Green, Plastic and Cheap! EM4 Orcs

Following on from the Dwarves, here are the first test pieces of the EM4 orcs.  Again, there are three poses: archer, spear and sword.

I will freely admit the paint job was quick and fairly basic, definitely not my finest work.  I just wanted a general idea of how they would turn out.

I would say that they are cruder than the dwarves - the sculpting on the faces in particular is very soft. It's not great on the Dwarves to be honest, but the beards and helmets compensate.  With these orcs there's nowhere to hide.  That said, they still don't paint up too badly, and they definitely have that Oldhammer vibe.  I've not compared them to the other (former) Grenadier models I own yet, but I suspect they will do just fine filling out the ranks - especially if I can sort some shields for them.  They are certainly in the same sort of general style.

Like the Dwarves, they come on an integral base about 25mm x 25mm - just the right size for Warhammer.  I rebased one onto an MDF base as a test.  It was easy enough to do, but I'm not sure it was really worth the effort, and one of the ankles did show signs of being under stress when I trimmed it off the base (that sinking feeling when the grey plastic goes white...).

They have the same badly placed molding lugs on the back as the Dwarves but, as you can see, they're pretty easy to clean up.

Short, Plastic and Cheap! EM4 Dwarves

As regular readers may be aware, I'm quite fond of the old Grenadier Model's Fantasy Warriors game.  The original game came with two plastic armies of Orcs and Dwarves, each with three different models - and did it before Warhammer Fantasy Battles did!

I wasn't able to get the game when originally out, but you can still get the models from EM4 miniatures, and they are ridiculously cheap!  I finally got around to ordering some  of everything to bulk out the dwarf and orc armies that I seem to have developed almost by accident.  I got nearly 100 models for about twenty quid, so now I have a pile of grey plastic!

I thought I would start with the Dwarf crossbows.  My understanding is they were sculpted by Mark Copplestone, but to fit in with the style of Nick Lund.  They are cast in a firm grey plastic, which is solid but easy enough to cut, and takes polystyrene cement well.  I did a couple of helmet swaps for variety (these came from the GW Empire Militia and Frostgrave soldiers), which were really easy to do.

Unpainted, they look a bit basic, and they do have a really annoying casting lug on the back.  But the lug can be chopped away fairly easily.  The crossbow is a little odd - the arms are very short, but I think they actually paint up really nicely overall!

Pre painting (you can see the orcs in progress in the background)

 

You can just about see the lug, but it's cleaned up pretty well

Style and size wise they seem to fit in pretty well with my other Nick Lund Dwarves (the difference in flock actually stands out more than the models)!  They look slightly shorter, but I think that is partly because the metal models have an MDF base, and then quite a thick metal base as well.

One issue to be aware of is that they come on a roughly 25mm integral base.  As most of my Dwarfs are on 20mm bases, I wanted them to fit in.  Ironic given recent announcements by GW about the forthcoming Old World!  For a couple of them I chopped the existing base down to size, but realised they were solid enough for me to just cut them off the integral base and mount them on a ready cut base, which was quicker and neater overall.  Could be more interesting with the spear Dwarfs though, as I don't think the pose will rank up well on a 20x20!
 

Five Leagues Turn 15 - Someone think of the children!

I'm really behind with posting at the moment!  This is the second Five Leagues from the Borderland game from the 'Hen Night Weekend' (which was so long ago the wedding has now happened, the little miniature being a very proud bridesmaid for her Auntie).  This was a bit different for a number of reasons - bit the most interesting one was that the (now not so) little miniature joined me, helping set up the scenario and make choices for our brave heroes!

The turn started poorly, with the group waking up to find that some swine had swiped 12 gold marks from them.  A heated discussion followed as Robert accused Will of the crime, with Gregory and Thomas having to defuse the situation.  The situation was compounded by the band now being so large that they had to pay two more marks for upkeep, and another for more arrows.  Gregory put his skills to use earning back three marks helping out on the farms around the village whilst Giacomo visited the town healer to get himself back in action.

Almost back up to strength (Oswald still needed another turn to recover), our heroes went out adventuring, only for Thomas to come across something completely new: Monster Tracks!  Perhaps drawn by the chaos following the border incursion, two ogres had come down from the mountains and were preying on the nearby farms [I rolled up 'tough battle', which adds an extra enemy - I'm not sure it is supposed to apply to monsters but, as ogres are relatively weak, and the band quite strong, I went with it].

