Aporcalypse Redo

Updating my Orcs & Goblins army
I have had a greenskin army since, well, before I actually started playing FB - the origins are in my Warhammer Quest days and I have always loved the greenies. Now, with the new version of the army book, I thought the time good for a redo and update. I'll add some (well, a lot) of models (mainly through two half-sets of Skull Pass) and fiddle around with some older units (mainly rebasing them so that they match my Ogre Kingdoms army.

The goal is to have 2500 pts of updated army ready for a tournament in march 2007. This includes new models painted as well as older models who have received a touch-up-


These are the new elements to be added to the horde:

- Black Orc Warboss on boar
Converted Borgut Facebeater with the legs of a Boar Boy. At least one arm will also undergo reconfiguration, as two choppas are not useable on a boar.
Status: Have components. Planning conversion

- Black Orc Battle Standard Bearer on boar
Converted Black Orc unit standard bearer with legs of a Boar Boy. Banner is from the Ogre Bull command sprue. Several other bitz are also being used.
Status: Conversion WIP

- Orc Shaman on boar
Old Wurrzag model with variant head (from Savage Orc Boar Boy command), painted up to look more like a 'normal' Orc and not so savage.
Status: Have components

- Night Goblin Big Boss on foot with hand weapon and shield
Old(ish) metal Night Goblin Shaman without the staff and instead having the left hand holding a squig from the Skull Pass Big Boss. Old plastic shield attached to back.
Status: Conversion WIP.

- Night Goblin Big Boss on foot with great weapon and shield
Skull Pass Big Boss with new left hand holding old plastic shield. Resculpted robes and will probably have more bitz added to actually make him look like a character.
Status: Conversion WIP

- Night Goblin Shaman on foot
Skull Pass Shaman, will probably undergo a bit of conversion work to make him more unique.
Status: Clipped from sprue.


- 30 Orc Boyz with choppas, shields and full command
Mix of 5th edition plastic set, 6th edition starter set, metal bitz from other O&G sets and misc. plastics
Status: Assembly WIP

- 30 Night Goblins with spears, shields and musician
Skull Pass, will do some minor converting to make the unit more varied
Status: Clipped from sprues

- 20 Night Goblins with hand weapons, shields and musician
Converted Skull Pass spearmen, probably
Status: Done!


- 20 Night Goblins with hand weapons, shields and musician
Converted Skull Pass spearmen, probably
Status: Done!


- 20 Night Goblins with short bows and musician
Skull pass. Need to convert up two replacement models due to not wanting a standard and boss
Status: Done!


- 20 Night Goblins with short bows and musician
Skull pass. Need to convert up two replacement models due to not wanting a standard and boss
Status: Clipped from sprue

- 4 Night Goblin Fanatics
Convert from spare Skull Pass models
Status: Still considering ideas.

- 5 Forest Goblin Spider Riders with spears, shields and musician
Slightly converted Skull Pass models, to make them look more disorganised and messy.
Status: Conversion WIP

- 5 Forest Goblin Spider Riders with spears, shields and musician
Slightly converted Skull Pass models, to make them look more disorganised and messy.
Status: Clipped from sprue

- 5 Forest Goblin Spider Riders with spears, shields and musician
Slightly converted Skull Pass models, to make them look more disorganised and messy.
Status: Still on sprue

- 2 Trolls
From Skull Pass set. Both converted to a greater or lesser degree.
Status: One clipped from sprue, the other still on sprue.


Some of the above are from Skull Pass (I got one set for my birthday and traded the dwarfs for another set of goblins with a friend of mine), the others are models that have been lying around the bitz box for some time now.

Looking like fun Avian! Im watching!! lol

Great cave squig? I didn't see that while looking through the new O&G book...

PS: I will be following this log too!

 - Kyte

It is a nw mount option with more or less normal "small monster" stats, though it cannot join a unit and neither it or the rider can get much of an armour save, so I don't have a lot of expectations for it. I have some ideas for the conversion, but nothing definite yet. The squig itself will be more or less scratch built, and the rider taken from my existing collection.

