OWAC IX - Blood Bath at Orc's Drift - Intro post

 

Long time, no see. 

After a long pause for a year, I'm back on track with the objective of completing yet another batch of old metal miniatures.

New Year, two orcs

 

 

It is not what I've only painted in the entire 2022 after my previous OWAC but it is what must be shown to the (small) world of people that ends up in this blog.

I enjoy a lot painting the old 3rd edition orcs. Or orcs in general, but mostly the awkward, mean looking sculpts of that era. Especially following my rule of not only green orcs.

ORC1 and Harboth's Orc archers are also pretty easy to paint and do not lack details compared to more modern sculpts. While their armour are much more simple, they have different kind of furs, clothes, pouches, quilts, etc.

I din't have much time by September-October but the easy-to-paint sculpts allowed me to pass these two beauties in the painting queue and accomplish another Orctober as it should be.

Now that I have a reasonable set of Harboth's orcs, minus the champion, I will try to get severeal of the other Kev Adam's sculpts so I have more variation and a complete collections of its amazing orc archers.

The entire regiment will be the mandatory 20 orcs needed for the army list and the Blood Bath at orc drift scenario.

Btw: I did a bit of cheating for Orctober, because, as you can see there are no pictures of the other side. And that's because I didnt paint their proper shields. 

I do not know where did I put my small supply of evil-looking or spiked round shields, but when I found I'll add them their final piece of equipment.

OWAC V January troop month - Dwarf Warriors!

Rank and File Month #1 

The dwarf warriors march to the call of their King.

King Kazador has sent the messages across his realm and to their allies, the call for arms is spreading fast. The reward is no less than the head of the warlord Gorfang himself. 

Kazador is so eager to claim his vengeance that he will to advance with a vanguard ahead of his drong. He plans to strike the orc raiders in the mine while the two armies set up the lines in the valley, willing to save the brave dwarves. And, if lucky, duel the orc champion far from the mess of a large battle. 

Mustering the drong is a slow process for this risky plan, but some clans can be ready fast enough to join this adventure. The clan Hammergrim was the first to depart with their king, leaded by Grokrin Hammergrim, after accompanying some of the merchant caravans from Karak Azul. They did not need to rest after the long journey to other karaks in the North, as the promise of crushing orc skulls will be more than welcomed after their long and boring job as bodyguards. 

 

This month I almost finished the entire unit of 14 dwarf warriors with full command – 244 points

 

“Almost” because as you can see… the standard lacks a proper freehand. Shame. I will come back to it in the next month or in the leader month. 

I also changed a bit the troop quantities because a package with the last two dwarves I needed seems to be lost, sadly. I borrowed a volunteer from another unpainted unit. And I have come with a solution that you will see in the leader month as well.

Meanwhile in the mine, the seven dwarves will not let the orcs get their hands in the piles of gold and gems, much less raid the vaults of the rediscovered karak and its treasures of ancient times. “Doc”, Oin “Sleepy” Cliffchin and Grom “Bashful” prepare a surprise made with a set of old furnaces and a large amount of flammable and unsafe materials. 

The engineer and the fire team count as a Flame Cannon – 119 points. 

So this month ends with a total of 17 dwarves and 363 points. 

See you in the next post. 

Adrian’s out.

Lots of goblins

-I think someone is following us...

Thinking about this couple of units, it was the most stressful month of the past OWAC. An entire horde of goblins to paint, plus some trolls (which were shown in a previous post). I've never painted so many models in a hurry. Well, not at this level at least, some tournaments with bare sketchy base colours applied to several dwarf units, lot different to fully finished units.

Until April I only had two gobbos painted because why not.

But from two to 30 there is a long run. I wanted to try something new for the skin variation in this lot. Instead of layering and usual glazing I'd normally do, I tried a different mass-glazing approach.

I made a greyscale (or sepia) sketch after priming. Then, the goblins were divided by skin each tone. Some will be glazed with greens, other ones with pale blueish skin and others with the typical bright green skin.

As you may have noticed, I took more time with the shields. After getting the varied tones I wanted for the skins and clothes, the time saved with the glazing helped a lot to get this month done as well as to dedicate to paint some old school shield motifs.

The last two normal goblins were painted in a previous month as I said before. This couple was special because they were the first goblins (& orcs!) I got in the collection, together with the champion of the rock lobba which remain unpainted. I know that one of them is a lesser goblin, but as they came in the lot they had some kind of Bud Spencer and Terence Hill charm so they went into the same unit.

