Project Orcuebus

I basically have a fully painted army now. Because I comprise 100% of the Project Orcuebus community, if I want to play a pike and shot game, as opposed to just a regular fantasy game, I will need to build up another force.

That is going to be more ‘fey’ than the current one. I want to use up my Warlord pike and shot sprues so there will be some regular humans.

Then there will be a group of ensorcelled humans, working for and dressed by the fey. The pikemen are coming from the Northstar 1672 range and the fey leaders are the *cough* grown up elves by Mark Copplestone from Wargames Foundry. I will also use some of the Grenadier dark elves. So the force will nearly all have been sculpted by M Copplestone.

I’m assuming that the fey wouldn’t want to crew a cannon themselves but are happy for humans to have one.

I also want to round out the armies to have spellcasters, aerial troops, and something like a goblin war wagon.

With spellcasters, I want to have small units of bodyguards that can move around with them and add protection, flavour, and tactical options.

I had fun doing some regular Oathmark elf cavalry (as traditionalists/royalists) and some with a more modern approach. The elf woman has a torso from Anvil Miniatures and the hands with pistols are from Warlord.

In game, if I was working with Oathmark I’d need to think about whether to have rules for things like the caracole, shooting then charging, or charging through. Games like Kings of War and Rampant already allow this.

Then a future part of the project will involve building the fireforge dwarves, with no real conversions, and having them in this setting.

Finally, there are some Wargames Atlantic Halflings with guns from Warlord (mainly the firelock sprue). That sprue has been brilliant for this as you get two hats and two gun arms, and lots of people will sell you individual ones. I’m anticipating using them as elite skirmishers. And the Hobbits are a bunch of thieves so probably responsible for the whole messy war.

I need to do some more cavalry but will be able to add in my fantasy wolf riders to bulk up units.

The heavy cav are by warlord. It’s an old kit now and not great for kitbashing as it is basically monopose. But I think a unit of 10 goblin roundheads on horses should look good and not too repetitive. The officer is by Warlord with a frostgrave headswap. Because of the styles of the time I find that male to female headswaps etc work out better with minis from this period.

The wolf riders often use Redoubt Enterprises torsoes as these are separate to the legs, and don’t have heads attached. So clearly this application was in the back of their mind when the line was sculpted in the 80s or 90s.

Dush Dush Dush.

These are orc and goblin civilians, hurriedly pressed into service to protect their homes or chip in at the back of the pike press.

Mainly Redoubt Enterprises for the men, with fireforge and Redoubt for the women.

These are mainly Redoubt Enterprises bodies, with some fireforge plastic pikes, and Oathmark orc heads.

The Redoubt sculpts are about 30 years old but ideal for this use, as they are bigger than average and often have separate heads.

In my ‘lore’ the goblins are basically levellers, wanting autonomy from the elves and to stop working in the mines and fields. I’m assuming the orcs have a similar view but like hitting things more.

Here is the other artillery piece, a Firelock Games cannon with goblin crew. The goblin lying on the gun to sight it is from Redoubt Enterprises, with a headswap. Then the others are Oathmark goblin slaves with arms from. A Victrix napoleonic artillery sprue (French I think).

Field artillery wasn’t great in the pike and shot era, I gather, so will need to decide if this is Fantasy grade, deadly and accurate or more like the historical equivalents.

I’m also interested in how artillery would develop and be used if you could just drag along a wizard who can do fireballs.

These elves will be used as elite missile troops or dragoons.

My head canon is that, at this point in time, there are yet fewer elves. They don’t like the noise and mess of firearms, and don’t want to be in massed pike blocks.

But on the other hand they like shooting things, and perfecting things, so presumably they deign to have very good guns and have found a way to keep the soot off their gloves.

The minis are Frostgrave and Oathmark bodies and heads with pistol hands from Warlord Games and gun arms from Fireforge Games, dwarf kit.

This Chap is an ogre chieftain from Reaper Bones. His gun and the hat feathers are the only additions, and they are from the Wargames Atlantic ogre kit.

In game, I’m assuming this is the Rook that you want on your flanks protecting the pike blocks and musketeers.

This is an ogre galloping gun. The idea is that the crew are running behind him and somehow get him to carefully set down the gun where needed.

This is a Reaper Bones plastic ogre with a metal Firelock Games cannon added. Really easy to convert as the plastic is very soft.

These are currently the mainstay of the army. Warlord Games Pike and Shotte plastics, mainly, with some Redoubt Miniatures. Then Oathmark goblin heads. The separate hats you get on the Warlord sprues go really well on these.

Painting very much ‘army level’ or ‘speed painting’ with much use of magic washes and magic drybrushes.

In Oathmark you can already have phalanx formations and I will probably lean into that when coming up with rules for pike blocks. Potentially allowing them to lend ‘brace’ to units right next door, or banning cavalry from charging pike to the front.