Waaagh! Meet Again...

One thing about an Orc & Goblin army ... there's always more of them.

Kill of the Hill: Night Goblins vs Wood Elves

 The Old World beckons again!

Wood Elves vs Night Goblins!

WoffBoot us, every one

'Tis the season for Games Workshop's traditional novelty miniature and, this time, they hooked me.

A Nice Cup Of Grognog!

On the twentieth day of Advent the WoffBoot brought to me ... a wee snifter to keep out the cold.

Don't worry, he won't bite.
Just bark.

Mugs at the ready!

Festive Balls

On the sixteenth day of Advent the WoffBoot brought to me ... a door with a lovely set of knockers.

Feel free to play the Benny Hill theme in your head.

But these are no ordinary balls. These balls have Night Goblins on the end of them.

Stikka Album

... or are Stikkas meant to be archers? Well, for the purpose of a good pun, let's assume goblin spears are the ones they call 'Stikkas'

You find a good pun, you Stikk to it.

This is the second of my Night Goblin originals. They served me well for many 6th Ed battles, but as with the archers, the time has come to repaint them.

Oddgit and Upchuck

So we SkypeBooted last week (battle report impending) and lending Kraken my greenskin army meant I was forced to hasten, not just the wyvern warboss, but also a couple of other extra models. Starting with two night goblin shaman:

In the end, he only fielded one of them: a cruel trick to make me paint faster.

Hoppity Goes to Town: Moonclan Grots vs Chaos Mortals

Prologue

Hopslat da Bold looked up at the pink sun that washed the Realm of Chaos, counted the hours on his fingers, and wished he knew how to tell the time from looking at the sun. Or how to count, for that matter.

"We iz running late," he guessed, and clambered back on top of his Giant Cave Squig, an affectionate beast who already already devoured two herders, three lesser squigs and answered to the name of 'Bouncing' Betty.

The rest of the Moonclan raid bustled past him, a dozen grots trying to corral more than twice their number of squiggly beasts, including a couple of massive Manglers, who were being sedated with the last of their Nightcap Mushrooms.

"Humies in da treeline!" Da Knights of Shiitake, who had been hopping ahead as scouts, now hopped back to call warning. Panic rippled through the grots as they fumbled for weapons among forage bags bulging with their freshly-stolen shrooms.

It had been a little cheeky, Hopslat had to admit, to go scrumping mushrooms in the backyard of Chaos, but they were almost home free. Get through the forest at the far end of this field and their shaman would be waiting to zap them back home.

"Get yer 'eads down!" Hopsplat ordered. "An' stampede!"

Prod Its Back And Hold On Tight!

It's All-Skype Fight Night!

After a brief summer hiatus, the battle reports return, and with it, the Age of Sigmar. I, Stylus, shall be as Grotty as plain text can manage.

And I, Kraken, veteran of a thousand some write-ups, shall boldly write in bold!

Scenarios are, by all accounts, the way to go in AoS, and with a stampede of squigs to contend with, the 'Breakthrough' scenario seemed a good fit.

Essentially, my 'Invading' force has to get off the opposite end of the board, with a victory spectrum that ranges from one-third (major victory to me) to none (major victory to the 'Blocking' force).

Each commander has a special heroic ability that can speed up, or slow down, the invading forces, and the game is a random length, starting from the end of Turn 5 (and definitely ending by Turn 7).

Can the Forces of Chaos stop the terrible Squigalaunche? Read on!

Boiing! Boiing!

And with this model, I conclude my squigmania...

"G'day. My name's Bruce..."

My first purchase from Forge World, and I can't say I'm disappointed. The Night Goblin Command Set comes with three models, and while I'll get around to the Battle Standard and Shaman eventually, it was the Night Goblin Warboss on a Great Cave Squig that really drove my purchase.

Boiing!

I'm bouncing along with hobby enthusiasm at the moment (and I'll credit Age of Sigmar for that). This hasn't been matched with blog updates, because my painting desk is currently stuffed with half-finished tasks. But I finally got one unit to completion.

Rataplan! Rataplan!

Unit Filler: "Oops!"

There are some who regard unit fillers as a way to bulk out units and avoid painting models. I think I've gone the other way: I removed 5 already-painted night goblins from this regiment just so I could fit in my little diorama.

"Hey, I found your arrow!"

Of Mycelium And Men

"...the last battle of our time."

The universe may be crashing in around us, but there's still some 8th Ed to be played. In this case, a green-on-green clash between my goblins and Kasfunatu's orcs (coming to a SkypeBoot near you at the end of this week).

My progress has been slow (or rather, sporadic - uncharacteristically, I have a half-dozen unfinished projects going on) and the goblin army I field may not even be fully painted (it truly is the End of All Things!), but I'll always try to bring something new to a SkypeBoot.

And who better to paint up than the campaign commander himself: Blacktoe!

Such a fungi to have around.

