ORCTOBER - Challenge Compete (Just)

At the beginning of October I set myself the challenge of painting up 500 points of orcs for Fantastic Battles using my old 6mm Irregular Miniatures collection.  Bodvoc agreed to join in with elves, as he has quite a few.

To make it easy on myself I chose to use my already painted minis and see if they were worth salvaging.  With a bit of a wash and some extra highlighting they turned out fine.  

I did have a bit of a setback with the samples I tried first.  When I last showed them they had had an initial wash to deal with the rather bright and flat painting.  

But then I gave them my standard 'orc wash' of 50:50 Army Painter Soft tone and Strong tone washes.  This gave a far darker effect than I was looking for, but a bit more highlighting helped rescue them.

As I was working through my already painted stuff, I knew that I wasn't going to produce a particularly effective army.  I was able to look at most of the painted stuff and see how I could use it, giving me something I can add to in the future.

The Finished Army 

So here it is, my 6mm orc force.  Using the traits I'm experimenting with, it works out at 673 points.  This is, of course, subject to change as I try them in battle.

Characters, the larger 20mm diameter base is the Warlord, the middle sized base (actually a button) are is a captain on wolf, and the single minis are two rogues, one orc and one warg.

Warriors, these five companies are made up of strips and part strips from the orc command, archers, warriors and spearmen.

Wolves, these two companies are wolves I painted ages ago.  Their strips are wider than most of the infantry, so have been cut up to allow repositioning and to provide the lone warg 'rogue'. I now paint my wolves/wargs much darker using a palette of greys, as seen in my 10mm LotR Mordor army.  I may repaint these at a later date (this is also why I didn't get the wolf riders ready, I wasn't sure if I should repaint the wolves.

Artillery, these companies were previously painted, I simply gave them a wash and added a few highlights. I do want to revisit these to add some ammunition (boulders and giant bolts) to the bases.

Chariots, one of these four companies was already painted.  I retouched the paintwork and painted up the other three from scratch, can you tell which one was the original?

Trolls, these were painted up from scratch, and are done more in the style of my larger scale minis.  They have a lot of character, and I can't decide what the little orc riding the trolls' shoulders is doing.  Is that helmet some sort of control device?  I have to admit that the reason I did these was to garner some easy points in the challenge.

Terrain Too

The challenge included producing a piece of themed terrain.  I struggled with this, partly because 6mm themed terrain doesn't always work well when the minis are based in companies.  Forts with battlements look odd with a 25mm wide wall walk.  I'm also short of any 6mm terrain, so it seemed a bit indulgent to work on something that only one army would get to use.

But then another root through my box of 6mm stuff turned up 4 huts.  I'd painted these years ago, but I've completely repainted them and they'll do nicely as an orc village.  I haven't based them yet as I want some slightly bigger bases to add a bit of extra decoration, like looted standards and other trophies. 

Future Additions?

Initially I planned to rescue some orc archers for a company of bows, but I decided to include them in small numbers among the warriors to represent the irregular nature of the orcs and explain the minor short range shooting attack they have.  I will rescue more of the archers and base up some dedicated companies of bows.  I also have a couple of companies of wolf riders which I never finished, they will have to wait for now.

I've also got some of the Man-Orc range, which make suitably impressive 'elite'.  None of these are painted yet, but they'll make great Formed Companies of slightly better quality troops, and I can take advantage of the different weapons options rather than just lumping lots of different types in an irregular company.

I've got a lot of 6mm goblins which are already painted. When I did my dwarves I also based these up as an opposing force. While they are well enough painted, the strips are difficult to cut up to give an irregular look. I'm not sure if they should be a separate army or a part of the orc army.

So that's another Orctober challenge done, and it's got me well on my way to having another Fantastic Battles army. It also makes inroads into the Lead Mountain and helps me decide what to keep and what to move on. Like the dwarves, I'll probably aim for 1000 points, perhaps with a few options. I've certainly got sufficient 6mm fantasy stuff for this, and I've several more armies to start too.

If you want to see how Bodvoc did, his elves are on his blog.

Trying Warlords of Erehwon. - Again

If you read my earlier post about my first ever game of Warlords or Erehwon, you may have gained the impression that I didn't like the rules.

Well, I was prepared to give them a second go, so Bodvoc drove down with some of his lovely Old School goblins to tackle a portion of my Severed Hand orcs.

Last game I felt overwhelmed with the options and all the different things going on, so I deliberately went for a small 500 point battle with straightforward goals and, on my side at least, no magic.

The background, briefly, was that the goblin leader, Kruk the Destroyer, urged on by his wizard, Gurk, decided to take advantage of the orcs' drubbing at the hands of the dwarves last time. Hopefully they would be weaker and easily beaten.

