Battalion box leftovers

Hi all.

First, I am not Candycake, I am her dad. My son got in to WHFB last year and she now wants to join in too but, typically for her wants ogres rather than something nice and girly so....

My daughter's OK bat box will arrive shortly. I will be making up the models and wonder what is left over as there were a lot of left overs from my son's HEs. Are there any spare Gnoblars as  I have scratch built a gunpowder Scraplauncher for her and it needs crew ? Can I make up a bruiser from the left over bulls/ironguts? I guess that the shortfall will be on bodies/trunks for that.

I have also seen some female ogre conversions on here and any tips on how to do that would be gratefully received.


Along with the bat box I have ordered a butcher too. Will this give her enough for a bit of a game against my sons elves ( he is currently at about 1250-1500 pts but would obviously play smaller army). I ask because his Bat box really did not quite get him enough for anything like a decent battle although I suspect that to be down to the fact that HEs are a bit more of an "elite army".

Ta much.

Let's see how I can help...

1) there are plenty of spare gnoblars on the sprues in a batallion box in addition to the 20+ you get in it, certainly enough for a small crew (only 3 or 4 needed really).

2) It is possible to get near to 1000 points of gores out of a batallion box if you're careful and do some conversions - check out an article by a member called stering in the feeding grounds section who details the best way to go about it

here's a link to it http://ogrestronghold.com/forum/index.php?topic=8166.0

3) check out vichor's work on female ogres - he's the best I've seen at it.

does your daughter have a school club she could join, they may also be able to help her out there...

Thanks, wildcard. Shame pics are down on Sterlings post.

No, there is no school club. Number one son goes to a club on a sunday and although my daughter is strictly below their age range I may sneak her in now and again otherwise it's GW for her.

My suggestion (Not knowing your financial state or your GreenStuff ability) would be to take the Ogres from your Bat Box and simply put a skirt on the Ogres after your assembled them. Then when your painting them add some guady make-up (Overdone lip stick, eye shadow, and blush) should give off the feminine feel. Well, as feminine as your going to get with an Ogre. It should be a real simple conversion (Make a Pancake, cut out a hole in the middle, apply to waist, let it dry, paint. [For the skirt]) and the rest really relies on your painting skill. THere is a GW model of a female Ogre you can direct purchase from the GW online store, as well as a Reaper Model Female Ogre Shaman that could do the trick if you have the $$$ for em. I'm sure if you watched Ebay you could find those and more within the next month or so. Again, I make these suggestions not knowing your income or your artistic ability.

I dont know how realistic or humorous you want these Ogres to be for your daughter but if your really froggy you can find old doll house furniture (Vaccums, brooms, rolling pins, Large Frying pans, ect) to equip your female Ogres with to give them more of the stereotype. Help bring out the gender change. Again, Ebay would be a great resource to find these "weapons" if your so inclined.

Whatever you decide theres plenty of left over arms, weapons, heads, and decoration in the Bat. box after you've completed assembling all your Ogres and to convert one or two to a Butcher, Tyrant, Bruiser shouldnt be a problem at all. All the bodies are the same so its really just the parts you glue onto them that defines their role.

Good luck and post some pics when ya get a chance!


***UGH! I cant believe I didnt think of this before! Some GREAT conversions to attempt to make your daughters Ogres a bit more.... well.... gentle? is right here on this forum! Wildcard has made some incredible conversions that should inspire you to make some Ogres Your daughter is proud to field. The Tooth Fairy, The Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, ect. All with WIP pics and fully painted end products! Heres the link. I hope this helps. http://ogrestronghold.com/forum/index.php?topic=4631.0

LoL, he didn't think of it himself (or is too modest to show his ogres)

Best way to make a bruiser at smaller games to my opinion is to take an irongut and make him more a leader by putting on more armour an painting him more a leader ( gold on places where others have metal and other colors for pants)

BTW, welcome to the stronghold to you and your daughter.

the Tinkerbull and the Feaster Bunny aren't female though (tinkerbull has a beard!).

So does the Female Maneater, if I'm not mistaken. >_>

true - but that's a fake one

Thanks for the tips and the welcome.

