Category Archives: Night Goblins
Whither Now Destruction?
What with it being Orctober I find myself thinking about greenskins even more than usual, from hulking boyz to stabby little gobbos, and even their big – and distinctly pink skinned – friends the ogres. In combination these form the Destruction Grand Alliance, the warlike hordes who smash their way through the Mortal Realms in a riot of brute strength and low cunning.
Over the past year or so Games Workshop have given Age of Sigmar some much-needed housekeeping. The myriad factions of yesteryear have been pared down into something much more manageable and less intimidating to a newcomer. In the early days of AoS each Grand Alliance (for the uninitiated that's Order, Chaos, Death and Destruction – the overall groupings of factions by which the setting is defined) contained dozens of mini-factions, some of which contained only a single model (the Shadowblades or Firebellys for example). For a veteran of the Warhammer era that had gone before it was totally baffling and formed an almost impenetrable barrier between people like me and the brave new world that GW were developing.
Naturally they wanted to look to the future and to get to work on the new and creative ideas they had been cooking up. However before they could really get on with it they needed to put their house in order. If you want your pudding you have to eat your greens and if they wanted to concentrate on the next Idoneth Deepkin or Stormcast Eternals it was getting harder and harder to do with the survivors of the Old World hanging around and embarrassing GW in front of their fancy new friends.
In order to resolve this many of the small factions, with only a handful of models to their name, were rolled together and, unlike the higglety pigglety, anything-goes approach of the early days, found themselves combined like with like. The humans, elves and dwarves who survived the destruction of the Old World have been clumped into the Cities of Sigmar for example, whilst the disparate clans of the Skaven have been reunited into a single faction. At the same time various models were removed from the range, some not a moment too soon, some well before their time, and some were kept on which surely should have been replaced decades ago. At times the logic behind which models were cut and which were kept was hard to fathom for a fan without insider knowledge of the company. The orc boar boys for instance got the chop as part of the dissolution of the greenskins faction. At the time it made a degree of sense to me, despite being relatively modern – not to mention rather nice looking in comparison to many of the other greenskins kits – they didn't really fit in with either the Ironjaws or the Bonesplitters, both of which had their own version of boar boys anyway. With the arrival of the Orruk Warclans army book however one wonders if more could have been done to save their bacon. With the orc factions rolled back together again surely the boar boys could have found a home amongst them? Most likely the answer comes down to shelf space, combined with the aforementioned alternative boar boys but I'm still sorry to see them go.
I'm just a boar boy, nobody loves me
He's just a boar boy from a boar family
However whilst I can suggest a logic behind the removal of the boar boys I'm left confused as to why this goblin shaman was shown the door…
… whilst these two weren't.
Is it just the lack of Night Goblin accoutrements like a big hood? If it really bothers you a head swap isn't hard to accomplish. Speaking as a fan of the Gloomspite Gits I'd rather have a nice looking shaman with a bare head than this duff-looking duo (although looking again the one in the foreground isn't quite as bad as I remembered him). At least I have a couple of alternative shamen I can call upon however.
Age of Sigmar deserves to tap into its potential for creativity but it was tricky to do that until the ghosts of WHFB were laid to rest. Now that that task nears completion we can turn our attention to the future and start to ask just where that creativity might lead.
Until now GW have reserved the greater part of that creativity for the Order Grand Alliance. In part however I suspect this reflects the ideas of the past and the areas in which they felt their line was at its weakest. After all the Skaven, or the warriors of Khorne, are far more distinct to GW's IP than elves or dwarves which can be found through fantasy fiction. Thus the company has focused on Order and Chaos, the former requiring perhaps the most work, the latter already well-formed and desperate to stretch its wings in AoS's new universe and tap into the vast potential which previous iterations had seen stifled. The other two Grand Alliances fell behind although Death is starting to come into its own through the Nighthaunt and the forthcoming Ossiarch Bonereapers. As it stands order contains eight factions, chaos seven and death just four with the inclusion of the Bonereapers*. Destruction also has four at the moment although it's safe to assume that two of these, the Beastclaw Raiders and Gutbusters will be rolled into a single Ogors faction soon. Likewise the Orcs of the Ironjaws and Bonesplitters have recently become the Orruk Warclans (with any old Orcs from the greenskins faction herded to the exits). Similarly the goblins, trolls and squigs have been gathered into the ranks of the Gloomspite Gits. The result is three neatly packaged factions; orcs, goblins and ogres.
