I felt my 2nd edition WFB orc army need something a bit different so I’ve added a giant. Unlike most of the miniatures in my army this is a modern miniature from Oldschool miniatures
I’ve named mine Druncan McFierceson of Clan McFierceson. Cruncan has left his mountain home, and Clan, to join some Orcs as a mercenary his preferred form of payment is copious amounts of Bugman’s beer.
Another classic I managed to get my hands on this time by mistake. I bought a job lot of old goblin chariots, off eBay, as I had identified them as the old Kev Adams Goblin Chariots set. When they came in the post, and I sorted through the jumble of bits, it turns out I got the Kev Adams Chariots and this little cracker to.
The Goblin Kings Chariot could well be a the most insane unit in 2nd edition WFB. In a time before Herohammer he is very Herohammer topping out 1358 points for this one model. Why I here you ask… or maybe not…Well because the chariot and the boar are actually an imprisoned demon called Ulrista who is not only very tough but a level 4 wizard to boot (yes a magic using boar). On top of that the Goblin King Sourgutt carries a magic weapon, magic armour and a magic standard that flings fireballs. The only guy on the whole model that is vaguely normal is the driver who apparently isn’t even need to steer the sentient chariot.
My miniature isn’t quite original for some reason a previous owner cut off the blades running along the yoke…No idea why. Oddly the rules also stated the chariot had scythes on the wheels despite the fact the model never did.
I finally got my hands on this classic model at a reasonable price. This was one of those models I saw advertised in early Citadel catalogues and dreamed of owning, Its only taken 35+ years but now it will grace my 2nd edition WFB Orc army.
This miniature was part of the TA (Tony Ackland) series that included, among others, the classic orc on a Wyvern and several fantastic demons. Here is the stuff of legends entry for it
I was in two minds about basing the crew separately or on one base. From a rules point of view having the crew, and the machine, on their own bases makes more sense in Warhammer. Aesthetically though I prefer my artillery on diorama style bases. In the end that’s what I’ve gone for but I left two holes for holding D6 dice which I can use to record damage to the machine and crew causalities.
The crew are painted the same way as the rest of my Oldhammer orcs but I gave my airbrush a go for the machine itself . I have had the airbrush since Christmas and its pretty low end. I’m not that great with it (lots more practice needed yet) but it certainly speeds up painting a big lump of lead like this.
Finally after what seems to have been a never ending painting marathon I have painted up all the orc warriors with melee weapons for my my Oldhammer Orc army. As well as Harboth’s Black mountain boys I have three more regiments of Orcs with melee weapons. This is the first Regiment which I’ve named the Headtakers. They like to mount the heads, of defeated, enemies on a pole to act as their Standard. This unit is 20 strong and all the miniatures are Citadel Fantasy Tribe or early C series Orcs. In 2nd edition WFB terms they armed with hand weapons and have chainmail (light armour in 3rd edition) and Shield. They should be solid if unspectacular in battle.
I’ve posted up pictures of most of the orcs in this unit already so I’ll just show a few pictures of a group shot and the last few orcs I painted to finish the unit off.
My third (but not my last) Regiment of Renown for my 2nd edition WFB Orc and Goblin army. I love the old Regiments of Renown and luckily for me there were several goblinoid one. For anyone who doesn’t know who Harboth and his boys were or thought Harboth’s boys were Archers this is the original 1984 solid based regiment. Harboths Orc Archers were the second incarnation of the unit that came later in 1987. Here is the stuff of Legends entry for the original Harboth’s Black Mountain Boys
There are 25 orcs including the original command. Sadly I haven’t been able to source Yaskin Forit the champion. This because Citadel only added champions to the early solid based Regiments of Renown years later. Creating several champion miniatures, for various regiments, that weirdly by this time were on slotta bases. These champions were pretty limited in number and when they do pop up on the second hand markets tend to get pricey.
Painting wise i struggled a bit with this unit. The miniatures are cool, nicely sculpted and don’t have to many details making them easy to paint but painting 22 identical miniatures can become a bit of a chore so my enthusiasm waned a bit towards the end with a consequent drop in the quality of the paint job. I batch painted the miniatures in fives and gave each five different skin tones to match the rest of my orc army. I also gave every unit member a unique shield pattern to fit the description in the regiments background
Shield – Assorted emblems prevail – often of an offensive or insulting nature. Harboth and his troops prefer to individualise their shields by scrawling offensive pictures or slogans on them
I’d forgotten just how many Orcs you need for a decent Oldhammer army and so the, seemingly never ending, painting of orcs continues. Luckily I’m still having fun painting them at the moment. There is not much to be said I haven’t really covered in previous posts so I’ll just go straight to the photos.
Here is another small batch of 1980s orcs. I’ve pretty much painted up enough miniatures for two twenty orc units one with hand weapons and shields and one with Double handed weapons. I’ve sourced the last five orcs I needed to complete those two units on eBay in the last few days so once they get here they’ll jump straight to the front of the painting queue.