Yes, I am under some instructions to feminise some of the ogres and to make sure that the males are in touch with their feminine sides too. So far her Scrap launcher is a big rusty Cannon affair with a crudely painted flower on the side and a "smilie" on the giant harpoon sticking out of the barrel. The fluff is that these are guys who desperatly want to integrate into the wider community but think that the best way to do this is to adopt the trappings of niceness while not understanding that this will not, by itself, gain you acceptance unless you drop the whole ripping people apart thing too. The exception will be the scrappy crew who will be Empire liveried although we have not worked out how they ended up with this rather odd looking cannon/mortar or mixed up with Candycake's Knitting Circle yet.

We have plans for bunches of flowers in the barrels of the leadbelchers (v. 1960's peace movement!) pastel coloured clothing, flower/smilie banners and tatoos etc. We have also been looking at basing with model bunnies, deer etc and sticking the odd flattened ones onto ogre insteps. Obviously their will be a shrek bellower (not original I'm sure but hey! that's what she wants) and I'm being pushed towards a Fiona too although I think that one may be ahead of my modelling skills.

I like the idea of the OTT make up- Sure fire winner. I saw the fairy ogre while lurking and have been instructed to try that out too. I suspect it would have to be a hero as getting it into a unit might be a problem from a wingspan point of view.

I'm ok with Green but not up to the standard of many of you guys here- I did scratch build a Santa-mage for my son's HE army at xmas which received pleasant comments at his club (I have been requested to covert a Trianoc chariot to go with it for next xmas - Reindeer instead of horses runners for wheels etc !) but that is pretty much as far as it goes. I suspect there is more scope with OKs if only because of sheer size. Green stuffing 35mm elves is not easy.

IMO one of the biggest problems with her army will be balance; trying to achieve something unusual and light hearted without turning it into pantomime and losing longevity.

BTW how much difference is there between a Gnob fighter and a trapper from a modelling point of view ? I'm wondering if I will have enough Gnobs to make up some trappers too (for what they're worth).

Thanks

You just gave me the most thought out fluff I've ever read.
I feel very 'hello kitty' with this, and I think Wildcard might consider renameing his ogres to "Wildcard's not so weird ogres"

The great thing with green stuff with ogres is that it doesn't have to be really really smooth ( like high elves) because of the crudeness of the army.

I just got some gnoblar fighters and convert them into trappers, no problem there, especially when you give them some free poses.

Surprisingly the shrek thing has come up multiple times as an idea, but never really got to a concrete case of ogre.
My idea was to have a hunter (shrek) with two sabretusks ( puss and donkey)

What did you mean with balance?
as in game play or something else?

I love the fact that a whole family is involved in this project.

with the battalion box you'll end up with spare gnoblars (especially if you're going to make a unit of 20 and not 24), so enough to have crew for the scrappa and for trappers (just greenstuff some fur on them -very easy to do, BTW- and you have yourself great looking trappers).

If you want a fairy ogre, but cannot rank it properly, make it flying, with a pin attached to the foot, to raise it a little over the other ogres.

I second Lex: what do you mean by "balance"?


cheers

Yes, sorry, I did not mean balance in the gaming sense but artistic balance between something original and amusing and something pantomime that will grate after a few plays.

I love the Hunter shrek- a real hoot! I will stick with my bellower plan as the bald bellower has a look of Shrek about him. Should be easy to file off the ears and greenstuff some new ones.

I hadn't really thought of "the family Project" until you mentioned it. I think my wife finds it all a bit assanine actually although she is a great game fan (Carcasson, settlers of Catan, killer bunnies etc - so not just monopole!). Happily she puts up with me surrounded by paint and glue and the kids having incomprehensible conversations about "Panic tests" and "Combat resolution" while resisting despair at the sight of our ballet dancing, clarinet playing, ponytailed, straight A daughter discussing Gut Magic.

Happily she puts up with me surrounded by paint and glue and the kids having incomprehensible conversations about "Panic tests" and "Combat resolution" while resisting despair at the sight of our ballet dancing, clarinet playing, ponytailed, straight A daughter discussing Gut Magic.

This is what happened to me, this last holydays, while I was playing at our mountain house with my nephew, who recently started playing Warhammer. My mother in law (my nephew's grandma) and his parents were dazed listening to us, speaking phrases like "my cannon ball smashed your IronGut"; "My Bruiser's great weapon landed on your poor miners"; "your bulls paniced and fled 'cause suffered a loss"...


