Cave Goblin Shaman

As their name suggests, cave goblins spend most of their time underground. As a result, they are a little different to other goblin folk. They tend to be smaller, paler and less well equipped, often with little more than a crude club and a set of filthy robes. However, they do have an affinity with the other creatures of the dank underworld realms, and will often drive these before them into battle. When a goblin warlord recruits the cave goblins into his warband, he does so expecting them to bring along trolls, spiders or other beasts from the dark caverns. The cave goblins also have a greater tendency to practise magic than their overground relatives, perhaps as a result of their diet of mind expanding fungi and hallucinogenic mushrooms.

This is the doom goblin shaman from Knightmare Games. This was one of the first models from that range that caught my eye. The fungi staff is just a brilliant touch. I changed the name from doom to cave to fit my own vision of goblins and how they live. I wanted to give them a pale skin, as I imagine their pigment would naturally fade after generations in the darkness. The red around the eyes could be due to the stress of controlling the magical forces in his mind, or maybe it's just a reaction to the hated daylight. It gives him a nicely manic appearance.

Here is the shaman with a small group of the black goblins, to illustrate the size difference. The bulk of the goblin force will be more like the cave goblin in size - smaller and runtier, as you would expect. Next in the queue, I could paint up a handful of old GW goblins I managed to collect over the past couple of years, but I do now have a preference for these Knightmare figures. I just have to get some more!