Fifty Finished Goblin slaves (with pictures.)

"Which way ladz?"

"That way you Goblin scum!"


Ahem, I mean "I've finally finished my first unit of Goblin slaves".


It took me a week to do them, working pretty much every night for a couple of hours on each stage of the painting process. I would do a base colour on all fifty, then back to the first one etc.


At the beginning of this unit, I realized that I would have to do something to break up the uniform look of these old WFB starter set models. I think I have been partially successful, but only a decent unit filler will really do the trick...
(I have something in mind - Rat Ogre holding the chains of a Goblin Warboss and a squig, all of them being whipped on by a master moulder...)


Here are some photos of the unit. 

50 Goblin Slaves!

Clan Moulder "Cheerleaders" keep up the unit's motivashun.

Snotflikka leading from da' front.

Rats added to the movement tray

"Old bonez" da spearman

Snotflikka 'n friends.

Shoot from the back.

"I feel safer wiv my big choppa"

"We'ze in charge den?"

Here are some things you may have noticed I did with this lot.

1. Replaced a lot of the original spearblades with blades from Skaven weapons.
2. Removed weapon arms and replaced them with Skaven arms and weapons. (Some from the IOB clanrats, some from the Plague monks sprue)
3. Removed the original Goblin icons from their shield bosses  and replaced them with Skaven icons. (From previous edition clanrats)
4. Replaced whole shields with Island of Blood triangular clanrat shields.
5. Added giant rats to some models.
6. Added "regular" rats to some models.
7. Mixed Goblins spearmen with Goblin archers.
8. Used a Skaven standard. 
9. Added Skaven pennants from the Plague Monk set.
10. Added rats to the edge of the movement tray.

Pretty obvious, but still quite a lot of work...


All comments and crit welcome! Thanks for looking.


Cheers,
*Squeek*

Goblin Skaven Slaves update. Part 3

*Squeek*

After giving myself a break from large units by finishing Queek Headtaker, Deathmaster Snikch, and Scar-Scath (Vermin Lord) I think it is time to return to reinforcing the core of my Warlord Clan.
For many Skaven warlords, "Core" probably brings to mind two essential unit types: Clanrats and Skaven Slaves.



Having come into a large number of old Goblin models, I thought it would be great to use them as "counts as" Skaven slaves. After all, the green-things are a constant nuisance to us Skaven, competing with us as they do for control of Dwarven holds, mines, and prime underworld real estate. (I imagine any generals of the lesser-races reading this will think it ironic that we Skaven should think of Goblins as an infestation! But, while infestation they may be, when captured they can prove useful in the vanguard of our armies - or perhaps the cooking pot!)



In two earlier posts (here and then here)  I talked a bit about the simple modelling I did to make the unit look more "Skaveny". I have since added texture to the bases, primed the unit, completed basecoating and highlighting the skin. Basecoating the skin took me 2.5 hours for 40...(so much for speed painting!)

Primed

Basecoat of Calthan Green

Highlights of Calthan Green/ Snot Green

Drybrush with lighter shade of Calthan Green

Now I hardly ever get a game in, so I can't speak with confidence about any personal battlefield experience with my slaves, but the general opinion around the intertunnels is that they are pretty critical to any Skaven army! If possible, they need to be deployed at a minimum of 40-60 troops (any comments on that dear reader?), as this will give them plenty of ranks to stop them running from combat AND allow them to die in droves (exactly what we want so they hold up the enemy unit.)


More updates over the course of this week, at the end of which I hope to have finished up the full unit of 50.


*Squeek*

More filin' n' cuttin'. Goblin Skaven slaves update 2

*Squeek*

So yesterday I started to put together a unit of Goblin Skaven slaves. These gobbo spearman models came from the 4th edition starter set (thanks for the info yesterday Ian!) As I discovered after a days work, they still all looked too uniform due to the static poses.


After sleeping on this problem, I decided today to reduce the number of spears. 
Firstly, I thought that would make them look immediately less uniform. 
Secondly, this would allow me to do more conversions from the bits box with handweapons. Finally, I reckon this would be more in keeping with slaves too.


