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Miniatures Adventure => Fantasy Adventures => Topic started by: Daeothar on 29 August 2024, 02:10:38 PM
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For years I've been adding to this project of mine; a fantasy army using the Night Goblin range from the Battle at Skull Pass and after. Not some of that really weird Age of Sigmar stuff, mind. This is a 'proper' night goblin army as it could have appeared from 4th till 8th edition WHFB (but not confined to those rulesets), just using a certain aesthetic I've grown fond of.
I originally liked the earlier plastic gobbo's better, but after receiving a batch of them, I was a bit put off by the rather exagerated proprtions up close. Luckily, I also had some of those Skull Pass gobbos and those I liked a lot better. So these are not strictly Oldhammer, I'm not even sure they're Midhammer. That would make them Notquitenewhammer? ;D In my defense; they are on 20mm bases...
Anyway; as a palette cleanser, I've built up several large blocks of infantry over the years. I tend to do one unit or so per year, usually a block of 25 goblins. I've also started on a unit of trolls to go with them, but they stalled in the painting phase. They really need just a couple of sessions to be finished, so I suppose they're up soon.
These guys are nothing special; the little blighters are mostly speedpainted and the paintscheme is pretty standard, but I really like 'em. More than I initially thought I would...
Right now I've got 2 blocks of 25 spears and shields and one block of 25 archers. And a Boss, to boss them around. He's a slightly earlier metal mini, but I feel he fits right in. His bigger chin marks him out as someone important I guess ;)
But the growing horde would need some special troops as well, and I had started on a block of 5 Wolf Riders some years back. And since I want all of my units to be actual Night Goblins, the riders needed converting. I used standard spear and shield gits for this; I repositioned the spear arms to hold their weapons at full tilt and lengthened the shafts with extra spear bits to make them into lances.
I also had some old goblin shields that were slightly larger than the standard ones, so they received those instead. I then glued them onto Fenrisian Wolves, as those are properly big and scary, and puttied the cut up robes and feet into riding positions; the robes flowing backwards and the feet dangling down.
And to mark them as something special, I also elongated their hoods, flapping wildly behind them as their wolves storm forwards.
Great stuff, but I stalled at sculpting some hoods. So I picked them up and finished them a few weeks ago, and in a flurry of activity, I also did up 5 more! And this block got a full command group. I used an old metal Squig herder for the musician; I only had to add to the robes a bit and reposition his hood slightly. The leader is heroically holding his lance aloft and the standardbearer holds a normal spear, but has a small Night Goblin emblem attached to it.
The two groups can now function as one large mob, or as two separate skirmishing units. I will magnetize the two movement trays, so they will clip together when it's one big unit I need. I did the same with the bases of the two spear and shield units; with them it's either two blocks of 25, or 1 big block of 50.
I wanted to take some pictures of these riders and the conversion work that went into them before I undercoat them, and the work is concealed forever. And this prompted me to show all of them off, as I hadn't previously done so I believe.
One more thing to mention; as a hommage to the battlereports in White Dwarves of old, I've painted each unit's standard onto their movement trays, so they will be visible on the battlefield (if/when loads of gobbos die of course, which is to be expected though ;) ). It's just one more thing I like to do; it has no real tactical value, but it does make the movement trays a bit more interesting :)
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More little green b*stards...
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Cracking stuff :)
I really like the tray idea and the wolves have turned out nicely 8)
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Love it! Always liked the Night Goblins, and have loads of the metal ones from 4th (?) edition WFB, as well as some of those plastic models sculpted by . . . Brian Nelson? Yours are much more nicely painted than mine. And Night Goblin wolf riders, excellent!
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Great lookin' little bastards. While I despise movement trays (to the point it would prevent me from playing a game needing them!) I love the freehand you've done on them.
The whole army is going to be superb.
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Those are excellent mate, great job
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Your usual glorious level of "nuthin special" painting o_o
As other's said the movement trays are a really nice idea to paint them up "custom" for the units.
Whats not to like there.
Come on , get them trolls done.
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Night goblin wolf riders, I had that same idea for my all night goblin army, now long sold, somewhere. My conversions were crap but I thought they were the best thing eva.
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They look great! Love the idea with the movement bases and the wolf rider conversions look really cool.
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As per other responses, the movement trays are wonderful - great idea. The little green chaps also look rather lovely.
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Cheers guys :)
In order to finally get these lads out of my painting queue, after at least 3 years, I decided to first finish off the trolls. These are the new (well, to me anyway ::) ) trolls to go with Orks and Goblins, only they're now called Troggoths(?), and they quite a bit larger than their previous metal counterparts.
So much so in fact, that I've had to source a plastic WHFB Giant kit, as the metal giant I had stashed for this project is only about a head taller than these lads. Hardly 'giant'... :D
But I digress. The weather has finally broken over here, and autumn is THE painting season for me, so this weekend I've finally been able to get them finished. Only a good coat of matt varnish is still required.
These were really fun to paint up, even though there was a whole boatload of details to take care of. Which explains why they took so long to finish in the end. But the details were also where the comedic value of these chaps lies. I mean; one has a loincloth made of a dead Night Goblin; he just never took the effort to remove the gobbo from his robes!