The Night Swatch

I'm difficult to buy presents for (what can you get the man who already has a cupboard full of unpainted lead?), but Mrs Stylus hit upon the perfect gift: a whole day to myself for painting.

Not knowing where to begin, I decided I'd like to finish a whole unit in one go, and the best way of doing that was to repaint an old Night Goblin unit.

So here are some before-and-after shots:

Fanatics: New Balls

Liberated from a WoffBoot deadline, I'm back to flitting around my leadpile. At the moment, Night Goblins are getting my attention.

This instance started off as just a repair job on a snapped fanatic, but a few touch-ups became a full repaint job so quickly, I forgot to take my usual 'before' picture. But they looked something like this:

The bases are kept steady with 2p pieces glued to the bottom.
Proof that my collection is worth at least 6p.

The goblins above belong to a different regiment, but aside from the hoods, they are exactly the same colour scheme: a deep green that seems too verdant for my pasty-faced Night Goblins.

Spiky balls.

Meet The Mangles

Ahhh... the classic Neighbours family: Joe, Mrs, that hippy, and Bouncer. Bouncer!

You know, after Kylie and Jason, this was probably the show's most popular blonde.

In the quiet hours of painting, and when I'm not reliving 1990s soap opera exports, I've come to the conclusion that the Mangler Squig is one of GW's sharpest marketing moves in recent years...

It's a nice-looking model, it has some killer rules ... but £36 for what is essentially a throwaway exocet missile? Scandalous!

However, the two-squig model separates effortlessly, and with the addition of another 60mm base, you suddenly have two Mangler Squigs, and one in the eye for our Nottingham overlords!

Hence the genius part: GW have got me paying £18 each for two 65pt units, and convinced me that it's a really good idea.

But I can't begrudge them much: I love the look of the models and have been hankering to paint them for a long while. With a little Christmas money to splash around (and the threat of the entire range going down the End Times pooper), I decided to treat myself.

Round bases. I'm way ahead of y'all.

Just In The Squig Of Time

These killer tomatoes were actually completed last month (and that's important, as I was counting on them to push me over the top of my painting tally), but I only got around to photographing them now (I was waiting for some good sunlight ... and it's January).

And so here, for all you mycologists out there, are the final six specimens:

Horny Squig

Mines of Morag: Night Goblins vs Warriors of Chaos

Prologue

Shroom peered over the cauldron, burying his face in the green steam like he was peering through a curtain. There were great disturbances in the outside world: old powers rising and new calamities in store. If the Word of Mork was to be believed, even their own underground caves would not be spared.

"Wocher, Shroom," Blacktoe sauntered up. "Got a cup a' fungus brew fer me?"

Shroom handed a beaker of viscous liquid to his warboss, who downed it in one gulp.

"Tintoof's lads say a bunch of humies fought their way into our mines," he said, wiping his chin. "Smashed through da western gate and chased off all da guards. Cowardly gits."

The warboss looked pointedly at Shroom for an explanation. Blacktoe might be sneaky and cowardly and possessed of many fine goblin virtues, but he relied on the great shaman for strategic insight. Shroom leaned over the cauldron once more and pinched the bridge of his long nose, sending out two streams of snot into the mixture.

"Dey are humies of da ruinous powers," Shroom examined the yellow trails in the mixture. "Same ones dat gave Bonekrunk's Waaagh! a good hiding a few weeks ago."

Blacktoe chuckled at the thought. Everyone south of Mad Dog Pass had enjoyed a good laugh at the Savage Warboss' expense. "Why have dey come 'ere?"

Three floating bogeys arranged themselves into a triangle and the truth was revealed to Shroom in strange words. "Dey want to capture da Well of Corruption."

"Wot? Da fountain in the vaults dat makes all the lads sick when dey get close?"

"Da very one."

"Well, if dey want it, so do we." Blacktoe hitched up his belt. "Let's wake up da squigs."

---

Mind the Stalactite!

It's All-Skype Fight Night!

Just For The Craic

I once heard a tale that Post-It Notes were an accidental invention, created by a scientist who was looking for a super-strong adhesive and instead came up with a removable one (presumably on little squares of yellow paper).

I like to think the same was true of the new Technical Paint, the 'cracked surface' Agrellan Earth.

"Damn it Jenkins! What are we supposed to do with paint that cracks when it dries?"

I also understand that there was a problem with the initial batch of paints, which actually did not to crack. Resulting in a lot of frustrated customers who had to watch paint dry in the normal, smooth way, and not appreciating the irony one bit.

Duly assured that I was buying the right kind of defective paint, I helped myself to a pot. And when the Night Goblins appeared on my assembly line, I took the opportunity to try it out.

Merry Squigmas

It’s been a slow month for painting. (Slow for me, that is. Kraken seems determined to repopulate Naggaroth single-handed. Special rule: Always Paints First).

I have not been completely idle with progress. Although anyone expecting more defenders of Athel Loren will discover I got a bit distracted.