Next, the command group (well, the banner bearer and the champion, as the musician is in the previous pictures, I mistook it)

Punks not dead.

I enjoyed paiting the banner based in a local fanzine, following the punk theme of the unit and the champion. I felt that the drawing and the phrase catch perfectly the character of the rabble of small troublemakers.

Total:

19x Goblins

Light armour + spear + javelin + shields
Banner and musician

[73 points]

The champion came from Ral Partha. It will be noticed inside such a chaotic unit.

ser Gitfried (Hero lvl 10)

Light armour + two handed weapon
[32 points]

There were not enough goblins for this month, so I pushed my luck a little bit and painted also a unit of goblin archers. They're mostly C12/13 goblins except for some wolf raiders that I repaired and had no wolf, so they were added to the unit.

10x Goblin stikkas

Short bow

[35 points]

A productive month. I am trying to collect an army capable of playing Blood Bath at Orc's Drift Campaign. However, with the awesome C12/13 goblins it is impossible to resist and complete the army book's two mandatory goblin units rule. In the future I will get to the 20 stikkas, dunno if expanding the spear goblin unit up to 30.

Adrian's out!

Don't Feed the Trolls

 

-No, they smashed my precious mailing box!

The big guys are 'ere. There is no good 'ol orc force without a bunch of these smelly guys wandering around.

These fellas were in my desk from the begining. I couldn't resist to purchase two of the Satyr Art Studio's Bog trolls when a friend of mine didn't want them. They capture the old school vibe, fit perfectly with the C20 trolls despite the size (which I inted to purchase some to grow the family in the future). And more important, if a friend has them means I do not need to purchase 'em from California, which is a lot right now. The only limit to not have more or them, or that lovely remake of the cloud giant, damn, Drew D. William has all the goods.

I wanted a reddish skin in the troll smacking the mailing box, unfortunately, I painted a more white skin tone with some reddish/unhealthy bits. Which was perfect, nonetheless. I couldn't resist to add some meal and, of course, check pattern and free hand in the bits.

The last one is from Tim Prow, sold by Ral Partha Europe. The bone clubs and the monocle give him some character, as well as that long face with huge nose. This time I nailed the reddish tone I wanted with the other troll.

My plan is to expand this unit with some C20 trolls painted with random skin tones as well. No troll shall have similar colour.

That's for now. The big guys are finished, now with the little, cunnin' 'n' sniky-like of the rabble for the next entry.

Check out!

Da Brute Force

 

-Oi, anything need to be «really» crushed boss??

Happy 2021 everyone! 💃

The big black orcs have arrived. Funny unit to paint and to put together. I wanted something that really really screams BLACK ORCS with the old school vibe, as the fourth edition ones are a bit naked and do not fit the theme with the 3rd ed early slotta and preslotta boys. I wanted to collect an entire Jes Goodwin unit. However, I do not want to find myself completely bankrupt, which could be the possible scenario trying to get the entire collection in so little time for the III OWAC.

It is not impossible, but you should snipe some evilbay and fb group purchases. 

In the meantime when I was doing all the preparation stuff for the next OWAC, Knightmare miniatures announced an entire line of his Iron Orc (aka black orcs) by none but Kev Adam. Sign me in. That saved me time for the OWAC and a solution for the unit, because another problem with Jes' black orcs is the amount of different sculpts. If I'll be mortgaging the house for those miniatures, at least only for one of each sculpts.

The Iron orcs do not blend completely with the Jes sculpts because they are completely different but it is the point with the third ed. orcs. Their armour is ragged and more oldhammery than other iterations of the black orcs from the different WHF editions. They match perfectly by not matching with each other.

And you will say "but that reasoning is stupid". Indeed it is, that's why it works. See for example the musician, a miniature that only exist in metal in the 4th-5th ed. black orcs. It doesn't match in style with any of the other miniatures of the unit. Neither with any of the other orcs of the army!

One of them is fine, too many of them will be horrible for my taste.

They're not bad miniatures, it is only they don't have the ragged pelts and clothes, lack armour, their armour has no spikes or broken parts... However, Jes' black orcs have little of those things that can blend with other units of the army. Kev new black orcs too, their complex armour patterns and lots of spikes, ragged clothes and such mix very well with other units. Their faces are not the traditional Kev's orc face.