September 10.
I had my first battle with the new list yesterday against the Dwarfs (and I would have gotten a draw, had I not shot my own General with an unlucky Rock Lobber scatter).

My list:

Orc Warboss
-Akk'rit Axe
-Spiteful Shield
-Big Boss's 'At
-Boar

Orc Bigboss
-Sword of Might
-Amulet of Protectyness
-Battle standard

Black Orc Big Boss
-Iron Gnashas

Goblin Big Boss
-One Hit Wunda
-Brimstone Bauble
-Light armour and shield
-Wolf

30 Orc Boyz
-Choppa, shield & full command

29 Orc Big 'Uns
-Spear, shield & full command
-War Banner

25 Night Goblins
-Spears and musician

20 Night Goblins
-Short bows and musician

20 Night Goblins
-Short bows and musician

25 Common Goblins
-Shields and musician

5 Wolf Riders
-Spears and musician

5 Wolf Riders
-Spears and musician

5 Wolf Riders
-Short bows and musician

3 Snotling bases

2 Snotling bases


20 Black Orcs
-Standard, musician and Waaagh! Banner

2 Rock Lobbers
-Bullies

6 Squig Hoppers

Doom Diver
-Bully

2 Pump Wagons



The game started very well, with my opponent first rolling a 1 when attempting to strike the Rune of Wrath on his Anvil and then rolling a second 1, blowing up the Anvil and the Rune Lord. His other artillery all missed. Go Orcs!

My army rushed across the field, much faster than I'm used to due to the altered Animosity rules, though when we got into contact my luck deserted me and I got bogged down over most of the line, doing very little damage.

High points was my Goblin Suicide Bomber taking out half a unit of Hammerers by himself and one Stone Thrower splatting my own General with an unlucky scatter.


Learning points:
- Army is now much faster than before, though not all parts will move at the same speed, despite same M.

- Expensive infantry units got worse, due to their cost coming up much more than their boosted abilities justify. Less Black Orcs and Big 'Uns and more basic Boyz seems to be the way to go.

- Goblins on foot are a bit pointless, since they are now more expensive and gain less from the rule alterations than orcs do (they don't have choppas, won't Waaagh! very much and you don't want to place Black Orcs with them to Quell animosity). I'll continue using them for a while, but if they don't improve they may well get a choppa to the neck.

- Goblins on Wolves are still good, though more suicidal due to the new Animosity rules.

- Squig Hoppers were a bit odd (how do you change formation with them?). May be better on a wider table (this one was only about 4.5' wide)

- Snots did not do anything much, again due to a lack of room

- Putting characters on boars are very tempting. My General rampaged through the dwarf artillery and saved the lads from being shot up too much. I have a converted BSB on a Boar waiting to be done and it's tempting to make a Black Orc character on a boar as well. With my Warboss on a boar, I think I will remove his back banner, so he won't be confused with a mounted BSB, when I make some touch-ups to him.



New battle tomorrow against Mr. Duckass!

good good! I hope to see some pics soon, but I know that "soon" can take a while.

BTW, how did you get 2 pet gnoblars?

 - Kyte

I think Avian got them for his awesome articles and mini games.
I enjoyed those a lot.

September 12.

What is a Pet Gnoblar anyway?

Anyway, I defeated Mr. Duckass' Chaos guys yesterday. The game started very well (for me), with my orctillery flattening his Dragon in turn 1 and forcing his General to run around on foot for the rest of the game (since he had the "wrong" mark, he couldn't join any of the nearby units!

Then, on turn 2, my Goblin Big Boss charges the Chosen Knights of Nurgle on his own. I figure that he'll kill a knight, get killed in return and blow up some more knights, but no. Gittaka kills two knights and the remaining knight in contact with him fails to even hit. They don't have a standard, so they lose the combat, fluff their break test and run! Sadly they are not run down, but they fail to rally next turn (he didn't have a musician either!) and flee off the table. Even better, the Knights breaking cause the nearby Warriors to flee as well!
Go Gittaka da Glorious!

