially a hierarchy of ever-more dangerous goblins - started to be differentiated through animal attributes. So kobolds became dog-men, goblins preserved the archetype of the Tolkien orc, orcs became pig-men, hobgoblins monkey-men or ape-men, gnolls hyena-men and bugbears bear-men. 

Interestingly, gnolls have preserved their animal identity through the various iterations of basic and advanced D&D as most of the others have not. Perhaps that's because hyena-men are just a more evocative concept - conjuring the ghouls of Arabic folklore as well a whole range of unsavoury habits. Hemingway summarises these nicely (if a little unfairly); his description is a great starting point for GMing gnolls:

"The hyena, hermaphroditic self-eating devourer of the dead, trailer of calving cows, ham-stringer, potential biter-off of your face at night while you slept, sad yowler, camp-follower, stinking, foul, with jaws that crack the bones the lion leaves, belly dragging, loping away on the brown plain."

A great big goblin

 This is a very simple conversion of a Reaper Bones orc, with the original small head replaced by a much larger GW goblin one and a bowstring added with thread. 

He's quite a sizeable fellow - that's a 30mm base - so he'll make a good leader or enforcer for the goblin band I've been working on. 

Thorin, Dain and their dwarves

 These are some Blade elements for Hordes of the Things, to represent Thorin and company and Dan and the dwarves of the Iron Hills in the Battle of the Five Armies.

In the appendices of The Lord of the Rings, Dain is described as wielding a red axe (though whether that's the haft, the blade or just its bloody state is unclear). Here (much later on at the Battle of the Five Armies), he's upgraded to a red spear. 

These ex-Grenadier EM4 dwarves are the best fit for Dain's dwarves, I think. They don't quite have mattocks, but their axes are sufficiently mattocky to count. And they're suitably grim and tough-looking.

That's the dwarves done. Next up are the Men of Laketown (Spear elements) and Thranduil's Elves (Shooters).

Beorn for the Battle of the Five Armies

 

This is Beorn for the Battle of the Five Armies forces I'm painting up for a friend. He's a Reaper Bones bear painted with the appropriate black pelt and based for Hordes of the Things.

In Hordes of the Things terms, Beorn should be a God element, I think: arriving late on the battlefield and able to move very quickly and destructively. 

A quick beholder

 Here's a quick beholder I painted. It's destined to be a baddie opposing or leading the warbands I painted for a friend's kids a while back.

These rough-and-ready Reaper Bones figures are very quick to paint: essentially just dry brushing with a few proper highlights. Mid-sized monsters like this one are where the range really shines.

Ghosts and goblins

 Here's the latest member of my growing troupe of night goblins. With these creatures, I'm aiming for a folkloric approach: eerie creatures of the Otherworld rather than mundane subterranean soldiers. 

In light with that approach, I kitbashed a leader for the goblins from a Games Workshop ghost and some night-goblin parts. In folklore, the distinction between ghosts and goblins isn't necessarily clear, so I thought a sinister fairy might benefit from appearing rather ethereal. 

I've got a few other conversions and kitbashes awaiting paint; some of these have tails or animal heads. I'm also planning a few larger bases of two or three figures for use in "large skirmish" games. 

A Chronicle hobgoblin

 Here's a blast from the past: one of Nick Lund's Chronicle hobgoblins, which were produced by Citadel in the early 80s. 

When I was a child, these were some of the most sought-after miniatures for their sheer heft and menace. They were also a staple of the Joe Dever/Gary Chalk armies that featured in White Dwarf and the like at that time.

 The later, slottabased Chronicle range were finer sculpts with plenty of attractions of their own, but they lack the bulk and brutality of the earlier range:

First game of Elf, Knyghte, Pyke, Sworde

 Last night, my son and I played an introductory game of Nordic Weasel Games' Elf, Knyghte, Pyke and Sworde (EKPS). I've been impressed by various other Nordic Weasel systems (Shoot People in Space, Squad Hammer, etc.) and liked the sound of a game that catered to a slightly smaller warband size than Dragon Rampant. I always struggle with getting enough cavalry painted, so the idea of having units of as few as three horsemen was appealing. 

We played a fairly simple straight-fight scenario, with four dwarfs, three musket-toting ladies, three zebra riders and a couple of individuals facing off against six orc archers, six orc light infantry, three hobgoblin wolf riders and another brace of characters. 

The game played out pretty fast. We got a few things wrong - chiefly with the morale rules, where we initially failed to realise that a passed bravery test exempts you from further tests that turn. But we know now. 

One thing I'd wondered was whether the move rates (5" for most infantry, 4" for orcs and dwarfs) would be a bit sluggish in 28mm. But the game proceeded at a fair crack, and running helped (extending those moves to 7.5" and 6", respectively, at the price of fatigue for most troop types). We played on 3' x 3', but I think those move rates would work find on a 6' x 4' table: there'd probably be a lot of running and exhaustion initially, before troops rest and slow down before engagement. 

I really liked the way in which the game uses groups: they aren't bound to keep together but are at greater morale risk if they don't. The targeting rules for shooting worked very nicely too - individual figures matter more than in Saga or the Rampant series, so that units aren't just 'blobs'. 

The Power Source system was a lot of fun (we just had Might, Luck and Leadership and only used the first of these), with lots of potential for heroic feats without unbalancing things: the ticking clock as Might points were exhausted by heroes surrounded by foes was exciting. 

The different troop types were nicely differentiated too. In EKPS, you have set profiles (like HOTT or Frostgrave: Polearm, Missile, Great Weapon, Skirmisher, Shield, Fantastic, etc), but these combine with profiles for various creatures, which are in turn divided into sub-types (Ranker, Veteran, Armoured and so on). So you can build lots of different profiles through the combinations. 

As an example, there are no profiles for lizardmen. But you could easily start with an armoured orc, hobgoblin or beastman and work from there to get a suitably tough and scaly set of stats. 

We'll certainly play again soon. The PDF is packed with all kinds of delights (scenario generators, RPG elements, a "combat RPG" approach with a games master and plenty more), so we've only skimmed the surface so far.

For me, the game's a great incentive to paint up all kinds of interesting old miniatures of which I have too many for a SOBH warband but not enough for a Dragon Rampant retinue (without fiddly dependence on reduced-model counts) or Saga army. I'm thinking of Citadel preslotta dark elves, dwarfs, lizardmen and troglodytes, hobgoblins and Slann - and as mounted troops can have their mounts shot from under them, there's plenty of potential to use all those Citadel foot-and-mounted personalities from the golden age ...