Jaakko and Rugluk - Rank & File month #1

The warband crested the ridge at dawn, tired, hungry, and down to numbers Rugluk could count without taking his boots off.

Smoke rose from the valley below.

Rugluk narrowed his eyes. “Dat’s a camp.”

Hope stirred. Maybe a tribe. Maybe deserters. Maybe lads wot hadn’t heard about the whole “failed siege, mutiny, near-death” business.

They marched down, weapons ready.

They stumbled into a circle of snotligs arguing with a cooking pot. One snotling kicked the pot. Another tried to wear it. The only weapon in sight was a spoon. Bent.

Rugluk stared.

“…Dis is wot fate sends me?”

One of his orcs scratched his head. “Dey’s enthusiastic, boss.”

A snotling looked up, saw Rugluk, and pointed. “Oi! Big un! You 'now how ta make stew?”

Rugluk’s eye twitched.

They heard loud noises and the ground shook.

THUD.
THUD.

Two trolls stood behind the snotling mob, blank-faced, drooling, watching the fire with empty eyes.

One sniffed a snotling.

Rugluk’s grin spread slow and mean.

“You two - you’re hired.”

Hello again! This is one of my favourite stages of the challenge. The first month of OWAC is behind us, and the first batches of painted miniatures are starting to emerge before our eyes. Last season, I focused a lot on the core of the army to meet the minimum requirements in the Warhammer Armies army list. That meant many large units and a lot of batch painting. This year, I hope to add some spice to the mix.

I decided to start the challenge with snotling bases and trolls. I caught a nasty flu and didn’t achieve quite as much as I would have liked, but I’m really happy with these guys. I managed to paint five bases of snotlings (with 28 snotlings) and two trolls. A third troll is nearly finished and will join the force at a later stage.

Enough talking, let's move on.

These little guys are full of character, and I really loved painting them. I hope to paint more at some point, and I have enough of them to fill a few more bases and man another pump wagon. But, they are also tiny, and the bases are quite crowded, so I don’t mind moving on to something else for a little while.

Painting the trolls was also a lot of fun. Trolls from different eras have one thing in common: they are all amazing sculpts.

This month in points:

And that's it for the month. See you later!

Jaakko and Rugluk: Season II - The Reinforcements - Introduction

Rugluk Backstabba stood on a ridge of broken stone and looked down at his army.

It didn’t take long. There weren’t many left.

A handful of orcs leaned on chipped axes, arguing about whose fault it was they were hungry. Goblins huddled near a fire that wasn’t really burning. A pump wagon sat on its side, crew gone, probably eaten.

Rugluk bared his teeth. “Dis ain’t an army,” he growled. “Dis a bad joke.”

No one laughed.

The siege, the mutiny, the empty fort-it had all taken its toll. Some had wandered off. Others had challenged him and lost. A few had challenged him and won, at least enough to run away afterward. Fear carried only so far when there was no loot and too much marching.

Rugluk clenched his fist. He was still alive. Boyz will always find the real boss.

“Dey’ll come,” he muttered. “Dey always do.”

A goblin scout scurried up the slope, panting. “Boss! Found tracks”

Rugluk’s eye twitched. “Orcs?”

The goblin hesitated. “Uh… not exactly.”

Rugluk grinned anyway.

“Well, I ain’t picky.”

And so another season of OWAC is about to begin! And, as promised, the second season of painting Orcs and Goblins for the Horde of Rugluk.

The theme of season IX is to draw inspiration from Oldhammer artwork. I knew this beforehand, and since I’m working on a multi-season project, I already snuck this picture into the introduction post for season VIII:

Or rather, a part of this larger artwork from Warhammer Armies:

I love everything about it and hope to capture the style of this orc horde in my slowly materializing army-to-be. I’ve also snuck in some smaller details that fit this year’s theme into last season-but there will be more of them next month (as I’m not writing this from home and forgot to take pictures). More small surprises are also hopefully still to come. Anyway, here are some photos of the unpainted models waiting for their turn!

This unit will feature two banners, so the fellow in the middle seems to be a rival of Rugluk.

I painted some Goblin Fanatics last year, but I saved my favourites for this season. As far as I know, all the different pre-slotta sculpts will be featured. I can’t imagine a scenario where I’d actually need so many Fanatics, but I enjoy painting them.

