New Goblin Spider Riders/Orc Warboss!

 This has been on the cards for quite a while...

I got the Goblin Spider Riders out of the Orc and Goblin Battalion; I've worked out a 500 point army based on the contents of that box and the Orc Warboss I brought on the same day. I used the experimental way of painting the Goblin skin that I did in my previous blog some months ago, however one problem I have always had with Orcs and Goblins is that I find painting the same model over and over again quite dull. I soldiered through it but to be honest these sometimes feel more like work than actual fun. Still, for me painting is a means to an end anyway, and I wouldn't do it if I didn't think I was going to get a game out of it at the end. An odd sentiment, given that I've only played 2 games in Games Workshop so far this year, and they've both been Lord of the Rings games...

Wouldn't want one of these in your bath...

So with these, I stuck to the colour scheme used before, as I said. However, this time it didn't work quite so well; I suffered from the curse of the white undercoat. When you miss a part with the black undercoat, what you're left with is a part of the model that's, well, black. This usually happens in what would probably be a shaded part of the model anyway so you can get away with it to a certain extent. Not so easy with the white undercoat, where you're left with a white splodge that looks like you can't paint properly. You can't tell from the photo because of the lighting (you try it at 1am!) and also because it most often occurred around the back of the model, but the mistakes are there. I also think I was a bit heavy-handed with the red; the colour is only really supposed to be used for decorative purposes in this army, and the abundance of feathers made the use of it a lot more frequent than it probably should have been. Still, they do look like an army, though I have yet to see what the effect will be like when I put the whole thing together. Stay tuned...

Are you talking to ME???

Honorary mention to this fellow, who will be leading the army. I actually painted them at the same time as the goblins I painted before... but I completely forgot to paint the Snotling on his shoulder! That was a part of my motivation for doing the Spider Rider Goblins next; I use the same mix of Snakebite Leather for the skin of the Goblins as the Snotling so I could tie the two together here. The overall effect of the paint scheme works well for this Orc Big Boss I think; it's mean, it's gritty, he's got this huge f**koff axe that even the best of us should know to keep away from (in actual fact, it's the Tormentor Sw- er, axe, which on the off chance you take a wound from it and survive, gives you Stupidity for the rest of the game. Not much use in low points games because it's rare you come across anything with more than one wound, but that doesn't mean I won't come across any ethereals that I'll need a magic weapon to deal with...) and I really like the mask because it's impossible to tell what he's thinking, though his posture suggests that it won't be anything good.

So what's next for the army? Actually, nothing at all just yet. I have this sort of rule: For every 250 points of army I collect, I have to collect 1 piece of scenery. That way, by the time I have a sizeable force, I might actually have a collection of scenery to play with it on! Fences and walls will therefore be next, very boring, but I've never painted them before so it'll be worth giving it a go. After that, the Orcs for the army maybe, though I have Space Marines and Lord of the Rings stuff to paint as well so we'll have to see.

See you soon!