Revisiting the 1980s: RR3 Grom’s Goblin Guard

I’m not generally given to nostalgia, and I’ve tried to avoid the Oldhammer tendency of gamers of my age to go and re-buy their teenage collections of Citadel Miniatures from Ebay, but I crumbled when I saw these! In two separate lots in 2023/4, I picked up the original models for Grom and 15 of his goblin guard, one of the very first Regiments of Renown (RR3) issued in 1984.

In 1984, I was a whole 12 years old. Having just started playing Warhammer with the first edition boxed set (when it was billed as ‘the mass fantasy battle roleplaying game’!) and being a big fan of goblins, I had to get these. Over a couple of years, I managed to get hold of the whole regiment (4 boxes with the different command models) and painted them in glorious Humbrol enamels.

They saw action in numerous games of Warhammer 1st and 2nd edition on the family table tennis table (fortunately a useful dark green colour) and saw action in the Blood Bath at Rorke’s Drift campaign and our own version of the siege of Middenheim before being sold off during a house move in adult life.

Nevertheless, these little chaps had made an impact. The monopose Perry-sculpted models were nothing compared to what was to follow but if there was a set that encapsulated the best bits of my early gaming days, this was probably it.

Hard as it is to believe in these days of Games Workshop PLC, when Citadel released new models back in the 80s, they didn’t all have rules, and codexes were in the distant future. Some models were released for non-Warhammer systems (e.g. the fab Dungeons and Dragons range) or without a games system at all (such as the much-loved Lord of the Rings models, or the Michael Moorcock minis). Absolute anarchy!

If I recall correctly (and I may be wrong), they were introduced with a little black and white booklet which came with the ‘Forces of Fantasy’ supplement for 1st edition, and then received updated statlines for the 2nd edition in the Spring 1985 Citadel Journal. I loved the little back stories that the studio writers had put together for each regiment and this was definitely an influence on my early creativity.

Anyway, back to the plot! Having got hold of some original models, what was I going to do with them? There was a part of me that wanted to relive my Humbrol enamels days, basing on a 20mm square of mounting board with Tetrion filler and bright green paint, but I decided against it. Although my original orc and goblin army was sold off many years ago, I’ve more recently collected a more Tolkien-based orc force for my games of Midgard Heroic Battles set in Middle-earth, so I decided to go for a colour scheme to match. After trying out a test model, I got down to work on the whole unit.

After cleaning up the minimal flash on these ancient goblins, each one had a black undercoat which was followed by a dry brush of gunmetal for the armour base. I tidied this up with some black acrylic and painted the skin in traditional layers. Colours used included a variety of khaki tones – always good for orc flesh. I don’t usually bother with eyes, but these had quite bulbous ones which were’t too hard to pick out with a dark red and yellow highlight in the centre.

I tried to vary the skin tones, helmet colours and fur tunics as I went along to give some variety to the miniatures. Taking inspiration from Tony Ackland’s original artwork, I also added some shield designs to some but not all of the models.

I hadn’t been able to get hold of an original standard bearer model and decided that I didn’t really fancy selling a kidney some of the prices being asked on ebay, so I made a snap decision to do a conversion instead. This consisted of drilling out a trooper’s hand and adding a greenstuff standard.

To create the bones seen in the original Dave Andrews art and on the mini, I robbed a couple of femurs from a plastic skeleton kit by Wargames Atlantic. WA have also recently produced a werewolf kit which had a perfect clawed hand to place on the top of the pole, which gave me a nice chance to mix old and new in the same unit!

With all the models finished, I decided to base them as a single group on a 120 x 60 mm unit base (using my favourite 2mm MDF round cornered bases from Warbases, as usual). This would allow me to arrange them in a diorama fashion and offer them some protection from handling.

To add some undulation to the base, some of the back rankers were raised up on a piece of 5mm foamboard to give the impression of standing on higher ground.

With everyone glued down, I then used my usual basing paste (see my Wargames Atlantic orcs article for details) before dry brushing and adding tufts, static grass and some grit.

The final touch was an original Citadel plastic shield, painted up as one belonging to Bugman’s Dwarf Rangers, another Regiment of Renown who had history with Grom and his friends!

Photos have been taken using Jon Hodgson Backdrops. I’m not sure which is my favourite, but it’s great to have some 1980s goblins back on the table!

Now, back to the present…