Tom's Goblins and Orcs - Intro

Hi,

Back once again with the ol' Orcs and Goblins. This time from an earlier era!

Naturally, with point values, I've taken them from this army book (so as to be consistent with last years army). Fingers crossed this one will join that Waaargh...

Here's the list that I've managed to cobble together with models I already have. Unheard of!

(I have actually just brought more wolf riders, but enough said about that already....)

Hopefully you can kinda see that it nearly mirrors my O&G OWAC8 army!

110   ...   1 x Orc Warlord

72   ...     1 x Orc Big Boss

57     ...   1 x Orc Shaman

28 xxxxx    ...   1 x Goblin Shaman

50   xxxxxx...   1 x Gigantic Spider 

30     ...   10 x Goblins (short bows)

24     ...   8 x Goblins (short bows)

30     ...   10 x Goblins (slings)*

45     ...   5 x Goblin Wolf Riders

93.5  ...   17x Orc Boys

11     ...   1 x standard bearer

11     ...   1 x musician

53     ...   1 x boss

81     ...   1 x Orc Chariot

66.5  ...   1 x Small Rock Lobber

46.5  ...   1 x Bolt Thrower

80     ...   2 x Ogres

200   ...   1 x Giant

TOTAL: 1010.5

*Goblins with slings. These were kindly sold to me with the provision I paint them for the OWAC, although horribly, I forget who from. If this is you🫵, then a massive THANK YOU!

As they're monopose, they fit right in, however they are horrendous to prep. So many spikes and bits of metal flash , and terrible mould lines! Hopefully I will do these guys first, along with my Warlord, to get them out the way whilst motivation runs high. Nothing worse than hitting a low ebb and then having to paint a challenging unit. You can probably see that I've already run out of patience with them and have not really cleaned them up too much.

I like the orc chariot (many thanks to Liam (highland_painting on insta) for this model. Primarily as it's actually goblins! I have a 40x80mm base which I'll put them on, but the wolves look challenging to pin, so I will leave their tabs on and hope for the best. I'll dig a slotta in the hardboard with a craft knife, and fill up the gap with milliput. This should be suffice for a stable wolf!

The giant is the original Ral Partha cloud giant, which is very much still available via their website

 (https://ralparthalegacy.com/products/49-0308). It'll pair nicely with the 'remastered' Satyr Studio version of last years challenge 👇.

Only two ogres this year (although I do have some more if needed). These ones are my favourites of the set. I brought them from the nearly recent 'made to order' run from GW...

And last but not least, I'm swapping out my planned goblin shaman on gigantic spider, for the Big Boss himself - Gorfang Rotgut. (It's why the handwritten list is different to the typed!) 

I remember painting him way back then, and hopefully I can do a better job now 😂

I really hope I can paint all these in the time. I haven't had a rest from hobby this year, as I got proper into painting the Warhammer Quest 1995 set, with a load of alternate heroes. Definitely takes me to the most models I've ever painted in a year... I feel as if I'm very close to burnout, but hopefully a change can be as good as a rest. If for some reason I manage to paint through this lot, there's always more monopose snotlings to paint, or buildings to build!

Here they all are, all based and primed - but the war machines and chariot are not attached to their bases, so that I can paint the underside of the machines and reach the undergrass.

Cheers for reading and hopefully see you again next month for the first daub of paint! 👊

Maurice inspects, and reports the issues 👇

ChrisP's New Ork Horde - Intro Post

 

 For my 4th OWAC, I'm returning to my first love in the hobby - Orks Orks Orks! I completed a fairly respectable little horde in 2024, and now is the time to paint a second standalone force, focused on supporting the previous mobs.

Let's start with the boss - I've gone with the original warboss, Thrugg Bullneck himself. Alongside him is an Evil Sunz Mekboy, to tinker with the bikes and buggies later in the list.

 Next up is the Deathskull Lootas, including a Nob and a variety of kustom and heavy weapons. I'm looking forward to painting this mob, since it includes a kustom head sculpt from Kev Adams.

 My Kommando mob is composed of repaired originals from my childhood, plus some of the recent re-released models, and a spare Blood Axe boy to carry a meltagun.

