Byron's invasion of Ulthuan - Seizing Tor Elithern (629 pts)

 Grom has need of another landing beach for the second wave of ships. He has sent his trusty lieutenant, the Black Gobbo, to take Tor Elithern. This is a watch tower built on a promontory that overlooks the coast that Grom has his eyes set upon. 

The elves are aware of Grom's armies and are on high alert.

The guard of Tor Elithern prepare the bolt thrower.

The Black Gobbo is a treacherous and sneaky goblin with a penchant for cunning tactics... at least as far as he is concerned. 

The chariots race across the field!

The Black Gobbo orders a frontal assault of the tower! He sends all of his forces at once to overwhelm the defenders. If Grom wanted fewer goblins dead, he would have sent fewer goblins on the mission.

The elves are steady and precise.

The Chariots careen forward trying to weave and dodge the repeating bolt thrower. The Wolfriders find themselves caught between them as stray bolts strike the lead riders. 

The spearmen take up position at the top of the stairs.

The riders approach the tower relying on the wait of their numbers. The black gobbo sneaks up the rear in the confusion of the assault.

Bravely, for goblins anyways, the wolves stumble up the stairs only to be met by stoic spears.

The black gobbo sneaks among the dead goblins and toppled chariots.

As the last wolf rider flees in fear, the trolls trudge through the carnage to meet the elves. 

The Black Gobbo sneaks into a blind spot of the arrow slits. 

The trolls lurch up the stairs to crumple the elven defenders. Archers in the tower down one of the brutes. 

Despite their brave defense, the spearmen are tossed aside. 

With the last of the defenders crunched or otherwise tossed off the cliff, the last Troll turns to batter the door. 

The loud thumping on the door is the perfect distraction for the Black Gobbo's plan.

The Black Gobbo sneaks up the tower and hacks the unware elves to pieces. Another cunning plan expertly done by the Black Gobbo. 

Grom will have his second beach.

Now for pics of the minis

The Black Gobbo, goblin big boss - 33 points

The black gobbo has been on my list of things to do for over 20 years. I remember when the black gobbo articles started appearing on the games workshop website and seeing the conversion instructions. Night goblins were my first warhammer army, the same army I sold a few years back and have replaced with the army I am making now. 

You can compare the original conversion guide to my work. I think I'm pretty close.

Two wolf chariots - 170 points

Four Trolls - 260 points

Ten wolf riders - 121 points

Part of my goal to reproduce the box art is to paint up each of the goblin banners too.

This isn't on the front of the 4th ed. box. It's inside the 4th ed rulebook. But, I like the wolf rider standard, so I made a rough approximation for mine. I took a plastic orc hand and sculpted it a middle finger and put it on top. 

Additional models, a command group and fanatic - 45 points

The yellow banner is also from the box art.

Total: 629 points

This month I was able to catch up to the "March" line on my shelf. Focusing on models with bigger bases made a big difference. Now I just have to slog through infantry for the next two months to finish on time.

Should be easy right?

Jaakko and Rugluk - Rank & File month #1

The warband crested the ridge at dawn, tired, hungry, and down to numbers Rugluk could count without taking his boots off.

Smoke rose from the valley below.

Rugluk narrowed his eyes. “Dat’s a camp.”

Hope stirred. Maybe a tribe. Maybe deserters. Maybe lads wot hadn’t heard about the whole “failed siege, mutiny, near-death” business.

They marched down, weapons ready.

They stumbled into a circle of snotligs arguing with a cooking pot. One snotling kicked the pot. Another tried to wear it. The only weapon in sight was a spoon. Bent.

Rugluk stared.

“…Dis is wot fate sends me?”

One of his orcs scratched his head. “Dey’s enthusiastic, boss.”

A snotling looked up, saw Rugluk, and pointed. “Oi! Big un! You 'now how ta make stew?”

Rugluk’s eye twitched.

They heard loud noises and the ground shook.

THUD.
THUD.