As far as balance, I agree with you: having armies too much themed might "grate after a few plays" (like you said). It happened to me when I did a bretonian centaur army, themed after the Chronicles of Narnia movie came out (some older members will remember Aslan's Army of Narnia); but, while very nice to look at, playing with it, especially in tournament, became a bit difficult, 'cause most people didn't even know what they were going against.

Anyhow, being the ogres your daughter's first army, I suggest to go with the flow, and make them themed and girly looking. what you might do, is make a small army of 1000 pts like that (a battalion box can suffice) and, if the theme holds, proceed with it; if the theme si too "heavy" and unbalanced, change it.

cheers

I agree with Ikim.
You can always make a unit of bulls with just happy colours expanding the feel of the army.
That way you keep a little closer to the army.

Ikim's army of narnia ( I'm one of those older ogres) looked indeed as wood elves with alot of armour (No offense Ikim, you kmow I like the army, right?) and that chance you won't have because of ogres being the army.
You won't confuse an ogre with a goblin, now would you?

If you're alright with green stuff then why not whip up
a bunch of bikini tops for the girl ogres? The ogre bull
bodies are quite ample in that area

If you want another example of female ogres, check out my gnoblog of the Cooksnatcher Tribe here: http://ogrestronghold.com/forum/index.php?topic=2204.0.

My army consists of a mix of male and female ogres, particularly in the rank and file (bulls, ironguts, and leadbelchers).  I have pictures of the female ogres prior to priming (so you can easily see what I added in terms of green stuff, and what involved using existing ogre parts) as well as in various stages of painting through completion.  It was my first use of green stuff and converting models, so it really isn't too difficult to do so.  I used the regular ogre heads, although I "shaved" the heads that had beards or mustaches using a hobby knife, and just added long hair with green stuff to make them more obviously female.

I had already admired your cooksnatcher tribe previously (it was how we discovered this forum actually). Excellent work and, with your permission, I proposed shamelessly to plagiarise a lot of your ideas! I particularly liked the champion and am thinking of a variant of that design for the Bruiser.

I had already admired your cooksnatcher tribe previously (it was how we discovered this forum actually). Excellent work and, with your permission, I proposed shamelessly to plagiarise a lot of your ideas! I particularly liked the champion and am thinking of a variant of that design for the Bruiser.

You don't have to plagiarize at all, I'll gladly give you permission (just remember to post pictures of the results).  Also, the kind of conversions I did were more simple than complex, as I wasn't sculpting faces or anything near as fancy and detailed as vichor's female ogres.  If you have any specific questions regarding how I created my female ogres, feel free to PM me or post your questions to my gnoblog and I'll do my best to help you out!

If you want to replicate what I did with my female ironguts, I would suggest using wire or something other than twine, as the twine can be difficult to paint, particularly when it frays so easily.  I don't know what you would use in place of the Dwarf Thunderer shields (if you don't have any), though, as any shield larger than that is too big.  Perhaps some leftover high elf bitz would work?  It was a benefit that I was helping my brother build up his dwarf army at that time and gave me the opportunity to use the extra bitz.

I hope this helps, and good luck with the army!

Thanks Don, Yes I had my eye on my sons leftover elf bits (oo-er missus).

I wondered about the twine actually. I have just scratch built a gunpowder scrap launcher for CC- It is a stonking great cannon/mortar affair lashed to a weird undercarriage by rope. For the rope I took some thick woven nylon string (it looks like miniature rope and is commonly used on carrier bags from posh boutique stores) and used that. I coated it in layer upon layer of PVA glue before painting it and it went as hard and tough as any plastic while still looking astonishingly like rope. I will post a pic if you like but it is very effective and as tough as old guts. Might be worth trying on your bras!

I wondered about the twine actually. I have just scratch built a gunpowder scrap launcher for CC- It is a stonking great cannon/mortar affair lashed to a weird undercarriage by rope. For the rope I took some thick woven nylon string (it looks like miniature rope and is commonly used on carrier bags from posh boutique stores) and used that. I coated it in layer upon layer of PVA glue before painting it and it went as hard and tough as any plastic while still looking astonishingly like rope. I will post a pic if you like but it is very effective and as tough as old guts. Might be worth trying on your bras!

That is probably the source of the problem, as I didn't do anything to the twine.  Coating it in glue first would probably go a long way to reducing the fraying problem.