 

"Must be sumfink 'ere wurf eatin'.  Let's 'ave a butchers!"

(Mordheim Mercenary ogre and Citadel Ogre Brigand) 

Following the tracks brought them to a farmstead, just as the ogres closed in for the attack.  To complicate matters, Giacomo, Thomas and Gregory found the fleeing family who told them in a panic that they had been unable to get to the children, who had been playing in the edge of the woods! [I rolled up 'Fetch' as the objective, and thought it would be a good opportunity to us the Hasslefree Brats that I had painted up].

"Someone save the children! (keep up Grandad!)"

"and the sheep, if you can!"

The poor mites, busy pulling the wings off flies and blissfully unaware of what awaits on the other side of the farmhouse!

Thomas immediately volunteered to dash around the back of the longhouse to rescue the brats little ones, while the rest of the band would draw the ogres away.  Will, Jocelyn and Raymond would do their best to turn the beasts into pincushions while Robert and Guy, and Giacomo and Gregory, led two groups at each ogre.

The battlefield, beautifully (and convincingly) prepared by Rosa! (Heroes entering from the right)

"Over here foul creature, meet your doom on my sword!"

Robert and his faithful retainer, Guy, rushed forwards on the left; keen for the glory of felling the great beast!

But sadly, for Robert's ego at least, it was not to be; As two dead-on shots from Jocelyn saw the first ogre fall to the ground dead [I know that's not Jocelyn in the picture, but I didn't catch one of the momentous event], leaving Robert yelling in frustration!

On the right, the second ogre smashed aside the hay cart, to be met by Giacomo, Gregory and Finan.  The ensuing melee gave Thomas his chance to dash over the road to the farmhouse unseen.

Initially beaten back, another great shot from Jocelyn wounded the axe wielding brute, distracting it long enough for Giacomo to dart in and thrust his sword into the creature's black heart!

 

"Come with me if you want to live!"

Thomas finally reached the children, and successfully persuaded them to come with him, but by then the danger was all over.  At least he was able to hand them safely back to their worried families with no bits nibbled!

"Your children are safe!"

"Great, but what about the sheep?"

As if losing his 'kill' to an archer wasn't bad enough for Robert, he had now had to see Giacomo 'steal' the glory.  Another heated 'debate' between the knight and the archers broke out until Gregory was able to restore order!

The mopping up phase saw the grateful farmers dig deep and reward the adventurers which, along with some coins 'rescued' from the ogre's loot, saw the band regain all of the twelve marks they had lost at the start of the turn.

 

Other loot included a 'quick' light weapon, which Jocelyn took to replace his existing knife, and some torches .  The ogres had also clearly encountered some other brave adventurer who had been less fortunate as, stuffed in the ogre's bag with various unsavoury items stored (presumably) as a snack for later, was a full set of knight's armour and an enchanted weapon, a 'Heart Seeker'!

Landsknechte!

had a couple of sprues of Warlord Games’ Landsknechte, given away with Wargames Illustrated. ‘They’ll be fun’, thought I.  A chance to be a bit more colourful than I usually am.  And you know what?  They were fun!

I had the parts for 6 pikes and 6 zweihanders.  Ideally I’d have done more pikes.

I was really pleased with the armour on the chap above.  Pity I didn’t do such a good Jo’s with the mold lines!

In case anyone is considering using them for Warhammer Empire armies, here’s a comparison with one of my GW spearmen (WIP).  The Warlord games ones are definitely slighter, but it’s not too bad.  They’d look fine in their own units.  I’ll find out what they will look like in the same unit as I plan to add them to my Dogs of War army,

The

Semi detached

Having completed a small unit of Reiksgard foot knights for my Warhammer Empire army a little while back, I decided that they needed a couple of small detachments to go with them - in the blue and red of Altdorf rather than my usual Averland yellow and black

I tried to use old metal models as much as I could, although I did need to fall back on a couple of plastic hangunners

Five Leagues Turn 14 - The Haunted Stone

The missus was off for a couple of nights on her younger sister's hen do.  Time for the toys to come out...