*For those who want to check my workings, I'm counting as supported those factions which have been given their own section on the GW website and a book – not anything that's currently discontinued or anything from Forge World. Based on that we have;
Order – Cities of Sigmar, Daughters of Khaine, Fyreslayers, Idoneth Deepkin, Kharadron Overlords, Seraphon, Stormcast Eternals and Sylvaneth.
Chaos – Beasts of Chaos, Blades of Khorne, Disciples of Tzeentch, Everchosen/Slaves to Darkness, Hedonites of Slaanesh, Maggotkin of Nurgle and Skaven (treating Everchosen and Slaves to Darkness as one faction and leaving Creatures of Chaos out because that's not a proper faction round my house, that's just some monsters conveniently gathered in the same place!)
Death – Flesheater Courts, Legions of Nagash, Nighthaunt, Ossiarch Bonereapers.
Destruction – Gloomspite Gits, Orruk Warclans and Mawtribes (or whatever the Ogors end up being called).
I'm sexy and I know it
Where do they go next then? There isn't a natural and obvious answer to this. When Khorne, Nurgle and Tzeentch were given army books of their own it was safe to assume that Slaanesh would get their turn sooner or later. The same can no longer be said. A tipping point has been reached and we find ourselves stepping off the edge of the Old World's map and into the uncharted lands of the new Age of Sigmar.
As hobbyists we often pull at loose threads of information, trying to second guess what might be released in the months and years to come. In the past it was easy to say "this faction or that faction ought to be coming soon" simply because they haven't had any fresh releases in a while. This was never a very reliable way of divining the future but it had its merits, and those who made a habit of such guesses where right often enough to weave themselves an illusion of foreknowledge. Nowadays you might as well try to read the tea leaves in the GW staff canteen.
By naming the Orc faction Orruk Warclans rather than Ironjaws and Bonesplitters (or some more pleasing and marketable equivalent) the implication is that these are all the Orcs we're going to be seeing for the next little while. Beastgrave contains a rather lovely looking warband of goblin wolf riders (that's part of the Gitmob in the modern parlance) but my gut tells me – with nothing more than an intuitive guess to go on – that these are more of a nod to the past than a hint of things to come. The goblins certainly have potential for further exploration – I'm still surprised that we didn't see a new plastic kit for the doom-diver catapult as part of the Gloomspite Gits release for instance – but much like the Orruk Warclans I suspect that the Gloomspite Gits are a packing up of the existing gobbos, for now at least.
Nor are there any subfactions which seem like contenders for establishing themselves as fully-fledged factions in their own right. The trolls have made themselves at home amongst the Gloomspite Gits and, thus established, have really come into their own. The giants may have enjoyed a brief stint as a one model faction in the early days of AoS but the big oafs have been reined in by their destruction colleagues and I'd be surprised to see them go it alone again.
If it was up to me I'd love to see the snotlings brought back and explored in full but I can't imagine that anything other than wishful thinking. Then again at least they could double up as Orks in Adeptus Titanicus!
Of course, I can't miss an opportunity to make my pitch for a Destruction themed version of Warcry. Just imagine the fun that could be had shifting the setting from the Chaos wastes of the Bloodwind Spoil to the rust warrens and dank caves of Skrappa Spill. Instead of Chaos warbands we could see examples of the various types of Orc, Goblin and Ogres that must be found in the Mortal Realms, fighting it out for the sheer joy of it.
