My Orc and Goblin army

My Orc and Goblin army

My Orc army has been produced over my 29 years of on/off playing Warhammer. Basically when I first played Warhammer I played a lot of battles against Dwarfs with Orcs, before developing an interest in chaos thanks to the mighty Realm of Chaos books. When I got back into Warhammer, I wanted some continuity from the early days while using  a mixture of my old models and some of the best of the new models. It comes to 4000 points based around the 8th. edition Orc and goblin list, although it roughly matches this using a list based in third edition Warhammer Armies. But the aim is to play loose games of third edition based Warhammer with it. I am still in the process of adjusting rules to fit some of the new profiles for models such as the Arachnorak and squigs so that I can easily play with my version of 3rd. edition. But a bit of friendly play testing and adjustment should work this out. After all I don't do competitive gaming and it is playing out the narrative and the challenges this throws up that is most important.

So, the background!

In the Grey Mountains, the Dwarfs' of the  seven holds of Eira Gwyn fought a devastating 20year war of attrition against invading groups of Orcs. The battles would range from bloody sieges to personal, small scale skirmishes aimed at keeping mountain passes open. Finally a bloody push managed to drive the majority of the Orcs into the forests that marked the beginning of the Empire and allow the final five years to be based around mopping up the small groups of Orcs and Goblins that remained in the areas around Eira Gwyn and what the Dwarfs considered their territory.

The Orcs in the forest entertained themselves by fighting amongst themselves, beastmen, bullying the local spider worshipping goblin tribes and avoiding two nasty Orc characters. These were Finbad the Unrepentant and Gomidja.

Finbad the Unrepentant was a huge Orc who refused to accept that Orcs were defeated in Eira Gwyn. It was rumoured that he, along with his small band of big 'uns, was planning another big war. This was fine, however, despite their love of violence, Dwarfs did not like getting massacred and embarrassing defeats. The Empire was too strong around the  forests, the beastmen were too strong and the Dwarfs were definitely too strong to take on in a big war. Little fights were the order of the day and more fun. Finbad didn't accept this, but if you told him he would simply show you how good he was at war and completely destroying his opponents. He was very good, or so the Orc corpses would suggest.

Gomidja, on the other hand, was weird and dangerous. He was a powerful Orc shaman and he only appeared when he had a dark purpose, casting magic that caused deveestation, but also made the average Orc warrior feel strange. It was not clear what he believed in, but during the Eira Gwyn war he had turned up to battles and sieges where he then focused on plundering and capturing specific objectives, despite what the Orc chieftans tried to tell him what to do. It was also noted that any Orc who tried to tell him what to do met with a very sticky fate, meaning that he was left alone and any help he gave was gratefully accepted, even if it wasn't that helpful.

The Red Back tribe was the largest tribe of Forest Goblins and they were sick of the Orcs. It was bad enough fearing the Beastmen of the forests, without having to avoid the new influx of Orcs. After a while they decided to get their shaman, White Tail, to do something. The shaman decided to consult their god Araknorak, Red Back.  After a slow start the sky darkened and the drumming and dancing of the ceremony took on a life of it's own. The clouds darkened and spiders swarmed through the trees, White Tail and his assistants danced and let the sacred spiders bite them. Then at it's height, White Tail was struck by green lightening and from the sky and fell to the ground. Red Back emerged from the cave and stood over the prostate goblin before lifting him and cocconing him in silk.

The spider remained guardian for the rest of the night as the other goblins looked on in fear and awe, As dawn approached, a ripping sound could be heard. From the cocoon White Tail emerged. HE looked around at the hundreds of goblins and spoke! He told the Goblins he had ea vision. He would lead the Goblins against the Beastmen at skull rock clearing, freeing up the entrances to the Snarling Moon Night Goblin tribes caves. The Night Goblins would be in their debt and free to collect the forest mushrooms that were prized by their shamans. They would ally with the forest goblins. White Tail then assured the awe struck Goblins that they could then order Finbad to join them and he would, because he would see the Goblins power at defeating the Beastmen. They could then take on the Empire and be free from hiding from bigger foes. Foes would hide from them!

From the darkness of the woods an unseen watcher smiled and lent on his staff, tired from the spell he had just cast. Gomidja's plan was beginning, he would take Finbad to watch the battle at Skull Rock and from here he would build an army!

Pictures

All done with a poor camera which is unfortunately over harsh on the highlights.

A group photograph of the Orcs' and Goblins' ready for war.

Finbad with Harboth's archers in the background

Above is Finbad the Unrepentant with Harboths archers who joined his army in the interest of violence and looting. Harboth's archers were a Christmas present in about 1989. I never painted them until I started collecting Orcs' and Goblins' a few years ago. They are one of a few links in this army to my past gaming.

A Black Orc hero and White Tail, the shaman who thinks he is general

I basically built the platform for White Tail to give the impression of grandeur and the potential for magic power. All of this is borrowed from Gamidja who has his own (non- Orcish) aims and oacts but needs an army that would not follow him alone. Finbad is also Gamidjas puppet but is manipulated differently with Gomidja persuading him that they both have the same aims.

Lunarus, forge world shaman and one of my favourite miniatures.

The army is very strongly shamans. I noticed this as I painted it, but it fits with the narrative I'm developing for my battles with unseen and unknown power struggles between magic users of all races being partly behind all battles. This is above even some generals who never truly understand the wars they fight.

Red Back

Finally a shot of Red Back, the model that I got form my wife for my birthday three years ago that re-started my Orc and Goblin collection. The photgraph definitely doesn't do it justice and I will eventually get some better daylight ones done. I used an airbrush for the first time while painting this and I learnt quite a bit about painting as I did it. It is not the best thing I've painted, but  it is the largest and it showed me how inspiring some of games Workshops modern models are, despite what some older gamers say. In the bottom left corner are some Nigh Goblin archers. I really didn't want to paint such a big unit in balck. In fact I almost didn't bother with such a big unit but felt it fitted with my idea of how goblins would fight. In the ed I used brown in instead of black since I felt it gave a better, more gritty look and seperates them from the cartooney image of Night Goblins in 4th. and 5th. edition.

I won't list the exact army here, since, as I mentioned, I am still trying to work out how to play games based on third edition rules with some models that did not exsist in that version. There for there is not an exact list or points values. But then who needs point values, this is narrative gaming with each model and unit having it's own story!