So here they are after 3 rounds of choppin' and changin'. (Sorry the pics aren't great.)

1. As assembled. Facing diagonally.

2. At the end of day 1. Too many spears!

3. More hand-weapons, less spears.

Overall I think it had worked. The unit feels more rag-tag (at least compared to yesterday). What do you reckon? (Sorry the pics aren't great)


In addition to filing each and every single gobbo head smooth (!) I also spent some more time on individual conversions in the hope that this would give the unit more character and break up the outline if the unit as a whole.

Gobin wiv' special headgear.

'ome made spearrgghh

nice for cuttin' and choppins.

no cleva capshun ere.

Wiv man-trap.

curly-wurly blade.

big choppa

Although I am no great modeler, I am actually quite happy with one or two of them as I think have taken on a character of their own.


I reckon that with the addition of some rats to bases and shoulders I should be done and ready to start adding texture to the bases, and then move onto priming. To take a break I will then go back to Snikch and Queek. (Snikch has some washes on now, so I should finish him tomorrow.)


*Squeek*

Goblin Skaven Slaves. Part 1.

Copyright: Goblin image by8Hungry

*Squeek*


"Green things, your time has come to serve a great-great cause. The Great Horned Rat calls his children to war, and all those that hear the call must answer! Forward...and feel the lash!"

So I have read about (and occasionally seen) on the web "counts as Skaven slaves" units made up of other models. Popular options might include models that look raggedy enough (Empire flagellants) or fit neatly into Skaven lore. Good examples of the latter would be Goblins (as small, or smaller than your average clanrat) and Dwarves ("hates, HATES them we does", said in best Gollum voice.)

When a colleague cleared out his attic and offered me some WFB models he found I offered to take them. What I got was 2-3 boxes worth of old Goblin archers, Spearmen and Orcs, about 35-40 of each. Can anyone identify what edition they are?


At the time I wasn't really sure what to do with them. While Squeek and Snikch were drying today I decided to get out the greenskins. Despite having recently said that I would try to avoid doing large units for a while I immediately wanted to see if i could make these guys into a unit of slaves.

Goblin spearmen

Goblin archers

Some immediate problems presented themselves:

1. Every single model was based at a diagonal. Therefore every single model faced sideways when ranked-up.
2. As an old set, each model was identical in pose and main armament (spear and shield). Great for goblins, not so good for slaves.
3. Spears...a forest of ramrod straight, identical spears. Most sources I read say don't bother with spears on slaves, so I certainly didn't want all of them like that.

So, after opening my bits box and getting out my tools I decided to see what I could do to make them into the rabble I wanted.


Here is how I spent my afternoon.

A.) Cutting each gobbo off their bases with a craft knife, I then filed down the feet and bases and glued them on facing front and center.

B.) I removed 70% of the original goblin shield and replaced them with shields from the latest style clanrats (triangular) and previous generation clanrats (circular).

C.) I clipped, chopped and glued my way through an assortment of spears, hand weapons, pouches and banners to try to vary the unit somewhat.


Here are some examples:

So guess what? I FAILED to make the unit the way I wanted it to...

I think the problem is that even doing all that, the body position is just too static...
...and they are ALL like that, so you can't escape the feeling of immobility that it brings. Also, it would be too time consuming to do something with the shield arm on models where I have removed the shield, but right now those arms just kind of sit there looking weird.


Finally, they look too well-armed (and a little too LONG-armed in some cases) to really be slaves.


What to do? Four possible solutions come to mind:

1. Try mingling some archers in there to mix things up a bit.
2. Add a couple of packmasters.
3. Add some rats to some of the gobbo bases.
4. Create some kind of unit filler of a reasonable size. This would break up the visual profile of the unit and add some appropriate Skaven "DNA" (a spare rat ogre holding onto chains running to the gobbos?)   

Any ideas out there that might be simple to do for a relatively inexperienced modeller like myself?


Cheers,


*Squeek*