Category Archives: Warhammer Fantasy – 9th Age

Savage Orc Boyz #1 (Neglected Model February + #Squaduary + Alex’ Tale-of-AoS-Gamers Challenge)

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Savage Orcs, Savage Orruks, Bonesplitters, Oldhammer, Midhammer

Here’s my next few Savage Orcs. They’re a mix of the Alan Perry Orc models from ’95-96 and then the later batch released in ’98 – though to be honest they were probably all sculpted around the same time by the look of them. I’ve (naturally) got a whole lot more of them to get to and through, but these at least are now finished. The shields are taken from the current range of Savage Orcs/Orruks and with a tiny bit of cutting and drilling have been made to fit these older models. Being from the mid-late 90’s they’re not considered “real” “Oldhammer”, but being 20 years old, they’re still far from new!

Savage Orcs, Savage Orruks, Bonesplitters, Oldhammer, Midhammer

Obviously and firstly, they’re Neglected Models. They’ve been sitting, basecoated (badly, by someone else) in a Chessex case since the early 2000s at best until very recently, when they got taken out of there and basically redone from scratch – including new bases – simply using the old basecoat as a coloured undercoat because if I stripped them, I’d never get around to painting them. Secondly, they’re a small unit that I managed to actually complete – and so Squaduary – because why not?

Savage Orcs, Savage Orruks, Bonesplitters, Oldhammer, Midhammer

And thirdly, Alex (of Leadbaloony) has a small challenge-type thing of his own. Well, a couple of them, but these Orcs aren’t here for Fembruary.

So I’ve decided to attempt to jump on board with Alex’ Tale-of-AoS-Gamers challenge, but as with all of these things that aren’t my own, I’ve had to bend and bastardise the rules to make it fit me, but them’s the breaks!

The ‘rules’ of the project are as follows:

Build & paint 100ish ‘renown’ points in Feb (to include our Generals), and 25ish renown per month thereafter, up to 250 pts. This should equate to a manageable 3ish minis per month.

I’m going to use the Shieldwolf Mountain Orc hero that I painted only last month as my hero for the Bonesplitterz/Savage Orcs. He would count as a Savage Big Boss at 120pts, but that’s the closest that particular faction allows for a melee hero.

So for this month, instead I’m going to add to that 5 Savage Boyz @12pts ea = 60pts

I’m also tried to do something similar with a second force that has only a couple of models done – but I failed to get the hero model done. We’ll see if I can catch up next month. There’s also a third faction, that I might actually be able to swing (again, with minor cheats) if I stop typing and get back to painting…

The warband must be from a faction we don’t currently collect. Ross and I chose the faction for each other, with me getting Daughters of Khaine, and Ross getting Sylvaneth

Given that I had only that one Savage Orc painted, and only three “troop” models from that second faction, I’m going to call it “close enough” on both, here.

Set in a common realm, (realm tbd), based & modelled accordingly

I’ll be using my standard basing – keeps them consistent with the rest of my fantasy collection. Though to be fair, I probably won’t be playing against Alex, Ross or Wudugast anytime soon, so it doesn’t really matter here

Push the modelling & painting – AoS28 style, crazy conversions, grim-dark, etc.

Uh…. maybe not with the modelling, outside of duplicate models. I’m very loathe to cut up non-duplicate old classic metals after all – especially unless it’s going to be necessary to represent something special. Paint on the other hand.. I’m keen to continue the body paint of my orcs, and maybe see if I can find something interesting to do with the others with the brush.

Lowest cost possible – beg/borrow/steal, freebees, scratch build, re-use, etc.

Dipping into my existing collection of unpainted and neglected models here is a given.

Narrative rather than competitive warbands – named characters, backstories, etc.

I’m not really one for writing background fiction for my models, though I do often name heroes and units – and more importantly go for models that are background-friendly as well as fun and interesting to paint over “competitive”.

Savage Orcs, Savage Orruks, Bonesplitters, Oldhammer, Midhammer, Shieldwolf.

And here they are. So far.

Ruined Watchtower: January Terrain 2019

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Not a GW kit for a change, today’s terrain piece is a ruined watchtower. I can’t tell you who produced it, though – as I picked it up quite a few years ago now in a job lot with a whole lot of other bits and pieces.

Speaking of pieces, it was in several until I finally assembled the thing earlier this month, with this month’s challenge and the good spraying weather finally motivating me to finally get the thing done!

It went together simply, if not easily – with some drilling and clipping needed to get the pieces together. The different segments don’t fit together perfectly, but they’re close enough so that it can be difficult to notice.

Once again, the sheen from several layers of varnish combined with a lot of lights belies the more matte appearance that it has in person. It looks almost like flowing mud here! What can I say? My lighting options for larger pieces are pretty shithouse! It’s kinda hard to see, but I’ve attempted to have the orientation of the grass on the tufts “flow” with he contours of the model, as the whole thing has a pretty windswept look to it.

That big section where it looks like it’s fit together extraordinarily badly is part of the sculpt – it’s intentional – rather than being the result of my terrible modelling skills. I’ve mounted it on an inexpensive wooden teapot stand to give it a nice sturdy base, and rather than trying to bevel it to the ground or try to paint the edges in an awkward (to me) brown so it “fits in better” with my table surfaces, I just went full fuggit and gave it a similar black rim as I do with many of my bases. I did roughly sculpt some simple flagstones in the ground, giving the indication of a small path that may or may not continue on the battlefield surface.

The scale of this model seems a bit smaller than most “heroic” scale models. Here we have it with a few Heroes of Men from the LotR range, with their slightly smaller scale showing the sizing. True historical models would be a touch smaller yet, so would fit in even more nicely with the tower. I also thought our friend The Imperfect Modeller would appreciate how close this almost gets to a proper diorama! I’d just need an appropriate figure to put in Gandalf’s place there, and a pin to hold them there on!

FInally, as a point of contrast, I thought a couple of more modern-scale AoS Bloodbound figures (ok, one is at least 50% Shieldwolf) would be a nice counter to the above – as you can see, it’s still very much usable for Fantasy of pretty much any stripe. And the number of times that Space Marines have fought their foes over terrain that resembles Terra’s ancient medieval castles must be beyond count!