Aporcalypse Redux part Deux

[Avian]

So five years ago, when the previous O&G book was released, I started my Aporcalypse Redux project, to redo my old greenskin army and get it up to my current painting standard. Amongst other things, this involved a LOT of rebasing as the army was originally based with green flock (it was an OLD army). Fast forward a few years and I haven't really played my greenskins much in ages. So far I have only 7 battles with the new book - 5 losses and all wins have been teaching 8th edition to my brother, which don't really count.

I don't really like the new book.

But I have decided to have a go with the greenies, even if the Ogres (which I also play) are out in a matter of weeks. At least there will be very little to change with my Ogre army as I have very few unpainted minis for them and not a lot of ambition to buy new stuff. I might get a unit of the Catriders and a big nasty, but other than that I think my existing army is fine and anyway I'm not blown away by the new minis other than the Firebelly and that's in Failcast so I'm not getting it.

Anyway.

Stuff somewhere on my to-do list:

a Very Big Spider
another Very Big Spider
30 Savage Orcs (new plastics)
20 Squigs / Herders (mix of 5th / 6th)
Savage Orc Hero (AoW)
Savage Orc Shaman (Wurrzag)
Regular Orc Shaman (AoW)
Night Goblin on Bigsquig
Mangler conversion (this thing)
a handful of Black Orcs (6th ed metals)

Then there is a Doom Diver I want to convert. Three Pump Wagons need building / repainting. I want to convert my Borgut model to a Black Orc BSB on foot and I might want to get a Wolf Rider Hero.

I also have a good number of starter box minis from 6th and 7th ed, but I doubt I'll bother with them. And some older units to rebase.

Doesn't sound too bad.

I wish I liked the army book more.

[Avian]

As I mainly paint when I have to, it helps to have a deadline. In two weeks there is a tournament and this is the first draft:

Orc Gt Shaman
Black Orc BSB
28 Orc Big 'Uns
48 Night Goblins
5 Wulfies
21 Black Orcs
8 Trolls
6 Squigs + 4 Herders
2 Wolf Chariots
Very Big Spider
Doom Diver
Rock Lobber
Mangler

Of this I have the Shaman, some Black Orcs, Very Big Spider, Mangler conversion and a replacement Doom Diver crewman to paint. Priority is for the latter three items. I'm not sure a non-fighter general with no armour or wards is all that smart when I have Ld 4 Trolls and Ld 5 Night Goblins relying on him staying alive to encourage them anyway.



Not shown are the howdah for the spider and the goblin crewmen. If you can see it on the Spider's back there is some green stuffing where I have inserted magnets. I want to have the options swappable as I belive most of them to be fairly crappy, but I still want to try them out once or twice. The Spider itself isn't much converted, I just left out one of the trees you get to stick on the base and modified the leg slightly so it touches the ground instead.

[Sully]

I will watch it closely. Why don't you like the new book?

[Avian]

Primary reason: It got the basic Orcs AND the basic Goblins wrong. No greenskin book has managed THAT since 5th edition.

[Cragum]

Looking forward to seeing this log. But how come they got them wrong? What do you think to the night goblins? I think they hit the nail on the head.

[Lord Dan]

Alright!!! Let's get this party started!

[Sully]

Primary reason: It got the basic Orcs AND the basic Goblins wrong. No greenskin book has managed THAT since 5th edition.

Can you elaborate a bit? I'm not sure I follow... Anyhow, great to have yet another greenskin army project to follow.

[Avian]

5th edition
Orc Boyz: bad, Goblins: bad
6th edition
Orc Boyz: bad, Goblins: good
7th edition
Orc Boyz: good, Goblins: bad
8th edition
Orc Boyz: bad, Goblins: bad

We are currently back to the situation we had in 5th, where taking Black Orcs, Big 'Uns, Savage Orcs and Night Goblins are all good things, while basic Orcs and basic Goblins are simply inferior versions of those.

[Fanny Crowbar]

Looking forward to the Mangler Squigs.

[Avian]

I thought I'd undercoat the models yesterday while my daughter was having her nap outside in the baby stroller. I was just ready to start when she woke up. Damn. So I did my best Savage Orc rain dance impression while shaking the spray can (highly appreciated, I might add), tossed her half a banana and ran out to get things undercoated before it started to rain. Just in time.



(As an aside: until further notice, pics are from my phone cam as I can't find the cable to connect the camera to my laptop. Sorry about the quality.)


I started with the Very Big Spider itself. It's not actually very hard to do (other than a brief ponder about what was carapace and what was flesh), but it's a Very Big model and it takes quite a bit of time to do.

Carapace was Black + Burnt Cadmium Red -> BCR alone -> BCR + Carmine Red -> CR alone
(Unless otherwise noted, all colours are Vallejo.)
It follows pretty much the same scheme as my smaller spiders, but is more glossy as the exact colours used are slightly different.

Flesh is Brown Sand + Light Grey. Just the base layer at the moment as I haven't had time for anything else.

Claws and spines are Leather Brown and again that is jus the base layer.

