Shadespyre Intro Post - OWAC V - The Kingdom of The Gnolls (An Orcs & Goblins Army)

OWAC V - This Time It's Gnolls (or is it Goblins?)

Where to start?

We could start back in 1980, with a couple of young-but-soon-to-be-famous miniature sculptors named Perry, making Gnolls (or are they Goblins) for a young-but-soon-to-be-famous miniatures company. These would be launched as Citadel's Fantasy Tribes Gnolls range, one of the first lines of dedicated fantasy miniatures they produced, before quickly being re-designated as Goblins - Great, Night and just Goblins - at the dawn of the C series era.

At much the same time, 10/11 year old me discovered D&D and The Lord of the Rings, and then Citadel miniatures, and so these are the Goblins I met first, which is why they are the best Goblins (or is it Gnolls?).

Like my last one (arguably, most of my ones, ever) this is a project driven by nostalgia, inspired by a random handful of miniatures, and then dialled up by over-ambition and my terrible urge to collect. It also owes a lot to another not-an-OWAC-but-very-OWACy project, my Brown Orc army, of which this was originally going to be a very small offshoot.

What in the name of The One True Ansell am I on about?

Look, here are some pictures of Gnolls (or is it Goblins?), all from the FTG range.

There are two main archetypes, those with bigger mostly bald heads, huge batlike ears and a rather apelike stance ("Great Gnolls") and those who are a little smaller, a little neater, and a lot more likely to be fully clothed or partly armoured (just "Gnolls"). Either group may sport a little tuft of hair. The latter are the style which was expanded on for new C-series Goblins, and looks more like the goblins of the later 1980s.

(It might as well be noted here that I have *no idea* why these were ever called Gnolls, the AD&D Monster Manual had already described the hyena-like Gnoll that is universal today, and surely everyone at Citadel must have been playing that game?)

So What's The Big Idea?

Back to that handful of inspiring miniatures. 

Exhibit A - not one, but two of these Gnoll Chieftain's Chariots. No one wants two identical models, so obviously the second chariot belongs to the Chieftain's other half? 

Exhibit B - This Gnoll General on a Boar. Check out that caparison. Obviously he really wants to be a noble Knight! Who do Knights serve? Kings! So now we have a Goblin King and his Queen.

Exhibit C - Gnorman the Gnoll. Or is it Gilbert the Goblin? (He is both, in fact). How could you look at this chap and not think "Huscarls"? And not then have to collect a bunch of his mates to form a Royal Guard?

So that's the Big Idea - the King and Queen of the Gnolls and their followers; from Gnoll Gnights down through Gnoll Huscarls and Gnolls-at-Arms to the Gnoll levy infantry. 

Oh, and then there's Lesser Goblins. Never known as Gnolls, as it happens. More of those, later.

Army List

Here's where it gets difficult. No Goblin army list I've ever seen has favoured bad-ass armoured Goblins with big axes, or elite Goblin Gnights, or anything other than mass ranks of WS2 Goblins, usually being bossed around by Orcs. The 3rd edition Warhammer Armies Orcs & Goblins list is very much an ORCS (oh okay & some goblins) list. Nonetheless, this is the list to which I have turned.

Why? Because of two things, really: Boars, and Lesser Goblins. All of the Gnoll cavalry figure ride boars, not wolves. So do the WA Orc cavalry. And then, if you count Gnolls as Goblins, what do you do with Lesser Goblins?

Just look at their little faces! Just look!

How could you not include these? Specifically, how could you not include these when you bought 100 of them off eBay? It would be criminal to use these as mere Snotlings!

And so, for the purposes of this list, I shall be counting Gnolls as Orcs and Lesser Goblins as Goblins (and ignoring the existence of Snotlings as they hadn't been invented yet). Almost everything immediately works!*

Yes, I know that gives my Gnolls Toughness 4, and I'm not so happy with that. And yes, I know they should be on 25mm bases, but that isn't happening - if they ever see a battlefield I will use movement trays to give them Orc-like spacing. One day I will write up a proper army list for them, using more sensible stat lines**, but that is much lower priority than painting them, I'm sure you'll agree.

This is my CORE list, then - meeting the requirements of the OWAC rules and (mostly***) the Warhammer Armies Orcs & Goblins list, as well as being pretty much the minimum I can do to get the "feel" of the force that I'm after.

Gnoll King                    (Orc Hero Level 20, Heavy Armour, Great Weapon)    121 points

Gnoll Queen                  (Orc Hero level 20, Heavy Armour, Lance)                  122 points

Gnoll Shaman                (Orc Wizard level 15)                                                    163 points    

2 x Royal Chariots        (Orc Battle Chariot w Shortbow, Scythed Wheels)      168 points

5x Gnoll Gnights           (Orc Snortas)                                                                 135 points

20 x Royal Huscarls       (Orc Biguns)                                                                190 points

20 x Gnolls-at-Arms       (Orc Arrer Boys w Shields)                                        190 points  

20 x Gnoll Levy               (Orc Boyz)                                                                  170 points

20 x Lesser Goblins        (Goblin Gobbos w Shields)                                            70 points

20 x Lesser Goblin Archers (Goblin Stickas w Shields)                                        80 points  

Just 108 models and 1409 points. No command models in there, as there's a bit of a lack of those to be had and I'll put off deciding where to use the few models I've got.

There are LOTS of potential extra models to add here - I have more cavalry, more infantry and many, many more lesser goblins, as well as some extra characters and "colour" models which I will try to paint alongside these if time allows. Else they will be used to continue the project on into the autumn, before turning my hand to the next OWAC (and yes, I think I know what that will be already!)

Did I mention that I'm painting them yellow? Like these:

This is a retro AD&D thing, just like when I painted my Orcs with brown skins. I'm using the new Citadel Hobgrot Hide base paint, which was a timely release for me! To be honest, there's enough green to it that I don't think it looks that different...

Overlord Gift

Oh yes, I almost forgot to show you my OWAC Overlord Offering! As last year I offered a Space Marine from the army I had most recently completed, I thought I would follow that lead and send one of Karnac's Lizardmen:

I think the pink works rather well here! I added a stolen Dwarf shield so I could get some more blue involved, and I've mislaid the last of the slate I used on my bases, so switched to these quartz chippings instead. I hope he'll do!

Footnotes

*except that the Orc chariots in the list are pulled by Wolves, not Boars

**in WH 1st Edition Great Goblins have pretty much a Human stat line 

***the WHA list has minimum units sizes of 10 for all the Orc cavalry - I'm only doing that if Nigel Stillman ponies up the extra cash to buy the models!