An ultra Affordable Goblinoid army for Oathmark

By way of introduction to this blog post…

Follows this post closely in series…

As I’ve mentioned I’ve put some time in painting Oathmark troops lately. It’s a fun game. Per my last post I have an Oathbreaker Undead army done. I’ve started a Dwarven army. Yet, I really need a good opposition force to handy to put up against them. Not everyone has an extra fantasy army in 28mm ready to go. My goal is to get at least three armies done, statted out and based roughly correctly. So I decided to make another “Bad guys” army and create a mixed Orc and Goblin army. Why this mix? It’s all in the economics. Read on!
I wanted to create a force with a lot of bulk to it– I picture an Orc/Gobbo army list as having a few heavy hitting berserk units, maybe some allied Ogres or a random Giant or something, pluse hordes of smaller troops with a larger “officer” figure per the Oathmark basing rules. I didn’t want to break the bank, as each box of “official” Goblins from Northstar A) don’t look how I envision Goblins, and B) are somewhat pricey. I did a little research and lo and behold, look what I found for a few cents each on the em4 site. That’s what Em4 calls an “Orc with a sword” and an “Orc with a bow”. They’re short, squat, and have cartoonish features. They work better for me as my Gobbo cannon figures.

Here’s the hidden virtue of this deal.. yes, it works out to cents per figure. Yes, the poses are limited and that’s a LOT of painting. Still, it basically gives me the vast bulk of the Orc/Gobbo army in a relatively cheap purchase. You can purchase lots of 50 (yes fifty) figures each figure for about 10 UK Pounds. That’s real bargain, I think. I’ll integrate the rest of my Northstar figures (maybe thirty of them) with this force (and call the Northstar ones “Hill Goblins” or something). Maybe add some officer figures from Reaper and other sources, maybe get some Ogre shock troops and a random giant figure, and we’re off to the races, at a really affordable price.

Left: em4 also has spearmen as well.. but never when I want to buy more figures. Right: using a Reaper Orc Archer for the officer unit for the Gobbo Archer unit you see here.

I maybe wasn’t creating beautiful works of the painting art, but arrive at a method that sped up the process– Prim in Army Painter spray prime that is either black or brown. Fill in Goblin Green, use metallics for the swords and other weapons, a contrast color for something major like a quiver or pouches, and some weathering on top of that– voila, instant army.

A little missile heavy but you get what you get.

You can see the Reaper Orc Archer figure being used as an officer, right in the center, per Oathmark basing rules.

There are minor variations of paint job for all of these lots.. I’d do one unit base at a time (ten figures) all the same, then makes some color switches to change it up a little and provide visual variety. Note the Reaper Orc Swordsman for the Officer

Note that Oathmark doesn’t really differentiate melee troops that significantly but spearmen will be distinctive units. I don’t have any at the moment, but the next time “Orc Spearmen” go on sale I’m buying another bag of fifty.

Even More Goblins

Creepy Orc Shaman..

Orc Hero/General, with some Gobbos around for contrast

Mercenary Battle Mage who works for the Gobbos for his share of the loot.

One of the stars of the army is the Ettin Ravager figure, which is statted out as a big monster.

And even MORE archers. This is an Archer heavy army!

So, that’s what I’ve done so far. I’m adding another Ettin Ravager, probably one Ogre Shock troop unit, maybe a couple more Orc Hero single figures, and, of course, the “Hill Goblins” aka the box of Northstar “official” Goblins. I like this army. It’s versatile and has a lot of hitting power.. plus a lot of missile weapons. I can’t wait to try it out against someone else!