The field of battle (yes, lots of Middle Earth terrain, it's what I had to hand)

The Opening Stages

The battle began with both sides running forward to gain ground. The orc spears were so enthusiastic that they exhausted themselves.

The advance then slowed slightly, and the orc archers took up position (nicely exposed in the open, despite the ruins close by).

Goblins filled one of the woods and picked their way through.

The orc spears rested, but under the stern eye of Hagar Sheol they got ready for the coming action.

The orcs amass behind their hideous totem 

What's that coming over the hill, is it a monstrous goblin horde?

The two sides advance

Orc archers train their bows on a wood full of goblins 

The Middle Phase

As the goblin bows prepared to shoot, the orc archers snatched the advantage and loosed first. The goblins were better shots though, and killed two orcs for the loss of only one goblin.

On the other flank, a unit of goblins charged into the orc spears. One fell to a well thrown spear, which tipped the balance in the subsequent melee. As the remaining goblins staggered back, the orcs wiped them out.

The Goblin Guard then tried to finish off the depleted orc spears, but the larger unit of orc warriors were waiting for just such an opportunity, and smashed into them part way. Despite the Guard being elite, they were still only goblins, and the orc warriors killed all but their leader. Having taken some casualties, they decided not to press the fight, a decision they would later regret.

In response, Gurk gestured wildly, waved his arms and pointed at the warriors - to no effect.

(At this point I tried to use Hagar to Rally and remove the pins on the remaining orc spears, however, on close reading of the rules, it appears that this only works if the allied unit is actually Routing).

The orc spears then tried to rally, but despite being under the watchful eye of Hagar Sheol, they ended up Down again.

The End

The goblin bows continued to shoot at the remaining orc archers, killing two more, the remaining orc fled the scene.

The orc warriors charged into the goblin wizard, killing his ferocious pet Gobble-dogs. But they pulled down two of the orcs, and, with their earlier casualties, the orcs broke.

Hagar managed to stop their rout, but that stopped him participating in a fight.

Gurk's magic was more effective this time, and Grashak Kra was struck with doubt and fear. Kruk tried to take advantage of this, but Grashak retreated, and Kruk stayed his charge, snorting in disgust.

The orc spears remain hunkered down.

Kruk then charged the orc warriors, but they gave better than they got, and the goblins withdrew. 

The goblin bows turned their attention on poor Grashak Kra, felling him.

Hagar decided it was time he took a hand, charging Kruk and his depleted bodyguard. The frenzied orcs chopped their way through the bodyguard and gave Kruk pause. The two warchiefs snarled and prepared to continue their duel, but each, perhaps, saw something in the others' eyes. They lowered their weapons and nodded at each other with new-found respect. Why waste greenskin blood when they had mutual enemies?

The remains of the orc archers 

Wizard bashing, though surprisingly less effective than I thought it was going to be

After Battle Musings

Well, what a difference. I deliberately set out to try and learn the game and try and get some understanding of what tactics to use.

I'd say I succeeded, and had a great fun game too. Sadly, time ran out before we could run the follow on fight between the Warchiefs, so we called a draw (of course, both privately feeling that we'd have won if we'd played another turn).  The fact that the game was so close, and had moments when it swung one way or another, show, I think, that the rules are sound and that we will have a lot of fun with this going forward.

I'll do another post talking about the rules, but briefly, I did enjoy them this time around.  There are areas that we are still vague about (we occasionally forgot to take Order Tests for units with pins for example), and there are aspects of them that are odd or annoying, such as some of the naming conventions, but there is a depth of tactics that we are just starting to learn, and I look forward to more games, and, who knows? Maybe Warlords of Orc's Drift?

OCTOBER - Restore or Start Again?

One of the main reasons for choosing 6mm orcs for an Orctober project was that I have a lot already painted (loads unpainted as well, of course) and I wanted them to have a purpose. Now these were done many many years ago. I can't remember when, exactly, but Bodvoc and I collected the 6mm Irregular Fantasy range way back in the late eighties or early nineties.  We adapted a set of 6mm SF rules from a wargaming magazine.  I still have a copy of our rules, but as I recall, they never quite worked.  We spent so much time play-testing them and altering them, that we never got round to actually just playing and enjoying them.

Our rules worked around using the 5 minis wide strips that Irregular Miniatures were making at the time.  So my orcs were painted up as the strips.  At some point later I must have experimented with using them for Hordes of the Things, because quite a few of them are stuck randomly on card bases that match that system.

Later still, Bodvoc and myself used 6mm for some battles using Neil Thomas' One Hour Wargaming.  I started afresh with these, painting up a goblin army that will, one day, be rebased for Fantastic Battle (probably).

