Lord Odor Gobonaga

Lord Odor Gobonaga. And Nosepicker.

Greetings vaqueros! Today we'll be looking at this Bob Olley samurai goblin I have painted for use in fantasy skirmish games.

Dragon Rampant is a small scale skirmish game from Osprey Publishing that most of you, dear readers, would likely be aware of by now. In fact, you could say that I am more than a bit late to that particular party, but you won't, because you are unfailingly polite, and also because, being in Australia, I am living in the future and that gives me powers.

'The Wizards of Aus' is absolutely a documentary and don't you forget it.

For a long while I have been planning to put together a force for this game, and the potential for an international gaming meet here in sunburnt Sydney sometime mid next year has really spurred me on. However, up until very recently, I was planning a very ordinary, very boring force of noble samurai warriors to counter the dastardly power of the Shonen Knives. Then something happened that changed everything forever. Valiant Enterprises began their big Clan Wars close-out sale.

This red carpet is about to get redder.

What is the big deal with that, you may be asking? Well Imaginary Question Guy, let me ask YOU a question. What if I was to tell you that there was a miniature range that brought together some of the greatest sculpting talents ever seen on this planet Earth, people like Tom Meier, Bob Olley, Sandra Garrity, Tim Prow, Chaz Elliott, Julie Guthrie, Dave Summers (to name just a FEW), with minis  that depicted the heroic and elite warriors of a fantastical feudal Japan that was crawling  with demons, dragons, undead monstrosities, goblins, ratmen, snakemen and ogres, all supported by a comprehensive gaming system with oodles of supplementary materials to flesh out your forces and their stories in a constantly expanding and growing game world based on a well established role-play system? Would your response, the wargaming public, be a gigantic, collective 'MEH'? Well, basically, that's exactly what the response was. 

Yeah cop that in your five rings mate.

There are a number of reasons why Clan Wars wasn't a hit, that I can't be bothered going into here (though a clunky set of rules in the initial release and art direction inspired by pastels, all pastels, certainly didn't help), but the miniatures have lingered on, both on eBay, and in the catalogue of Valiant Enterprises, who have had a limited selection of minis available since 2010, which apparently noone has been buying as they are now discontinuing them. I personally blew two paychecks worth of disposable income on the close-out sale, which is why i'm now the proud owner of a small horde of these Olley samurai goblins (and many demons, dragons and zombified samurai) which may now never be available outside the realm of eBay and it's ilk.

This is, in my mind, a terrible shame, because some of these sculpts are truly wonderful, as I aim to prove to you with my own efforts (and to try and justify the expense to my wife). Just take a look at this Olley sculpt. It's brilliant.

Also, take a look at the shiitake mushrooms I sculpted.

The detail on Clan Wars models are almost universally good. The sculptors would have to have studied the intricacies of samurai armour in-depth to produce this work, and I guarantee you that after painting just one of that range, you will have a solid idea on how to assemble and wear a suit yourself, a theory you should definitely test the next time you visit a museum. 

The back space is left intentionally blank for the future installment of a tiny little die.

Painting this bad boy was a joy, like most Olley sculpts when you get your brushes on them. His style has always been very different to the generally acknowledged master of all greenskins, Kev Adams, yet he still captures an amazing amount of mischief and movement in a style that is both artistic and humorous. Just wait till you see the piggy-back goblin samurai raiders. They are a crack-up!

The scheme i've chosen is a bit unusual for an 'evil' army, but I wanted a style that was visually very different from the blue and red of my good samurai army, and the green and purple of cheetor's samurai anti-heroes, so ochre, greys and browns seemed a good compromise and compliment the bright green gobbo-skin nicely. And is very easy to paint. The dark blue works as a nice contrast, and the blue skull symbol is the kind of simple, fun device that I won't go mad reproducing on a number of models. Probably. 

I'm particularly pleased with the grey wolf-pelt scrap nailed to the back of his helmet there. It's just really satisfying to look at for some reason. Just look at it with me for a moment. Keep looking. Don't stop. Hey. More.

The banner itself is an experiment, using paper towel soaked in brush-on superglue to make a nice, thin yet tough surface to paint on. The idea came from legendary sculptor Nick Bibby, who used the technique on one of his latest bronze works, the Firedrake Dragon. He used the paper to make the wing membranes, and it certainly made for an interestingly textured banner. The method could use a little refining, but for a goblin lord it's a pretty decent flag. He probably doesn't let more than one or a dozen of his underlings wipe their asses on it.

And what's next? Well, from one big green boss to another, here is my attempt to recreate the front cover of the 2nd edition 40k Ork codex.

Adios for now!