Oldhammer Battle Report: Orcs vs. Skaven

Despite collecting miniatures, painting miniatures, and writing about miniatures all the time, I haven't actually gotten a chance to play 3rd edition Warhammer for over 15 years. So I was delighted when my fellow Oldhammer fanatic, 24_Cigarettes, asked out of the blue if I wanted to meet up in Toronto and throw a game together. His beautifully painted and based Skaven Army, Clan Scourge, showed up at my house yesterday with half-a-case of beer and a bottle of whisky, and we set to work.

The home team was represented by my 1000 point Orc army, Krapfang's Backwood Bandits. For those of you out there who are curious about how to throw together a deadly orc force, I encourage you to skip over the following army list, which betrays my utter lack of experience at actually trying to beat anyone in a game. My orcs eschew everything that would actually help them win: magic ("no sissy stuff"), goblin fanatics ("dey harsh da mellow") and war machines ("wot, are yoo lot stunties?"). I just wanted a big army that got the maximum amount of my lead on the table.

Gritstool's Nasty Gits get ready for the coming battle with the rat-men

Krapfang's Backwood Bandits

Krapfang's Tin Kan Kommandoes
14 Orc Bigguns (+1 elites) with light armour, shields, spears + standard bearer and musician
(168 pts)

Lead by Krapfang Toothshyte, Lvl. 15 Orc hero with light armour and shield
(91 pts)

Gritstool's Nasty Gits
9 Orc Boyz with light armour, shields, spears + standard bearer and musician
(104.5 pts)

Lead by Captain Gritstool the Uncongenial, Lvl. 5 Orc hero with light armour and shield
(36 pts)

Harboth's Black Mountain Boyz
10 Orc Arrer Boyz with bows, shields + standard bearer and musician
(102 pts)

Vape Softbladder's Gobbo Greatmob
19 Gobbos with javelins, shields + standard bearer and musician
(73.5 pts)

Lead by Prince Vape Softbladder, Lvl. 15 Goblin with shield
(41 pts)

Smarmy's Swift Backtrakkers
10 Goblin Stikkas with short bows
(35 pts.)

Warspoor's Wulfboyz
8 Gobbo Wulfboyz with spears + standard bearer and musician
(100 pts)

Rotwang Bawbag the Giant
(250 pts)

Total = 1001 points

The orcs deploy in a long line while the Skaven player positions his Clanrats in a tight formation. The Giant anchors the orc middle. This was a mistake.

On the other hand, Clan Scourge was a model of elegant design. It was certainly not the work of rules-lawyer or a win-at-all-costs competitor, Rather, 24_Cigarettes' Skaven army was simple, balanced and very ratty. The centerpiece of his force was two huge units of Clanrats, each bolstered with a Clan Skyre Warpfire Thrower (to punish the orcs for keeping their distance) and a Clan Pestilens Plague Censor Bearer (to punish the orcs for getting too close).  

"Arl need 'nuther cider fore I bash dem ratters."

The battle started off with my Giant Rotwang failing his drunkenness roll and showing up for the battle snozzled. Instead of charging into the ratters like a good boy, he sort of staggered toward stage left, giving the Skaven Warpsquealer time to cast Cause Panic upon him. Under the influence of this spell, Rotwang caught a terrifying glimpse of sobriety and booked it off the battlefield. The rest of my army marched doggedly up the centre and into a hurricane of Skaven flame, fumes and Jezzail shot. Only a feeble green rump emerged from this onslaught, and it was no match for the massive phalanxes of unhurt Clanrats. A daring flank attack by Warspoor's Gobbo Wulfboyz offered a glimmer of redemption, but it was only a glimmer: the tide of rats swamped the orcs and drove them from the field. 

The orcs attempt to flank the skaven, but are decimated on the right by the fiery weapons of Clan Skyre and menaced on the left by the rat ogres of Clan Moulder.

"Oi boss! Why are doz big 'airy finks coming dis way?"

From the safety of the far left flank, the small unit of goblin archers watches the rest of the army getting eaten. In their extreme terror, they have a vision of a cider.

Besides being beaten like a gong, I had a great afternoon. Seeing two carefully painted armies on a table is among the most satisfying feelings I know (leaving unnamed a few other satisfying feelings). To make matters even better, 24_Cigarettes is a mensch, and I can now look forward to many future afternoons of drinking and fighting. I just need to work on army design, and keeping my Giant (if not myself) on the wagon.

