Gorram's Grand Army Project

We’ve managed to arrange some people for a Kings of War slow grow to start out the new year. Some people will be expanding existing Ambush armies but not being one to make things easy for myself, I decided to start fresh with one of the several armies I have models for already. Looking for something that is a little more of a beatstick, I’ve decided to go for Riftforged Orcs.

I currently have the small army box and the models from the two player starter set Storm in the Shire. This gives me plenty of the basic troops to get started with.

The kit is one of the dual ones that Mantic has started using for core units. They can be built with shield and hand weapon (Riftforged Legionaries) or two handed weapons (Reborn Legionaries). The Reborn have a better stats like but they aren’t unlocking for the purposes of army building.

As this month is about building the core 800 points, I figured now was a good time to break the back of the infantry so let’s get to building models.

The models are that strange Mantic style – some really nice detail and some stretching that you saw on plastic kits 20 years ago. It’s clearly a compromise to show them to have bodies as one piece so all you have to do is pick a head and your arms. Very few mould lines so clipping and prepping was quick. Being a newer kit, they can be glued with plastic cement. Over all, a few hours of casual work, watching a movie, and the first 40 are built.

When I rummaged around for some painting bases to get them primed, I could only find 36  of the ones I wanted. I’m not painting in odd numbers like that so 30 got glued onto bases. A black and white zenithal prime for everyone to start with and then:

• I didn’t want all the skin to be the same so I used two different pairs of paints. Base was a Contrast paint (Dark Angels Green of Ork Flesh) and then one pass of highlights (Warboss Flesh and Moot Green respectively). 
• Lore says that they have very nice gear, these are a cut above your scummy normal orcs. I find the studio paint job on these models a little off – all the armour and shields are the same colours and it just turns them into an indistinguishable mass with my eyesight so instead I broke them down into different sections
  • Boots are no longer metal, they are heavy leather… or just a single coat of Wyldwood Contrast
  • Kilts are also no longer metal, they are a single coat of Stormfiend Contrast
  • The metal armour is Runelord Brass base with Screaming Bell to pick out some of the detailing
  • Shields were Warplock Bronze with details picked out by an over brush of Canoptek Alloy
• Hand weapons are just Gunmetal for the heads and Wyldwood for the hafts
• The entire model got a coat of Marine Juice – equal parts Nuln Oil, Reikland Fleshshade and Lamian Medium – to knock back the colours and tie everything together. 
• Being that these are basic infantry in a large army, that’s as far as I’m willing to go on them for now. I need them to go into a box until I base them later in the month so I gave them a coat of Matt varnish. I debated using a satin varnish given that there is still a lot of metal and it feels weird to Matt that down but then I realised I’ve run out and the decision was taken out of my hands. Then I used it and remembered that this matt spray is actually kind of shiny… some days you just can’t win.
  

As a batch, it was a lot but because it was mostly mindless base coating, it was relatively painless. Is 30 in a week realistic? No, I was on a short week at work so managed a couple of longer hobby sessions. Still, rather than dive straight into the next batch, I’m giving myself something else to paint for a few days. I also realised after I took the photos that I want to go back and do the mouths. I just forgot about them.

On multibases they will look good – I might go in and do a little more work on the front rows but that’s a future me decision to take.

And that’s the first 30 done. Good start but there’s a long way to go.