And here they are in a list:

That’s still more than I can manage to paint in one season, but we’ll see.

If I have time, I might also finish these Goblin Wolf Riders that I didn’t manage to complete last season. They won’t be included in the model count or points, of course, since they already have some season VIII paint on them.

Good luck to all of our challengers! See you next month!

Jaakko and Rugluk Backstabba- The Tragedy of Rugluk - Wrap-up

Epilogue

Deep below the craggy hills a small cavern echoed with laughter. Not orcish roars or goblin sniggers-this was sharper, clearer.

Three gnomes sat around a bubbling cauldron, mugs in hand, snorting into their beards.

“And then-and then-he stabbed his boss over a fake prophecy! Hah!”

The eldest gnome, Tobbin Flickerflint, wiped a tear from his eye and waved a hand over the bubbling pool. In its surface shimmered Rugluk, raging across empty dwarf tunnels with a warband too tired to argue.

“I told you the snake illusion would sell it,” said Primsy Gloomwhistle, and took a sip of mushroom wine. “Bit of hissing, a few glowing eyes, some destiny nonsense-works every time.”

“What was it we called him?” chuckled Jibbin. “The Chosen One?”

“Might be our best one yet,” said Tobbin.

They raised their mugs and toasted.

“To da Backstabba!”

The cauldron flickered and showed Rugluk again-this time yelling at returning goblin scouts.

The gnomes howled.

“Ohhh, we should definitely do goblins next!”

And here we are! The painting marathon we call Old World Army Challenge is once again grinding to a momentary halt. And what a ride it has been!

This has easily been my favourite season so far, as I’ve thoroughly enjoyed exploring the classic Orc and Goblin range with a paintbrush in hand. The events that set this project into motion happened during the Leader Month of Season Six, when I painted a banner inspired by the designs in the O&G section of Warhammer Armies. I already had a Chaos Thug Musician wielding an instrument that seemed to be stolen from my Dwarf army (Ronald the Farter, painted just before Season Six), and I felt I needed to paint the Orc army that the banner belonged to.

And here it is-the siege-laying horde of Orcs and Goblins led by Rugluk Backstabba! Or at least the first part of it. This is more than I hoped to achieve and I'm really happy with how things are going. I did expect to have painted some Goblin Wolf Riders by now, though. I actually started both units on January 1st but only managed to finish the wolves themselves. I’m hoping to get them done during the off-season and present them in the intro post of next season-alongside a Snotling Pump Wagon that didn’t quite make the finish line either. 

Rugluk Backstabba and the Boyz-my favourite unit in the army

I kept painting more models throughout July, as I had a 3rd edition Fantasy Battle game lined up for the end of the month. I needed to meet the minimum requirements from Warhammer Armies and to hit the 3000-point mark we had agreed on. With a bit of help from some Giants borrowed from Slargash’s army, I managed to reach both goals-and we had a great game to top it all off.

I painted a unit of Stickas, six Fanatics, beefed up the existing unit of Arrer Boyz, and added an Orc Shaman on a Warboar.

I love Goblin Fanatics-these sculpts are oozing with character. My favourite sculpts are saved to the next season, though, and I hope to dedicate a full month to them.

 

The Stickas

As mentioned above, I painted five more models for this unit, bringing the total to 19. I also received an Orc from John R that fits the unit nicely and finished a spare Harboth I’d used for skin tone tests before the challenge began, bringing the unit up to 21 Orcs overall. Naturally, only 19 will count toward the challenge tally.

Orc Shaman on Warboar. The model comes with a banner pole, but I didn’t have time to add it yet. It’ll need pinning and a bit more work, so I’ll come back to it later.

This month in points: 

Some pictures of the army:

I really like Pump Wagon models and how they work in the game. I also enjoy painting the little guys themselves and hope to do more of that next season. I brought some daylight lamps to my gaming group's space to better capture their slightly paler skintone (and colours in general) in photos. 

 

The Harboth shown partly here was one of my early skin tone tests. I’m thinking of giving a second one a matching look and tying them together as brothers in the background lore.

I really like the command group in Grom's Goblin Guard-they're all fantastic sculpts. 

The picture isn’t great, but I wanted to include the baggage in this post since, even though it wasn’t the first one I started painting, it’s the first one I’ve actually finished.