UPDATE: Check out my opponent's write-up of the same battle (including his Skaven army list) here: Full Ashtray Gaming

Gothic Horror meets Eldtritch Horror

After I finished my first game of Fantasy Flight Games latest Cthulhu boardgame, Eldritch Horror, I was certain of two things. First, it was the best Lovecraftian boardgame that I've ever seen, leaving earlier attempts (like Arkham Horror) in the dust.

Second, I was now in the grips of a compulsion to paint a proper set of miniatures to match the characters in this excellent game. That's when I started obsessively collecting miniatures from Citadel's Gothic Horror range. I love trawling through eBay and the Stuff of Legends, looking for the perfect miniature to capture in vintage lead the characters portrayed in a modern game.

Below you can see the results: twelve miniatures representing characters for Eldritch Horror, juxtaposed to the illustrations from the game that inspired the minis' selection and colour scheme.

Heroine (variant) (1986), Lady Jane (1987), and Female Detective (1987) from Citadel Miniature's Gothic Horror range

FFG's illustrations for Trish Scarborough (the spy), Lola Hayes (the actress), and Jacqueline Fine (the psychic) (illustrations by Magali Villeneuve)

Eldritch Horror is so successful because it doesn't merely throw a random collection of monsters at the heroes, but gives them a sense that they are dealing with a worldwide conspiracy. In fact, Eldritch Horror is the first boardgame that I've played that condenses many of the best elements of a Call of Cthulhu role-playing campaign into a single session lasting just a couple hours. Just like grand CoC adventures like The Masks of Nyarlothotep (1984) or Shadows of Yog-Sothoth (1982), the characters can travel across the globe searching for clues in remote jungles or exotic cities -- or they can stay put in New England, rambling through Arkham and researching forbidden spells. Playing the game, you have a delightfully Lovecraftian sense of having many choices, but few good options.

Fighting Man (modified with eyepatch) (1986) and Down & Out (1987) from Citadel Miniature's Gothic Horror range. Cagney (circa 1987) from Citadel Miniature's LE3 Gumshoe range

FFG's illustrations for Silas March (the sailor), Norman Withers (the astronomer) and Mark Harrigan (the soldier) 

In the 1980's, miniature manufacturers didn't have the same zest for multiculturalism that pervades the modern gaming industry. So I had to wander a little further afield to find suitable miniatures for some of the characters, especially the women. The shaman and cultist are preslotta minis from Citadel's underated C30 Amazon range. And the martial artist is a modern sculp by Kev White of Hasslefree Miniatures. (I adore Hasslefree's clean, simple sculpting style. It also offers a great range of female characters. Highly recommended).

 Sisterhood Novice (1984) and Mother Samantha (1984) from Citadel Miniature's C30 Amazon range. Meiying (date unknown) from Hasselfree Miniatures Modern Martial Artist range

FFG's illustrations for Diane Stanley (the redeemed cultist), Akachi Onyele (the shaman) and Lily Chen (the martial artist) 

Another great source of Lovecraftian miniatures is Wargames Foundry. They don't have a dedicated Cthulhu range, but their huge and eclectic collection of miniatures offers many intriguing possibilities, including Tim Prow's Victorians, the Old West, British in Africa, and Egyptian Adventure (also by Tim Prow). Not only are they lovely, characterful sculptures in their own right, but they also harmonize nicely in scale and style with the Gothic Horror range. No surprise there, since Wargames Foundry is the true heir to the Citadel of the mid-1980's.

Fiddler (date unknown) from Wargames Foundry's Old West City Slickers range. Explorer (1986) and Professor Casting Spell (1987) from Citadel Miniature's Gothic Horror range

FFG's illustrations for Jim Culver (the musician), Leo Anderson (the expedition leader) and Charlie Kane (the politician) 

Iä! Iä! Cthulhu Fhtagn!

Citadel Gothic Horror Miniatures

Call of Cthulhu, in my view, is the greatest role-playing game devised by hand or pseudopod. First published in 1981, Call of Cthulhu was an early entrant on the field of role-playing games, and in the intervening 33 years (and 7 editions) it really hasn't changed that much. It's like the shark: a primitive animal that didn't need to evolve, because it was born deadly.

The games follow an arc that never gets boring: bookish heroes unwillingly learn that below the facade of polite society lurks conspiracy and madness. As they take up the battle against the conspiracy, they find themselves going a little mad too. The rational tools of research, deduction and inquiry descend into a climax of paranoia, overreaction and hysteria. In the face of unnameable horrors, the characters abandon themselves to suicide and sawed-off shotguns. It's like grad school all over again.

