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!)
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.
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:
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.