Meanwhile, lurking in the corner of the Destruction Grand Alliance, overlooked and underloved, we have the Fimir. These weird cyclopean beasts have skulked on the fringes of Warhammer since the early days, never fully accepted into the game, never entirely kicked out. Every time you think they are gone for good they pop up again, shoving their snouts briefly above the parapet every decade or so before vanishing once more into the gloom. Earlier this year I even painted one, a model from Hero Quest that's almost as old as I am.
With the launch of AoS the Fimir abandoned the overcrowded Chaos raft and found themselves a new home amongst Destruction (rather than vanishing once and for all, as I was expecting, with the purging of so many other things GW wanted rid of). Thanks to Forge World we even have a few Fimir models and as ever there is speculation that they might make a comeback. Honestly I wouldn't hold my breath (unless I was standing downwind of a real Fimir that is).
One thing the Fimir do however is emphasise that from here on out we no longer need to expect the Destruction forces to adhere to tradition. For these warlike races things have remained pretty much the same for a very long time. The Orcs and Goblins, and Ogres, were well established in WHFB and stamped into AoS as if nothing much had changed. Whilst a time traveller from a decade ago would barely recognise the flying dwarves and fishy elves as descendants of the game they knew the greenskins and their allies remain much as they ever were, just with a few nice new models to show for the passage of time. It's easy to believe that nothing need ever really change. Yet a glance towards the Order Grand Alliance reveals this need not be the case. The once hide-bound, subterranean dwarves now zoom through the skies, carving out trade empires above the clouds where once they carved mines beneath the roots of the mountains. Some elves are half snake, others are eyeless and aquatic. Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Ulthuan anymore…
I'm not for a moment suggesting that we are about to see aquatic orcs or half-snake ogres, simply that the expansion of possibilities that was applied to Order could just as easily be lavished upon the other Grand Alliances. What is certain is that GW aren't done with the brutish followers of Gorkamorka, and that, after decades of popularity they'll be cast aside. Equally we can't guess with even a scrap of accuracy what form those future releases might take. We could see orcs, goblins or ogres of a kind completely unknown to us, or we could see something entirely new. Good or bad the future is looking like a very different place from the past. After so many years of seeing the same old factions from one decade's end to the next that's something that we're going to have to get used to. I still can't begin to get guess what it might look like, but I for one am agog to find out!
12 Comments	| tags: Age of Sigmar, Gloomspite Gits, Goblins, Ogres, Orcs, Orruks, Warhammer	| posted in Editorial, Night Goblins
Getting Squiggy With It – Part 1
If the blog seems particularly busy at the moment, that's probably because it is! Over the summer months I spend a lot of time working outdoors. I paint miniatures here and there but not half as much as I might otherwise. Models are started and then set aside and by late summer the heap of part-painted stuff on the desk is higher than it has any right to be. Rather than allow the situation to worsen I'm trying to make a concerted effort to clear away some of these unfinished models and this week I've identified several which are within a hair's breadth of completion and can be knocked out with relative ease – surely better than leaving them to gather dust any longer!
With this in mind the next targets for my brush were these three squigs.
It's fair to say that the old squig models varied in quality – some were character-packed bundles of fun, others were a little harder to get enthusiastic about. One thing they did struggle with however, being metal models, was the degree of dynamic "bounce" that is central to their character, and which has been fully captured in this latest iteration.
This one is a real favourite of mine – pity the poor goblin as he vanishes into the mouth of his pet!
I would argue that there are very few things as iconic of Warhammer as a squig. I've always been a big fan of the bitey little dudes, indeed I'd question the judgement of anyone who isn't, and so I was thrilled to see them at last honoured with a proper plastic kit back in January of this year. Given the above, and acknowledging how little effort is required to get them painted, I'm surprised it's taken me until now but here we have them, three vicious, snappy cave-fungus ready to chomp their way through whoever they please.
Right – let's see what else I can clear from the backlog!