Games Workshop had an early role in popularizing Call of Cthulhu: Starting in 1983, White Dwarf began publishing a series of excellent articles and adventures, quickly becoming the first main organ for CoC. Even better, in 1986, Citadel Miniatures released the Gothic Horror range of miniatures, which added an alternative to the primitive sculpts offered by Ral Partha. Another gorgeous contribution to the game was GW's Halls of Horror (1986): a set of floor plans drawn to the same scale as the miniatures (prefiguring floor plan games like Betrayal at the House on the Hill or Mansions of Madness). Sadly, the only thing Citadel failed to do was release a range of Cthuloid monsters, like Elder Things or Shoggoths.

I love the Halls of Horror floor plans (two of which are featured here) precisely because they have an illustrated feel, bringing the game board into a story-book realm that matches the larger-than-life style of the Citadel Gothic Horror miniatures. The details in these rooms also exemplify the goofy black humour of GW's heyday: spooky portraits, heads in jars, and lots of taxidermy. 

My happiest role-playing experiences have all arisen from Call of Cthulhu: grand campaigns that spanned generations of characters and villains. But for reasons which have never been clear to me, I've never used miniatures in any of my games. This is something I've decided to remedy, by finding and painting as much of Citadel's Gothic Horror range that I can find. More pictures to come!

Pig Faced Orcs: Off the Endangered Species List

As a coda to my series on the evolution of orcs, I'd like to return to the pig faced orc. As other scholars of orcish lore have already noted, the pig faced orc's origins can be traced back to the wonderful Tolkien illustrations of the Brothers Hildebrandt (1976) or, even to the Goons in Disney's Sleeping Beauty (1959). However, it was Gary Gygax and Dave Sutherland who established pig faced orcs as part of the fantasy role-playing canon, by making them the official sponsor villain of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (circa 1977). Perhaps the apex of this orc's fame was the Return of the Jedi (1983), when they made a cameo appearance as Jabba the Hutt's guards. Sure, they were called "Gamorreans" and not orcs, but if it walks like a pig, and squeals like a pig, then it's probably a pig.*

Unfortunately, the pig faced orc was not long to enjoy such fame. The other illustrators of AD&D rarely followed Sutherland's cue. Similarly, few miniature sculptors carved orcs in this style (with the central exception of Minifigs), especially as Citadel's bald and underbitten orc climbed to the top of the foodchain. As later editions of D&D came and went, the pig faced orc seemd to go extinct.
 
Seemed to go extinct... but not quite. In the last few years, the pig-faced orc has made a triumphant comeback. I think most of the credit has to be given to Otherworld Miniatures, who had the vision to commission some of the most talented sculptors in the field to produce new miniatures inspired "by the iconic imagery of the early role-playing games". Among their first line of minis was the fantastic range of pig-faced orcs, sculpted by Kev Adams and featured (with my paint job) here.

Otherworld Miniature are the other white meat.

But that's not all. Wargames Foundry is selling a new line of pig faced orcs sculpted by John Pickford for their new fantasy wargame, God of Battles. (I find JP's orcs more snouty than piggy, but pork is in the eye of the beholder.) Best of all, however, it appears that Dungeons and Dragons is readopting the pig faced orc as their monster of choice. In 5th edition D&D, orcs are now described as having "stooped postures, low foreheads, and pig-like faces with prominent lower canines that resemble a boar’s tusks." Piggies returning to D&D? That's what I call the circle of life.

Ultimately, I attribute the survival of the pig faced orc to the same love of early gaming that has brought us Oldhammer. Yet it is not merely nostalgia. There is a powerful villany in the pig faced orc. Your run-of-the-mill green orc may be scary, but pig faced orcs are deeply weird. They represent our world rebelling against us. What we eat is now going to eat us. Oink oink.

 
*Or it's Ned Beatty.

Orctober: Harboth's Orc Archers

If you can't already tell by the nostalgia rages that often engulf this blog, I'm a fan of classic, 1980's style Warhammer. But there's one issue on which I part company with the canon. I've never been able to swallow the bright green of traditionally painted orcs. After GW introduced Citadel Inks in 1988, things only got worse -- Eavy Metal began recommending that orcs be glazed in yellow ink, which only added to their glow (see White Dwarf #100 for example). These orcs seemed too goddamn healthy to me, as if they were about to suspend rampaging and try their hand at photosynthesis. 

