Many, many years ago when I played Warhammer 40K, a lot more than I do now, I remember a theme that was developed by the Games Workshop team, where a semi legendary Goblin, known as 'The Red Gobbo' fought to free his Goblin brethren from Orc persecution and domination....
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| Completed unit with Champion out front |
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| Another view of the unit, highlighting the Champion's Bow Bearer, a freed Snotling that has grown after getting better rations |
Since then I had thought it would be fun to transpose this theme into the Warhammer Fantasy / Oldhammer Realm, so here I present The Red Gobbo and his raggerty band of Goblin followers.
This motley crew of goblins have been saved from various Orc bands, no two are dressed alike (are any Goblins?) but they follow the Red Star Flag and most wear a red star badge to show their allegiance to The Red Gobbo.
The reality is that these figures are from the dregs of my plastic pile and all have seen better days, but that is likely to be a good start to represent this band of Greenskin reprobates.
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| Five of the rebellious 'Free' Goblins |
So most of these were undercoated in black, although a number of limbs and other parts had to be added / replaced by unpainted parts, I went over everything with a grey undercoat.
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| The command line, Standard Bearer, Champion and his Bow Bearer and a heavy with an Orc's head trophy |
Then I blocked in the green skin and decided to have weapons coloured a flat red, mostly bows but a few spears etc to give the unit some cohesive look. I added leather colouration where needed and then when all was dry I started with ink washes to give definition and highlights.
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| Three more of the unit's Gobbos. |
I used trusty old 'Nuln Oil' to put a black wash over the clothing and this made the roles and cloth look like a shaded black, Army Painter Strong wash was used over everything else except the skin which was washed in green ink.
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| Three more! |
I then went back to add details such as a red mouth and white teeth, gold ear-rings and bangles etc. To add the Red Gobbo feel the models wee given a red star on most of the robes, hand painted but this adds to feel of the goblin crudity .
Two feature highlights were the hand painted Red Star banner, carried by all of Red Gobbo's troops and the prize orc's head held aloft by one of the goblins.
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| A final view of the unit |
I like to think of the Red Gobbo organisation being as badly organised as the 'Peoples Front of Judea' in the Life of Bran film!
The downside of doing this unit is that he figure I had earmarked as 'The Red Gobbo' is now not dramatic enough for my liking, he's been relegated to being a unit Champion. I will need to find and paint a suitable Red Gobbo figure sometime.
