Frostgrave WIP: Orcs on the March

So I've been reading through the Frostgrave rulebook, and the expansion "Thaw of the Lich Lord" will be arriving on my doorstep tomorrow.  In the process, I've been looking at allllll those Wargames Factory plastic figures I bought last year and which have been firmly ensconced in my closet, unbuilt, ever since.  And I took them out, and I started to cut pieces of sprues and glue them together.  I had a plan.  I was going to turn these kits into Frostgrave warbands.

I started with the Orc boxed I bought for something like 1/2 price at last year's Black Friday sale.  With their more human proportions, I liked the look of these orcs far more than the lantern-jawed goons of Games Workshop, and looking over both the weapons offered by the kit and the soldier list in the Frostgrave book, I began to put together an army list.

Or should I say, multiple army lists, built for a couple different styles of play; because I don't have scenery yet, I imagine the first couple play-tests of the rules for me will take place on a more open table than the game recommends, so I have an archery-heavy list, for example, and a two-handed weapon wielding list for if I want to really wade in and chop some metaphorical heads.

And so, I built enough figures to accommodate the different lists I'd come up with.  Eighteen orcs in all, built over the course of Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.  I had to take a couple more breaks than I'd intended because my eyes began to really bother me and not want to focus - I'm not used to holding things two inches from my face while working on them any more.

I won't be able to begin painting these fine fellows until December 20th, because I intend to make them a good-sized part of my entry into the Analogue Hobbies Annual Painting Challenge, but for the meantime, here they are in their assembled glory:

Group shot.  The group in the foreground right is my "core" army composition, 5x thugs, 2x archers, 1x barbarian

The Barbarian, coming in on a lunging down-stroke with his two-handed axe.

Three thugs.  The one on the right has a sword and scabbard from the Wargames Factory Amazons box.

The other two thugs.  The one on the left has a shield on his back for visual interest, and a spear clipped from a Persian sprue.

All six archers.  The arms holding bows outstretched were taken from the Persian sprues.

Six Infantrymen, with polearms of various types.  

I really like how this fellow turned out - I used the archery arms from the Orc sprue to create a "salute/shading eyes from the sun" pose.  

A better shot of the Persian archer arms on the Orc body.  Also, that head has an eyepatch, which I think makes for a very amusing archer.  

Another shot of the orc with the Amazon sword and scabbard.  I was going for a "just drawing the sword" pose.  The left arm is the archer arm from the Orc sprue.  

I'm really loving the flexibility that a skirmish wargame like Frostgrave is giving me over a rank-and-file, massed-troops type game like Warhammer, just in terms of posing figures.  I was able to put a lot more character into these guys than I would have otherwise; each figure in this warband telling a story with body language and equipment.