Nope, for me, Orcs should be green, but it should be an unwholesome green -- the colour of a damp rug or a forsaken tub of yogurt. To showcase my pigment of choice, in this Ortober post I'm presenting my rendition of Harboth's Orc Archers, sculpted by Kev "Goblin Master" Adams and released in 1987.

Above is the command section. I painted the skin tones in five shades, starting with (the old) GW Catachan Green as the base layer. For the next shade, I added a little GW Rotting Flesh to the mix, and a little more for the next layer, finally working all they way up to 80% Rotting Flesh as the highest of highlights.

Another issue I struggle with in orcs is ornamentation. Traditional Games Workshop orcs (especially when painted by the Eavy Metal crew or Kevin Adams himself) often featured bright shields with leering faces of extraordinary artistry. First, I don't have that talent for these embellishments. But second, I think your average goblinoid marauder would spend less time accessorizing and more time eating prisoners. So my orcs tend to be less flashy. The leaders sometimes sport looted gear (like Harboth's striped pants) but in general, their equipment is simple and in bad repair. I try to add interest to the miniature through rust effects and other signs of wear.

The rank and file are a mixture of original Harboth boyz, plus some other vintage orc archers who took my fancy. I don't like my orcs looking too uniform...

Their traditional battle cry is "Pulp the stunties!"

Orctober: Green Orcs and Ham

For Orctober I've been discussing the evolution of the orc, from  Tolkien to the present. There's one feature I'd like to zero in on today... the colour of their skin. How did they become green?

I've already noted how Tolkien envisaged most orcs as having sallow (i.e. yellow) skin. However, in The Lord of the Rings he wrote about different breeds of orc. In Tolkien's mind, the nastier the orc, the darker his skin. In Moria (in The Fellowship of the Ring), Gandalf surveys a war party of orcs and mentions that some are stand out as "large and evil: black Uruks of Mordor". (Uruk is the word for orc in Black Speech). And in The Two Towers (1954), the narrator describes one of Saruman's elite orcs as "a large black Orc". Whether Saruman's black orcs and Mordor's black orcs are the same breed is not clear from the books, but the important thing for my purposes is that they were black.

Hmm, asiatic orcs, black orcs... Tolkien does seem to be hitting a lot of squares on the Bingo Card of Unfortunate Stereotypes. Well whatever - we know from the Old Man's speeches and letters that he abhorred apartheid and antisemitism.

In any case, Gary Gygax's pig-faced orcs were not really green either. The Monster Manual (1977) describes them as "brown or brownish green with a bluish sheen". Ah yes, the colour of a spoiled ham... but still not the snot green that we've come to expect.
 
I have two theories for how orcs became green. The first is that it is all Spiderman's fault. Although I can't find any trace of green goblins in early English poetry or children's books, Spidey's nemisis, the Green Goblin, has been kicking around since 1964. The influence of Marvel Comics has been so great, it seems natural to me that the bright green of this villain's skin would have leached into the fantasy genre.

My second theory is less likely but more fun. I think (or hope) is was Fungus the Bogeyman who turned orcs green. For those of you who were cruelly deprived of bad influences when you were children, Fungus the Bogeyman (1977) is a children's book by British artist Raymond Briggs. It has been called "the nastiest book ever published for children" and "a masterpiece of complex nihilism". The titular character has that fluorescent green which became the hallmark of Games Workshop's orcs in the early 1980's. So how did orc's become green? It was Fungus' fault.

Harboth's Orc Archers, Citadel (sculpted by Kev Adams, 1987)

Orctober Fest: Evolution of the Orc

Welcome to Orctober! I'm proud to joining my fellow Oldhammer fanatics Erny (who invited me to the party) and Zhu (who drew the gorgeous Orctober Fest banner). I hope lots of others join the fun!

Big. Bald. Green. This is now the iconic image of the orc, and it's one of Citadel/Games Workshop's enduring contributions to the fantasy genre at large. But it wasn't always so. In this post, I want to analyze the evolution of orcs (and their miniatures) from their beginnings to the present day. I'm thankful to a number of very talented miniature painters who joined me in providing the pictures to illustrate this evolution.

