Jes Goodwin Ogre no.5 - standard bearer

Sogrodd's Mercanaries - aka the Rusty Flails.

Sogrodd aka "The Thug", leads his band of Mercanaries, for hire, to any willing Army General, for a good fee (an even greater amount of gold is demanded if that General happens to be a greenskin though). 

When these renowned fighters appear on the battlefield, they simultaneously causes fear amongst the enemy rank and file and at the same time a glimmer of hope for the opposing General. If he has enough gold, he knows there is always a chance that Sogrodd will change allegiance and attack his original employers (as famously happened at the Battle of Skull Pass). This band are quite simply led to battle by the fight as much as the temptation of a big hoard of treasure and gold.

Below is Ang'thra'olyg the ageing standard bearer of the band and in past times, it's original leader. No longer the fearsome warrior he once was, he now seems to bring a great deal of luck to the warband, hence why he is entrusted with the banner. Ang'thra'olyg believes in his own luck too; eschewing armour for manoueverability, he still remains largely uninjured, even though he likes to entice the opposition to attack him with vile gestures and base language:

Adorned with his lucky charms of a flower of broccoli, a goblin skull, cockatrice feathers and a duck's foot.

I had a lot of fun painting this Ogre, as usual it is a very crisp and characterful sculpt from Mr. Goodwin, which makes it easy to create the character of the model and how he fits into the warband. I especially like the characterful details of what he carries into battle, including some broccoli, feathers and on his back a duck's foot!

 Obviously this is a very simple conversion with his weapon clipped away, a hole drilled through his hand and a thick paper clip inserted to create the banner pole. This was then covered in greenstuff and roughly sculpted to look like wood. From my bitzbox a spare LotR troll hand was then combined with an (Giant of Albion?) axe for the top of the banner.

The banner itself was created by freehand onto a piece of paper (except the dry transfer letters) and then the entire banner was distressed with some blood and mud spatters before being ripped at the edges. To stiffen the paper it was coated in dilute PVA and then matt varnish applied.

And here are the five of them ready for action (sans the unfinished movement tray):

Sogrodd is about to be usurped though as leader, a new contingency commander, a level 20 ogre, no less is about to take control of the band..... Work on him is underway, pink trousers and all..