I wanted them to be a bit different only in their skin tonnes and more armoured and intimidating. The armour fix the later, so I decided to try something different for the skin tonnes. That's why I went for the purplish colour and the deep purpleish greens.

The banner was the opportunity to make also something similar to the old Thatcher witch face. I selected a local witch for that matter.

Also, check patterns, yay!

That's it for the more elite troop of the army. Next one, a huge horde of little fellas.

Big Boss needs his retainers: Da Big 'Uns

 

-Who needs to be smacked, boss.

Good ol' Harboth

 -Oi! Let's do an epic last standing pose!

The Boys (da orcish ones)

Sacks don't start themselves, ma bois! 

Never too late for Orctober

 

Spooky season meets Orctober and voila! a blog necromancy with some greenskin reinfocerments.

It has been the weirdest year and so it is the weirdest way of showing you all the last of the reinforcements: making a post without the rest of the army!

The next month I'll be publishing the different parts of the orc horde for those of you that didn't visited the Old World Army Challenge blog during this year's edition. Do not despair, I'll promise showing each unit with the same devotion I painted them!

However, I, as a slow painter, couldn't get in time some of the extras, and several spare miniatures of my connection didn't get into the deadline. So after a break in the hobby I restarted with these little fellas so my orc collection is complete... for now.

I tried to approach another green variation for these two orc boys in my quest for a rabble with lots of mixed skin colours. I started with the VMC German Red primer and worked towards a mix of VMC Flat green and English uniform/desert yellow. With a tip of VMC Light Green Blue for the lights, trying to get a less warmy green than my yellowish green of the Big Uns. The dark armour contrast with the slightly less muted green compared to other members of the boys but it is not so bright as the bigger orcs. Also I was going for a barbed dragon scales or possibly more reddish colour but at the end, the lizard/dragon skin shield was a more crocodile style.

Then the little goblin archers followed with a more greenish yellow tonne, starting from the VMC English Uniform over the German Red primer and mixing flat green and a bit of GW Elysian green.

I love the experiment with the turquoise clothes and it is simply playing with some VMC grey, flat green and the light green blue. The shadows are a bit of VMC Signal Blue glazing.

Finally, our beloved overlord forgives me! my payment for the OWAC. I had these two "almost finished" and were used in the challenge. Well, the goblin was used because I forgot were did I put one of my goblin spearmen and I had to include it in the photo... But some touched here and there were missing and I also wanted to paint the big un's shield with an inscription for the OWAC admin.

I think I had a pair of Harboth's archers elsewhere but I think that, until I complete my 20 orc projects (next year!) these are all the greenskin for a while.

Stay tunned for this blog revival and the post for each orc unit of the army!

INTERMISSI-ORC, the Old World Army Challenge entry

It is a bit late to announce this, but better now than never.

A Wizard did it

Our adventurers continue their gathering. While the archer company could make it through the forest and cross the river, an elf mage is separated from the main troop. It seems it may need to follo another path.

While the archers could get to the merchant company seeking for help in the farmlands, the rest of reinforcements were separated.

Seems that the ratmen ambush worked, and the troops are now scattered and may perish, outnumbered by their foes.

However, it is not advisable to confront an elf mage.

- Damn rat creatures, we have been separated from the main troop. And yet, we cannot retreat to my tower.

The chaos creatures have routed them far from the main troop, which at this point ust have retreated to the tower. Neither choose the other northern path and cross the river, without knowing that the archer company actually made it. 

It must be Soth then, to the farmlands in the route to Tor Nimtala. They could get there and met with the merchant, if they survived.

However, skaven skirmishes will not made the travel easy.

[Daramas thinks that a corrosion spell works fine for stopping the ratmen]

The ratmen felt the power of elf wizardry. They will not assault directly the small group.

In their path, they found some more warriors that scaped the ambush. There is one day of travel to the farmlands. Yet the river crossing seems too far against the endless tides of ratmen.

- It is a pleasure to see you all are fine, my lord.

As expected, they assaulted the camp near the temple at night, expecting that the darkness is their ally against the power of the mage.

[However, the skaven seems to be petrified by the staggering power of Daramas]

Meanwhile, at the South, in the road to the coast and Tor Nimtala, our single adventurer, a young elf swordman from the militia travel to transmitting the news of the attack at the farmlands up North.
When suddendly, ratmen are at it again...

Will the young lady resist her assailants?

---

Hope everyone enjoyed this chapter, as it has been a while during my sudden retirement finishing a never ending thesis.

Happy Holidays to you all!