40K RETRO: 1993 – The First Night Goblins
As we all wait on Gloomspite Gitz to arrive, take a look at the very first Night & Forest Goblins from back in 1993, and their metal miniatures.
Today come with us on mushroom fueled vision quest as we take you on a time machine to the era of Warhammer Fantasy awesomeness. This week, we take you back to the heady days of Warhammer Fantasy 4th Edition! Time to let the the first range of Night and forest Goblins take out their nets, flails, spears and start crawling – Rick Priestley style! Enjoy this trip through the mists of gaming time.
Orks & Goblins (1993)
The Goblin Miniatures
Now these aren’t the first goblin miniatures. GW had introduced a range of “generic” goblins for the very early editions of Warhammer. But it was 4th Edition in 1993 where the GW invented Night & Forest sub-themes along with all their nets, spiders and fanatics showed up. Let’s get started. Night Goblins first:
It’s hard to beat the sneaky grinning theme of the original Night Goblin Command Group. Sculptor Kev Adams really defined the entire range right here and knocked it out of the ballpark. Champion1, and Shaman2 are particular standouts – and some of their visual queues carry through to the brand new Gloomspite Gitz.
Now we’re talking. Here’s the original Net Teams, Squigs and Fanatics. Oh how I remember the fear of moving my big units of Chaos Warriors up towards units I knew had fanatics in them. Are there any of those Cave Squigs that aren’t awesome?
Onto the Forest Goblins
Spiders, skulls and feathers – why not. There is just a tad of design cues that are shared by the Lizardmen – but it’s the spiders and webs that make them their own sub-faction. Speaking of which:
The first Spider Riders! Tell me those aren’t the cutest fattest little spiders you’ve ever seen. The latter plastic ones were much more sleek and sinister than these original fuzzy fellows.
Rounding things out are dreaded Doom Divers. More often than not they ended up as a little green splat somewhere on the battlefield, but when they worked – they worked. Also a shoutout to the golden GW era of the teensy shields with holes in the middle.
