Grotty goblins

Or ghouls, more specifically:

Frostgrave and Rangers of Shadow Deep use Gnolls extensively as their proprietary monster type, but in my games I’m using goblins (I blame the manga/anime Goblin Slayer, primarily), using the LoTR Moria goblins I painted ages ago. Needing some ghouls, I figured that the Hobbit Goblin town minis would fit in my world, as goblins that have become diseased cannibals and look a bit gnarly and gribbly. 

I converted a couple to have shoulder armour to make them stand out of the crowd for RoSD scenarios requiring a ghoul champion:

Or is it chieftain? I can’t remember off the top of my head, and my book is in the other room, but you know what I mean.

I also fished this lovely Heresy Miniatures sculpt out of the painting queue where it had languished undercoated for many (many!) years, swapped it into a non-lipped base, and painted him up with the rest to use as a ghoul king (there’s a Frostgrave scenario somewhere with one of those right?)

Such a beautifully detailed sculpt, although I did paint his sculpted testicles as though they were part of his loincloth (which I’m not entirely sure how it stays affixed, it looks like it’s pierced onto his waist…)

And here’s the rest:

Lots of fun painting such a sickly unhealthy skin tone, and then going over with crimson and green washes to make their books and sores look really unpleasant.

I probably didn’t need to paint so many, as I’m likely to encounter somewhere between two and four in my games, but this was the number that came in the lot I bought on eBay so I figured I’d do them all at the same time just in case, and all else failing that’s a ready to go warband for another game.

As ever, here’s a terribly out of focus posed shot of my Frostgrave Knight having a very bad day:

And some behind the scenes shots showing that I’ve largely sub-contracted set dressing and posing for these things:

Painting these beings the Tally to:

65 vs 47 = +18

Or at least it would have, if not for the postman…

I forget how I found myself thinking about Warmachine, but several weeks before they announced MKIV, I decided to go back and continue my read through of all the books and issues of No Quarter that I had stalled on somewhere around 2019, as I think the fluff and lore of that game is simply outstanding. 

Idly browsing the internet, I realised that I was only one rule book short of a complete collection (not counting the campaign pack that is apparently silly money), so I had a nose on eBay. ‘I’ll put on a lowball bid which won’t win, get it out of my system’ I thought to myself. And then I won it, of course:

As is often the case, I found myself thinking ‘ah, I could just do a small scale project, paint up the equivalent of a battle box, that’s what four minis at most? I’ll squeeze that in between Skaven units, just like they were a somewhat chunkier than usual palette cleanser’.

And while I do have two battle groups sat in various stages of painting in the painting queue, I had a hankering for the original Sorscha sculpt, as when the game was first launched I played a demo game where I had Sorscha, which is what first got me interested in the game (brief aside - this was either in Westgate Games in Canterbury or… Fantasy Workshop in Ashford?)

And since she’d have been lonely on her own, I grabbed her a couple of jacks too. 

And some Cryx bits, because they’re cool, and I’ve got Asphyxious and Cankerworm sat undercoated too.

Which leaves the Tally at:

65 vs 55 = +10

There are more bits on the way, of course - the Withershadow Combine I bought had unfortunately had the little skeleton puppet filed off which I couldn’t see in the listing’s pictures, but the seller kindly offered to swap the set I had for another, but to make the postage worth it I bought some more things, including a model for a faction that I have no other miniatures for, but he was cheap and looked cool so…