Have a Very Orcish Christmas

Well it's Christmas Eve and here am I posting uninteresting photo's of little plastic figures. Tomorrow I'm heading to church nice and early to play Christmas Carols so I won't be having a late night of uncontrolled partying. Alackaday!

I bought a box of Wargames Atlantic Goblins. 

They're not bad figures but they do have a few issues as far as I'm concerned. First of all: they don't fit together very well. I had to drill their arm sockets to get a good fit with the arms. This was a pretty easy task but it was annoying. Secondly, there are two figures on each sprue without bases. These are supposed to be used as riders for the WgA giant spiders but it would have been nice to have a couple of bases added to the sprue. Third: there are not spears on the sprue. I used Oathmark spears cut off at the wrist and fixed them to some sword arms to make up numbers. 

On the positive side; they look great when they're painted up. There are a lot of really nice orcish heads in the box and a good selection of other weapon arms. The bows and quivers look nice but there are no hands actually drawing arrows, which is a shame. I'll have to do more kit bashing.

I painted them up with brownish skin to differentiate them from my Oathmark goblins and I like this look. I also mounted them four to a base more in line with standard heavy infantry units instead of my goblin warbands (3 to a base). I also used some extra Oathmark shields because I don't like most of the shields in the box. All in all they are a nice kit and I'll make some more soon.

Oathmark Wolf Riders

I took my time to get a box of these because I don't think they're very good. Anyway, I wanted some light cavalry for my goblins so I got a box and they came out okay. The riders are okay and I used some of the WgA goblin heads for some of them. I'm not keen on the wolves. They are far too big and they look like cartoon figures with a serious lack of detail. I mean... They're bigger than most 28mm horses! They also need a fair bit of prep before they're ready for painting. 

They come 15 to a box but I want units of 6 or 12. With the next lot that I make I think I'll mount the extra 3 figures sitting pillion behind the front rider and firing bows from the back seat.

Well that's it. It's getting late and A Christmas Carol is on the tv. 

Merry Christmas dear reader and a Happy New Year to you.

 

Ghost Riders in the Sky

I haven't been painting as much as lately so my posts here have been fewer than previous. But I've finished a few things over the past week that will be added to my army of the dead. 

I ordered a bunch of Mantic undead things a couple of months back. They took a while to get to me and when they finally did I was somewhat underwhelmed by them. Most the models are made from that horrible plastic resin and I think the rats (below) might be 3d prints.

I'll start with the best of the batch: Gargoyles. These came out better than I anticipated after a quick look at the pieces in the kit. There are two different pieces for the different body parts (legs + plinth, torso, wings and four heads, I think). I was surprised that they went together to create a few variations, especially by twisting the torsos and heads.

I painted them in very monotone greys to try and create a stone colour effect. The actual dry brush coat that I used is called medium stone, I think. There were 10 in the box but I only made these six, so I might do the remaining figures and add to their numbers.

Revenant Cavalry: I liked the look of these from what I saw online. In the flesh they really disappointed. There is far too much wrong with these figures to make them good. Putting them together was really fiddly. The horses go together to create really weird poses which just look wrong. The horses have no tails! I can understand that the tails might be the first thing to drop off an undead horse but, since we are stretching reality by considering dead horses rising from the grave it's not hard to imagine them still having tails. 

I had plans to make these into a nice looking unit but I was really uninspired by the models and didn't know what to do with them. Then I heard Johnny Cash singing Ghost Riders In The SkyI and I decided to paint them monotone ghostly green just to get them painted. They came out better than I hoped but they're still crappy models.

One thing I dislike about some undead figures is having "Undead Motifs" on the figures. Why would they have a skeleton on their standard? Did these guys know they were going to die in battle and be brought back from the dead to fight again? Is that why they used a skelly on their flag pole?

Stupid concept.

The Rats: Not much to say here. They look okay but the bases were warped and really need strong glue and clamps to get them to sit on the supplied mdf bases properly. They have some nice details. They'll go well with the giant rats and other rat bases I have to create a nice hoard of rodents.

Each base is 40x40mm.