From Reilly OG: More Goblins! [New Acquisitions] (85 points)

Release of The Old World has gotten our juices flowing and motivated me to finish my Forrest Goblin army. These figs really bulk our the "heavy" (relative term!) infantry and add a mounted character to give them some resilience.

First up: 10 reinforcements for the utterly terrifying "Goblin Phalanx"

And to lead them a new Hero arrives, riding a fear inducing Giant Spider! I bought this Character specifically to paint for this challenge so it definitely counts as "New and shiny" for me!

Spiders: they're just bigger in Australia!

10 Goblins @ 5 points each = 50

1 large mounted character = 15 points

Bonus shelf for New and Shiny (New Acquisitions, but what's the difference really?)= 20

Total of 85 points, which added to my current total gets me over my 200 point target at the last minute!

...and 7 Skullz to my tally please Mr McSkullface!

I like these night goblins a lot, Reilly!. The spider is well needed to "beef them up" a little, I suppose, but they sure look nice, although myself I would rather hesitate to use the word "phalanx".. The spider character itself is rather more terrifying, a fine model and you have painted it up very well, with the different gradients of blue and it's intrepid little rider. Well done and congratulations on hitting your target!

Martijn

From ReillyOG: Goblin Shaman and Howdah (75 points)

Whats scarier that a giant Man killing spider? A giant man killing spider with a Goblin howdah crew slinging spears and firing arrows at you while their Shaman boss throws magic spells! The Spider was painted before the challenge, but the howdah, shaman, goblin crew and all the basing was done for this submission.

The third and final of my Arachnarok trio, this time with the Archbishop in Da Church of Da 'Ate Legged Wuns. The crew and howdah are always a lot of fun to paint, even the third time round. Lots of little details like webbed up skulls and quivers webbed onto the howdah itself, and spiders crawling all over. 

The Shaman 'imself was a model I was incredibly excited to paint its the most on theme model I could dream of for a force like mine, and I enjoyed just going to down blending all the skin and giving him way too many highlights. 

"Dat wun was mine!"
"woz not"

Lastly, I thoroughly enjoyed my first foray into proper water feature effects with the base. I'm loving how it came out with all the ripples around the tufts and skulls in the shallow puddle.

The view seen by enemy troops!

Now when you think of Childrens' books, most think of whimsical adventures with magic and fun... but usually theres always some kind of creepy crawly they come into contact with in their adventures. This is that monster! See for examples: Aragog the Acromantula who dwelled in the Forbidden Forest near Hogwarts Castle, Shelob the last daughter of the Demon Ungoliant from Lord of the Rings, and Charlotte the Barn Spider from Charlotte's Web (but here she found some goblins for friends instead of Wilbur the pig)

That goblin underneath the great beast is having second 
thoughts about volunteering to be a sacrifice

Overall thats 9 x 28mm figs (45 points), the very detailed howdah and shrine as terrain are approximately a quarter standard terrain cube (5 points), and Children's Book bonus takes it to a 70 point submission.

And there are 39 Skullz liberally scattered across this submission!

Happy Painting,
"Right Stuff" Reilly

From Millsy: It's been a while since we've seen a monster arachnid and it's been worth the wait! What an absolute beast of a thing is Reilly, resplendent in purple and bone and bristling with teeth and spikes.

The way you have feathered the purple at the joints is really nice technique and gives the limbs a lot more volume. The crew(?) are pretty cool too and really pop with their green skins contrasting against the purple. The base really finishes the model off for me and I love the way you've used all that space to create a mini diorama effect underneath when you could easily have ignored it - 5 extra gold for that.

[Edit Millsy] Apologies Reilly, my COVID addled brain missed that you'd already painted the spider itself so I have adjusted your score accordingly mate, but I have added 5 points for you just cause I'm an idiot!. An awesome effort mate and one of my favourite posts this Challenge!

From Reilly: Goblin Shaman (25 points)

Here we have yet another entry into the 'Old World Player sifts through his decade old stash of fantasy stuff' collection. A humble goblin shaman to join my many, many others. Here's hoping he doesn't explode with badly channelled winds of magic...