Eyes are GW Iyanden Yellow foundation and then a highlight of Flat(?) Yellow.



It is indeed Very Big.


And my AoW Savage Orc Hero showed up in the mail today along with Unseen Lerker #9. Both good quality. Something the don't mention on the AoW site is that the right hand is separate, so if you wish (I do) you can have it with a hand weapon and shield instead of two hand weapons, with a minimum of conversion work. The UL had a couple of greenskin lists that were less different from mine than I thought they would be. I'm a bit worried about my Ld4 Trolls and Ld5 Night Goblins relying on a general with no defensive gear whatsoever to keep their stamina up, and I might end up ditching the Trolls in favour of something a bit more self-sufficient.

[DiddyKong]

I thought I'd undercoat the models yesterday while my daughter was having her nap outside in the baby stroller. I was just ready to start when she woke up. Damn. So I did my best Savage Orc rain dance impression while shaking the spray can (highly appreciated, I might add), tossed her half a banana and ran out to get things undercoated before it started to rain. Just in time.

Best quote ever

It'll be interesting following this, I'm planning a rather large orc and goblin army for the tofp, so watching another O&G army growing will be good.
That's a very nice red you have on the Very Big Spider

[Cragum]

On your troll dilemma. Is say get some spear chukkas! Can never go wrong with some of those beasts!

[Avian]

Crappy shot of BSB conversion, just to show the shape of things. It's Borgut with his right arm sawed off, plastic Black Orc standard bearer arm, Orc Banner with Black Orc standard top glued on top and with the skulls moved down to the banner below.





Spider progressing nicely.

Flesh is Brown Sand + Light Brown -> wash with GW Devlan Mud -> highlight with base colour -> highlight by adding a bit of Grey Green to the mix

Spines are Leather brown -> Leather brown + Basic Skintone

Little spiders are painted like the big one, except that they have a base coat of Glossy Black to increase the contrast.

Base has a variety of textures applied. I really like the rocks you can find around this place we live now. They are sedimentary and have really lovely texture. Sometimes there are also little shells and things in them.




@ DiddyKong: Ha ha. Now I get it. It wasn't actually meant to be humorous like that.

@ Cragum: Yeah, that might be a good thing to do. What else would you spend the points on? I'm considering more items for my characters and maybe an extra support character.

[Avian]

Test battle for the tournament and it went poop. My general blew up and 8 Tree-Kin ran rampant over my Mangler, Black Orcs, Rock Lobber, Night Goblins and Big 'Uns (with BSB). Drat and double drat. On the bright side the Rock Lobber took 5 wounds off the Treeman in turn 1, which made my opponent took afraid to commit him.

His list:

Lord with item that gave 5+ Ward to entire unit
BSB with Sword of Anti-Heroes
Lvl 4 with Beasts
Lvl 2 with Athel Loren
40-ish Eternal Guard
8 Tree-Kin
1 Treeman

Woo, three units.

And it is just as I write this that I remember that I had entirely forgot to deploy my Squig Herd. D'oh!

I want a general that doesn't blow up (or at least the sense not to use the Earthing Rod when I "only" roll the 'lose D3 levels' result).
Bah!

8 battles with the new book; 2 wins, 0 draws, 6 losses
Bah again!

At least it was useful training.

[Fanny Crowbar]

The Arachnarok is great! The yellow eyes and pale flesh make it look really sickly. Blegh!

[Rutgar]

Yay, Avian is painting again

What's the status with Barrack and his merry bunch?

[Avian]

Barack is planning his re-election campaign. Hope to see a return in 2012!


I have 24 Warriors, 5 Horsemen, 5 Warhounds and some characters left to paint (including the riders from the new Manticore but not the beast itself), but they will have to wait a little.

[Avian]

Back from a medium-sized tournament where my above average painting score helped boost my distinctly average gaming score to a respectable 10th place out of 30. I was also the best (and only) O&G player there. My tweaked list was as follows:

Orc Warboss (Initiative 10 sword, shield, armour of 4+ ward)
Black Orc BSB (shield, 5+ ward)
Orc Shaman, lvl 2 (scroll)
Night Goblin Shaman, lvl 1
Night Goblin Big Boss (gw)

28 Big 'Uns (ahw, fc) <- General and BSB went here
46 Night Goblins (nets, std, mus) <- Night Goblin characters went here
5 Wolf Riders (bows)

23 Black Orcs (sh, std, mus) <- Orc Shaman went here
2 single Wolf Chariots (extra gobbo)
6 Squigs + 4 Handlers
2 Spear Chukkas

Arachnarok Spider
Doom Diver
Rock Lobber
Mangler Squigs

2199 pts

I managed to finish painting my Very Big Spider, Mangler conversion, 6 Black Orcs, an extra Doom Diver crewman and the add-ons to the Big Boss to make him a BSB. I didn't have time for the Shaman and so I used an older mini instead.


