There are now a ton of options for Orcs and Goblin kits, we are spoilt for choice. I've brought way too many but the advantage of this is that I can mix and match kits as much as I like. Which is where the warlord games orc kit shines the most.
It comes with a ton of great parts for kit-bashing with other plastic kits.
The kit has the Angus McBride style of orcs, which is is excellent for setting apart your orcs from the movie stylised versions.
The kit does have some issues. The three torso parts were designed to be 'double sided' which gives them an odd look where one side slopes out in an odd way and they don't always line up with the legs in 'realistic' way.
The other main issue is the arms are shaped like Lego people arms. This is ok when it comes to using the weapons on the sprue or using them with shields, but they are very awkward if you try to use them on other kits, or want to do hand/weapon swaps etc with parts from other kits.
The best parts of the kit is the heads, there is a nice selection of Angus McBride styled helmets and the bare head with an eye patch head is one of my favourites. The weapons are nicely evil and having no hands sculpted on them, makes them fantastic for kit bashing or using on terrain.
I find my opinion on the shields are a mixed bag. The three designs are nice individually, but wildly different from each other. If you wanted to to have more unity between a unit, you would struggle to get enough shields together of one design. Thankfully this can be solved by either making a lot of non shield carrying units (the kit makes some nice archers) and saving the spares, and I have hundreds of left over shields from victrix kits (which I am likely to use instead and save these ones for conversions or more unique models.)
There is a limitation on the amount of certain weapons too. Whilst there is plenty of hand weapons, there is only one bow per sprue. Less of an issue if you are buying up the huge 90 models sets, but its going to be more awkward to make big units of any individual weapon type from this kit alone. The kit seems to have been designed with smaller skirmish games in mind, rather than for use in mass battle games.
Out of all the Goblin/Orc kits currently available they are probably my 2nd favourite kit jointly alongside the oathmark goblin kits. The oathmark goblins have more unity across the kit, but this kit is a goldmine of parts!
I put together a few of these orcs and painted up a single test model (Using the blue under layer of colour technique coupled with a zenithal prime, very similar to what is described in the youtube channel 'Andurz Talks Hobbies' Painting an Army of Orcs - The Angmar Project video who primes the models blue directly) It was a speedy paint job and as usual I've not been overly fond of any of the skin colours I've tried for Middle Earth Orcs, but do feel that it captured the cold desolate northern feel I went for. I think a full unit painted like this (with a push for a bit more detail rather than just speed painting) would look really good.
I brought two of the large 90 models sets, and this set does come with bases though they are the smaller 20mm warlord games plastic bases. I'll probably donate the bases to another project (probably for basing my Epic 40k or warhammer fantasy minis) and stick with using 25mm basing for Oathmark.
The large 90 models sets also come with a really nice metal warlord figure. Its a fantastic sculpt and it would be excellent to see Warlord Games come out with more metal sculpts to add to this range!
(You can find a good photo of the metal warlord on warlords games site here: https://www.warlordgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/692012001-Azbads-Orc-Horde-Special-Figure.jpg I'll add photos of my own once I have him built and painted up)
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