Orctober

As much of the fantasy gaming blogosphere seems to do something for Orctober, I thought I would add my efforts into the mix...

A few months ago, against my gaming fiscal limitations, I purchased a bunch of figures from Australian miniatures producer Medbury Miniatures. I had happened to come across the Good Beans! blog a few months earlier that detailed a Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle game that really piqued my interest. As a result, I looked up the figures used in the skirmish battle and that led me to a small purchase of 21 orc miniatures.

I already have a largish collection of (unpainted - eek!) Lord of the Rings Mordor orcs, but they are in very limited poses. From the 30ish grunts I have (about three sprues), there are only 12 unique poses (14 with a couple of weapon swaps), so a lot of repetition - not good for a rabble-type army. So, for the figures over the 14 count, I will try to do a few hand-swaps and maybe some green-stuff mods to give a little more variety, but it will still leave me with a fairly small number of unique individuals. This is where these wonderful Medbury orcs come in handy - they boost the numbers of unique figures quite significantly.

So, without further ado, here is my first batch of 14 unique GW orcs...

Orcs with hand weapons and shields

Two of these orcs are built from the same original dolly

Two weapons + two bodies = 4 variants

Orc archers

And here are the Medbury orcs - I have only got as far as preparing them in readiness for undercoating. Many were single piece figures, but a few required adding a shield, a few needed their hands drilled for the polearms (metal spears were included, as well as some resin polearm heads) and the banner to be added, and one still needs an arm sticking on - the superglue just wouldn't work on this one for some unknown reason. A little bit of extra work and a punctured thumb - ouch! - later and here we are...

Orcs with 2-handed axes

Orcs with axes and separate shields (arm needs affixing)

Orcs with hand weapons and some separate shields

Orc archers

Orcs with polearms - metal hafts with resin heads

Orc banner bearer

They scale in pretty well (one or two individuals are a wee bit larger) and certainly look the part. As there are still a few more packs available, I am probably going to order them at a later date to make even more unique poses for my orc rabble. I would like to get these painted and based before making any more purchases.

Including my orc leaders and heroes, and maybe by adding in my GW Morannon Orcs and Uruk Hai, I should have a handy sized force for skirmish gaming, whether using Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game, Dragon Rampant (2nd Edition on its way - and onto my Christmas list - soon), or Midgard: Heroic Battles.

 Now, who do I front them up against?