Mantic Games Goblin Army

I just recently finished my giant! He was an incredibly fun model to paint and is a huge fellow, I really love the mantic giant kit and painting him was just a treat.

So to paint him i first primed him in AP uniform gray. I then airbrushed on barbarian flesh, followed by a wash of flesh tone, I then let that dry and then airbrushed more barbarian flesh, then airbrushed in koboled skin. I then drybrushed koboled skin on the raised areas to create texture. The blue was just griffon blue, followed by blue wash and then a layer of crystal blue. The white cloth was just AP spaceship exterior, given a wash of contrast apothecary white, then relayered with ap spaceship exterior. The red was simply dragon red, washed ap red tone, then brought back up in dragon red with final highlights of Mars red.

The browns were a mixture of leather brown for straps, werewolf fur for fur, oak brown for wood and then all were washed in Ap strong tone before being brought back up with drybrushes of the original colours (except the fur which I gave a light drybrush of leather brown).

The nails were all done in my usual process of AP oak brown, AP desert yellow and then AP skeleton bone. Hair and eyebrows were matt black, followed by necromancer cloak and then finally highlighted in uniform gray.

Basing followed on from the rest of the army!

So today’s goal to get out of a hobby slump was to finish king gaggle being carried on his palanquin. I wanted a quick easy win which would add flavour to the army and he fit the bill perfectly. So after spending a couple hours here he is in all his tyrannical  glory!* I wound up removing the banner bearer for the rabble legion to fit Gaggle but I think it looks better now! Plus now I’ve already got a banner ready for the next horde!

I’ve actually also started painting my giant but he’s a bit of a bigger project so it may take me another week or so to finish him, but finish him I will!

*glory sold seperately

I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted an update but I have been busy painting! So busy in fact I forgot to post this a few weeks ago! So I’ve finished painting up my goblin mincers, two regiments of mawbeasts cavalry, all my character models and I’ve even started painting my giant! I’d say painting alot of goblins has been a slog but I’m genuinely enjoying every stage of this project, so much so I think I’m going to keep painting units for it for the foreseeable future (I already have hit my goal of 2000 points and then some).

So what’s next? Well the aforementioned giant, then I want to move onto the winggit and artillery, followed by mawbeasts splitters (two regiments of them) and thereafter the war trombone and mawbeasts packs, and then finally and fittingly I’ll finish the project with a return to where it all began, a horde of spitters!

As promised I have finished my trolls! I wanted to do a mixture of forest and cave trolls with the idea being the goblins just herded together whatever random trolls they’ve found and covered them in scraps of rusty metal. This was my first time attempting rust using GWs typhus corrosion and ryza rust, I like the effect!

I know it’s been a bit quiet of late between all my other projects (finishing the enforcers army was the big one) but I’m finally back in goblin town and I have now at last finished all the infantry for my base 2000 points of goblins I’d like to have done by years end! Now that I’m free of rank upon rank of basic troops I can finally just paint trolls, mawbeasts and my mincers! Stay tuned as I tackle the trolls next!

So I needed to do a new legion sized base since I accidentally destroyed the one intended for these guys last week by accident, but it’s a good opportunity for me to explain how I’m basing the army!

So I start off with getting the proper sized multibase ready, then I tear off some cork board from the sheets I get from Bunnings (or your local hardware store). I do a dry test to see if I can make a natural looking sort of arrangement and once satisfied I superglue the cork down. Now on some of my other bases I then attach using superglue some plaster cast rock formations but not on this one (as I would’ve had to cast some more and I was feeling lazy.

The next step is to apply sculptamold, this is a magical material that helps me to create realistic ground undulations and stops the cork from being just flat platforms. I discovered this from LukesAPS YouTube channel and knew I had to try it some time, if you’re doing terrain building or multicasting this stuff is awesome.

I then allow the st uj lptamold to dry overnight as I don’t want to apply paint and keep it damp. Once that’s done I then prime the whole base with army painter leather brown. I then paint all the exposed cork sections black before giving them two drybrushed, first with army painter uniform grey and then army painter ash GrayI also layer some cheapdollar store dark brown onto all the areas that aren’t exposed rock. The base is then ready for the basing material, using of a glue I first apply LukesAPS brand arid grasslands basing on the areas I want to be grassy and then arid earth okn the lower parts to make it look like rocks have be washed out after rain.

