Ogres

I had planned in this post to lament the lack of variety among the new Citadel Ogres, and to show some of the far more characterful models they used to produce. However, while I'm certain the figures below are 1980s Ogres, I can't find many references to confirm that they are (other than the oriental Ogre which, ironically, was one I thought wasn't from Citadel). There are a couple of pictures on ebay, however, so hopefully I'm on the right track...

White Dwarf finally dropped through the letter box. It was over a week late - the second time in the last two months. I have read some rumours that they're only shipping to subscribers when they ship to retailers (a week later than it appears in their own shops), and I'm starting to think they have some credence to them. This is very annoying, if true, and yet another unannounced and unexplained change that makes things worse than they were (actually, that's slightly unfair, because I haven't bought any Finecast figures yet. My annoyance with the Finecast change is more that they pulled the metals without warning and without giving people a chance to buy any models they wanted. When they moved from lead to white metal, they at least had a big sale of the lead - and yes, I did just use the "s" word in an article on Citadel :-))

Anyway... grumble over and lament begins.

The description and background of the Ogres seems to portray them as nomadic, primitive and with a lust for war. To me, this describes a shambolic force with loads of individuals, rather than any coherent fighting force. However, when I look at the pictures, I see neat rows of marching figures, looking virtually identical. Possibly it's because there are so few figures in an "army" - I counted about 20 in a 2000 point force - that the similarities jump out; at least in a large force, you can spread the figures about, reducing the regular appearance.

So, having been saddened by the new figures, I turned to my few old Ogres.

made up of the following figures

The aforementioned oriental Ogre

and the standard bearer and musician

I have this old Grenadier (I think) one. No idea why I didn't paint the eyes, as they're considerably larger than on normal figures. Also not quite sure why I didn't have him as part of the group shot.

I have a couple of the old Ratmen Ogres lying about. I'll try and remember to include them in some pictures of my skaven models.

I only have a few Ogre figures, as I never really viewed the Ogres as "army" material - much more as a mercenary unit attached to another force. Given the blandness of the new ones (and the fact they're probably much larger),  I don't think I'll be expanding my warband any time soon. Another reason I don't think I'll be buying any new ones is that I spelt "Ogre" as "Orgre" pretty much every time in the first draft of this post. If I can't even spell the word, I should take the hint and move on...