19 Comments	| tags: Age of Sigmar, AoS, Gloomspite Gits, Goblins, Squig, Warhammer	| posted in Gloomspite Gitz, Night Goblins
Squabblin' Goblins – Part 11
Last weekend saw the long-awaited release of new plastic squigs from Games Workshop. Formerly part of the Orcs and Goblins range these crazy little beasts have now found a home amongst the Gloomspite Gits, a re-imagining of the old night gobbos in the Mortal Realms. As a long-standing fan of greenskins in general and squigs in particular it's fair to say that I've been looking forward to this release since long before the models were even sculpted, let alone announced. Having got my hands on them* I wanted to take the opportunity to share a few thoughts regarding my early impressions – illustrated with a few moody and atmospheric black and white images to compensate for the fact that I haven't painted anything yet.
*I know I have plenty of other things to paint at the moment, and I know buying new models when I haven't painted what I have is profligate, but how could I resist after dreaming of them for at least a decade?
The new Gloomspite Gits are an interesting proposition. Despite it being three years since the arrival of Age of Sigmar this release would have fitted quite comfortably into the Old World of Warhammer. Previously Age of Sigmar releases have either been entirely new races, such as the Stormcast Eternals or the Idoneth Deepkin, or have evolved old races into new forms, such as the Daughters of Khaine or the Sylvaneth. Sometimes models for this latter group would have fitted in well in the Old World, and some might even be effective proxies for older units – like Ironjaw Brutes as Orc Big 'uns, but never have we seen such comprehensive coverage of models widely desired for an old Warhammer army as part of an Age of Sigmar release. Long before the End Times, before Nagash returned and with the Stormcasts no more than a games developer's fevered imaginings, people were crying out for new squigs.
Having waited all these years for a nice plastic kit for the squigs (surely always a glaring gap in the Games Workshop roster) I found myself giving in to temptation and snapping them up as soon as I could. Acquiring them however has led to considerable food for thought. Many old school players will be rejoicing at the opportunity to add this iconic creature to their Orcs and Goblins armies but with the scale of many GW models creeping larger every year will these newcomers even fit on an old 20mm square base? They, at least, can relax, the answer is a firm "yes".
Indeed although many things have become bigger over the years the boisterous squig remains roughly the same.
For myself I'm still debating exactly what to do with my newly acquired squigs. Long ago I started to build a Night Goblin army for WHFB and last year I actually got a sizeable chunk of it painted. When I painted the army last year I threw in a handful of squigs but left the squad incomplete in the hope that sooner or later more would come bouncing along. All too often such manoeuvring proves to be wishful thinking but this time it seems I guessed right.
As squigs were always intended to be a part of that army surely I should just pop the little beasts onto square bases and get painting. On the other hand however the style of base very much directs the game for which the model is intended. As it stands I'm unlikely to actually play with these, so the point is probably entirely academic. Nonetheless the idea of some AoS skirmish has a distinct appeal. In the unlikely event that I do ever decide to play some old fashioned Warhammer it'll be my Skaven that hit the tabletop.
It's also worth considering that despite the aesthetic punch which an old Warhammer army with its ranks of troops neatly defined possesses, a quality which no AoS army can quite capture, some models just don't look as good in ranks. By putting them on round bases I'd be able to really enjoy and show off everything these dynamic models can do, rather than struggling to make the best of things and force them into ranks which they were never intended to form. After all "ranking up" was a rightly cursed aspect of old Warhammer, a chore which impeded miniatures design and made hobbyist's lives a misery in equal measure, so burdening myself with it unnecessarily seems like foolishness.
A release as long awaited as this was always going to be of key importance to GW. This was a chance to win over lingering WHFB sounds to the new world of AoS. Furthermore there must have been a temptation to indulge the freedom of the new realms to push the Night Goblins in new and crazy directions, an urge they have wisely resisted. The Night Goblins and Squigs have always been amongst the company's most classic and iconic races and as the old saying goes "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". Look no further than the wailing and gnashing of teeth that accompanied the upscaling of the space marines, a range who's undersized proportions meant it certainly was broke and did need fixed.