Then for the finishing touches I apply some gamers grass dry tufts and mixed green tufts sporadically, the base now looks like so!

I then glue the little goblins on and voila! A legion of rabble ready to swarm over my enemies!

The past two nights as a palette cleanser I’ve been working on Magwa and his best mawbeasts pal Jo’os. It’s been a quick little project and only took two nights because I had to wait for washes and basing to dry but progress is progress and I’m now one goblin unit closer to my goal!

Okay, so theyre not based yet but they’re completely finished painting wise, I made a mistake and destroyed the legion scenic base they were supposed to go on so now I have to wait while my local movement tray provider cuts a new one up for me. Which actually provides me with a good excuse to finally do a tutorial on how I’m basing the army later this week, so stay tuned for that! Now this rabble legion took me far far longer than I wanted it to simply because I think I was intimidated by doing 50 something models in a single batch, but now that they’re out of my way I’m kind of itching to do some sharpsticks… call me a masochist but I’m quite enjoying cranking out rank and file goblins…

Though some mawbeasts riders would be pretty cool too… ii don’t know let’s put it to a vote in the comments, more goblin infantry or some cavalry?

So setting SMART goals has been paying dividends, I’ve been giving myself the goal to just do a half hour of painting everyday so far and each time I’ve done so I ended up doing a  hour and lo and behold I’ve hit my goal of painting the skin on the rabble legion tonight. Tomorrow night I know I won’t be doing any hobby so I decided that my next goal would bve to get their black and grey headdress done Saturday night and then finish them off completely at a leisurely  pace on Sunday!

So after what has been a bit of procrastinating by doing other odds and ends related to this project (the king on the palanquin and the bit of red on the spitters) It finally clicked why I wasnt making the progress I wanted to in getting another big unit of goblins done. I was setting myself an unrealistic expectation of taking one whole day out of a weekend to just smash through the rabble legion (53 miniatures) in one big go. Now this worked for me when I did my spitters but if theres one thing I have learnt its that these spurts of hobby energy are not reliable for getting a larger project done.

So borrowing some of the theory from the Armies, Legions and Hordes book I decided I would set myself a S.M.A.R.T. goal.

For those who dont know a SMART goal is a goal that is:

Specific

Measurable

Achievable

Relevant

Time Bound

Now the smaller goal is getting this rabble legion finally done as part of my larger goal of having a playable army at the ready. I realised what I had been doing is setting myself a goal that was not achievable without me having a huge chunk of time to devote.

So my smart goal i have now set is to have the rabble legion fully painted come monday next week. How do i break this down into achievable and realistic bites? This i think is a key aspect of getting larger units of miniatures, especially for mass battle systems done. I decided I would set myself the aim of painting the first layer of skin by tuesday this week. This may seem like a modest goal and id say thats the point, I work during the week from home often until 6pm which means during the Canberra winter (which it is now) i dont particularly want to be painting too long out in my cold painting area in the basement. So by setting myself this modest goal i could be assured I could push through and get just a bit of painting done over the next two days.

I then said I would have the second and third layer finished by friday, followed by the black cloaks and then the final details on saturday and sunday. By Setting these goals I now have a concrete plan in my place for how im finally going to deal with this hobby roadblock (cause lets face it, painting 50-something goblins in one go is a daunting task). And its already paid dividends in terms of my progress, tonight i exceeded my expectations and actually finished layer one of the skin on the first day of the plan!

I guess what I am trying to get at when it comes to hobby and motivation in a project is that you need to be realistic and have a plan in place if you really wish to succeed at your army painting goal, even for smaller projects. When you set yourself unrealistic expectations or goals you will probably like me, find its easier to not even get started on making progress at all and procrastinate with other things you tell yourself are part of it all!

So here below you can see my goblins ready for second stage of skin painting.