Of course, my luck turned later and my lads kept failing an annoying amount of Fear tests to charge the Nurgle-worshippers. In my last turn, I had three units set to combo-charge the last few Warriors. What happens?
- My General's unit fails its Animosity test
- My Trolls fail their Stupidity test*
- My lone Goblin Big Boss fails his Fear test
Three tests where I had a 5/6th chance of passing on each and I fail all of them! Damn, damn, damn!
On a brighter side, a moment later a Fanatic span through the enemy unit, killing five of the six Warriors. That made up for quite a bit of it.




Anyway, my list was the following:

Orc Warboss
-Akk'rit Axe
-Spiteful Shield
-Big Boss's 'At
-Boar

Orc Bigboss
-Sword of Might
-Amulet of Protectyness
-Battle standard

Night Goblin Shaman, lvl 1
-Staff of Sneaky Stealing

Goblin Big Boss
-One Hit Wunda
-Brimstone Bauble
-Wolf

30 Orc Boyz
-Choppa, shield & full command

29 Orc Big 'Uns
-Spear, shield & full command
-Mork's Spirit-totem

30 Night Goblins
-Spears and musician
-1 Fanatic

20 Night Goblins
-Short bows and musician
-1 Fanatic

20 Night Goblins
-Short bows and musician
-1 Fanatic

30 Common Goblins
-Shields and musician

5 Wolf Riders
-Spears and musician

5 Wolf Riders
-Spears and musician

5 Wolf Riders
-Short bows and musician

3 Snotling bases

3 Snotling bases


2 Spear Chukkas

Rock Lobber
-Bully

2 Orc Boar Chariots

Doom Diver
-Bully

2 Trolls


Learning points:
- Mounted characters are great and helps overcome the lack of mobility a mostly pedestrian greenskin army lacks

- Using Orcs instead of Ogres is really frustrating at times. Ogres don't have to pass both an Animosity test and a Fear test to charge some miserable Nurgle boys.

- I think I screwed up my deployment quite a bit and should probably have swapped my Boyz and Big 'Uns, though admittedly the Big 'Uns were deployed to face the nasty Chaos units on his right flank, which all died or fled, as it turned out. Hah!

- My 200-and-something pts spent on archers managed to kill a Marauder. The same amount of points spent on artillery killed a Dragon and a Chariot.
(I also managed to hit hit Lord with a bolt thrower, but annoyingly failed to wound)

- I really lack something to handle flyers. I thought I'd use fanatics, but they did depressingly little damage to the Furies.

- Snots were deployed badly and should have been sneaking up the flanks to capture more table quarters


* Those damn Trolls failed three out of six Stupidity tests on Ld9! Argh, argh, argh!

As the person on the other side of the table I thought I'd give my view

Dice rolls were pretty erratic throughout. First my runelord blew up, then my BSB got splattered by a lowly orc BSB in a challenge(learning point, BSBs carrying the Rune of Stromni Redbeard should never challenge, whatever the odds). On the other hand, Avians Black orc Big boss did a solo charge on a bolt thrower, got slapped around by the crew a bit, and then shot in the back for his troubles when trying to flee . After the warlord was flattened by his own Lobba and the big'unz and BSB got stomped into the dust by the longbeards, there was no characters left on the table...

Quite a fun battle. I still have a grugde to settle with the regular orc ladz, although I have a feeling they will be bringing more of their buddies next time.

Overall I see the new O&G book as a lost opportunity. All the abusive builds are removed , but lots of units in the new book aren't competetively viable, simple as that. Rather dissapointing really, when compared to the excellent dwarf and wood elf books. On the upside, it looks really fun to face off against. Ah well, ready them hammers, sons of Grugni, it's time to crack some common orc skull!

I've got to agree with this. So many of the changes seem very arbitrary and discourage units that neither were or are particularly powerful.