 

And the army in points:

The Owac adjusted model count has been applied to the Shaman and the baggage. 

 

 

 

 

  

 

What next? Well, I have some half-painted miniatures from this challenge that I need to finish, as mentioned earlier. I also hope to explore the siege theme further in the future, but we’ll see what form that takes. Originally, I had planned to fix and paint a Mighty Fortress during a future Wild Card month, but the current idea is to tackle it during the off-season instead. I’m hoping to get a Warhammer Siege game under my belt sooner rather than later.

And that's it, I guess. As mentioned above, I had a lot of fun this season, but I definitely don’t mind taking it a bit easier over the next few months. I hope to return for Season IX with Rugluk and his army as there are still plenty of units, monsters, and character models I can’t wait to paint!

Wishing you all the best in the meantime. My condolences to the fallen comrades, and big congrats to the challengers who made it to the finish line!

Jaakko and Rugluk - Leader month

Act 6

Rugluk stood atop the hill, armour dented, bandaged gut still leaking a bit. Behind him, his bruised and battered horde gathered, grumbling and picking their teeth. The siege had dragged on long enough.

“Dis time,” Rugluk barked, “I lead da charge!”

A confused cheer followed. Some orcs clanged weapons.

With a mad roar, Rugluk thundered toward the gate, his boyz behind him. Ladders slammed against walls. Rocks flew. The ram finally broke the gate-and to everyone’s shock, they made it in.

“We done it!” Snagrat screamed. “We’z in!”

But inside, the fort was… quiet. Too quiet.

No dwarfs. No traps. No boiling oil. Just cold stone.

The place had been deserted.

Rugluk stormed through the halls, snarling at shadows. The warband followed, less triumphant by the step. Finally, they reached the hall of the dwarf king. Empty. Just a few smouldering torches and a broken throne.

Rugluk found the tunnel entrance soon enough. It was dug out behind the throne and reeking of stale ale and beard oil. The dwarfs had slipped underground like weasels.

No loot. No prisoners. No glory.

Just silence.

Later, Rugluk sat on the cold floor of the keep, cradling a dwarf skull he’d found in the rubble.

He stared at the skull, one eye twitching and briefly contemplated the very act of being.

“So… dis is wot I gets. No gold. No crown. No songs.”

The skull didn’t answer. 

"Er... what's da plan now, boss?" a goblin asked nervously.

Rugluk stood, tossed the skull over his shoulder, and grinned, blood on his teeth.  

“We find where da stunties went. An’ we knock again.”

And so the final mandatory month of painting for OWAC Season 8 is behind us. This season felt shorter than the previous ones, and I’m surprised we’re already at the end! I’ve really enjoyed working on this army and look forward to returning to the project in future seasons. While this month was less productive than the earlier ones, I’m still happy with what I have to show you.

I painted Ruglug, his bodyguard, the Army Standard bearer, a troll minder, a spider swarm, and three mantlets. I also started painting a shaman and some goblins, which I hope to finish in July and include in the wrap-up post.

 

Rugluk Backstabba, the leader of my orc horde and the main character of the story. I really like this "Giant Orc Chieftain" model and thoroughly enjoyed painting him. Naturally, he has to be accompanied by his bodyguard.

  

Drodab Ironbrow — the loyal bodyguard of Rugluk Backstabba (and Aruglid Longface). 

 

The Army Standard of Rugluk Backstabba. I decided to stick to a classic design, as with the previous banners, and I’m really happy with how this one turned out. The tankard shield was, of course, captured from my Bugman’s Rangers, and I plan to reuse the tree design in my Wood Elf army-if I ever end up collecting one.

I had some spare time, so I decided to paint a troll minder. For now, he’ll be looking after trolls from Slargash’s army, but I will paint some trolls of his own later.

As I still had some spare time, I painted a spider swarm. The base includes a frame that holds two small dice to track remaining wounds.

This month in points:

 

 

 

SIEGE

You can find three mantlets from the group photo above. The mantlets are simply covers that cost 5 points each. The ones I painted are from Wargames Foundry, but I also crafted three more from wood. Unfortunately, I ran out of time and haven’t painted them yet.

And that’s it for now. I’ll need to hurry and get more models painted, as I’ve got a game scheduled with this army in just a few weeks.