Prep for Redstone Rumble

My next hobby milestone is to prepare for the Redstone Rumble, a local miniatures gaming convention coming up on 15-16 October.  Among my gaming group here, the favored game-of-choice at the convention will be Kings of War.  I have scant interest in playing in a 2-day tournament of any type, but I want to support the convention and help energize the local scene.  So I offered to play “the ringer” in the Kings of War tournament.  Hopefully, it will turn out that I play 2 or 3 games, and that will work out well for everyone.

I am also using the event to motivate me to expand my Orc and Goblin army, a years-long project that seems continually stalled or reprioritized.  Kings of War forces you to pick predominantly Orcs or Goblins.  There are separate armies for each, and then you can optionally ally up to 25% of your force from the other type.  I’m going to focus on Goblins, since I have a better head-start on Goblin forces.  Even so, I still need to double the meager 1000-point list that I was able to muster for my practice game two weeks ago!

So the first step has been to collect all the different Goblin models that are stuffed away throughout the apartment in numerous cubby-holes, closets, and crates.  Kind of a fun project in and of itself!  Especially when I came across some of the old-skool kits that I had stuffed away…

I have to admit, the 'nostalgia effect' made me pleasantly happy to "play" with my old-skool toys of yesteryear. 

The Grenadier collection was quite cheering, especially with this insert featuring Dave Arneson, co-creator of D&D.

By definition, this box of figures became an antique in 2008!
As it turns out, though, I won't be using these figures in the first round of projects.

For my practice game a couple of weeks ago, I wanted to at least add a new unit to my sparse army.  I picked up an old-skool Warhammer Goblin Wolf Chariot at NOVA Open (not remembering that I already had a duplicate kit at home, of course), and I was itching to work on it.  I was delighted to learn that the Kings of War Goblin army list has an entry for a Goblin King on Chariot.  Perfect! 

I named my Goblin King, "Maverick, Chieftain of the Clan of the Ill Wind.

I had to make my own base for this kit.  Despite the box-cover photo, the kit only provided cavalry bases for the wolves.
This photo belies the work it took to get to this point.  There were originally 23 pieces, now reduced to a half-dozen.

I like the color scheme on the box cover.  I decided to duplicate it as best as I could.

This is as far as I got, in time for the practice game.  I'll finish up the goblins and the basing before the Rumble.

In the practice game, Wood Elves obliterated my Orc units under heavy bow-fire, while a Treeman neutralized my own archers.  I didn’t use my new-fangled chariot soon enough as a flanker, and my force pretty much dissolved.  Ringers are expected to lose their games for the greater good, so I proved that I’m going to make an excellent ringer!

The next step was to bulk out my goblin forces and expand my army.  I need larger-size units in order to qualify for all my cool cavalry units.  So I decided to focus first on mass blocks of archers and spearmen.

Clipping, organizing, trimming/deflashing.  Ugh.  This is my least favorite part.

More planning and organizing.  Planning and organizing for the future as well.

Some figures required assembly.  I did some simple part-swaps, too, to add that much more variety.
All told, for this type of mass unit, I'd rather just have single-cast or two-part minis.  It's not worth the assembly time for the multi-part minis.

These Harlequin and Red Box minis are so tiny, I need to make their own bases so that they can stand upright, while I paint them, and have enough of a contact point to affix them to the stand.

Tiny goblin is tiny.

Finally, I get to see how the unit is going to look eventually.

I plan to include a "signaler" in each unit.

Here, I spend a Saturday morning crafting custom trays/stands.  I spent evening or two prior, cutting the boards into game-appropriate dimensions.  A good chunk of afternoon time was spent priming, painting, and sealing.