All these miniatures are pre-slotta three are old Fantasy tribes orcs two from the armoured range and one from the unarmoured. The big guy with the axe on his hip clearly used the same base miniature as Harboth from the Black Mountain Boys and has the description “Chieftain” under him in the Citadel Journal 2. He will be the leader/champion of one of my orc regiments. You can see all three of these minis in their original catalogue entries here
The other three are all from the Harboth’s black Mountain boys Regiment of Renown. I was lucky enough to score two great deals on two different batches of these miniatures on eBay that gave me the whole regiment with the original command but these three boys were surplus to requirements rather than waste them I painted them up and they are going to fill out the ranks of my other orc units.
Finally got my hands on a 1984 TA3 Orc War Wyvern, at a reasonable price, to add to my growing Oldhammer Orc army. Sculpted by Tony Acklund (now if I could just find his orc war machine in good condition for a decent price) this was one of those models I always wanted as a kid but never managed to get. Odd, as it sounds now, but back in the early 80s £6.95 was a lot of money for 10 year old me and my 50p a week pocket money. Below is the Stuff of Legends entry for the miniature.
This model is probably most famous as being, the miniature, used to represent the, dastardly codpiece poisoner, King Fyar in the classic 2nd edition Blood Bath at Orc’s Drift campaign box.
The last two pictures below show what the model looked like when it arrived in the post. It wasn’t horribly painted but it was bit to brown for me. So I stripped it, fitted the wings better with some strategic metal shaving, filled the gaps with green stuff and added a new base. I even had a go at using my new airbrush on the wyvern but I think I need more practice on that front. I’m pretty happy with how he has turned out and he makes a nice centre piece for my Orc army.
I’m continuing to plough through a selection of old Citadel C series Orcs and have know almost painted up enough for two 20 strong units of orcs to form the core of my Oldhammer army. The miniatures have mostly come from eBay with a few from other second hand dealers. Collecting old OOP miniatures can get expensive, especially from eBay sellers who sell individual miniatures already stripped, I certainly can’t afford to be paying £10-15 per miniature for grunts to fill up units. To get more bang for your buck the best deals are the multi miniatures lots usually covered in a, 30 year old, layer of badly applied, thick paint. Inevitably these lots come with a few miniatures that are damaged.
Commonly on, old, soft metal miniatures, of this era it’s the weapons that are broken followed by snapped legs. All the miniatures below had damaged or missing weapons but I didn’t fell like that needed to be terminal. I broke out the bits box and found alternatives or converted them in to standard bearers (of which there was a surprising lack in the early 1980s citadel lines Harboth’s boys having the only pre-slotta orc standard miniature made) I used my Pin vice and some steel rod and made sure I pinned any new additions.
this orc originally came with some sort Plumbata ( a military throwing Dart popular in late Roman armies) and interesting choice of orc weapon. mine had the ended snapped off so he got a nice spear instead.
2. Another Orc that once had Plumbata (I can only assume the Perry twins were collecting a late roman army at the time they sculpted these orcs) This one had a damaged hand so in the end I removed it and replaced with hand holding a Falchion. Surprisingly other than the dart this orc had no other weapons so now he has something to hit people with.
3. This old armoured orc once had a massive mace the head of which was missing. As I already had a second complete version of this miniature I decided to give this one an axe head from my bits box.
4. This is another old armoured orc but this one was missing his hand axe I thought the pose would suit a standard bearer so I fashioned one from some spare steel spears the banner is hand painted in what I hope is 80s Oldhammer style. 5. This last orc was supposed to have a halberd but again the business end of the weapon was missing leaving him with just a stick. The pose seemed perfect for a standard bearer so I cut out the old halberd drilled out his hands and added another steel spear banner. Again I hand painted the banner using a classic orc motif of a bad moon. I’ll finish of with a group shot. I’m pretty pleased with how these guys turned out with only a little bit of work they are ready to “Pulp some Stunties”.
Carrying on with my efforts to build some Green skins to use with 2nd (or 3rd) edition WFB I give you Notlob and his bolt throwers. You can read all about about Notlob here
I have read, though I don’t know how true it is, that GW staff named Notlob from Monty Python’s dead parrot sketch. and lets face Bolton is quite an apt name for an Orcish engineer who likes bolt throwers.
My unit actually has two more crew than the original regiment and uses the later C22/27 bolt thrower models the early version of the bolt throwers being far simpler models. The story with Notlob’s and the latter C22 orc bolt throwers, as far a I can work out, is that the Perry twins sculpted the original regiments miniatures in 1985. Later in 1986 Kev Adams was given the job of updating the miniatures using the Perry’s original models as a base at this point the bolt thrower models were also updated and the bolt throwers and crews were then sold as C22/27 Orc Bolt Thrower
Interestingly, something of a rarity for a Regiments of Renown, Notlob actually had some special rules, in 2nd edition WFB, which make him and his unit rather decent.
“Notlob himself is an Orc Major Hero. He is also an extraordinary engineer, and counts as a full crew of 3 when firing a war-engine. In addition, any other engine in his unit can +1 to their normal ‘to hit’ score with war engines.”
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