One of several Elder Spider-Shamans for the force

His Ritual dagger is quite handy when it comes to making 
sacrifices to the 8 legged old gods...

A classic GW sculpt and always a favourite of mine, this lil guy was a pleasure to paint and get back into the swing of painting wayyyy too many goblins. 

I'll claim the fantasy bonus to up the points to 25 total, and another 3 skullz

Happy Painting,
"Right Stuff" Reilly

From Millsy: The only right way to do gobbos is wayyy too many, right Reilly? You've done a stellar job on this wee chap, especially his clothing which really pops. The blending on his hat is superb! I've got the same mini in my collection and it's amazing how different they can look. 25 gobbo points for you!

From ReillyOG: Spider-riffic!(187 points)

Its been a hot minute since my last entry but for good reason, the Drakwald's spider breeding pits have been busy and are proud to present an Arachnarock and Da Deff Creepas. Leonidas decided to crash the party as well.

First up, Da Deff Creepers. Led by Snagla Grobspit, these are the most elite Spider Riders out there. Snagla being a master ambusher himself, he has led this spindly sqwad to many successes around Karak Eight Peaks when Skarsnik called his very own Waaagh. Now back home in the Drakwald, they continue to serve the Spider Kult.

Da Deff Creepas!

Next up, the greatest offering to the Spider God that the Forest Goblins of the Drakwald could create, the Arachnarock. This monstrosity is the entire reason I started this project and I'm super happy with how it came out, but it might be a while before I attempt my second and third due to the sheer amount of effort it required.

"The Arachnarok is a nigh-unstoppable predator bigger than an Empire townhouse. In the depths of the forest where the light of the sun never penetrates, the gargantuan eight-legged monstrosity stalks and entraps whole Beastmen herds as well as larger prey such as Giants or Cygors. After incapacitating larger creatures with flesh-dissolving venom, an Arachnarok Spider will drink up the liquefied innards of its paralysed, but still living quarry." 

The Creature in its entirety.

The Howdah crew of goblins manning the Web Slinging Catapult mounted on its gigantic abdomen.

This fella is hard at work spinning the ammo for the catapult

Size comparison of the Arachnarock to the Spider Riders

Last but not least is Leonidas. Not exactly staying on theme but this was a project I planned to do last year as a tribute to the 2,500th anniversary of the Battle of Thermopylae and our visit to Greece the year before. This was my first time trying to put my all into a single model and i'm incredibly proud of the result. Soon his cohort of spartans will join him(though they are sporting a more tradtitional garb rather than the 300ish style seen here.)

All up should be somewhat in the ballpark of 187 points

10x Spider Riders = 100 points

Leonidas = 5 points

Arachnarock Howdah: 6 x 5 = 30 points

Arachnarock = 45 points(will need verification, though the model is quite literally over twice the size of a 28mm Panzer)

Webbed up Goblin on the Base = 5 points

Large Web Spinning Spider on the Howdah = 2 points

29 Skullz in total for this entry.

Happy Painting All!
 

From IannickM : Kleznot's Forest Goblin Mob (151 Points)

Woa! Damn, that was close! I worked overtime the last week to be sure I would get to submit one last submission to the challenge, and (for me at least) it's a big one! As I've mentioned before, I'm working on a Oldhammer Forest Goblins army, and no goblin army is complete without a big mob or two! 

So here is my last submission of the challenge, submitted about an hour before the deadline, Kleznot's Mob, a regiment made up of 30 of the little green bastards! 

The unit is made-up entirely of classic early 90s Citadel forest goblins, sculpted by gobbo master Kev Adams. And any Oldhammer aficionados knows how difficult it is to get your hands on these guys! I had a few from my original collection, and lucky enough to get a rather large army on Ebay many years ago. I absolutely love this range, not only are the early 90s my favourite goblin sculpts, but forest goblins in particular are just my favourite goblins! The unit, equipped with two handed weapons, is worth a whopping 141.5 points (and that's including the Big Boss)! Which, for anyone who plays Warhammer, is just ridiculously low for a 30 figure regiments! Yes, goblins are really poor fighters!

