Ben Saunders:
I’ve made myself some chaos dwarfs for a Blood Bowl team, based on Mantic dwarfs. I’ve been trying to come up with a good idea for hobgoblins though.
The criteria: I’m not too bothered about them looking like ‘classic’ hobgoblins, as long as they’re in the right ball park. (I already have an orc team with some goblins, so the hobgoblins have to be different from those.) And I want them to be plastic (I only work with plastic these days - much prefer it).
Here are my ideas:
1) I’ve seen hobgoblins based on normal (night) goblins. It seems that either they look too much like goblins or take too much work extending the figure with pins (as in Xander’s tutorial). I do have some spare goblins though and will probably use those heads (with fur-trimmed hats) on whatever bodies I decide.
2) LotR orcs. This is an idea I’d considered for a while and I see someone on here recently did it (using not only orcs but some of the humans). Size-wise probably not bad and might well work for a WHFB army, but I’m not so sure about Blood Bowl since most of the figures are molded one-piece with weapons.
3) Skaven. I’ve seen this one done before, though I’m not sure which bodies to use. Plague monks are probably most suitable, which would mean having to remove the tails and any obvious furry bits. Might work though.
4) Humans. I’ve seen BB hobgoblins made from Empire flagellents with night goblins heads. I think that would be a bit ‘beefy’ for my tastes. I do have some old state troops, but they’re dressed too fancy. Any better ideas? I doubt Empire militia would work, but maybe Bretonnian peasants?
5) Mantic ghouls. Someone on here posted this suggestion, though they actually used a zombie. Again, it’s an idea that had occurred to me. I have some of the ghouls and they’re about the size I want and dressed in rags. With goblin heads and painted green it might work. Main reason I’m hesitant is that there are only limited poses and I already have some of these ghouls converted into scavvies, so I’m a bit sick of them to tell the truth.
I’ll be keeping an eye on Mantic to see what they come out with next. Perhaps their new orc range could be converted into hobgoblins, since they don’t look as big as GW orcs. (I haven’t seen a good size comparison though.) If not, I believe Mantic will be doing goblins later and the one teaser I’ve seen looked quite good.
Those are all the ideas I’ve come up with, but I’m sure there must be many others. Suggestions? Or comments on the above?