Cracked Rock Orcs

I love orcs, me. Reading The Lord of the Rings as a kid, I really wasn’t too fussed by elves singing about the stars (large chunks of poetry were skipped on the first read through). What I liked best were the bits where we meet the orcs: Shagrat and Gorbag talking gangster then murdering each other or Grishnákh trying to shaft Uglúk and swipe his prisoners. The orcs were all total bastards and, I thought, thoroughly entertaining. I don’t think the Professor would have been impressed.

The term ‘orc’ is used occasionally as a synonym for goblin in The Hobbit, but it was with the publication of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers in 1954 that the ubiquitous baddies of the fantasy genre properly burst onto the scene. In recent years, however, Tolkien’s orcs have become controversial figures. A blog about toy soldiers is probably not an appropriate forum for a deep dive into these debates* but, for what it’s worth, I’m not sure that the way in which the orcs were developed within the Legendarium or are written as characters indicates a racist intent. If anything, orcs are probably best imagined with Brummie accents! On the other hand, the physical descriptions of orcs have not aged well. These tend to lean into the worst kind of Orientalist stereotypes and use some particularly unpleasant tropes to 'other' the orcs. While this may not have raised so much as an eyebrow 70 years ago, for a modern audience it can make for an uncomfortable read. I started to wonder if I could build a recognisably Tolkienesque orc army but without all the problematic bits?

 

The Class of 1954

 

1954 also saw the publication of The Broken Sword by American science fiction author Poul Anderson. As with Tolkien’s works, Anderson was inspired by the Matter of the North – the myths, sagas and heroic poetry of early medieval Northern Europe. However, where Fellowship… begins with Bilbo’s birthday party, The Broken Sword kicks off with an entire family being burned alive. The story is set in Viking Age Britain, with the conceit that mythological beings live alongside but beyond the sight of most mortals. There are two main warring factions: elves, who are thoroughly nasty pieces of work, and trolls, who are much, much worse. The main protagonist, Skafloc, is a human raised by the elves to wield a cursed sword (elves can’t touch iron). The sword makes him invincible in battle but will ultimately extract a terrible price. It’s a visceral read with child abduction, black magic, incest and fratricide all major plot points. As an aside, the book had a huge impact on a young Michael Moorcock, who’s own work would go on to inspire Chaos as the big bad of the Warhammer franchise.

This, then, was my way in. After Tolkien, my orcs would predominately be smaller in stature than men, fanged, twisted and ugly (but hopefully not in a problematic way). I’d use ‘goblin’ and ‘orc’ as interchangeable terms; the bigger warrior-types would be ‘uruks’ and the smaller types would be ‘snaga’. The aesthetic, however, would be an alternative Dark Ages Britain. Most troops would have a spear and central grip shield. There would be lots of mail coats (which is happily how orcs are also equipped in LotR). My one concession would be equipping some officers with scimitars, mostly because I think scimitars look cool.

Dear reader - meet the Cracked Rock tribe.

The Cracked Rock is the orcish name for the high pass cleft through the northern mountain range. The goblins use the same name to refer to the imposing fort which guards the mouth of the pass. The fort was built before the Fall and was once garrisoned by Imperial troops. When the Empire withdrew from these lands the fort was occupied by the Cracked Rock tribe.

Until recent times these creatures had contented themselves with internecine warfare with the surrounding orcish tribes and murdering anyone foolish enough to traverse the Old North Road through the mountain pass. That was until the rise of the Cracked Rock tribe’s current Boldog. Within the span of a few years nearly all the neighbouring tribes of the mountains and foothills have been subjugated. The Boldog maintains his position through distributing plunder to his warriors. With the mountains now conquered his roving eye will be looking further afield for richer pickings.

As I started to look around for miniatures to use, I came across an orc kitbashing thread on Lead Adventure Forum. While I’d never used plastic kits or  green stuff before, this looked like a lot of fun and a great place to start.