On the other hand as a species so intrinsically associated with the Old World there was always a real danger that these little dudes would seem glaringly out of place amid the Mortal Realms. Luckily good models save the day. Just as the sudden availability of truescale marines made it easier for many of us to swallow the new landscape of 40k so too do Night Goblins in the Mortal Realms seem much more palatable when accompanied by these glorious new squigs.
This is not to say that everything is just a rehash of the "good old days" however. New ideas have been brought in but they've done so in a way that sympathetic to the old. Take the new Boingrot Bounderz for instance. Again old school WHFB fans could use them as alternative squig hoppers (which the kit also makes) but there's something irresistible entertaining about goblin knights. Picture, if you will, a whole court of them in full heraldic pageantry, with the squig hoppers as squires and a suitably deranged-looking king bouncing in the lead. Of course, in a process which will be familiar to all hobbyists, now I've thought of it I can't stop thinking about it. Bretonnia may be gone but there is still room for a green knight or two.
The only thing I'm not entirely happy out regarding these is the way they are held aloft on heaps of mushrooms. It's just a little over the top for my tastes, although I stress that's just a personal opinion, but it's also rather tricky to do very much about it. The fungi are sculpted directly to the legs of the squigs, probably a sensible move when it comes to supporting the weight of the model but making it distinctly tricky to separate them. I did manage it with this one but, given what a faff it was, I don't think I'll be losing too much sleep over the others.
The Night Goblins were always a race which combined spite and silliness with aplomb. there was an element of slapstick comedy about them that brought something uniquely enjoyable to their murderous ways. Whilst still clearly evil creatures this cheeky, quirky element put them in a class of their own, a long way from straightforward baddies like Chaos or the Vampire Counts, whilst their status as weak yet cunning distinguished them from the loutish Orcs. Again it's pleasing to see that this trait lives on in their new iteration. Goblins of all kinds have always enjoyed seeing their mates suffering misfortune and goblin fans are no better. Can you imagine Stormcast fans universally applauding a model of a liberator being swallowed by a dracoline, as this poor little grot is gobbled up by a squig?
Amidst all this praise for the new models it would be remiss of me not to take a moment to mourn the passing of the Doom Diver from the range. It was a true icon of the old Orcs and Goblins army which seems not to have made the cut for a new model and has been quietly shuffled into retirement. Luckily for me I was given one a few years ago which will be joining my Night Goblins sooner or later.
Likewise goblin wolf riders, a staple of many childhoods thanks to The Hobbit, have been shuffled off into the great dank cave in the sky. These days if you want to go riding into battle on a big bad wolf you need to be a power-armoured futuristic Viking with a questionable hair-do's.
Few things are as evocative of GW's stable as Night Goblins and Blood Bowl, so I've also found myself pondering how the two could be combined, a subject I've found myself returning to lately following conversations with fellow blogger and blood bowl enthusiast Faust. So far I've only dipped my toe into it but as this combination of Blood Bowl player and the (now retired) Night Goblin Fanatics shows, there's certainly room to create some alternative members for a diverse looking team.
Once again though I'd like to emphasise that I have plenty of other projects I ought to be concentrating on so although these squigs and gobbos will definitely get a turn on the painting table it won't be straight away. In many ways however this is a blessing. I've been thinking about what to do with a release like this for a number of years so I won't be rushing into anything, but instead will be taking the chance to explore the models, see what other hobbyists do with them, and bounce a few ideas around before I commit to anything. At this point I often say watch this space but this time I'll add don't hold your breath as well. However if you have any suggestions, ideas or words of wisdom, I'm all ears.
31 Comments	| tags: Age of Sigmar, Gloomspite Gits, Night Goblins, Review, Squig, Warhammer	| posted in Editorial, Night Goblins
I think it goes without saying that I'm hugely, childishly overexcited by all the new Night-Clan Moon-Gits or whatever it is that GW are calling Night Gobbos this week (I know it's Gloomspite Gits but I was only just getting used to calling them Moonclan). My fungus-addled brain has already gone into overdrive coming up with uses for the new models so expect to see them popping up here over the coming months in various guises. Naturally however this enthusiasm can't be kept entirely bottled up so I've channelled it into getting this spiteful little chap painted.