Rescuing The Old Orcs

The orcs are painted very much in the style of the time, check out the photo on my initial Orctober post to get some idea.  I undercoated everything in Goblin Green, then just added a few details for weapons, shields etc. I'd like them to look a bit more like my current style.  I think I've done a better job in 6mm with my dwarves, but do I want to start again with the orcs? 

Not if I can save something from the paint jobs the orcs already have.  

Time for some experimenting.  I've stuck fifteen orcs of various kinds on to a lolly stick to see what I can do.

A Wash and (Dry) Brush Up?

The first experiment was giving the orcs a wash of equal parts Army Painter Strong Tone and Dark Tone.  This shades the minis and tones down that garish eighties orc skin. 

 

The test orcs after a wash

They already look better, but can I do anything more?  Despite the wash they still look a bit 'flat'.

When I painted my dwarves I realised that just a small amount of extreme highlighting made a big difference at this scale.  This is the essence of my method for mass painting most minis these days, just taken to the max.

I tried drybrushing to pick out details, but it didn't work very well in 6mm, its too easy to obscure the detail I want to accentuate.

But very careful application of a few highlights works much better.  There's more control, and it allows me to change some of the colour choices I made all those years ago.  I don't need to add much to really make them 'pop'.

The test orcs after highlighting

I'm happy with how they look now.  Perhaps not quite how I'd paint them if I were starting from scratch, but certainly good enough, and, importantly, I've shown that they are worth saving.

they'll get a wash (the usual Army Painter Soft Tone/Strong Tone mix) before being based.  I'll add a few bow armed orcs in the mix as irregular troops in Fantastic Battles have some short range missile attacks.

Now on with the rest of them.

Unit Identity

Previously I'd tried to give the orcs shields with unit symbols on them.  You may notice crossed bones and a blue moon among other shields in the photo earlier (and if you look carefully above after the wash).  Now I'm not going to copy the shields I've used on the Orc's Drift tribes, but a variety of different shield colours across a unit does give a pleasingly random look to the horde, which is what I'm after now.

#ORCTOBER

ORCTOBER - Planning the 500

Before I start painting 500 points of orcs, I want some idea what that will consist of.  The Fantastic Battles rulebook includes a goblin list, and I've previously worked out a list for Mordor (and Gondor) troops for our 10mm Lord of the Rings games, but I want a distinctive feel to the army, and neither of these quite fit what I'm looking for.

Nic Wright's excellent Fantastic Battles (my battered first edition copy)

What a Piece of Work is Orc
I want my orcs to be a bit more like the typical fantasy wargame orc.  Big, hitting hard, but with discipline problems.  The rule book goblins (and my Mordor orcs) have Unreliable as their species' trait. If your not familiar with Fantastic Battles, this means that they are slightly more likely to suffer pre-battle mishaps, and if there are no commanders near are more likely to do their own thing in battle.

To more closely model the old WFB Animosity rules I'm using the Belligerent trait from the additional rules (available on the Fantastic Battles Facebook page).  This gives them a bonus in melee, but with a chance that they will attack their own side.  

But the point of the exercise is to enjoy painting tiny orcs, and I'm in danger of getting too nit picky over points and balance.

Wish List

Instead of looking at details of the stat lines and traits, I'm better off deciding what minis I want to paint.  

I'll need a Warlord, and at least one hero.  As with the dwarves, I can make these up from various cut up infantry and cavalry strips.  There are some individual characters in the range, but I'm not sure if I have any of them.  

Although I doubt I'll need a shaman yet, I can use odd individual minis for that too.  Perhaps even a human wizard, either the evil genius behind the orcs, a la Saruman, or someone co-opted for their magical knowledge, and who is ambitious enough to overlook the orcs' less pleasant side (and their lack of hygiene).

I want some infantry, probably a mix of the spear and sword armed orcs. I don't see them as organised or disciplined enough for spear phalanxes, and they will be irregular. 

I might include a unit of tougher (or at least better equipped and organised) troops. I have some of the Man-orcs, and they'll do nicely. They'll make up an elite (or at leas regular) core of the horde eventually.

I don't expect much from orc archery, especially compared to the arrow-fest that Bodvoc's elves will have, but a company or two will give at least a bit of a threat.

Cavalry are more important, and I can have both orcs on wolves and wild wolves. There's also a nice orc chariot model that I'd like to include.

The last thing on my wish list is some form of monster. I've a few options here; trolls, ogres, a giant, not to mention more exotic creatures.

So out of that lot I'm going to cobble together some sort of list, but, as Bodvoc suggested in a recent comment, I'll aim to paint nice units and then choose the army. I've plenty to work with after all, and lots to expand with once I've got this lot finished.

Fantastic Battles is available from Irregular Wars, no relation to Irregular Miniatures, whose minis I am using for this project.

#ORCTOBER