Goblins 2 - more goblinoid goodness

In part one I covered the first half of my Goblin force made up almost entirely of 3d printed miniatures. Part two covers all the support stuff from Bat swarms to Giants.

You might be interested to know that the first reference to Goblins comes in monastic documents of the 12th century where they are referred to as Gobelin but this refers to a daemon apparently rather than what we call a Goblin. Some prefer a Germanic origin deriving from Kobold which in old german incorporates the meaning of cave, crack in the ground etc which seems appropriate. Only in 14th century France do we have anything like our iteration of Goblins and ours tends to come from later 17th to 19th century fairy tales. If you were not interested in that you are in luck as the rest is just Goblins in the Old World type settings again!

Goblin Shaman

GW version which is frankly excellent. Lovely little model of a ruminative goblin with a little skull of potion - not sure that a skull is ideal for holding liquid but through some shamanic shenanigans it is. Tufts are made by myself using my new static grass box!

Goblin Heavy Cavalry (and an Orc)

This stl is again from Titanforge and presents a heavy cavalry option as opposed to the light cavalry spider and wolf shenanigans. I wasnt convinced at first but they have grown on me as the actual rats are pretty hefty and armoured. These are the Knights of the Goblin Realms.

Orc Boar rider

As an alternative you could add in Orc Boar riders like the GW version below. These are available on ebay at reasonable prices and probably hit a tad harder.

Goblin sniper

This is an Archvillain stl showing the usual creativity they display. In Legiones a Goblin army can have just the one sniper. He has the Ambush attribute which allows him to set up concealed outside deployment and also has critical heroes which can make him a threat to lesser heroes but not the major ones. He will however fall over in a breeze.

Massive spider!

I think this enormous beast is Titanforge again but many of the spiders I use are from my theprintinggoeseveron https://www.theprintinggoeseveron.com/ which is the only patreon I have stayed with for over a year as they always have stuff I might print.

This beast is a Shelobian archetype with ambush poison and immobilise. which can be brutal to mid range heroes and monsters but wasted on troops. It is points expensive and will not make its points back attacking minions.

Spider Swarms

Perhaps not swarms as such but still unpleasant, poisonous and stealthy. In Legiones they are a handy summons rather than a starter. These are from a whole selection of spider stls by theprintinggoeseveron from a year ago I think. They are in fact the same stl just printed at different sizes.

Goblin Squig riders

These are GW resin minis and as you can see I had to fit the original bases into resize bases as the fragile tabs of resin could only fit the original small slottas. Nice models and variety in each box of five.

Another GW version in plastic

Squiggy Cave Dwellers. These were Emang files and I don't like the way I painted them. However being both too busy with other peoples painting and lazy when it comes to my own, I dont dislike them enough to take the time to repaint them!!

GW squigs and herders on wacky weird cave floor bases!

Giant Cave Squigg. This one which is 250% bigger I do like the paintscheme for. The base is 60mm across to give some idea of scale. One of the many cool things about 3d printing is that you can rescale stuff. If something is too big just shrink it by 20%. As long as its not human or humanoid it doesn't matter at all. This model is reduced!

In game terms I have it as basically a Carthaginian elephant equivalent good for crushing troops but easily distracted by magic.

Size comparison with an unlucky GW Squig rider!

Troll by theprintinggoeseveron. This has a very LOTR vibe as does most of this producers work. There are now 3 or 4 trolls in their range and all are good. I don't think they have any of the more GW vomiting, fish armed trolls though but a quick myminifactory search reveals trolls galore, stone, marsh and under a bridge types!

This Troll is more traditional but with a cool new look. This is one of a number from Archvillain games patreon from Jan 2024 which is frankly excellent. AV produce the best single figure fantasy STLs around I believe. If you want a troll, a giant, a character etc look there first. Unfortunately they don't really do enough variation of rank and file models, 4 being the max, so then Titan Forge or Highlands are better.

This trebuchet and the doom diver below were Emang files which were free but are no longer available as GW closed down his site on Cults3d. Particularly cynical as for many years after they killed fantasy before the release of TOW they were more than happy to allow 3rd party producers keep the flame alive, ditto warhammer Armies Project. However as soon as TOW came along GW lawyers lead the charge! I completely understand they have the right to do so but I think they were cynical and not right to do so.

Bats, in a swarm. These are actually from an Undead army and are from one of the single best stl releases ever 'Gravehaunt' from October 2022 one of whose miniatures is the picture at the top of my facebook page. However Bats are Bats and these are an easy summon and can fill the flying role to grab an objective which the Goblins otherwise lack.

Giants. First up is another Emang file one of the Archvillain giants from the Jan 2024 release that I have. There are more great Giants in their Feb 2024 release just ooze character https://www.patreon.com/posts/fantasy-preview-96597866. I don't even need any more giants but for a tenner its worth having in the STL library just in case.

In game Giants are faster trolls with one more attack and the ability to hurl rocks like a self propelled artillery piece! Originally this Giant looked a lot more Gobliny as had various goblin icons but I wanted a multi use giant so replaced all that shenanigans.

The rock hurling ability is well represented on this Archvillain model by the catapult!

 Balrog. Yes I know they don't exist in TOW but they are now an intrinsic part of wider Tolkien Lore like so much of the Goblins and The Old World. They are also option in Legiones Antiquitata which allows a LOTR style Goblins army with a Balrog but no spider riders. This one is by epic miniatures and is one of three options available

Games Workshop Spell Effects

Yes I know they are for Age of Sigmar but they are just too nice not to include if only for completeness!

And that concludes part two of my 3D printed Goblin force. I have not touched on many of the ranges available, Highlands miniatures swamp goblins are really cool and they have some mongol themed steppe goblins in the pipeline. Erramir Orlans West African themed goblins also worth a look. If you are not wedded to GW then 3D printing is a whole new world and not just for Goblins. I have Nippon, Albion and Inde armies all printed beyond the usual suspects.