Shieldwolf “Mountain Orc Hero B” – Savage Orc Boss

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Shieldwolf "Mountain Orc Hero B" - Savage Orc Boss

Today’s model is (was?) my first completed model of 2019. It’s a model I’ve had for a few years now. Bearing the evocative name of “Mountain Orc Hero B” – it was actually a bonus from my Pre-Order of their plastic Mountain Orc boxed set (Not-Savage Orcs, basically) back in 2014. I started it not too longer after I got it, but then I wasn’t happy with the scheme I’d started, so as a result it just sat around for a couple of years. I later restarted it, with a more traditional Orcish flesh tone, but it didn’t get much further than simply (re) base-coating the flesh.

So a couple of months ago, I tried to paint this and a few other greenskins for Orctober, and while I got some Goblinoids done, I also didn’t manage to finish a whole bunch more, including this guy. I tried again for Diabolical December, but again due to all of the things that went on last month – no dice. I put a small amount of work in on NYE, and ended up getting onto him properly on New Years’ Day – getting him completed.

Shieldwolf "Mountain Orc Hero B" - Savage Orc Boss

From the first time I saw the “new” Savage Orcs in White Dwarf, back in 1992 with their blue woad-half-facepaint, and their red faces, and their white faces, I had an idea on how they’d look much, much better. Later, when I ended up with a bunch of them myself, I kept this idea in my head, and now, in Twenty Eigh… Nineteen, I’ve finally painted one of them using that scheme. That scheme of course, being warpaint and bodypaint inspired by the traditional designs of Indigenous Australians, or Australian Aborigines.

Shieldwolf "Mountain Orc Hero B" - Savage Orc Boss

Why? Well, for one thing, I’ve never, ever seen anyone use their designs as a basis for anything on wargames miniatures. Secondly, I’m Australian, so it seems appropriate to represent in a fashion on some (more) of my models beyond my Imperial Guard. Thirdly, and this ties in with the first point to an extent, it looks unique and rather good on the model(s), just as I’d envisioned over 20 years ago.

Shieldwolf "Mountain Orc Hero B" - Savage Orc Boss

The model itself is a nice display piece, but unfortunately alarmingly impractical for gaming purposes. I had to pin him to get him onto the base, and those thin, thin resin ankles make me wince when I look at him. He came with a 25mm square base, because Not-WHFB, but I put him on a 40mm round base instead since those weapons extend WAY out to a ridiculous degree, so it feels like bumping him on a table, or even looking at him funny will snap his fragile looking limbs or weapons right off! Ouch!

Well, that’s today’s model and post sorted. In the next few days I’ll have a couple of other little things that just missed Diabolical December and were instead finally completed on January 2nd, and then I’ll try to get my personal December wrap-up done for Saturday’s post.

Dauntless/Diabolical December 2018: Personal Round-Up

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So here we are. The night of January 9th, 2019 and I’ve finally taken the photos of my December stuff.

Not quite what I’d hoped to get done, but not too bad, considering how December turned out. In the middle of my final week of work, the week before Christmas, just when the torrent of craziness of work had finally subsided (like, literally, the day before), I was at the front door in the morning, literally leaving to go to my Physio appointment, and then to work when I got the call that my father has suffered a stroke and the ambos were on their way there. I literally wrote literally too many times there, but fuck it.

Long story short, the stroke(s) weren’t huge, he spent a couple of weeks in hospital, including Christmas. We brought him BBQ and had Christmas Lunch in a Hospital courtyard. Not the best Christmas, but also not the worst I’ve had, either. He showed a good attitude, did the exercises they gave him like a madman, recovered the use of his arm very well, and we were able to take him home just before New Year’s. He’s still not 100%, and Marouda and I are around there constantly bringing him food and doing all the little things, but after how last year turned out, this isn’t nearly as bad as it could have been.

Still, that took a lot of time, and even once things had settled with the Nurses looking after him as he started to recover giving me a chance to stress a bit less, there was still a lot less hobby time, as you’d appreciate. Daily visits across town are real timesinks in travel time alone. So my blogging and catching up on people’s blogs has obviously suffered, but I’ll catch up as best I can, when I can. I didn’t write about it at the time and just carried on as best I could here because the last thing I’m interested in is a pity party – especially after talking about how shitty the last few months have been a few times. So now that things are mostly okay and we’re past that stage, I’m not fussed. I’ve also been really busy in these opening weeks of the new year besides all of that which has delayed this post (and the Community Round-Up for December), but I’ll talk about that in a future post.

So under the circumstances, I think this has been an okay number of models overall. It works out to 12 or 13 figures including the APC depending whether I count the removable crewman as an extra, as well as 29 pieces of scatter. So that’s 41 or 42 for the month. The 3 Uruks are included in the photos, because they missed their Orctober pic.

I was up to 536 at the end of November, so adding these 41/42 to the total, plus the 3 Uruks, I’m brought to 580 completed models for 2018. Or 581.

Here’s what I managed to complete for the actual December challenge in the end. Not nearly as many Dauntless and Diabolical heroes as I’d hoped and planned, but not too bad, either. Some of the ones who didn’t make December  will be turning up in the next few days and weeks. I’ve already got a backlog of new shit to post up, because even though I haven’t been posting and my commenting and replies have been limited, I’ve still been painting.

I’ll try to get the December Round-up done by this coming weekend. That’s only halfway through January, so it’s still okay, right? I’ll also have a 2018 reflection-roundup once I find all 580/1 models, set them up together on a table, take the photos, and write the actual post. So basically, after I’ve had time to do the whole bloody lot.