Then there's the guy with a bird's nest on his head, with a hatched chick reaching for the worm almost falling off the rock he's lifting over his head. And of course the troll who has caught a hapless goblin and is eyeing him a bit too hungrily for the gobbo's liking.
I added some soil to the two-handed weapon and the lifted rock, complete with flocking and static grass to drive the point home that these were picked up especially for this battle. The addition of a few mushrooms ties them in with the army even more.
And then of course, there's the movement tray, where I've gone with a troll's head, based on the old Mail Order Troll illustration :)
Anyway; that's it for now. I'm working on the objectives and weird totem/hut/spawn point/main objective that came with the Battle at Skull Pass boxed set. I never had that myself, so I don't know the accompanying purpose and rules, but they were included in a lot buy so I might as well paint them up.
After that, it's either someting outside of this project, or the Wolf Riders. We're just going to have to see where my fancy takes me then... ;)
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Fantastic! The movement trays are a lovely touch!
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I’m not keen on the actual figures but I love what you’ve done with them. Again, the movement trays is something special 8)
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I’m not keen on the actual figures...
I can certainly understand that. But I started this army based on a bunch of cheap Skull Pass gobbo's. So when I wanted to expand, I naturally looked at the Skull Pass trolls first. Now those are fugly! I mean; trolls are supposed to be hideous and all, but those sculpts are some of the worst in GW's history in my opinion.
And these, while bigger and more detailed, are more of throwback to the look of the classic trolls. I've got those in my Bloodbowl Goblin team, and while they're fun enough, they're also stylistically removed from the Skull Pass goblins, and the new plastic Troggoths ( ::) ) fit the visual language better, if only because their goblin victims have the Skull Pass aesthetic.
But stare at these lads long enough on your painting desk, and they'll grow on you like a mushroom on mouldy robes... ;)
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Those trolls look great! I like how you used more white than the "standard" stone troll color scheme. Makes 'em look icy. Nice work!
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How have I missed this!
This all looks amazing. I love the basing trays, very nice.
Those trolls look amazing. Great PJ's on them. The night Goblins were definitely my favourite of the goblins. I'll be interested in seeing you do the squigs (most fun units I think) Do you plan on doing netters, I can't remember if there were minis for them in that style.
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Cheers guys :)
I painted the Trolls with washes and glazes mostly, to practice for my eventual tackling of the Rackham Confrontation minis, which were all painted mostly in that style. But that also resulted in a more subdued hue on the skin and scales, which I actually like a lot.
My goal is to make a Goblin army consisting of Night Goblins only (as in; if there is a goblin unit, it's going to at least look Night Goblin). Case in point; my Wolf Riders just above. There'll be a second unit as well, of archers. So no steppe warriors in sight; just crazed, robed and photophobic cavedwellers here ;)
Squigs are in the queue for sure, and Squig Hoppers too! I'll probably go with a traditional red for them. I did a smallish one already, that was a part of one of the Skull Pass Shaman sculpts. I did that one with a couple of red ink layers over a white undercoat, and highlighted into an orange/yellow direction. So I'll probably do that on the big ones as well.
And Netters and Clubbers were not in the Skull Pass box, but in the multipart kits that were released later there are parts for those, next to archers, spears and handweapons (and shields, obviously). I still need to get my hands on one or two of those boxes, but there'll be at least one unit fielding them, for sure.
Oh, and I intend to add a number of Fanatics to each block of infantry as well; to me, they're the most iconic Night Goblin unit! :D
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Yes, you can't do without the fanatics.
I painted my squigs pink when I first got them around 15 or so. It worked surprisingly well.
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COOL STUFF! I too am a Night Goblin Fan(atic). Keep up the GREAT WORK!
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Thank you; much appreciated. Especially since it comes from the mushroom master himself ;)
I've been tempted by some real shiney new project; astronauts and a lander for the game Lunar, so these may be the last Night Goblin installment for some time. Still; I had to force myself to plough through this because what I thought was a simple and small addition to the line-up turned out to be quite the slog.
Mainly because I had decided long ago that this already quite detailed model should be embellished even more. So I added shields, spears, skulls, mushrooms and some weird fauna that came on some greenskins sprue. But this meant even more detail, and it took some time to get it all addressed.
Only to find during taking pictures that I had totally overlooked a beetle on the rear of the contraption. So that's still plain black right now, but I'll tacke that one somewhere along the line. These all still require varnishing anyway ;)
I'll be using these as objective markers when they're required, with the hut/cell/idol possibly working as a prime objective or something. I even made a 3rd small objective marker by using a spare moon standard and some skulls.
Anyway; here they are. I'm off to the moon now... :D
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Do love the bonfire - it's such an odd model but every goblin army should have one!
I've been watching the Lunar videos - interesting game but not sure it's a solo one (so out for me). Bit of a change, though I do wonder if cave squigs live on the moon...
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... I do wonder if cave squigs live on the moon...
Apparently, they do... (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_18_(film)) ;)
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Nicely painted. Love that little snail with the skull shell.
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Really nice looking gobbos! Love the movement trays!