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I'm looking to build a Goblin army for Kings of War, and am interested to see what "other" plastic goblin models are out there. I have a few Games Workshop plastic goblins, and they're OK, if a bit uninspired. I picked up a unit of Mantic flea bag riders and the metal goblins heroes, and those were surprisingly poor quality (I got these a while ago, and there's been talk of improved quality, but once bitten twice shy...).

I have a handful of Reaper Bones goblins, those are cool, and will be picking up some of their Reaper Bones III goblins (the ones in the Kickstarter core set - I like that style). And I have a few Wizards of the Coast D&D goblins, which are a bit small, but can serve. I got a few pathfinder goblins, but don't care for that art style. They won't be serving in my army...

I'd like to avoid metal, as they'll likely be all piled into a box for storage. Plastic only please (e.g., I got some Hasselfree metal goblins - freakin' great models, but metal! Pain to store!) Somehow putting individual goblins into foam trays just seems wrong...

So are there other companies that produce boxes of rank-and-file goblins for games like Kings of War? Should I give Mantic another try (really? Plus their box claims it's plastic and metal - no thanks)? I'd was hoping, for example, that Avatars of War produced a plastic Goblin box (their figures and style are excellent, IMHO), but alas they do not.

O wise members of DD: where should I turn?

Minion Miniatures have a few sets planned for Gobbos, not yet released but they should be in a few months time.

They're pretty cool looking, thanks for the tip, I'd not heard of them. Unfortunately, Minion doesn't appear to have a website (?) only a facebook page. I guess FB can get you a wider audience, but it's hard to glean any real news or availability via facebook.

"Goblins"? In the WHFB sense of the word, or in the Tolkienian sense of the term (which is indistinct from "Orc")?

There are very few makers of plastic Goblins for either definition. Most are metal.

MB

pancakeonions wrote:
They're pretty cool looking, thanks for the tip, I'd not heard of them. Unfortunately, Minion doesn't appear to have a website (?) only a facebook page. I guess FB can get you a wider audience, but it's hard to glean any real news or availability via facebook.

Minion are in the process of dispatching their first ks for monsters on the underdeep, their next ks is aiming to launch october and will be for a zombie hulk figure 'big zombie giant/ogre sized) the goblin ks I believe is earmarked for q1 2016.

By Goblins, do you mean small-sized, orcish creatures?

If so, the Lord of the Rings Moria Orcs from GW were just about right, in my book. I don't use them for orcs. I bought them for my D&D group and use them as Goblins.

The gray one in this picture:

Thanks Kronk, that guy looks fantastic. If I remember correctly, the GW LOTR figures tended to be smaller than GW WHFB figures, so their plastic orcs would probably be great goblins - I'll look around for some of those!

Moria Goblins are roughly the same size as GW Forest Goblins, except more "realistically" proportioned. Only problem you might face is that the Moria Goblin aesthetic is vastly different from every other Orc/Goblin aesthetic out there (with the exception of perhaps the other Orcs from Middle-Earth), so they'll look pretty out of place if they're included in a force with models from another range (or the other models will look out of place, depends which is in the minority).

No other company manages to catch the Goblin spirit as well as Mantic does.

 Sigvatr wrote:
No other company manages to catch the Goblin spirit as well as Mantic does.

I haven't seen their models, but they're listed as being metal and plastic. Metal is pretty much a non-starter for me. Too hard / expensive to store large armies. Plastic, once painted and properly finished, you can toss in a Plano box.

Just in case Plano don't have worldwide dominance or in the off chance you've not heard of 'em: they're lidded plastic storage trays with small enough compartments to protect figures, but big enough to pile in lots of plastic dudes. Great for horde armies. Using them I've had very little breakage trouble and no scratching of the models trouble. You can even sneak in the odd metal model, which will be cushioned a bit by all his plastic brethren around him!

pancakeonions wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
No other company manages to catch the Goblin spirit as well as Mantic does.

I haven't seen their models, but they're listed as being metal and plastic. Metal is pretty much a non-starter for me. Too hard / expensive to store large armies. Plastic, once painted and properly finished, you can toss in a Plano box.

Just in case Plano don't have worldwide dominance or in the off chance you've not heard of 'em: they're lidded plastic storage trays with small enough compartments to protect figures, but big enough to pile in lots of plastic dudes. Great for horde armies. Using them I've had very little breakage trouble and no scratching of the models trouble. You can even sneak in the odd metal model, which will be cushioned a bit by all his plastic brethren around him!

I rather like the Mantic plastic goblins - and love their restic mincer. Their Fleabags are also quite nice.







I was going to suggest looking at the Mantic Goblin army, but, sadly, it is not currently on the Mantic site. (Due today, but did not make it up for sale yet.)

Even without the Army deal, the Spitter Horde is less than a buck a gobbo.

The Auld Grump

I love (and have) the mincer, it's a great model.

I got their fleabag riders, but they were rather poor models, badly made, poor mold lines, hard to paint, hard to even figure out what some of the bits on the model even were the detail was so poor... (though they look cool at 3 feet)

These were from the Kickstarter, and were some of the first models made. I wonder if they somehow improved the material, the QA/QC or otherwise improved them since I got 'em.

Have others not noticed any quality issues when building and painting the fleabag riders?

Those mantic goblins look nice!