Magar Ironfist painted by the author, Citadel (sculpted by Perry Bros., 1985) 

Before Citadel came along, orcs were not big and green. As Zhu has demonstrated, monstrous orcs are the invention of JRR Tolkien. But Tolkien was vague about the appearance of what he named "goblins" in the Hobbit (1937), and "orcs" in the Lord of the Rings (1954), merely calling them "ugly" and arming them with "curved scimitars".  However, we know they were short; in the Fellowship of the Ring, a "huge" orc-chieftan is remarkable for being "almost man-high". 

In his letters, Tolkien described orcs as "squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes." The short, sallow orc is tolerable as far as it goes, but unfortunately Tolkien went on to call them, "degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types." This is racist (re: the Mongolians) and ridiculous (re: the orcs). The Mongol king Kublai Khan is about the least orcish face I can imagine. In any case, what Tolkien leaves us with is a small, roughly Asian gremlin with a Saracen's weapons.

Then Gary Gygax came along, and improved on Tolkien's orcs by wrapping them in bacon: "Orcs appear particularly disgusting because their colouration -- brown or brownish green with a bluish sheen -- highlights their pinkish snouts and ear. Their bristly hair is dark brown or black..." (Thus spake the Monster Manual). The artist Dave Sutherland III ran with this reference to snouts and made orcs into pig-men in his iconic image in the Monster Manual (1977). Gone is the eastern-tinged scimitar, the slant eyes and the broad face.

But hairy, porcine orcs didn't inspire miniature sculptors (with a few exceptions). Most early orc miniatures were ugly and fanged in a generic sort of way. This simple pattern continued in the early Citadel sculps (like the Fiend Factory's Red Orcs launched in 1979).

Fiend Factory FF24 - Red Orc In Chainmail With Sword, sculpted by Michael Perry, (1980) painted by BPI

But somewhere around 1982, under Bryan Ansell, Citadel orcs began to evolve. Starting with the Fantasy Tribe range, their skulls became elongated, allowing for an exaggerated jaw and underbite. The ear became pointy, the brow beetling, the head smooth. Orcs became taller but they also grew more stringy, with long, apish limbs. They turned into a new race. 

In my view, Harboth's Black Mountain Boys are the best example of these early orcs. I don't own any of these striking miniatures, but here's one (with slight conversions) painted by Peter Armonstrong and posted to his excellent blog. I love those teeth!

Harboth's Black Mountain Boys, painted by Peter Armstrong, Citadel (circa 1985)

The next stage in the evolution of the orc occurred when Bryan Ansell hired a young novice sculptor named Kevin Adams. And all of a sudden, this new race of long-skulled beasties had their own Loki to blow life into them. Adams has many colleagues in the top tier of the sculpting profession, but no one (no one) has a greater talent for infusing orcish features with personality. During the mid-1980's, Citadel (and Adams) created the most compelling orcs ever released: grinning, boasting, clowning and yet always menacing.

Orc Commander, painted by the author, Citadel (sculpted by K. Adams, circa 1985)

I will touch the orcs' subsequent history briefly. As with so much else, throughout the late '80's and '90's, Citadel took a "moar is better" approach to orcs, turning character into caricature. Their heads continued to expand, reaching hydrocephalic proportions. Weapons and muscles also became oversized. But worst of all, the joie-de-vivire that Adams invested into the race of orcs was gradually overtaken by nothing more interesting than savage violence. In my view, this genetic decline started with the Marauder sculps by Trish and Aly Morrison (1988), and headed downward from there.

Although I don't love the Marauder Miniatures, I do love this paint job by Blue. His clean style gives these orcs a compelling comic-book feel. His bases are also a work of art.

What does the evolution of the orc signify? That's up for grabs, with some people even writing academic papers on the subject. My own view is that orcs gradually changed because Warhammer gamers wanted to play games as orcs  rather than merely fighting them as enemies in dungeons. Tolkien's Asiatic grotesques, or Gygax's pig-faced orcs simply don't have the depth or charm to make gamers want to inhabit them as characters. In the 1980's, the genius of Citadel was to reimagine orcs in the image of Citadel's clientele: a rowdy, gangley tribe of punks.

The success of these Warhammer orcs was so dramatic that it influenced everything that came after. Although few game designers were able to maintain the mischievous mentality of Citadel's 1980's orcs, their physical image is stamped deeply into our collective imagination. Now systems as widely separated as World of Warcraft or Shadowrun feature the green skin and dramatic under-bite that was pioneered at Citadel. There's something in that face that says, "I'm big, I'm violent, and I'm also a lot of fun."

Thanks for reading. Next week, we'll look at another stupid question: why are orcs green?