One of the things ive realised id like to do with this project was to bring the mantic goblins (current and original from Kickstarter 1) to life and to do that I figured my army of goblins needed a little story bit of converting and story, I realised the core of my army eventually will be a legion of sharpsticks being the so called ‘elite’ of a goblin force and to remove the monotony of the 50 something goblins that will compose it, amongst all my other goblins i decided to create a goblin ‘king’ on palanquin. I wanted to use only mantic bits to create him so I set about and took my second goblin biggit I had lying around, I then took an old 40mm mdf base, scoured and scored it with my hobby knife before putting a dwarf throne onto the palanquin. I then took three spare spears from the mawbeast rider kit and fashioned them together to form the banner that would sit behind him. I then realised his palanquin was a little plain and so attached some treasure from the terraincrate series that i had spare and I was duly satisfied with how the little tyrant was looking.

The story of my goblins had now started coming together, my little goblin king had broken into an adjacent and forgotten dwarves keep in his lonely tunneling. Resulting in him becoming very wealthy and with enough bribes from his secret tunnel he assassinated and bought his way to lead the tribe of the red sign and become fat and large, no longer a mere rabble runt.

After making it to the top he had his best luggits bring the old dwarf kings throne for him to sit on. He decided however that the source of his great wealth would remain a mystery as he had those luggits duly get eaten by his tribes slasher thereafter. Now the little tyrant gets hauled around by the elite spiky biters legion, their loyalty secured by his gold. However plundering and dealing in dwarves holds and treasure has rapidly lead to him having a mark on his head, the dwarves are not known to take plundering and defilement of their sacred holds well!

The next stage in doing this little dude will be to work out how his palanquin will be carried, but I have to wait until all my spears for my sharpstick legion arrive in the mail, and with corona impacting shipping from the UK to Aus I don’t know when that will be ?

So I decided tonight after work I’d make it my goal to keep progressing with my goblins, but realised my project was lacking something that said to me that these were the comical ridiculous fighters known as goblins, while perusing through an old white dwarf magazine I realised what it was, they needed a bright colour that screamed, we are goblins and we like showing off. So I went back and took my bright and wonderful Mars Red from the army painter (which I was already using on their glyphs on banners) and did up the bows and spears for the slasher ballistae. Now it may look garish to some but to me it adds the character and ostentatiousness that is the hallmark of goblins in my opinion. It also for me is a way to pay homage to the armies that were proudly displayed at the time of my youth when I was first drawn to this hobby!

Now on the slightly less exciting side I went ahead and did the bronze and then straight after (when dry) washed my goblin rabble in strong tone. Not much to say on that other than that progress is happening and I remain committed  to my goal to have 2000 points of the little devils done up for when life is a little more normal.

I’ve been a bit lax in this project as of late  but finally picked it up again, I didn’t want to flood the site with progress picks but so far this week I’ve managed to basecoat the metal and cloth on 53 goblins for my rabble legion and assembled 3 of my mincers. Stay tuned until Sunday when I will hopefully have a legion of goblins done and my mincers all at least basecoated and blocked in! Ive found that something thats really helped me with coming back to this project is the fantastic book by Dave Taylor called Armies, Legions and Hordes. If you’re starting your first army or even struggling to continue on an existing project, this book lays out great theory behind getting your big hobby project done. In fact what got me started blogging on beasts of war were the tips in this book and I’m using this as a motivator to keep me going!

So since the last update I have been painting but with everything else going on hobby took a bit of a backburner, but here is my goblin slasher in all his painted glory!

This whole model was just a fun blast from start to finish, the goblins are great little figures and the beasty himself was perfect for airbrushing washing and dry in, he was done entirely using the army painter paints, gamers grass and the Luke’s APS battlefield ready basing range.

So Pawel “the swordmaster of Hoeth” is a local player in my scene and a pillar of the community. Every year for king’s of war he runs on Facebook monster March, where the challenge is to paint up a big old monster, you can read the first entry here: https://swordmasterofhoeth.blogspot.com/2020/03/monster-march-4-part-1.html?fbclid=IwAR1JJ5ZZahzxBujjidYnJPghz8cYZ0LZADC4P9ZMpK3qSOUgHwVIS8ePHao&m=1 along with all the other great content he produces. So given my goblins are already in progress I chose to do my slasher! I started off first by washing the model in warm soapy water as is recommended with all resin kits as a result of the release agent potentially being problematic to priming and painting.