I included personal lance wielding guards on each side of Kleznot,
and used warpaints on all personnalities of the unit

But who cares, they look so good and cute! I used my orange-yellow-red colour scheme trio, and, while they were a lot of work, I'm super happy with them. Big units look good, always!

Although I will admit I swore a lot while painting these, as the amount of details on these guys is absolutely bonkers, especially for troops that you need so many of. I'm going to have nightmares about feathers, that's for sure. And I now have a love/hate relationship with Kev Adams!

The depth picture, to prove all the bastards have been properly painted!

On a final note, this was far from my best challenge, production wise, and I came quite short of my 500pts target (although I may have won the fantasy challenge with this entry, hey Robert? ;-) ). Last year was my best challenge ever, with a little over 700pts, and for some reason I tend to rotate between great and bad years! I could blame work, which is a bit insane these days (election year when you work for the government is sports people), but many of my wounds were self inflicted; I ran an Oldhammer challenge at the same time, which is time consuming, and I decided to start GMing a second table (Fighting Fantasy rpg, an all women table, I couldn't say no to that opportunity!) which can be extremely time consuming when you write your own campaign! So blame's on me. Next year, I can only assume will be a great challenge anyways! 

But as usual I still had fun, and I want to thank Curt and my minion Jamie for all their work. The challenge has become a part of my life, like the changing of the seasons, and my life would be poorer without it! Words will never say how much I appreciate all your hard work on this. And as someone who started his own challenge this year, I realize even more how much work this involves! 

And congrats to all the challengers! 

So, right, logistics: that's 30 goblins, 28mm, so 150pts! BOOM. 

Iannick's out.

__________________________

Oooh, those are some mighty fine Forest Goblins, Iannick. I really like the orange, yellow and red coloured plumage and the blue faced chaps are the absolute bomb.  As you say they are cute individually but are even better when mobbed-up in a big unit like this. Bravo to you in collecting them and painting them to such a terrific standard. This army is going to be a real showcase force when you're done.

I knew you were busy with life and your own challenge but thanks anyway for participating as it would seem very odd without you in the ranks.

Until we meet in Montreal, adieu et bon chance mon ami.  

___________________________

From IannickM : Zrazoig and Fang (12 pts)

A small entry today in terms of figures, but a big one in terms of power (and points) for the Oldhammer Forest Goblin army I've been working on in the last two months.

I present to you Zrazoig, the almighty Shaman, and his trusted sacred spider, Fang the hairy.

The figure was released in 1991 by Marauder Miniatures, now long gone. Formed in 1988, and announced in WD106, Marauder's miniatures were cast and distributed by Citadel alongside the normal Citadel ranges, although at one time they were using the Wargames Foundry facilities. They were reabsorbed back into the main Citadel ranges in 1993, about the same time that the 4th edition of Warhammer was launched. Not surprisingly, the orc and gobbo ranges matches perfectly with the 4th edition goblins.

Another figure from the heydays of the late 80s and early 90s, it oozes charm. It was also incredibly easy to assemble, being basically a three piece figure (spider head, rest of the body and then the shaman). He's going to be the main magic user in my Forest Goblin army. Once again I found a way to incorporate yellow and orange to tie it with the rest of my army. Most of the spider symbols on my goblins are orange, so I figured it would make sense the sacred spiders from that Forest would be at least partially orange!

I thought it would be cool to show a pic of the progress I've made on this project since I started the project in November. The archers were painted just before this Challenge started. 

There's lots of goblin infantry in the pipeline, and I have high hopes of submitting many more between now and March 20th!

So that's one mounted figure; 5pts for the Shaman and, I'm not sure, maybe 7pts for the spider, considering it's larger than a horse and it's sitting on a 40mm base? Which would make 12pts.

Welcome to Thursday posts Iannick!  You're my last post of the day and what a belter to end on.  That old school army is coming along the treat and this nice bright fellow looks like he could scare the Elves out of Loren should he weave his spells as he wants to (after a mushroom or two no doubt?).  The hair is brilliant and I think he epitomises the fun side of goblins.  I'm looking forward to the rest of the gobboes and I'm a reasonable merciless overseer minion..... so shall we say the first unit of 50 by next Thursday? ;)