 There's a also a skwadron of Stormboys, including one who spent far too long on the korps and turned to Khorne.

 The speedy theme continues with my boarboyz, who were on the list for 2024 but missed the final cut in favour of some new freebooterz.

Similarly, I'd been planning on painting these trakks and buggy in 2024, and it's really about time I got them done.
 

Finally, I've prepared a small mob of Evil Sunz bikers, with mounted Nob.

 Here's the whole lot. It's mostly a mid-90's army, with a few small conversions that hopefully fit with the classic lead. As usual, I'm aiming for a bright "red period" paintscheme, and I've planned out most of it in my head. A camo pattern for the kommandos is still to be decided, and I have some developing plans for the stormboyz too. Thrugg, I think, will be an Evil Sun, since that's a major clan this year, and I reckon he'll look great in red.

This is the provisional 2nd edition army list:

Warboss with bolter and chainsword - 70pts

Mekaniak with meltagun and power sword - 30pts

Deathskull Nob with bolter and chainsword - 18pts

6 Lootas with 3 kustom kombi-weapons, 2 heavy plasma guns and 1 autocannon - 185pts

Drillboss with power fist - 30pts

7 Stormboyz with jump packs - 112pts

Snakebite Nob on boar with bolter and power axe - 29pts

7 Snakebite Boyz on boars - 126pts

3 Wartraks with lascannons - 180pts

War Buggy with heavy plasma gun - 50pts

Evil Sunz Nob on bike with plasma gun - 29pts

5 Evil Sunz on bikes - 235pts

 

Last bit of business is the entry fee, which I'll be sending to Jaakko soon. I searched my leadpile for an armoured orc to fit with the era of Jaakko's amazing army from last year, and settled on a champion from 1985. Rather than my typical bright and brash scheme, I've tried a somewhat muted paintjob to match Jaakko's horde.

 

Björn Grendel's Dwarven Holds - Intro Post

 Bjorn Grendel's Dwarven Holds – Intro Post

Since I survived the previous season, the OCHO, some say I've earned the right to consider myself a veteran of the OWAC. The reality couldn't be further from that, for I still consider myself a novice and am certainly only just taking timid steps in the footsteps of the Heroes who preceded me and who eagerly await me in the luminous halls of OWACLHALLA. And here I am, for the second year in a row, with a project that is... ambitious to say the least: a great Alliance of golden-age Dwarven Holds, the largest army I have ever conceived! Will this feat be enough to earn me the favor of the Gods, or will my hubris seal my fate, sending me tumbling into the Field of Bones?

1-A FORCED CHOICE

Last year, those who have followed me will remember, I introduced the army of the UMBEROGENES, the tribe led by Sigmar during the Dark Ages, before humanity's hero became Heldenhammer and reunited the scattered peoples of mankind under a single banner, before the founding of the Empire. That project was intended to unite my daughter Aria's barbarian collection into a cohesive force. She finally has a thematic army with which to play Warhammer, yet one varied enough to allow her to draw individual models for her Mordheim warband and for our frequent games of Heroquest or DeD (which is no small feat for a 12-year-old).

This year, however, I'm seizing the opportunity to do the same for Björn Jr., my second-born, who has always played a dwarf in his adventures, stubbornly refusing to try any other race or faction. A great future for this Little 10 years little Dwarf i must Say. 

2-THE PACT

The first hurdle, as always, was gathering the materials. My wife, Brandy, is also a fervent dwarven enthusiast, so we already had a decent collection of midgets at home to start with. It was obviously quite sparse and heterogeneous, consisting of birthday presents, miniatures found at a flea market, individual models for DeD, and a couple of scattered boxes. In short, it was quite a mess. After a long family meeting, we decided to merge the mother and son collections and recruit an army for both of them, to which we added a few targeted purchases in the form of early Christmas presents. One of the hardest things was taking and stripping some already painted models to include them in the project, and instead forgoing the favorite models that NEVER should have been stripped and repainted. But perhaps it's not too late for these plastic and metal Heroes, and who knows, maybe they could make an appearance somehow, perhaps during Wild Card Month.

