[RRtK] Goblins, Goblins, marching up and down

It took a little longer than I anticipated, but I finally finished the bulk of my Goblin Army for Rally Round the King, as well as a chunk of the Mountain Giant Army. The majority of the Goblin figures are from Baccus 6mm - a couple of packs of infantry and a pack of wolf riders, as well as a command pack and a sheet of flags.

Goblin Army in all its glory, plus Mountain and Hill Giants on the grey bases at the back.

60 cavalry or 120 infantry per pack sounds a lot, and it is, but Baccus produce nice figures, and I soon worked out a way of painting the strips relatively quickly. The fiddliest part was the cutting up of the figure strips to mount on the bases.

As the wolf riders are "light cavalry", I went with six figures to the base, which gave me 10 bases - about twice the number I need for the basic army list. I hadn't notice initially but the wolf riders contain a mixture of figures with shields, figures without shields, and figures with shields slung over their backs. This variety, plus staggered mounting on the unit base, allowed me to create an over-all "loose" or "undisciplined" look, which was what I was after.

L to R: Irregular Ogres, Baccus Goblin wolf riders. Baccus Goblin infantry in the background.

I found that 14 infantry, in two rows of seven, produced the nicest fit for my 40mm x 20mm bases. The two packs of Goblin Infantry - 240 figures - therefore produced 17 bases/elements with two figures left over. The sheet of 12 flags neatly matched the 12 command strips (six in each Infantry pack) and I produced several "infantry only" elements to allow me to field double-depth "attack columns" of Goblins if I so wished.

I replaced the standard bearers' flag staffs with staffs cut from high tensile quilting pins as the thin, lead staffs had all bent in shipping and obviously wouldn't survive much handling. It proved impossible to drill out the standard bearers' hands to take the new staffs, but careful positioning and painting pretty much hides the fact that the new staffs have been added.

Each Infantry strip comes with one speargoblin and three goblins with swords - each swordgoblin is slightly different, either having a different shield type or different sword. I put all the speargoblins into separate units as I could create a uniformed and disciplined look with them. The Black Moon Goblins of Rally Round the King are more organized than the run-of-the-mill line filler. And then I played around with the swordsgoblins to create a more irregular look for the bulk of the line units. A little splash of colour on some of the shields pretty much finished them off. Skin colour-wise, I opted for a tan, preferring Tolkien to Games Workshop as my point of reference.

Goblins from Baccus 6mm

The Rally Round the King Goblin Army also includes Ogres and archers - neither of which Baccus produces - so I recruited some Ogres from Irregular Miniatures 6mm Fantasy line (sourced from Eureka Miniatures in Australia), and some Lesser Goblin Archers (from the same source). The Irregular Ogres are quite nice, though only in one pose, and have a little goblinoid riding their shoulders like a mahout. I gave my ogres a grey-blue skin colour, implying a possibly photophobic, night-haunting cannibal monster type.

Ogres from Irregular Miniatures.

The Lesser Goblin Archers were a little disappointing, resembling little, bow-armed, bundles of laundry. I also got my numbers wrong with them - I assumed that they would deploy en mass and ordered enough strips to make put up several elements with 10 or so figures per element. I then realized that Goblin archers deploy as skirmishers so I only needed five figures per element.

Lesser Goblin Archers from Irregular Miniatures.

I am thinking of reworking the Goblin list so I might include the option to field low REP massed archers, such as the Lesser Goblins.

L to R: Lesser Goblin Archers from Irregular, Goblin General, champions and wizards from Baccus, Mountain Giant from Microworld Games at rear.

The Goblin command pack from Baccus included some real gems. The General rides in a two-wolf chariot - he actually looks a lot like an Etruscan or Villanovan with his spear and spiked helmet. There are two wizards or magic-users including one with an enormous hat (I painted it blue, as you do), two foot champions - one with a two-handed sword as long as he is tall - and a champion mounted on a wolf.

L to R: Goblin Wizard, Goblin Champion, Goblin Magic User from Baccus 6mm.

They are nice figures with lots of character and seeing the General's chariot got me thinking about adding a chariot option to the Goblin Army list which, to me, meshes in well with the generally slightly anarchic, slightly archaic nature of Goblin technology.

Earth Giant from Microworld Games

While working on my Goblins, I managed to finish a group of figures for my Mountain Giant Army. The inspiration for this army came from seeing the Microworld Games Earth Giant. The Earth Giant is not cheap - $US5 for one figure is crazy for 6mm, but the Earth Giant stands about 25mm tall. The Earth Giant became Thrym, the Mountain Giant and King of the Giants in Jotunheim. As a sentient mountain, I painted him up in earth shades and added a little flock to him. I went for a barren, shale-like base finish to give the impression that the giants were coming down off the bare mountain tops and high ice fields.

To Thrym, I added some giants from Irregular Miniatures - the two headed giant and some Hill Giants. I'm not so happy with the two headed giant. I made his skin blue but I think I'll move it more towards grey and make him a Storm Giant.

Thrym and the Two-headed Storm Giant

The Hill Giants are the most humanoid of the giants and I painted them up like gargantuan peasants or vikings.

Goblins from Baccu 6mm and Hill Giants from Irregular Miniatures

The Mountain Giant Army also includes trolls and ogres - I already have a couple of Irregular ogres for the Goblin Army and have picked up some more for the Giant Army. The Irregular trolls are rather disappointing being essentially one, rather odd, pose.

Irregular Trolls in front of Microworld Earth Giant and Irregular Two-headed Giant.

I've just seen Microworld's Dread Ogres from their new Dark Alliance range, and this has decided my choice of figures for both my Dark Elf Army (Microworld's Dread Elves) and more trolls.

To be painted: the balance of my Men of the West Army/Army of Valgasmaa from Irregular; Beastmen Army from Microworld Games.

Incoming: Irregular Medieval and Early Renaissance figures for my League of Foranimenagii Army

Planned: Dark Elves (Microworld's Dread Elves); Dwarves (probably Microworld); Orcs (Irregular)