And there is no benefit to theming your force either.
*sigh*


In other news: It's my birthday! Hurrah!

Have a good one Avian! 

Enjoying your green log too.
My brother has just started a goblin army so I will be facing them quite often in the near future. 
Always thought of it as a fun army to play with and against.

Thanks, you, thank you, thank you

September 15.
Woohoo! I got Battle for Skull Pass from my brother for my birthday! Yay!
In fact, I got nothing but schweet stuff for my birthday - I must have been really good this year! Louise even bought me a digicam, which I've been wishing for for years now. Now I can take pics of my minis using my own camera.
Go me!


Onto Skull Pass:
It has a tiny little rulebook, which I think is great, because I couldn't stand lugging the heavy hardback 6th edition one around. I will probably laminate it or something, to make it more durable. It also came with a little introductory booklet which failed to explain what some of the more odd things one the sprues are and didn't have much in the way of scenarios. Oh, well, I guess it's only meant for complete noobs, but I was hoping for something vaguely challenging for us old timers.

The minis are quite nice, but I was really surprised about the goblins. I was expecting them to be smaller than the 5th/6th edition multipart plastics, but these guys are even smaller than my 4th edition gobbos! They are tiny, probably smaller than gnoblars!

Anyway, my plan is to mix in a few odd models (squigs, old metal goblins, etc.) in the unit, both to make them more varied, to make up for the fact that I probably won't be using standards and bosses with my gobbos and to get a chance to use some of my old models that have been lying in the bitz box for years.

Man, this sounds just so wrong - like something the orc missus would say to her orc hubby ...

September 16.
I've done a bit of clipping things off the sprues and thinking on how to assemble them. I would really like to do something with the spider riders instead of just having them run along the ground, so I shall try to have them crawling over terrain and suchlike. I'm considering basing some of them in pairs on 50 mm square bases, which will give me some more choice in that regard, though it will probably still be difficult as the spiders fill their bases pretty much to the edges. We shall see.

I like the Idol of Mork and was wondering if there might be something it could be used for in my army, standing in for some unit type instead of just being scenery. having quickly dismissed anything that moves around too much, I hit on the idea of counting it as a Doom Diver. This was inspired by the Lizardman Engine of the Gods from the Lustria book, which is an arcane divice that calls down small comets, counting as a Stone Thrower. Mine would be less technological and more religious and the reasoning was that the goblins worshiping at the idol would call down the foot of Mork on their enemies. This would be a bit different from the spell Foot of Gork, but since Waaagh! magic now has the Gaze of Gork alongside the Gaze of Mork, I thought it would be suiting.

As "crew", I'll probably use some spare goblin models, quite possibly some Forest Goblins I have lying around (I had 15 in 5th edition, which was too few for a unit in 6th edition). This would also fit with the more primitive image and give me an excuse for artillery in more savage greenskin armies.

Thoughts?


EDIT: And the Troll is a bit on the small side as well.

In any case, I am starting with the Spider Riders, since they are the only type of model I don't have heaps of already. On second inspection, it seemed reasonably easy to separate the legs and reposition them. Problem is, as mentioned, that they pretty much fill their base, but it could be possible to get more room if I elevate parts of the models, so that they are crawling a bit more all over the place and don't move around in an orderly formation.

I've got a battle coming up on monday against (Chaos?) Dwarfs and I'm trying to think of something interesting to do with Shamans, now that they have gutted the Arcane section of the army book. Five items, none between 10 and 40 pts. Two are seriously overcosted, two are seriously stupid and one is okay but dull. Bah!

Here's a thread on warseer about easy dynamic spider rider conversions:
http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=48857

for the idol, I'd change the big moon on top of it with the weight from the stone lobba and use it as an Efigy og Mork... or was it Gork?

Anyway, good luck with the project.

I've painted up a SkullPass troll too (for my cousin) I find that it isn't that horrible as people says.

Hope it helps!

 - Kyte