3-THE CONCEPT

This for me is the best dwarven art to date and thus my main source of inspiration 

I Will try to match this oldschool vibe!

The idea behind this army popped into each of us almost simultaneously (a brilliant example of family brainstorming): a grand alliance of several different fiefdoms, under the command of a single great King. Thinking about it, this is the only way to include models from different eras, manufactures, and materials, as well as all the special characters or individual models in our collection. Thus, each Mountain of the grand alliance will bring its own specific force with its own colors and theme, but we'll explore this in detail together in the coming months. The only fixed points for now are the presence of Thorgrim Grudgebringer on the throne of power, painted in classic colors, along with his personal guard, and some splendid Mirliton models that my son HAD to include: dwarven bear-riders and his favorite pikemen. Mounted dwarves are nothing new in the Old World, and these illustrations will be the guides for my brush and chisel in the coming months… But fear not, my admirers: checkered patterns and freehand drawings will not be forgotten!

The list so far. .

Below is a series of preliminary photos. I haven't had time to prepare the models yet, regarding primers and any modifications, nor do I have everything I need to complete the individual units. However, here's the updated list to date, with the bare minimum amount of model i want to include. NB: The point cost for each individual unit has been intentionally omitted/approximated; I'll calculate it month by month based on the models I've managed to find upon completion as soon as I figure out how to calculate some custom models and various option.

The collection so far...  

The infamous Italian edition...

Those Bulwark... Like thorns in my arse..

Some spares... May or May not be included in the final army.

Last but not least (but still mandatory) is the entry fee for this year. This tribute goes to Jaakko, who has followed and supported me over the past year, a source of great inspiration and countless advice. For him, I've chosen two models, both from my personal Khorne Chaos Warriors army: a battle standard-bearer and a mounted horn-blower. There are a few other things in the package (which I hope arrives safely by the time this one is published) that, with a bit of luck, you might encounter during this OWAC in Jaakko's posts.

And that's all, I guess. I have some pretty busy months ahead.

In the meantime, KEEP PAINTING, STAY OLD SCHOOL

Graeme's Wood Elves - OWAC 9 Introduction Post

 

Graeme's Wood Elves - OWAC 9 Introduction Post

Back in the OWAC saddle again!

After the embarrassingly swift trips to the Field of Bones in my last few OWAC attempts, I'm back with my Wood Elf army.

If many of the figures look familiar, it's because many were in my line up for OWAC V, and the rest were in my original plan for OWAC VI, before I defected to #teamskaven! Yes, they've been languishing in a cupboard for almost four years. If you're interested, you can check out the posts here:

OWAC V: https://oldworldarmychallenge.blogspot.com/2021/12/graemes-owac-v-introduction-post-wood.html

OWAC VI: https://oldworldarmychallenge.blogspot.com/2022/12/graemes-owac-vi-introduction-post.html

Hopefully I've learned from some of my previous mistakes - this year I have enough figures fully prepped for the full OWAC, and then some:

My goal for this OWAC is to focus on completing the mandatory 30 archers for a 3rd edition Wood Elf army, and to build from there.

Since OWAC 9 is based on selecting a pice of old GW art and theming the project around it, I'm going for the box art for Skarloc's Wood Elf Archers Regiment of Renown:

In my 30+ years of collecting, I never actually owned a Skarloc RoR box! This year I managed to buy a lot of Wood Elf archers with the front and back covers of the box, which is where I got the photo from. I plan on getting it framed and hung up somewhere for inspiration for the challenge.

I'll not be following the colour scheme too closely, as I'm going for a combination of a summer palette with a weathered and ancient look for these Wood Elves, but it's definitely a good reference to work from.

Now for a closer look at the army.

The bulk of the army will be made up of archers, and archer elites.

Archer unit one:

Archer unit two:

Archer unit three:

Archer unit four, made up of the figures from Skarloc's archers Regiment of Renown, with a small conversion of Glam, to make him look a little more like the illustration on the box. I'll be treating them as regular archers for the challenge, rather than scouts. This means I should be able to hit the compulsory archer minimum number for the force.

