Bugs ‘n’ Beaches

Had a couple of fun games this Sunday, one was very close to my heart… Aliens. I’m afraid the marines didn’t make it and a huge swarm of Zeno’s at the end, wiped them all out. I fancied a challenge so played the inept Lt Gorman.  He had a lucky run but it didn’t last long before he was dragged away through the vents.

Hicks takes down an Alien warrior.

The marines had to locate Newt, who was hiding somewhere. Once found she lead the squad on a merry dance trying to catch her and calm her down. Too much time was spent trying to catch her and the Aliens moved in. ‘They come at night mostly… mostly’.

Lt Gorman tried to use a smart gun but was unable to control it. This was his last act. 

I’m sure this game was invented so people can just spout ‘Aliens’ quotes for a couple of hours. ‘Game over man.. game over!’ I think it’s an important part of the game!

The next game was a board game of sorts, based around the D-Day landings. It looked very complicated at first but the combat was very simple and easy to learn. Also there was a very nice order of play that made everything bounce along nicely.
 

It was very scary seeing the amount of German armour appearing on the board, however, the Allies scraped a victory at the very end. A close run thing. 

There were some nice touches in this game like Allied aircraft harassing German troop movement and bombers laying down bombs on chosen areas.

Orc spear unit

The idea for this unit came about when I realised I had loads of spare dwarf spears left over. The Oathmark dwarf spears are very long and remind me of pikes, a few spear head swops with nasty looking pole arms and you have a new orc unit.

As well as weapons I had quite a few dwarf torsos left over too. The shape of the Heavy dwarf infantry poses meant I couldn’t cut some of them down to size to match my Asgard metal ones. This left me with a box full of Dwarves I couldn’t  use, well not anymore… the have been converted into foul goblins . The scale armour on these dwarf models should look great as dirty orc armour.

The long pikes are the dwarf spears with a new end stuck on with plastic glue. I had a pack of nasty looking pole arms from Fire forge and these made for good orc weapons. 

I have modelled all my other orc units as blood thirsty mobs so far, apart from a couple of skirmish bases. So it’s nice to make a purely spear armed force. They have their own stats and rules in Oathmark so that will be fun to play, it should separate them from the howling mob.

This orc is made from an Oathmark Heavy dwarf and the head of a Warlord Games orc. The weapon head is also off the same orc sprue. The spike on the helmet is one of the old spear heads that was cut off, use everything waste nothing!

The new heads from the Wargames Atlantic goblin box really helped with the look of this unit.

Making a unit out of spare bits does throw up the odd problem, like a shortage of shield arms. I got around this by cutting the bows off some archer arms and using those. This works quite well because the outstretched arms look very long and so very orc like. They hang down almost to the ground and really look the part.

 This punch dagger spear top is from the Wargames Atlantic goblin sprue like most of the heads in this unit.

Update; this morning I created some more. It was fun trying to find evil looking blades for the spear tops. Some of these were cut from old GW goblin weapons. 

‘Awwwww Dad!’ This orc teenager gets told to do something he doesn’t what to do.

This orc officer has a GW elf spear from the bit box.

This orc has a GW Beastman’s weapon

A motley lot, this could be my favourite unit to date, as it captures my vision of orcs in the book. 

It might be time to break out the Oathmark metal characters too, for so reason I have hung on to them until now. Maybe this unit is worth their presence.

Poor Old Balin

It was nice to paint up another orc unit, they are strangely addictive to do. The new plastic set from Wargames Atlantic and the idea of using Dark tone dip spurred me on. The results are grimy and dirty looking and so work very well for orcs.

The other good thing about using the Dip method is you can churn out the numbers quite quickly, hugely useful for orcs!

The smaller goblins seem amongst this latest batch are actually created using the goblin torsos from Mantic Games. Oathmark arms and heads were used on top of these and the result were smaller Snagga types. Very good for skirmishers, although I have drafted these lot into the ranks.‘Forward you maggots!’

Balin’s tomb is over run with foul orcs, is nothing sacred anymore?!

I tried out a yellowish brown skin colour this time around as well as a blue hue. I suppose it all helps to create variety in the hordes of Mordor. I quite like the yellowish skin it looks very sallow, a word often used in the books.

I can’t believe they smashed his tomb! If I know anything it’s that there will be blood over this matter. 

A game I’d love to play would be Balin’s foray to reclaim Moria. A Dwarf army pushing into rooms and halls exploring the dark. It’s quite well documented in a day to day journal and a small campaign should be easy enough to knock up.

A crush of orcs as they push forward.