I got him a while back as part of one of the Greenskin Wars kickstarters and he may actually be my favourite Night Goblin of all time. Plus, inspired by all the new models, I hammered through painting him in no time flat.
I have been chipping away at other models over Christmas and New Year so expect to see a few more appearing soon(ish), once I've got the finishing touches on them, starting with a round-up of my current Necromunda projects later in the week.
23 Comments	| tags: Age of Sigmar, Gloomspite Gits, Gobbo, Greenskin Wars, Moonclan Grots, Night Goblins, Warhammer	| posted in Night Goblins
Squabblin' Goblins – Part 9
Not wishing to rest on my laurels – suitably green though they may be – when it comes to my Night Goblin army, I've added a couple more recruits, a pair of fanatics whirling destructively into battle. These two were half finished at the end of October and rather than allow myself to get distracted and leave them incomplete for who knows how much longer I wanted to put brush to model and finish them off properly.
Unleash the fanatics!
Something I have been keen to avoid, especially after pouring so much effort into the army over the past few months, is allowing progress to stall entirely whilst I concentrate on other projects. Thus, whilst I was working on the fanatics I decided to press on and paint up this goblin shaman as well.
With these latest additions the heap of unpainted greenskins continues to reduce in a pleasing manner but there is still plenty more to finish and, with signs of a forthcoming Moonclan/Night Goblin release from GW which may well lead to me relapsing into my old goblin-purchasing ways, I'll keep chipping away at them for now.
16 Comments	| tags: Age of Sigmar, AoS, Fanatic, Goblins, Moonclan Grots, Night Goblins, Orcs, Shaman, Warhammer	| posted in Night Goblins
Back at the end of September I showed a whole load of unpainted night goblin spearmen and archers and swore to have them all finished by the end of this month. As ever at least part of the credit for this rash decision lies with Azazel and the latest of his monthly hobby challenges. This month the goal is to complete a unit (or more than one if one is so inclined) and that's exactly what I was hoping to do. Let's take a look at how I got on.
First up there were a few more spearmen needed to round out the ranks of the malevolent little gits.
Such a rowdy bunch of goblins need a boss to keep them in line, a musician to tell them when to march and when to stab and of course a banner with a suitably impressive moon on it.
However that still wasn't enough bodies to complete four whole ranks of the gits so a couple of quirky unit fillers were needed. This poor gobbo has looted so much he can barely stand up…
And then there's this clump of friendly looking mushrooms that have sprouted from the floor of the gobbo's cave…
And with that the whole 40-ish strong mob is ready to make mayhem!
On top of that there were a whole heap of archers to paint…
And they too needed a musician and a banner to round out the squad.
And with that a second goblin squad is ready to defend their cave from any wandering adventurers…
Readers who recall my summary of the gobbos at the end of September will remember that I didn't get the last squig finished in time. Not to worry here he is now.
Needless to say I'm really proud of the progress I've made over the last couple of months. Here's a reminder here's how the army looked at the beginning of September…
…And at the end of September…
And here it is now.
Big thanks once again to for Azazel encouraging me to tackle this heap of unpainted models and turn it into a little army that I'm feeling justifiably proud of. Of course there are still various other little greenskins hanging around and waiting for attention – you've not seen the last of these boys yet!
26 Comments	| tags: Age of Sigmar, Goblins, Moonclan Grots, Night Goblins, Orc, Orctober, Warhammer	| posted in Night Goblins
I planned to paint this very old spider-loving goblin shaman for Neglected Model Month but alas he was so neglected I didn't even manage that. Never mind though at least he's done now!
Oh, and for anyone who thinks that an overabundance of skulls is a modern phenomenon amongst GW's miniatures there are seven of them on this little dude. Indeed his love of both spiders and skulls puts him on a par with most goths I know (which needless to say is a very good thing indeed).
27 Comments	| tags: Age of Sigmar, Goblins, oldhammer, Orcs, Orctober, Spider, Warhammer	| posted in Night Goblins