10mm Goblins #1

My first finished 10mm unit.

As mentioned earlier this week one of my bi-decade forays into fantasy miniatures has begun.  This time its 10mm orcs and goblins based as regiments rather than individually, hopefully for use in a variety of games.  This unit of little guys plus their shaman chaperone are the first off the conveyor.

Apart from the leader models in the regiments the figures are from the GW Battle of Five Armies boxed set.  The majority of the models in that box are slightly smaller than their GW Warmaster equivalents, but not so much that it bothers me, doubly so in the case of goblins.  As long as the little guys are smaller than the orcs that they hang out with and the humans that they want to eat, then I dont really mind what size they are as long as they look reasonably malignant.

An obliging Chaos Space Marine models the Summer 2012 Goblin Collection.

Each BoFA troop type is represented by two strips of plastic infantry or cavalry.  Unfortunately only one strip is supplied for each troop type which results in a cookie cutter look when they rank up.  This is little bit of a pity.  If there were even two strips for each unit then enough variation could easily be incorporated into units to draw the eye away from the cloned look.

On the other hand, if the goblins are anything to go by then the figures in the BoFA box paint up very satisfyingly.  The sculpts are clean and less comical than the Warmaster goblins, if that sort of thing appeals (I would be happy with either really).

To give a little more identity to the units I cut the plastic troop strip down and added a Warmaster Night Goblin and accessory (a squig) to the front rank of the front base of the three base strong unit.

These additions dont mean anything specific in rules terms, but make the units a little more recognisable and more interesting to paint.  I imagine that scale purists might feel that the Warmaster gobbos look a little stylistically inconsistent with their weaker underlings.  This bothers me not one iota.

LotR Goblins (from lotr.wikia.com)

I made up the colour scheme for these figures on the fly.  I knew that they had to be dark but not so dark as to be indistinct.

I enjoy the Lord of the Rings movies (I watched them for inspiration while painting these miniatures) but I feel that the evil forces on those films are just a little too hard to see due to the very restrained palette used.  The most obviously noticeable variation from goblin to goblin is usually their skin tone which varies from grey to green to red to black.

The photo above illustrates what I mean adequately enough: even in daylight the goblins are almost monochrome.

A decision to make the evil LotR movie forces look murky and to ensure that everything from their flesh to their garments to their armour and weapons were similar tones must have been made somewhere during production of the movies.  I suspect that the urge to make sure that the bad guys looked menacing rather than comical (which would have upset the tone of the series badly) was the driving factor.  The colour scheme for my bunch of 10mm bad guys had different goals.

I decided to go for a more traditional toy soldier-y, distinct-on-the-tabletop look for these guys.  Quite bright green skin tones and red focal points work to lift the black/grey/brown outfits.  Highlights were applied quite harshly as they simply dont show otherwise.  I may not have made the highlights bright enough to show up on a table three feet away anyway, but it pleases me to add that level of detail all the same.

So while my goblins are wearing mainly black outfits with mid-to-dark metallic areas they also feature a fair bit of red, mainly on shields.  Its a little bit cartoony perhaps, but it makes the tiny little guys more interesting to look at en masse.  With just black and green they looked uninspiring.

“Ah’m a witch doc-tah!”

Speaking of uninspiring, the shaman model (also plastic and from the Five Armies box) is is the opposite I reckon: he is a cool looking little guy who stands out on the tabletop, partly because of his round base but also because of his cloak and skull topped, shamanistic accoutrements.

Painting this malignant little turd was my reward for painting the rank and file.  I enjoyed painting the figure and I think that it shows.  I still havent named him (or any of his colleagues) yet though.  Like getting some half decent photos of the army as it grows, all in good time.

Next up will likely be either be my first unit of trolls or my first unit of orcs, I havent decided which yet.

Comments and criticisms all happily received 🙂