Cheap Mordheim: Night Goblins

Ah an experimental warband that I'm actually almost done painting right now, and it isn't even overpowered compared to some other experimental ones so I'll be able to use it after a few tweaks in our League. The reason why I chose to start this instead of Orcs and Goblins first is mostly due my wanting to paint them first. The box to get of course is very easy to choose and that is the Night Goblins Regiment!

There isn't much options on the night goblins equipment sheet but they are all covered by the box with swords, clubs, spears, short bows, helmets and light armor (under cloak), and shields. they even have models for nets. Modeling them where pretty easy except I'm still trying to figure out what to do to separate my normal bosses from my henchmen night goblins, my Big Boss and Shaman stick out fairly well since one has a pretty head and the other has a moon icon on a pole (club).

One idea I came up with was to stick a shield on their back (after shaving off the hand attached to it) so they stick out a lot but I got lazy and didn't do anything yet. I'll probably do something along the lines of detailing their cloaks and / or adding rune like symbols on their swords though having the heroes blend in might not be that bad of a thing.

Speaking of not bad things I found one of my favorite combo's for a henchmen group. I have a group of three henchmen with a spear and short bow who's job is to advance in front of my main force and shoot their short bows at whoever I can. Of course I don't expect to hit much with 16" Range henchmen who moved but that isn't their primary job anyway. What they are really there for is intercepting charges. When someone tried to charge my heroes I can intercept with my spear goblin and get to attack first even though my opponent charged, and if my spear golbin lives I can charge my heroes at the model and throw that much more dice for a one, two punch.

My two Night Goblin henchmen groups, one with club and sword, and the other spear and short bow for that one, two punch.

 

 Then we got my six heroes, four bosses with sword and short bow. The Big Boss with his moon sword and short bow, and the shaman with his two clubs (The moon icon is getting called a club by me).

And of course my Fanatic, he's not part of the warband yet but he will be after I play my first game with them.

And finally my three "fully almost fully" painted models in the front followed by all the others. I really like the Green and Purple color scheme I've got going for them. I especially like how good they look on the Fanatic with his jack-o-lantern flail. (Yep he's fighting with a pumpkin!)

To paint them I primed white (be very careful on air conditions) and then washed almost all of the colors on with a few base colors like yellow, purple on two models (bet you can't tell which ones got a purple base coat in the last image), and details like teeth. If you haven't painted your models teeth yet then you'll be surprised how amazingly good they suddenly look. Also did I mention how much I love washes shades and glazes now?

PS: Metal on white does not look good, paint that stuff with a very dark base coat first or you'll regret it (I washed with nuln oil to make metal less flat but still I wish I did black first)

PPS: nuln oil on white primer with 'ardcoat looks exactly like boltgun metal.

PPPS: Be careful with flock, a small drop goes a lot further then I thought it did. (see shaman base)

Cheap Mordheim: Orcs and Goblins

Being bored without power at my local GW to play at I've decided to put out another Cheap Mordheim post. As you can tell I've already done two (skavens and most of the mercenaries as they can use the same box) and I got a few more to go before most of the cheap one box warbands are done. Hopefully this will help people who are interested in Mordheim get into it with the most bang for your buck. I'll also be buying these boxes myself for my own warbands or already have so of course I'm searching for the cheapest things myself too.

Orcs and Goblins is another official warband but sadly it isn't as inexpensive as the last two. To do this warband you'll need some orcs for the heroes and henchmen but the goblins, squigs, and troll don't come in the same box. For a single box of orcs, I've found that the Savage Orcs is your best bet. It has spears, swords, daggers, axes, bows (Orc Boyz don't and archers come in 3's), and shields.

 Sadly there is only ten models this time instead of the twenty like in the other two but it is the best box on the GW website right now. Good news is that you'll only need 8~10 Orcs to start the warband with and you can expand from there with a Troll, more Orcs, or some goblins (I suggest a night goblin box, you'll see why later). Good news though is that you can still field a strong list with just 10 models for a few games into a campaign as you can / will spend most of your income on lucky charms, rabbits foot, other equipment upgrades, and hiring any henchmen that died. (After 5 games my Reikland is still only 11 strong, but I'll be expanding them soon)

Just remember to do something to set your heroes apart along with your Shaman and Boss. For giggles I'd probably put the big choppa on the Boss as he'd have the biggest stick (and it would look cool) and use the banner as my Shaman club / axe / spear / whatever I can count it as. Spearing of spears though one of my favorite things to do is to run a group of henchmen with spears and have one escort another henchman / hero through the battle for counter charging. If you are anything like me you'd wonder why I'd give up two attacks with a parry (sword+other) for a single spear as if you are also like me then 90% of the time that single attack will miss (unless it is a bow), but here is the trick. Spears attack first in close combat regardless of any other modifiers such as charging in the first round of combat, so you have a chance at killing the guy who charged before he gets to go, and if he kills your spear henchmen, at least it wasn't your money maker hero. This is why my newest models for my warbands contains a few Spear + Bow models (shot in my turn, intercepts charges in theirs).

PS: The way we play and as I understand the rule for spears (unwieldy) is that it doesn't let you use another weapon or a shield in close combat but you can use a pistol / bow / crossbow / rifle in the shooting phase.