I then went ahead and with hobby cutters and a hobby knife removed all excess supports and flash, which on this kit were extremely minor! I there after assembled the model to the point where I can prime him on Tuesday and still be able to reach and paint all the seperate parts. This model went together like a glove and will likely only require minor gap filling which I am well pleased with.

My next entry will be when his gaps have all been filled and he’s received the first coat if primer and hopefully a bit of paint!

So today I thought I’d get some assembly done, but as soon as I sat down at my hobby desk with the weekender I realised today was a day to paint. So I gathered my first horde of goblin splitters and 6 hours later here they are, the first unit for my goblin army completed!

I had alot of fun painting these, and the satisfaction I felt  gluing the last one onto the base was well worth it! The next steps for this project will be to paint another horde, probably this time of sharpsticks. I hope to get those finished by Thursday as part of my overall plan to get 1500 points done by a tournament in Sydney in march and 2000 points by end of April.

Until next time, thanks for following!

So this update is very late thanks to some annoying difficulties I was having with the beastsofwar site, essentially every time I tried to add an update it would crash and give me error 520… but enough about that, so since last time I have gone ahead and assembled my second regiment of mawbeasts riders! These are fun characterful models though I’d caution to keep an eye on all the small bits when you assemble these, but otherwise they tho together great!

I also went ahead and primed all of my goblin sharpsticks!  I now have 180 infantry ready for painting… which is alot..

I have also included a better photo of the goblins on their scenic multibase, these were done with a combination of lukesaps battlefield ready products and gamersgrass tufts, I’ll make a tutorial in a later update when I go ahead and do more of these!

The next step which I hope to finish tomorrow is to complete the assembly of all my mawbeasts rider sniffs and assemble my last horde of trolls!

So to start off with I’ve got a heap of KoW minis and three mostly mantic armies, but it’s been a long term goal for me to get a mantic goblin army done. The reason? I love goblins and I know the current mantic ones get a bad wrap (I say current because mantic have teased some nice new hard plastic sculpts for release later this year). I still want to get ahead with my current army because A: I’ve got them already and B: I kinda love them despite all their flaws.

But enough about why onto the when and how, the aim is to get 2000 points at least fully painted by the end of April 2020, end of April is an arbitrary date I set because I reckon using the army painter method I can get 2000 points done in 4 months. The planned timeline is as follows, get them all assembled and primed by end of Jan and then start knocking out units by the end of Jan/start of February. The hope is one regiment/horde a week.

I’m addition to doing the models themselves with the army painter method, I’ll be using for the first time the Luke’s APS scenic supplies to get the bases done to a good standard relatively easily, I should also mention this is the first time I’ve gone with scenic basing so hopefully it all comes together in the end.

Now the two models that form the display picture are the two test models I did at the start of last year when the whole army arrived on my doorstep. To paint them I used all AP warpaints. I started by priming them in army painter leather Brown, then I picked out the metal with gun metal and weapon bronze. I painted the cloth bits with skeleton bone. I then gave the whole models a brush on wash with strong tone (I dont use the dips as I can’t get them work how I want so I brush on). After that I layered over the metal with claymore bladeblade b starting on the skin.

The skin was first basecoated with elf green before being layered with commando green and then given a final highlight of witch brew. I then picked out the nails and teeth with skeleton bone.

The hoods were next with a basecoat of Matt Black that was then highlighted with necromancer cloak before a final highlight of uniform grey. The eyes were picked out with dragon red and then given a fine dot of Mars red over that.

The models were painted attached to their little circular tabs for ease of handling but will be clipped off to be applied to the multibases, though care must be taken not to snap off bits of their feet.

Now the project is currently in the building phase. Since the first of January (today’s the 14th here in aus) I’ve assembled all 180 of my goblin infantry and 10 fleabag riders and primed 110 of the infantry. I’ve completed at the end of last year a few of the multibases which you can see below. Though I’ll take better pictures tomorrow.

You can also see in the above image a heap of the assembled and primed goblins.

Now the next step is to continue assembly on this mad quest, the plan is a regiment every day I’m free (I have work, girlfriend and social commitments also) but I think I can get the remaining nine units assembled and primed in 9 days or just after the 28th of January.

Stay tuned as tomorrow I tackle the second regiment of fleabag riders and prime these 70 goblin infantry which are asking for some love.