Vanguard Orcs Complete

A while ago I showed the orcs I was painting ready for Mantic Games' Vanguard.  If you saw my last post you will have seen them in action.  Regardless of how well they perform on the battlefield, I am still very pleased with how they turned out.

The 'brains' behind the warband.  Both the Krudger and the Godspeaker are metal Mantic models.  The godspeaker comes with alternate heads and left arms, allowing different variants. 

The Krudger is a much older model; it still looks good (I've always felt he looks a bit mournful) but the axe haft is a bit flimsy.  I know its going to break at some point, I wish now I had used brass rod or similar in place of the shaft. 

Sigh

Plastic Dungeon Saga troll on loan from the goblins.  This is a lovely model (if that's the right word for a troll), in the style of the Kings of War trolls, but a touch bigger.  I might convert some more with weapon swaps to make a regiment for Kings of War, or maybe use him as a Troll Bruiser.

Two Greataxes.  Not much to say about these, they are made from the plastic orc greataxe sprue.

Moreaxes made from ordinary ax orcs with additional weapons added.  Mantic do make an add-on to provide the extra axes, but I had enough lying around.

The Grunts.  Axe orcs built from the orc sprue.

More Grunts, ax and skulk.  The skulk uses a standard orc body, but the bow arm is taken from the restic gore riders.  I cut the spear shaft to length, shaped the ends a bit and then bent it into a bow shape in hot water.  I meant to add a quiver from the goblin archer sprue, but they were hiding, perhaps feeling that they had already given a troll to their large cousins.  When I can track one down I will add it to the belt.

Gore Rider.  I took this from a box of four that I had painted up ready to be based, but never got around to finishing the regiment.  He had suffered some damage, but careful pinning and using superglue and baking powder makes the repair strong.

I enjoyed painting these, I had forgotten how much fun the Mantic orcs can be to paint.  I've tried to use similar methods to my orc army, but that was done many years ago, and I've forgotten some of how I did them, and I've changed some of my techniques.

In brief, I used a light brown undercoat, then base colours using different shades of green for the orc skin tones as I started doing with my Dragon Rampant orcs.  I then gave the main colours one highlight (I don't normally bother with orcs I paint for an army) before washing the metals with black wash and then everything an Army Painter Strongtone wash.  Once everything was dry I dotted in the eyes in crimson, then a coat of gloss yacht varnish and Rowney matt varnish.  With the exception of the strongtone wash, all paints were Vallejo Game Colour.  

Basing was pretty standard, sand and small stones painted accordingly, then I added a lot of tufts.  I like tufts.

All the bases have magnets to allow them to be transported in a Really Useful Box lined with thin steel.