I picked up a couple of sprues of the Gripping Beast Saxon thegns kit to use as a base. I’d read that the Gripping Beast plastics were slightly smaller than other modern 28mm kits, so they sounded ideal for my purposes. To give them a proper goblin stoop I cut off the necks and then set the heads lower and slightly forward. I then pimped them with orc-y bits from a selection of sprues – Oathmark goblin infantry, Wargames Atlantic goblins and the old Wargames Factory orcs (now produced by Warlord Games), who have some brilliant Angus McBride-style heads. Neck joints and crucifixes were then disguised with my rudimentary attempts at sculpting furs. For a first crack, I think they came out pretty well.

This meant I had quite a few leftovers, in particular Oathmark goblin bodies. These seemed pretty close to what I was after, and once kitted out with Saxon spears and shields really did look the part.

While I enjoyed my first foray into kitbashing, my preference is for miniatures with a lead content. Discovering Ragnarok Miniatures armoured goblins was a bit of a eureka moment. Not only were these exactly what I was after, I also realised I was not the first person to think ‘orcs, but Dark Ages’. They are fantastic sculpts. The banner is from Myriad Miniatures’ Osmoticmeld range – a collab with Ian Miller.

The Ragnarok range is owned and sculpted by Colin Patten, who, it turns out, is a massive Tolkien nerd. What I hadn’t realised was that Colin had previously founded several other miniature companies, including Gripping Beast (who now distribute the Ragnarok range). One of his other ventures had been Vendel Miniatures, who carried a substantial ‘not-LotR-honest-gov’ range. The range is currently being produced by Thistle and Rose Miniatures in the US, but I couldn’t justify the cost of UK import duties on top of the shipping. I began to stalk eBay instead and months of patience was finally rewarded with a job lot of Vendel orcs.

The orcs come in three sizes – small, large and massive (I think the really big guys are from the command pack and are meant as champions). I’ve a decent sized stash of these left to paint, meaning the Cracked Rock tribe is now sorted for rank-and-file uruks. The banner below is an old Grenadier wolf rider banner. I'm not really satisfied with how the banner and shield design turned out and intend to re-do them at some point.

Next priority was for some snaga meat shields  skirmishers. My main gaming buddy likes to pack a firing line, so I know from bitter experience the value of screening troops. The archers are from Crusader Miniatures and the slingers are from the Oathmark goblin slaves kit.

I've made a start on some character models. The standard bearer on the left is another miniature from the Osmoticmeld range and based on Ian Miller's Helm's Deep illustration. I tried to paint him to match the illustration, but I made a right hash of it. In the end I settled for a much simpler scheme (which works OK). I also wasn't intending him to be part of this project. The miniature seemed too high fantasy really. However, he's sort of attached himself to the tribe, so I guess he's here to stay. The miniature on the right is the Great Goblin from an Oathmark character pack sculpted by Mark Copplestone. I think the sculpt is an absolute belter and will likely be used as the Boldog himself. I'm looking forward to painting up the shaman and musician from the same pack.

Ian Miller - Helm's Deep (1979)

A start has also been made on some cavalry (or is it wargary?) The wolves are Reaper Bones dire wolves while the riders are predominately the Oathmark wolf riders kit with a few extra odds and sods. There's plenty more of these I still need to build.

And finally... they have a cave troll. This chap is a Knucklebones Miniatures digital sculpt. He's a bit short for a troll (only 35mm tall). I suspect the vendor I bought him off may have printed him out at the wrong scale. Even so, I love the McBride vibes of the sculpt and painted him up accordingly.

MERP cover by the late, great Angus McBride

That's the Cracked Rock tribe to-date. There's still plenty to add to this force, most obviously I need more wolf riders, but there's also enough here to throw down for a game. It's been a really enjoyable project to work on so far and I've developed some new skills along the way. As always, constructive criticism welcome.

* For a balanced discussion on the issues around Tolkien's orcs you could do worse than this episode of the By-the-Bywater podcast.