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Sunday 16 February 2014

Belly's Gonna Getcha...

Grom - Soldier. Tactician. Fat Bastard.

According to legend he initiated the Goblin Wars by slaying Wulfrun Willowhand, King of the Northern Dwarves in some kind of drunken bar room brawl. Many victories and atrocities have been attributed to "The Paunch of the Misty Mountains" - so named because of his morbid obesity. In fact it was said that Grom was so huge and ugly that he almost resembled an ogre - not sure about that one but I do love the minis! Chiefly remembered among his many black deeds were the atrocities of Zhuf Field. After the Goblin victory there and subsequent looting of the Dwarven Smithies and Armouries, Grom called for a hundred Dwarf captives to be brought before him each day. Each day he personally suffocated each and every one of them - by sitting on them.
Grom was not a pure breed of Goblin (if there is such a thing) and neither were the Goblins he selected to make up his Goblin Guard - large and vicious creatures of mixed Orc/Goblin parentage. I'm thinking of upping their stats and points value to that of Half Orcs.
Enough of the history lesson and on to the miniatures! The troopers were all speed painted in batches using the usual grey basecoat with drybrushed white highlights and black ink wash. Then the base colours were applied in thin washes with ink washes to bring out shadow and colour. Ironically the shields took about three times as long as the Goblins themselves!


The designs were rather fun to do. They are supposed to represent various aspects of the death of Wulfrun Willowhand at the hands of Grom. There is a somewhat veiled reference to Grom's personal shield design in that it depicts the death of Willowhand with a great deal of blood and the fabled toasting fork very much in evidence!


Well I couldn't resist a reference like that so various troopers ended up with crossed toasting forks in tribute to their leader...


and various bits of Wulfrun Willowhand being toasted on said toasting fork.


There is little mention about how this epic altercation started other than the fact that the relative merits of Bugman's Best and Old Sam's Brown were being discussed at the time. This also provided some inspiration for shield designs - a brown take on the Bugman's Rangers' shields for Old Sam's Brown - every Goblin's favourite!


Some of you familiar with a certain Brown Ale from the North East of England might recognise the logo on the following shields...


Old Pukey Brown certainly is a refreshing brew and the choicest of spoils for any self respecting Gobbo.


Ironically Grom's champion, Crud Longbone, happens to be extremely skinny and lanky. Canon and Ball anyone?


Interestingly several variants of this chap are included in the larger unit of regular Goblin warriors I have yet to paint.


Grom himself in all his Ogre-ish(?) glory.


And his shield - I restrained myself from depicting the toasting fork stuck in the part of Wulfrun's anatomy that immediately sprang to mind and went for a more tasteful depiction of his head held proudly aloft on the improvised weapon. Thanks to a large shield boss he seems to have taken on a bit of a likeness for either Statler or Waldorf from the Muppet Show.


The Regimental musician - love the puffed out cheeks on this chap. I should probably give them a bit of a red tinge, although I'm sure Goblinoid blood is supposed to be green?


And the standard bearer with a slightly less cartoony representation of Willowhand's head toasting nicely before the fire.


I think I was running out of ideas for shields by then so both he and Crud ended up with the Pukey Brown logo.


The Command Group together.


And the whole regiment once more. The more keen-eyed of you might have noticed the lone Gobbo on the back rank. Yes, annoyingly I have 31 minis for Grom's Guard and could really do with another 5 troopers to round them off nicely.



15 comments:

  1. Dead jealous.............................

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    1. You will be, you will be...

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    2. Now I hate gloating - a most unattractive trait but....

      Mwahahahahaha!

      Erny - I presume from your reply that you have some small collection of these minis in the pipeline?

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    4. Wouldn't normally make such a look at mine too style comment on another blog but he's my brother, I have to gloat it's the rules.

      (deleted previous post as it made no sense in English at all.)

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    5. I quite agree - I have three younger brothers and would never pass up on a chance to lord it over them!

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  2. Great unit, that's four RoR in your Orc army then.

    Love the shields, particularly the Pukey Brown.

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    1. I was just thinking the other day that I was getting a bit ROR heavy - Ruglud's Armoured Orcs, Harboth's Archers, Grom's Goblins, Ugezod's Mothercrushers, Golgfag's Ogres -do the Death Commando's count too?

      I'm also slowly assembling a unit of Mudat's Half Orcs and have a full set of Throg's Hobgoblins waiting in the wings to be painted...

      Just got the Black Mountain Boys and Notlob's artillery to nab and I have a full and viable army of Regiments of Renown!

      That either says I'm incredibly unimaginative and happy for someone else to provide the background for my units or I'm a total sucker for Regiments of Renown!

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    2. Aah yeah an yee canna beat a canny good aad pint of Pukey Broon either!

      An' it's a pity nar na yen understands wot the' sa thanks tuh their gaumless accent.

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    3. I have a plan to do a RoR only battle sometime, just need to get them painted.

      Haven't any of the halforcs sadly.

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    4. That sounds like fun - would be good to pulp Ulther's and Bugman's Dwarves, as well as Skarloc's pesky Wood Elf archers!

      I have the standard bearer and a number of troopers - the rest of the command group seem to be eluding me at the moment.

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  3. Lovely brushwork. Old orcs/nearly orcs are great figures, aren't they?

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    1. Cheers Rab and they certainly are. I've also kind of enjoyed the calming effects of painting lots of monopose minis in batches - it instils a certain zen-like state on the mind!

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  4. Replies
    1. Thanks Michael - glad they came out alright having spent far longer on them than the Gobbo's themselves got!

      Hopefully the demise of Wulfrun Willowhand is now sufficiently documented.

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