Archer unit five:

You'd be forgiven if you're getting bored of seeing Elven archers by now, so there's a few units of non-archers too.

A fairly large unit armed with spears. At this point they only have spears, but I'm looking for suitable shields to add somewhere, to match the 3rd edition army list. If anyone has added shields to these figures, either slung on the back, or attached to the arm, I'd be really interested to see how you did it! My attempts so far haven't looked very convincing.

Beastmaster with bears:

A small unit of Wardancers, armed with two hand weapons. There are a couple of conversions in there, for the sharp-eyed:

Finally, some wizards to lead the army:

I've converted a few of these models, just for some variety, and am quite pleased with how they turned out.

There are a handful of heroes, more infantry troops, and some bonuses in the works, but we'll have to wait and see if I find the time to finish the prep and include them in this year's challenge.

Just for the book keeping, here's an estimate of points for a 3rd edition WFB army, based on what's prepped:

Characters

1 Wood Elf Sylphseer (Level 15 wizard) - (206 points)
Equipped with a horse, and hand weapon

2 Wood Elf Spellsingers (Level 10 wizards) - (236 points)
Equipped with a hand weapon

2 Wood Elf Woodfeys (Level 5 wizards) - (156 points)
Equipped with a hand weapon

1 Wood Elf Guardian Wardancer (Level 10 hero) - (103 points)
Equipped with light armour, and two hand weapons

Total: 691 points

Troops

10 Wood Elf archers - (110 points)
Equipped with longbows and hand weapons

10 Wood Elf archers - (110 points)
Equipped with longbows and hand weapons

10 Wood Elf Guards (+2 missile elite) - (150 points)
Equipped with longbows, light armour, and hand weapons

7 Wood Elf archers - (110 points)
Equipped with longbows, light armour, shields, and hand weapons

5 Wood Elf Glade Runners (scouts) - (80 points)
Equipped with longbows, and hand weapons

20 Wood Elf Warrior Kinband - (180 points)
Equipped (for now) with spears, and hand weapons

1 Wood Elf Beastmaster - (15 points)
Equipped with light armour, and a hand weapon

5 Bears - (100 points)

6 Wood Elf Wardancers - (138 points)
Equipped with light armour, and two hand weapons

Total: 993 points

So, currently not quite enough archers to hit the minimum compulsory number for 3rd edition, but I'm still planning to add some models to the archer units, either with troops, or musicians and standard bearers. If I don't manage that, the Guards will be demoted to regular archers, and I'll update the points values.

It's a bit daunting seeing all these Wood Elves together on my worktop. I'm going to be realistic, and state right from the start that there's no way I'll get all of these painted - I'm just too slow. I'm going to start off painting them in batches of three or four, and see how far I get.

Nice to see some great looking armies in the works for OWAC9. Fingers crossed we make it to the finish line!

Good luck to everyone!

 

Adrian's Blood Bath at Orc's Drift

 

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.

 

I've been thinking about how do I want to expand and round-up the orc army I am collecting and was my first entry on the OWAC. With the colours, motifs and the clan heraldry chosen is no secret that I got in mind collecting the entire Blood Bath at Orc's Drift army and after that, maybe adding some more trolls, a giant and some warmachines. 

As I doubt I will get my hands in the amazing Man Mangler in a foreseeable future and doubt if having a unit of boars and some wolves, the army lacked the last punch to get another complete run on the OWAC, which not only I love participating. It is an opportunity to complete entire projects that are sitting in the shelves unpainted. THE opportunity (don't skip a challenge if you can get here or start one with your friends, you'll notice how your projects get completed at last!).

However, the "special" rules for this year gave me the opportunity to try tinkering the other units of the campaign, with the goal of finish most of the miniatures needed. And following this year challenge, do some cool pictures that resembles the art of the old campaign book.

The (December) workbench

 

I finally got a box of Ruglud's armored orcs. Some of the most awesome orc sculpts out there. My plan is having a big blob of these fellas ranked up, going with the Kwae Karr clan heraldry.
 

