I am making an ongoing effort to paint up an Orc army with a pirate theme. The army has to be ready for an Warhammer Renaissance event in the Fall of 2021, and so far all I have is about 25 Orcs.

Here, I have completed a unit of 6 Ogres for the army. I don’t really have a clue about what role they’re supposed to play in the army, but I liked the idea.

The figures are from Pirates of The Dread Seas and sculpted by Jaycee Fairclough. They’re supposed to be Trolls, but I liked how they could look like chubby men if I painted them in light skin colour.

Painting wise I went down a very differnet alley on these guys compared to what I have been doing in the past. No zenith undercoat, no washing and no drybrushing… in fact it was just super basic painting on a white undercoat. I really wanted them to have the feel of a lost toy from the eighties, but with highlights. I think I achieved that fairly well. Whether it is your taste or not is a different matter I guess.

To make the models a bit more tied to the theme of pirates/sea I added a lot of different details… or should I say seatails?!… to their bases. These are hermit crabs, conch shells and small fish… and a lot of starfish! I was going to add some rum bottles and treasure too, but thought better of it. I will save those for another unit.

There you have it – 6 Piratey Ogres ready to go kill a thing.

I have been holding off on making the final list, as I knew Balder, who is making the Warhammer Renaissance army books, was working on an updated version. Basically I am not much of an army builder, and I just enjoy pushing figures around on the tabletop. So it is not because I am expecting to make “the meanest force on Earth” or anything like that. It will be Orcs for crying out loud.

The final list is presented here, and my plan is to strike through every unit as I finish painting them.