Pig-faced orcs!

 This weekend is going to be dominated by that toad. But I managed to kitbash these D&D-style pig-faced orcs before knuckling down. I've given them all Monster Manual-compliant gear. 

These are made largely from Frostgrave cultists and cultist knights, with heads from Wargames Atlantic and shields from Victrix.

Scratch-built Beholder!

This is my son's latest. You can see how he designed and created it here:

But wait ... there's more!

More insufferably nerdishness and influence-spotting, that is! The miniatures above are from Citadel's Goblin Raiding Party, a terrific boxed set from the early 80s, complete with such euphonious names as Norgus the Flatulent and Gigblad Childsplatter.

Gigblad Childspatter

It's struck me before that the armament of these goblins was a bit out of synch with the usual Warhammer (and Tolkien) goblins: military picks and slings rather than scimitars and bows.

But after the last two entries on this blog, there are no prizes for guessing why. Here's the Monster Manual on goblin armament:

And sure enough, among the war party, we get a military pick, a short sword and sling, a short sword and spear, a morning star (here a flail rather than a spiked mace, but described on the box as a morning star). 

There's one with a warhammer too - but it's the historical sort of warhammer that has a pick head. And while the chieftain, Ubar Earbiter, has a falchion or scimitar, his lieutenant, D'Glish Sharpcut, has a short sword and a military pick on his back (leaders having the best weapons and two each, of course).

So I think it's pretty clear that these goblins are based on the Monster Manual entry. But there's something even more glaringly obvious. Just look at the illustration!

I can't believe that I'd never noticed this before, but the Goblin Raiding Party have exactly the same helmets - and in once case, exactly the same weapon - as David Trampier's illustration. Check out Torg Dwarfsmasher, bottom right:

Again, none of this is exactly earth-shattering. But it is interesting (to me at least!) to trace the origins of this rather distinctive bunch of Citadel goblins. 

More gaming archaeology - hobgoblins in D&D and Warhammer

After exploring the influence that the Monster Manual had on Citadel's Fantasy Tribe orcs and dwarfs, I though I'd have a poke around and see if the hobgoblin entry shed any light on Citadel's early range.

And it did. Some armament influences are detectable: "sword & whip" - possibly the origin of the "discipline master" figure that recurred throughout Citadel's early hobgoblin ranges. And the mace that the fellow above is holding could be loosely interpreted as a morning star.

But look at the paragraph below the weapon list:

That business with the standard must surely be the source of the hobgoblin propensity to Frenzy in the Warhammer rules. It's there in the first and second editions. But in the third edition, it's restricted to Mourngul hobgoblins in the presence of their tribal standard (pulled on a hobhound-drawn cart if I remember correctly). 

A case of Warhammer hobgoblins returning to their roots? 

Citadel's Fantasy Tribe orcs and D&D

All Gygaxed up: orc chieftain with sword and flail (centre)

This is a post that may well interest no one. And its conclusions are a little, "Well, duh!". But here goes.

I've long thought that Citadel's marvellous Fantasy Tribe orcs from the early 80s were designed specifically for Dungeons and Dragons rather than for any other purpose. They're certainly not Tolkien's orcs: they're too tall, for one thing, and they've often got long, protruding faces or upturned snouts, as well as a bizarre array of dentistry: tusks like those of a boar or a walrus.

Note the dentistry to either side of the bodyguard with battleaxe.

Now, on the one hand, this is obvious. The Fantasy Tribe range predates Warhammer, and the genesis of that game has been well documented as a means to get people to buy more Citadel miniatures than they'd need for a dungeon crawl.

Later in the 80s, when Citadel acquired the licence for Middle Earth miniatures, its orcs changed in appearance, with some becoming noticeably shorter and more bow-legged, and a larger number of bows

But I think there's a fair bit of evidence that the Perry twins - or someone else at Citadel - was paying a fair bit of attention to to the descriptions of D&D orcs as set out in the 1979 Monster Manual. Look at how the Monster Manual describes orc armament:

And look at the weaponry of the Fantasy Tribe range here or below:

(From here)

It's not an exact match: the Fantasy Tribe range includes an orc with a mace and one with a sword. But it's pretty close. All the Monster Manual variations are covered (barring the absence of an axe as a sidearm for the crossbow and polearm guys), including such combinations as "sword & flail", "axe & spear,  "sword & spear" and "axe & bow" (the archer has an axe tucked into his belt).

Note, too, that the rarest combinations ("sword & flail" and "sword & battleaxe") are assigned to Citadel's (sword & flail) and bodyguard (sword and battleaxe - always a two-handed weapon in D&D). And of course the Monster Manual tells us that orc chiefs have 5-30 bodyguards, so I think we can spot the provenance of those titles too.

And what of the other Fantasy Tribe ranges? Well, the dwarfs show the influence of the Monster Manual even more clearly:

(From here)

The first seven before the standard bearer match up to their Monster Manual equivalents perfectly - and the "chieftain in plate mail w. sword" nods to the note about "dwarfs above normal level".

But all of this only deepens the mystery of the Fantasy Tribe gnolls. By the time of Warhammer's first edition, the "gnolls" had been rebranded "great goblins". They might have passed muster as the original D&D's gnolls, who were possibly a "cross between gnomes and trolls". But they were nothing like the hulking hyena-men of the Monster Manual. Nor were they armed accordingly. So, given the Monster Manual's clear imprint on the orc and dwarf ranges, it's a bit of a puzzle that the gnolls were so defiantly free from its influence.