The Severed Hand: Infantry Complete

Well I've done it. I've finished painting all the orc infantry for the Severed Hand at Ashak Rise*.

They've taken rather longer than I would have liked, but we had a run of hot weather where the paint dried on the brush faster than I could get it on the minis, and then there have been distractions in the form of RPGaDAY24 and the need to draw more maps for the D&D group.

There are a couple of minis here that have a lot of history for me, although these are recent replacements after selling off most of my collection.

ORC1 (WO-05) Angok

  ORC1 (WO-14) Gorb 

These two were the Leader and Standard for my orc bows many years ago.

Angok wears a rather fancy hooded tunic in black with yellow accents and hood, presumably taken from the human units wearing yellow and black.

I converted Gorb to hold a standard pole, rather as I did with the Fantasy Regiments orc here (though I suspect I didn't do as good a job back then). 

The Citadel designers had the same idea, the standard in Harboth's Orc Archers Regiment of Renown uses the same basic body with a standard, though, never having owned them, I only recently found this out.

Gorb has a russet tunic like the ones worn by the elves here, however, he's had to tear it to get in on.  He also has a shield with a red dragon or wyvern design, probably also from an elf.

ORC1 (DA-04) Skindag the Rad

Talking of converting standards, Skindag was originally a duel weapon orc.   I've never really liked these, due to my one unit of them being uniformly awful on the tabletop (I suspect I never worked out how to get their undoubted superior combat abilities into contact, the lack of shields made them more vulnerable to missiles).

I thought I'd sold them all off, but I found this chap lurking in a box. He'd lost one of his weapons, so I'd initially thought about just using him as a normal sword armed orcs. But he'd look odd with a shield held up in the air, unless he's catching elven arrows. Then I thought he'd make a great standard bearer, and I wanted one for the tribe anyway. 

0508/18 Orc Mugger

The Orc Mugger is one of Trish Carden's Orc Villagers, though with his metal greaves and what looks like some sort of belt of riveted plates, he looks a lot more martial than most of the range.

ORC 08 w. Bow, Firing

This orc is a Marauder orc. With his bell-bottoms I couldn't resist giving him striped pants. His bow is an elven bow, I painted it like the handle and tips of the elf here.

0501/14 Dwarfsmiter

This is my version of Hagar Sheol, given that I'm never going to own the specific minis. To make him look a bit more like the illustration, I gave him a shield slung over his back with a greenstuff/milliput strap. On the cover of the scenario book he has a glorious bright red cloak, but my mini is wearing a fur cloak, so I gave it a red lining to keep the theme.

These two archers are fairly ordinary, both are Kev Adams sculpts from Harboth's Orc Archers.  I've already painted a couple of RRD3 (j) Trooper 6 before. RRD3 (k) Trooper 7 is a new sculpt though. There's no cloth on them, but they both have shields taken from fallen foes. 

I've also experimented with adding bow strings. It works quite well, but I still want to work on it.

So is that the Severed Hand finished? 

Well no.

What Next?

There's the ten hobhounds to do, and I've a couple of different options for them.

But looking forward I will add more to the tribe. I've mentioned before about the possibility of collecting a unit with two-handed weapons. If they don't have shields, there's little to tie them to any particular tribe, they could be a part of any of the tribes I've already got, or perhaps they hire themselves out as mercenaries. 

I've also got eight orcs with crossbows which would add more missile power.

The tribe currently has no form of cavalry (other than the hobhounds). I only have one pretty much complete orc boar rider (the standard bearer, missing the top of his standard), though I do have a few later orc riders. They seem very expensive on the second hand market, at least, the ones with metal boars do, and I'm definitely not a fan of the plastic boars. 

Then there are war machines. I've got a stone thrower and a bolt thrower, and, of course, the Old School Miniatures chariot.

So I'm not going to run out of Severed Hand orcs to paint any time soon. Not forgetting the other two tribes. I've had a few thoughts about what to use for them too. The Kwae Karr will be based largely around the Fantasy Regiments orcs, though I'm unsure about what to do for the ten archers.

I'm not sure about the Vile Rune, but I've a few of the old Fantasy Tribes orcs, and they are always fun to collect and paint.  It would be nice to field forty of them, but that's a lot of collecting minis that seem expensive, especially given that few people admit to actually liking them.  I certainly do like them, and they bring back memories of buying minis at the old Games Gallery store in Newcastle back in the late 70s and early 80s.

But before I paint any more orcs (except, possibly, the Vivandiere), I'm going to do a dwarf or two, and possibly some terrain.

*Yes, I know that the standard bearer is lacking, well, a standard. I'm waiting until all the standard bearer minis are finished before adding the flags.