They're commanded by the chieftain Magyar Ironfist. I got an old C15 orc shaman to be Bagrash that's still in the mail somewhere. I went for other miniature because the Bagrash model is superb but not so easily read as an orc shaman.

For the Vile Rune orcs I already had a lot of Harboth's archers and C15 orcs painted, so I got Fangor Gripe in my hands and a batch of C15/16 orcs with none other than Guthrum Mane. However, some of the FF orcs and Guthrum needed some repairs.

So they got their scimitar and glaive respectively repaired. Hope that the FF orc spear doesn't break because it has bent several times in the process (and already arrived bent).

Now that I had the putty out, why not repleace some of the heads in a pair of quite characterful hobgoblin and orc sculpts. 

Voilá, instead of repeated sculpts, a new orc and hobgoblin. Normally I would have reserved them for trading, but I love both of them and  think that the conversions works pretty well with the swap.

The Challenge

Now that we got the basics done, it's time to present the units for this year. More or less in the batch I'll try to paint each month bare for the leaders month which will be a mix of the campaign characters.

Brommedir's bows at Orc's drift

I dunno how many elf archers I still have. I swear that this may be the last of the lot but maybe I discover another ton of them in a box somewhere else. 14 monopose elf archers that will have a small shield in the left arm. Brommedir itself is an special, yet pretty new, metal model.

Maybe I'll proxy Brommedir with an elf captain that's also in the mail, because I almost got my hands in one but missed in the last minute.

Osrim Chardz's dwarf engineers

The opportunity to paint the last 5 of my Uther's Dragon Company dwarves and a bunch of awesome dwarf engineer or miner sculpts. The leader is none other than a Dwarf of Legend that I think it's a good proxy for Osrim, which was impossible for me to snipe one in ebay or the groups.

The Linden Way Militia

A collection of Perry Miniatures, Midlam Miniatures and oldhammer citizens (as well as some of the characters still in the same mail as their other friends and foes). I almost got the entire militia unit and all the special civilians.

Oh, and yeah, that's Beli in the mix. Hope I can also get my hands in Gymlet from the personalities at Orc's Drift.

The characters at Orc's Drift will be painted probably in the leader month. Whereas the militia and the townsfolk divided between a rank and file and the wildcard, as I hope to make the entire scenery for the campaign.

Funny thing about the humans, I almost got in my hands the original elf which is the base of Mayor Leofwine sculpt and it's a million times more easy to get. I didn't expect that at the time they crossed scultps between different races (e.g., some different types of characters or units based on the same human, but not from elf range). However, I think that'll proxy him in the future, because it is not a miniature that I like a lot.

The Kwae Karr Orcs

I will probably expand some of them in its month because I want a unit of 20 without the special characters and also to get a Kwae Karr banner without damaging the original Ruglud banner.

The Vile Rune Orcs

I love the classic C15 orcs and some of the FF range too. Led by Fangor Gripe.

Grashak Kra, the handler from the Severed Hand Orcs

Not handling pretty much at the moment. But cannot miss in a challange about the pretty ilustrations of the book.

Last but not least

King Fyar's in his winged serpent

In his wyvern. I'll try to do a conversion that allow replacing the old wyvern shaman and the original wyvern rider. I went for the amazing 4th/5th edition wyvern because it got an official recast with the made to order and it was one of my favourite monsters of all time.

Oh, and don't forget that there are spies among us. An half-orc spy, from the orcs of Midlam Miniatures.

Let's pretend that the orc army is the main one, that will be a total of 669.5 points of orcs to add to my previous army, and 30 more orcs to the horde.

Brommedir elves will be another 246 points as an unit of kith warriors with long bows and armour. Osrim and his sappers another 200 points. And the town militia probably 135 points of human villains with bare minimum. So that gives me a total of 1250.5 points following the traditional rules.

Let see how I can complete the challenge, including the pictures resembling the art from the campaign book.

PS: Mathew Sullivan from the Oldenhammer in Toronto, your army was an inspiration years ago to start this project, and your Harboth's are amazing, so I used them for the intro picture if you can read this.

Until January's update, Merry Christmass, a happy New Year aaaaand 

Adrian's out.