Jaakko and Rugluk - Leader month

Morrslieb was full and seemed to smile as Rugluk's warband crept from the trees.

The dwarfs had made themselves comfortable. Some still drank beneath The Owl's sign while others snored beside dying campfires.

Rugluk raised a clenched fist in silence.

Goblins slipped between the wagons while a group of boyz crept toward the sleeping guards. Even the trolls, after repeated threats from Rugluk, managed to stay almost quiet.

Then Rugluk dropped his hand.

"WAAAGH!"

The night exploded.

The dwarfs fought hard but the surprise was complete. Before long the survivors were retreating into the darkness, dragging their wounded with them.

Rugluk climbed onto an overturned ale wagon, looked over the wreckage and bared his teeth in a satisfied grin.

"...Maybe da old ghost knew a fing or two."

Welcome back! I'm in good spirits as I write this post, as I came very close to not finishing anything this month. There was never any fear of dropping out of the challenge, though, since I had already painted a half-orc shaman back in January. Byron shared a picture of the chariot riding Grom he was working on, and it gave me the needed inspiration to paint my version as this season's leader.

I had intended to paint more (and have a few half-finished heroes and shamans on the painting table), but I'm quite happy with these guys. I'm not sure what happens next with the army, but I might present some of the remaining leaders in the wrap-up.

I wanted to make a chariot-riding version of the original Grom the Paunch of the Misty Mountains. So I simply cut the puddle base from under his feet and stuck him on a chariot. He has grown a lot since the first two sculpts.

This sculpt is quite busy and not one of my favourites, but I wanted to include a model that could pass as a half-orc. In fact, I'd also like to include a unit of scabbies in the army, but I need to do some collecting first.

This month in points:

And that's it for now. See you again next month!

Toms Goblins and Orcs: Rank and File #4

MAY.

This month has been awesome!

It's seen the completion of my planned army, and now comes the push to add some extras. But before getting ahead of myself, here's the last orc boys regiment 👊

These boys were a little bit of a struggle, but then as soon as I was half way through, they were a breeze. So strange how that sometimes happens... Here's the rank close ups...

The rust is a technical paint from the Army Painter - part of the John Blanche paint set

I tried to make them as easy as possible.  They're super nice sculpts, so that made it a lot easier. But it's why there's no colour variation, and all the 'bits' are the same brown colour.

Some of the orcs have been converted by their previous ebay owner.

Like this boy, with his beloved hammer and cleaver....👇

And then you gotta love picking up a model and then belatedly realising your fingers are covered in paint 😂😬👇

Here's a shot of the back of the orcs. You can see that I did the classic Thing of not checking whether they rank up neatly before plastic gluing them to their bases. It's why there are two orcs not on the required diagonal - and therefore those two can only be on the end of the rank. 

On to the Command! These models have been sat in my lead pile for a decade or so, and I think they were all 'extras' in bulk ebay buys when I was purchasing orcs for my big hat chaos dwarfs... 

This guy has a thing about eyes...👇

The drummer 👇

Took me so long to realise the drum is made out of a nailed in snotling 😬

And now on to the regimental standard, which I'm super proud of. He's now been promoted to Army Standard he came out so well! The banner design was inspired by this banner by ladykito on Instagram

My banner is paper. It's been doubled up and glued with PVA before painting, so then when it's attached to the banner pole it'll be quadruple paper. I used a new brush to paint the design on, which may be why it's come out so well! (I use greenstuff world gold sable #2 brush for everything except drybrushing)

And here it is attached and flying! 

The pole is 1.2mm brass rod, drilled right through the hand (which disintegrated, so I had to make some fingers out of greenstuff. It is the first time I've had to so something like this with GS!). The skull is from the current GW skulls set. I had to add some of the greenstuff to the back of the skull to poke the brass rod into and to shape the back of the skull.

It (the skull) is a bit too eye-catchy, but hey - it's done!

Both designs on the flag are inspired by images in the Warhammer Armies book (I asked ladykito about her banner).

Eye on the shield to fit in with the champions.

Group shot again 🙂

And now onto the promised ogre from last month! 👇

I think this ogre regiment is becoming one of my favourites! 👇

And then I also added two bases of snotlings. Every O&G army has them!

Sooo, that's all the planned minis. Now onto some extras, and I have this rushed timestamp pic where most of them are backwards...

Here's the git I was most excited to paint. Such a classy classic.

I did chicken out of adding any checks, dags or flames...

Here he is, doing what he does best - adding insult to injury...

I changed the rim colour of Grom's base to fit back in with the army 🙂

Then onto the squigs, and herders!

And their squigs. I did a classic thing of not checking my already painted squig hoppers from the last OWAC, so these squigs have purple lips

And yes, I know there's four squigs, when herders can only herd three, but hopefully I can rustle up a few more for June 🙂

Last but not least, some mushroom fuelled majiks from this night goblin shaman 👇

Basecoat // All over wash // Highlight

Aaaaand that's it for May!

Only thing left is the links back through and the points check for the month.

Intro: link

January: Rank and File - link

February: Rank and File - link

March: Rank and File - link

April: Leaders - link

May:

93.5...   17 x Orc Boyz

53...      1 x Orc Boss

11...      1 x Orc Musician

11...      1 x Orc Standard

40...      1 x Ogre

15...      1 x Night Goblin boss (that's the finger flasher)

30...      2 x Snotling bases

8...        1 x Squig Herders

80...      4 x Squigs

28...      1 x Night Goblin Shaman

Total: 369.5

So the plan for next month - the FINAL MONTH, is to make some terrain. I have some of the recent Old World plastic fences, some more of the K&M trees to base, and fingers crossed a paper building from the pages of White Dwarf. I have already painted some animals from Warlord (link) with which to populate the landscape 🙂

See you then! 💚

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!