Shadespyre's Rank and File (IV) - The Kingdom of The Gnolls (An Orcs & Goblins Army) (682.5 pts)

 OWAC V - Rank and File (IV) - Even More Gnolls

April

Well. I seem to have painted a lot of Gnolls now. And some Lesser Goblins. Which are a bit like Gnolls, really. But with the last Rank and File month done, so is the vast majority of the painting of little greenish yellow guys.

Here we go then: the middle ranks of the Gnoll monarchs' army; your every day, properly dressed, trained-but-not-elite common soldiery.

First, some Gnoll Boar-riders. I'd hoped to get more of the armoured riders to make two small, distinct units but they are so hard to find that I've settled for this combined unit. 

I was tempted to add bows to the lighter armed fellows, but it doesn't make much sense for those wearing big helms, so I left it. Just light armour, hand weapon and shield for this unit, then.

Hopefully you have noticed that there are now movement trays, and also some additional plant life. I tried not to go overboard with those and crowd the miniatures too much, so I hope I got the balance about right.  

And here are the 20 Gnolls-at-Arms.

I had several goes at turning a broken Gnoll into a musician, and this was the first version I'm reasonably happy with. A standard might have been nice, but as these troops are also archers, a horn seemed more fitting.

Archers, you say? I might have mentioned before that one of the (many) issues with the Orcs & Goblins list for this army is the minimum requirement for "Arrer Boys", and so I have added bows and arrows to this unit in this fashion:

The quivers are a modification of an old plastic one, which I then made a mould from, and the bows are just paper clip wire and greenstuff.

The few actual archers visible in the unit are technically C12 Great Goblins, but they match well and reinforce the unit's role nicely. Again, they are suprisingly hard to collect, like so many things in this range...

I like to have some multi-role troops in an army. I don't know how effective the archery from this unit might be, but they should have melee sticking power which the Lesser Night Goblins are not going to offer

Bonus Unit:

Speaking of which, here's a last bunch of the little fellows:

The sword and shield combo means I could use them to boost the numbers of either of the bow or javelin armed units. Plus I already ordered an extra movement tray so it seemed like I should paint these to fill it.

You want more? Okay, I did put up some little hints last month, so maybe reveals on some of those? Go on then, we're all bored of looking at ordinary Gnolls so let's bring some things forward from the "Leader" and "Wild Card" categories...

The bearers of the tiny, weeny flowers. I had to make several of those becuase they are so small that I kept losing them... they are folded up out of little bits of brass foil, and the leaves are greenstuff. There's a whole bunch of different variations of this Female Gnoll mini, but I thought two was enough. I never get around to writing down any background for my armies, but in my head these are the King's Aunties, fearsome harridans who enforce loyalty to the king, because their status depends on his survival. Let's count them as low level Wizards, because why not?

Finally this month, I might as well show you these because *someone else* has already painted them better, thus totally ruining any "wow" factor they might have had...

Yes, I know they both come from a Dwarf set and so they "belong" in that Other Project better, but I liked the idea of moving the models from the Dwarf King's Court to the Gnoll King's Court. These were actually amongst the first minis picked out for this army, after the Chariots and Gnoll Gnights and Huscarls. 

I'm counting Cyril as a Wild Card and not really a part of the army per se, but the wee Jester is plainly a Goblin Wizard with an illusion spell or two.

Scores for April:  682.5   points        42 models

8 x Gnoll Boar-riders       (Gruntas, Light Armour, Shield)                               200 points

20 x Gnolls-At-Arms      (Arrer Boyz with Light Armour, Shields, Musician) 220.5 points

10 x Lesser Night Goblins       (Gobbos with Shields)                                       35 points

2 x Aunties                        (Level 10 Orc Wizards)                                            182 points

1 x Jester                            (Level 5 Goblin Wizard)                                          45 points

1 x Cyril the Bear                                                                                                 0 points

Running Total:             1711 points        181 models

Coming Next: Leader month I guess?