Although there was an iron shortage in the village, it had little impact on the growing group of heroes.  Geoffery took Giacomo to the town healer, reducing the time he would be out of action, while the rest of the group did some trading, selling some excess weapons and the jewellery looted from the tower last turn, in exchange for light armour and a shield for Giacomo to use when he recovered (and 'get well' present?).

The old map that the party had also found in the old tower showed a old ring of standing stones on the edge of the forest, the map recently marked with strange and eldritch symbols pointing at it.  Convinced this could be the source of the dark forces plaguing the village, the party tooled up and headed out.

[I rolled up Dark Shadows encounter.  As this was the last points in this category it would be a 'Last Stand' against the 'Corrupt', including a Boss, Lieutenant, Sergeant and 6 corrupt, including a 'skulker'.  The encounter would take place on the edge of the woods around a haunted stone, with the Party's objective to eliminate the enemy].

As the party worked their way through the scattered trees on the edge of the dark woods, snatches of low gutteral chanting started to reach them.  Thomas shivered "Do you feel that? Like my blood suddenly ran cold.".  Geoffery hefted the hammer on his shoulder with his right hand, his left clutching the smaller brass hammer that hung on a chain around his neck, "Something wicked is near, we must not rest until it is wiped from this land, even at the cost of our own blood".

Will spat on the ground.  "Bloody knew you'd something like that" he said, but knocked an arrow to his string nonetheless. 

 

The party split up for their attack, the archers (Will, Jocelyn and Ray) on the left; Geoffery, Robert and Guy in the middle, and Thomas, Finan and Oswald on the right. 

 

Jocelyn drew first blood, dropping one of the corrupted creatures with a well placed crossbow bolt, then followed up with the corrupted sergeant. 

Meanwhile a desperate fight broke out on the right, started by the fast but deadly corrupt skulker.  Thomas wounded the vile creature, then finally cut it down, but not before both Oswald and Finan had been put down by other corrupt, leaving Thomas outnumbered.

In the centre, the bulk of the corrupt charged Robert, Geoffrey and Guy.  Guy struck one down swiftly, as did Geoffrey, while Robert engaged in a back and forth due with another.

On the right Thomas showed his metal, killing the remaining corrupt.  Guy fended off the Corrupt Boss, who was then engaged by Robert, allowing Guy to turn on and take down another creature.

As Will found his 'eye' and put a shaft through the Corrupt Lieutenant's heart, Robert gleefully dueled with the Boss - after serval back and forth exchanges the knight found a opening and thrust his bastard sword deep into the abomination, putting and end to the encounter.

Finan turned out to be OK (getting KO'd seems to be his default state!), while Oswald was lightly injured and would be out of action for two turns.  Searching the area revealed six gold marks, a shield and some medicinal herbs, and a prisoner that was immediately released.

As Geoffrey prayed to his god to cleanse the stones, and scattered holy water liberally, the others kept their distance.  Even with the corrupted creatures dead, the stone emanated a sense of unease and dread.  Will turned to Jocelyn "Happy to let the priest deal with that thing, I ain't going near it.  He looked around him at the bodies of the corrupted creatures, "at least this lot won't be bothering anyone no more".  Thomas looked at the archer, "careful Will, I might almost imagine you're starting to care about people".  "Yeah, well"  Will mumbled "just don't go spreading rumours like that around, I've got a reputation to maintain".

Greenskins

As a change, it’s all been about green skin tones around here.

Three different Orcs (and one goblin), all from Games Workshop, showing how much their style and sculpting has changed over the years.

First up, and bang up to date, a Kruleboyz boss and stab grot from AoS.

I wasn’t 100% sure how I would find this model.  I find modern GW sculpts can be a bit ‘fussy’.  But in the end I really enjoyed it and am very pleased with the result.  The quality of sculpting encouraged good painting.  Took a while though, not sure I’d fancy a whole unit!

The mouth is actually supposed to take the peg of a visor.  But I thought the visor looked silly, and without it, the model looks like he’s bellowing defiance.

The only bit I wasn’t so keen on was the cloth at the rear.  I can see they were going for a ragged, rotted look, but no material I can think of hangs like that.  This seems to happen with virtual 3D sculpting.

That shield is quite something.  Classic Citadel minis orange face!

Here he is with his ‘Stab Grot’.  A great little model itself!

Now, compare to some older plastic orcs.  It’s not just height that’s changed!  But they still have a charm of their own!