Two trolls stood behind the snotling mob, blank-faced, drooling, watching the fire with empty eyes.

One sniffed a snotling.

Rugluk’s grin spread slow and mean.

“You two - you’re hired.”

Hello again! This is one of my favourite stages of the challenge. The first month of OWAC is behind us, and the first batches of painted miniatures are starting to emerge before our eyes. Last season, I focused a lot on the core of the army to meet the minimum requirements in the Warhammer Armies army list. That meant many large units and a lot of batch painting. This year, I hope to add some spice to the mix.

I decided to start the challenge with snotling bases and trolls. I caught a nasty flu and didn’t achieve quite as much as I would have liked, but I’m really happy with these guys. I managed to paint five bases of snotlings (with 28 snotlings) and two trolls. A third troll is nearly finished and will join the force at a later stage.

Enough talking, let's move on.

These little guys are full of character, and I really loved painting them. I hope to paint more at some point, and I have enough of them to fill a few more bases and man another pump wagon. But, they are also tiny, and the bases are quite crowded, so I don’t mind moving on to something else for a little while.

Painting the trolls was also a lot of fun. Trolls from different eras have one thing in common: they are all amazing sculpts.

This month in points:

And that's it for the month. See you later!

Byron's invasion of Ulthuan - landing party (359 pts)

 The invasion of Ulthuan begins!

Grom sends Boss Scraggit and his lot to explore up the coast while the main army continues to unload on the beach.

The first unit pondering up the coast is a chariot (86 pts)

Next, Scraggit sent two trolls (130 pts) to check things out.  They didn't make it very far and stopped to check if the rocks tasted different on Ulthuan. 

Assuming the path was now safe-ish, Scraggit (16 pts) led his mob (42 pts) along the beach to check things out for himself. 

The goblins with bows (30 pts), who naturally like to put some distance between themselves and the enemy, lagged behind. 

Finally, Scraggit had the wolf riders (55 pts) explore the valley near the coast. 

Little boss Scraggit then brought his lot together and tried to march them up the coast, in column, to find the enemy. 

Somehow the enemy found him first and his column was ambushed by shore riders and archers!

Finally, Progress on the shelf. I tightly packed all the newly painted goblins on the shelf. I am well on my way to filling out the whole shelf by the end of OWAC 9. 

Quin’s Rainbow Vale - Wrap Up

Another challenge has come to an end, quite a relieving feeling! Alas, with many other projects looming over me I’ve decided not to finish any of the additional items for my army this month. I leave behind shields and banner for my unit of savage orcs, a later C20 troll and a dozen of the Drew Day Williams trolls. From where I’ve started, I’m quite pleased with the outcome of this year’s challenge! To keep things brief, here they are..

In total this year I have completed the following:

Level 15 Savage Orc Hero (88)

Level 15 Savage Orc Shaman (163)

15 savage orcs w/ hand weapons, shields & bows 7.5 points each (112.5)

Standard Bearer with shield, hand weapon & bow (14.5)

Level 5 orc shaman (63)

Level 5 savage orc hero with hand weapon, shield & bow (36)

4 savage orc boar boyz with double handed weapons & bows 25.5 points each (102)

Level 25 orc chieftain on boar with double handed weapon & bow (153)+(16)

Orc Manmangler (93)

5 Trolls - 65 Points Each (325)

Level 15 Troll Hero with Double Handed Weapon (257)

Level 5 Troll Shaman (145)

4 Troll Foresters 67 points each (268)

Forest Giant (250)

8 Giants 250 points each (2000)

Level 5 Giant Wizard (280)

Dragon Type 3 with Flight (550)

Total (4965.5)

 It was a pleasure to watch everyone else’s armies grow throughout the challenge, I look forward to the opportunity to do it again next year! Hopefully I’ll be able to figure out blogger a bit better by then so I can resume commenting on my fellow colleagues blogs. Next year’s project will be in smaller proportions, that is, I will be painting chaos dwarfs. I look forward to seeing you all there. 

Congratulations to the other OWAC victors!