I faced a fairly standard double Hydra Dark Elf list (draw), a 5-blocks, one Hydra Mindrazor Dark Elves list (loss), a mixed Lizardmen list (win), a mixed Skaven list with Bell (win) and a Bretonnian army with five units of knights, seven characters and nothing else (loss).

So two wins, one draw and two losses. I never got wiped out and did a decent amount of damage in the battles I lost, so I'm not too disappointed. I also think the battle against the brets would have gone better had I played against them more and losing to Mindrazor Dark Elves doesn't really count anyway.

Anyhow, here's how things performed:

Warboss - Got into a fight in four battles (the Lizards just ran away) and got killed in three of them. In10 sword was useful against the ASF bret lord, but otherwise just mostly a laugh. Will see if I can get some more defense on him.

BSB - Also got into a fight in four battles (as he was in the same unit as the Warboss), but only died twice, once to Mindrazor and once his unit was run ground down and eventually broken against bretonnia. I'm happy with the setup and don't think it needs changing.

Shamans - Considering I only spent 175 pts on magic, it did all right. All armies I faced had more magic than me, but only the Brets with their Beast augment spells and the Mindrazor army did a lot with it. Foot of Gork managed to squish a fair few Saurus and Corsairs. I'm not sold on the Night Goblin over a normal Goblin - the times he got good results on his mushroom dice was easily outweighed by the times he rolled a 1 and turned an otherwise good casting roll to a failure. Miscast damage was irrelevant.

Night Goblin Big Boss was rather pointless due to his low WS, even if people tended to forget he was there and didn't allocate attacks to him very much.


The Big 'Uns were really great and easily worth the points over normal Boyz. They died in the battles I lost, but held out impressively long thanks to their decent WS, which meant they got hit on 4+ most of the time. They also did quite a bit of damage, even with two spots in the first rank being taken up by the characters. Shields might be better with my setup, but the grinding power is also really good. More guys would have been good, but they are expensive and I don't think it's vital.

Night Goblins also did great, especially with the nets and the deep formation. For only a little more than 200 pts they did very good in several battles, though of course they need to stick close to the general. In the first battle they held for ages against Corsairs in what ended up being a large melee where the Dark Elves were eventually broken and run down by a tiny handful of remaining gobbos.

Wolf Riders contributed a couple of charges against enemies that were either already fleeing or useless in combat (Skaven Mortar Team) and otherwise didn't do much. I kept them out of combat because they'd just die and they didn't have much to shoot at. Not a great unit.


Black Orcs were all right. Against bretonnia I should have used a more narrow formation to keep steadfast against his big knight blocks and in the first battle they got Withered and then shot. 24 seems a good size. Sadly they didn't get to use their flaming banner as nothing with Regeneration wanted to go near them.

Wolf Riders were also all right being overall more useful than the Wolf Riders for the same cost (a bit slower, though). I'm happy to field two in my army and I see no reason to combine them into one unit.

The Squig Herd was my biggest surprise, proving to be surprisingly useful. It was only 60 pts and had 9 WS4 S5 attacks, plus more hits if it broke from combat. Heartily recommended for being eminently expendable.

The artillery did very well, though mostly the Doom Diver and Rock Lobber. The Rock Lobber shot large monsters (it hit the Screaming Bell, managing to destroy itself and doing nothing noticeable to the Bell) and the Doom Diver shot smaller thing that thought they were safe (with the correction roll, it's not a problem to fire indirectly, so you can park it far out of the way). The spear chukkas did very little in most games, though they managed to kill a Pegasus hero a decent number of other knights against bretonnia. If I had free points in Rare, I'd rather take a second Doom Diver.

The Very Big Spider died twice and ran off the table once. It takes a bit of getting used to, but I think it has good potential if you are careful with deployment and take your time with it. I'm actually considering the Flinger upgrade, since I frequently held it back the first few turns and could have shot at people wanting to charge my greenies.

The Mangler got sat on three times, doing no damage to a Pendant lord and Ethereal Slann, but killing a bretonnian Hero. It also killed a silly number of Skaven, which was good fun, and some Dark Elves. Taking two is very tempting and I don't think most armies can afford the units to take them both out with.


Overall not too shabby. If I'd do it again I'd drop the Night Goblin Big Boss and Spear Chukkas, taking more items on my fighter characters and some upgrades here and there. I'd also swap the Night Goblin Shaman for a normal Goblin.


13 battles with the book - 4 wins, 1 draw, 8 losses

[Avian]

I've finally gotten the camera problem sorted out, so here are some pics:

Arachnarok Spider


Good fun to build, good fun to paint (apart from the howdah, which was a pain)




The scaffolding thingy in the howdah is magnetised, and can be swapped out for a Flinger or Shaman (on spare scaffolding thingy). Haven't painted either of those yet, though.



Mangler Squigs conversion
When they bring out an official model, this will probably be retired as a diorama. Quite happy with how it turned out.



And some extra Black Orcs to bump their unit up to 24, which I think is about right

[Avian]

I've signed up for this Tale of Fantasy Painters thingy, and this is what I hope to paint over the next year (totaling about 2400 pts in all).



Progress on Pump Wagon is going well.