Thursday, July 5, 2018

Rebasing and painting Moonclan Grots

Of the many Warhammer Fantasy starter sets over the years I have to admit liking the Battle for Skull Pass (7th edition) the most. It featured an intersting Dwarf army including some fences and a cart for the miners. On the Goblin (Grot) side it had a tied up Trollslayer and a Shaman's hut. It had a lot of miniatures (32 Dwarves and a cannon and 73 Goblins). Nicest of all: it frequently appears on second hand sales for rather reasonable prices. I have at least two Battle for Skull Pass sets (and maybe three). When Age of Sigmar came along the Night Goblins turned into Moonclan Grots (and the Spider Riders became Spiderfang Grots) and basing was left up to the person with the paintbrush. To save time sticking models on the table I based my Moonclan Grots like this.

Multiple models on a base speeds up play, but turned out to become a nuisance around terrain.

This speeds up play a lot but it makes piling into combat and moving around terrain a complete nightmare. As I walked by my display case I decided my Grots deserve a base of their own. So I took a bunch of sparkling new 25mm rounds and a big pot of Vallejo Dark Earth paste.

If only Vallejo had a Stirland Mud colored dark earth, I'd buy another pot as this amount lasts you a lifetime.
Now the trick to owning a (painted) Grot army is to lower your standards (well, to me it is). So I can't really do anything to horrible to these guys. I used my thumb to snap them of the old base and laid them out in rows of ten.

Don't forget to stick the goblins on while the paste still wet, otherwise they'll look floaty.
Next up I stippled some Dark Earth Paste on the bases. It's a lot quicker then painting :)

Now that is some precision work here..
After that I dunked my goblins into a blob of PVA. I later adapted this step and just put a drop of PVA onto the model (it turned out to be a neater AND faster method).

Blob, next Grot!
And poof another Grot is proudly sitting on his base.

They may have been painted at high speed and low quality, but quantity does make up for the worst transgressions.
In slightly above an hour's work I have separated both the spear and the bow wielding Gits. Now all I have to do is wait a day for the Dark Earth Paste to harden completely, add some Agrax Earthshade to them and finish up with some fresh tufts of grass and these guys'll be ready to terrorize the Old World.

And another bunch of Grots is almost ready to join there brethren (and die badly on the tabletop).
All this rebasing reminded me I still had a bunch of Moonclan Grots with only airbrushed black capes. I took them out of storage and spend the rest of the evening (and the two after that) globbing on some green and brown paint and a bunch of washes. And tada another thirty Spear carrying Moonclan Grots are just a liberal application of rust (and yellow moonfaces) away from the tabletop. As I started these guys in 2016 do I say I painted them over the course of several years or over the course of about a week's worth of work? The answer to that will probably depend on how much I want to irk the person I'm speaking to. As an interesting sidenote, the project box featured in the post linked at the start of this paragraph has been almost completely painted by now. Anyways, back to my other projects (Adeptus Mechanicus, Stormcast, Nighthaunt, oh if only I could pick a direction and keep going....)

2 comments:

  1. Hurrah for goblins! I should get back to mine again sometime.

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    1. Night Goblins just ooze charm, especially the older ones I will hopefully finish painting this weekend.

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