Hobby Update: Orc "Army"

This year I mostly hobbied on various warbands rather than expand greatly upon any existing army. Both my free time and my hobby space were greatly diminished over the year, so this was a nice way to still have some fun building and painting without worrying about matching up with an old scheme or thinking up a new one.

These orcs stared out a long while ago as D&D stand-ins, and in 2021 I decided I wanted to expand them a bit into a larger warband. Things got out of hand, and I soon realized that I had a small army in the works! I didn't want to do a full new army though, so decided to split the difference between a number things, and ended up with what follows.

Whoops! Ended up with about 3x more than I wanted, but it all works out.
This was a fun distraction for a few weeks over the summer.

I really just wanted a warband, but won too many bids with way too many minis and decided I was too lazy to repackage and resell. So I decided to make this a loaner/intro army, but using round bases and movement trays. Doing so could show the new player that existing things could be ported over into Kings of War without much effort. Multi-basing is fun, but not something they needed to do to try out the game. 

Two-piece tray. I'll have a better post coming about these at some point. For here, each Regimental tray can fit 10 dudes on 32mm round bases, allowing for pretty slick conversions from other game systems.

The movement trays came in two pieces. This was a little awkward, but I'll admit I did not give any thought to how they made these. A little school glue (Elmer's Glue, or PVA glue) and holding it in place seemed to work out fine. I decided naked MDF wasn't appealing, so I tried to spread just a tiny pit of texture paste on, and paint up some browns and greys for a pretty neutral coloring. The drybrushing was pretty bad (very streaky on the left of this pic; way too much paint), but I didn't care enough to redo.  This will be a base beneath individual round bases after all.

A regiment of Greatax

I had started this expansion project with just a sprue of 5 GW 'ardboys. The original warband had a few, but those were picked up from bits shops years ago, and that was very confusing as some of the weapons I bought didn't fit with the bodies. Working on the new ones, I realized that the sprue/box is actually split between different poses (a "command" pose, two allowing for arms at the sides, and two for arms overhead - the only pose allowing for great weapons). This strikes me as weird. I don't have the books, but surely these were two distinct weapon options back then, so I'm not sure how an orc player felt getting only half a box outfitted for great weapons. Maybe I am missing something though.

A Regiment of Morax

As I won some (what I thought were) long-shot bids, I took inventory, and realized that with the split in bodies, if I picked up a new box of 'ardboys, I could get 10 with great weapons and 10 with paired weapons, and decided to do it. All of the 'ardboys were pretty fun to hobby up. The orcs get a surprising amount of weapons! I tried to mix things up to give them a more varied look, but pairing the correct weapons does look pretty cool.

A Regiment of Young Ax

These were the first of two "long-shot" bids the pushed me into making this,. Something like a used lot of 18, to build on my original 4 from the old "easy build" box, or whatever it was called at the time. 

A second Regiment of Young Ax.

I am not familiar with the Orc list, and decided to run these as Youngax for the stats and "why you see is what you get" reasons. Morax and Greatax have Def 4 in big plate armor, so I didn't want these ruffians out-shining the elites. These are Def 4 too, though that feels better since they carry the shields in lieu of armor. Def 5 is pretty strong, so I think normal Ax for me would be 'ardboys with shields, which is not something I am ready to do yet.

A Regiment of Skulks.

The archers were the second long-shot bid that pushed me over. I won 16 accidentally. Not knowing what to do I found and bought 4 more to get an even 20. In the end I painted 10 up. The other 10 join a musician and bannerman from the "Youngax" lot "in reserve" in my apartment's storage unit.

Misc. Both the orcs not carrying the banner have already been shown previously! The banner will eventually need a symbol and some touch-ups for the skulls and such though. 

I had an Ogre Chieftain from Reaper Mini lying about and decided to paint them up as a Troll Bruiser. It looked more that part than anything else, and I always just loved the door as a shield. 

I was basically out of minis, so decided to lean into the modularity that using individual models provided. The "champions" of the Moreax and Greatax can be subbed out out if I need a Krudger or Krusher, replaced by the Flagger. Otherwise, I have a Flagger and a Troll Bruiser, which should be enough options. A hero and a monster is usually enough for a learner game. The round bases could be tricky in-game, , but I have a ton of 25mm squares, and should be able to remember to bring them as needed for measuring things out.

All this gave me five regiments, a Troll Bruiser monster and 1 variable hero. Running a Flagger or Krusher, I think I'm at 935 points or thereabouts. With a Krudger though, I'd be at 980, really close to 1000 points and that flat numbers is easily achievable with some Skull Poles or magic items. I don't know how viable it would be, but that's not a serious concern for a learner army.

The blues were an unusual color, but the variation especially gives a little more vibrant result to what could easily be a very drab army. I'm pleased with how this project ended up, and it should work very nicely for any small, casual game, any skirmish style game, or piecemeal as D&D encounters.