WAAGH STEELJAW

This is the Army i took to the NZGT and our Local Tournament, Call to Arms.

It placed 6th at Call to Arms and won best painted by a landslide (everyone got 3 votes, i got 1 of everybodies votes)

At the NZGT, i got 1st place Players Choice, 3rd place best army, 2nd place best painted (but 1st equal on pts) and 2nd overall, so i am fairly happy with its results.

The Army took most of 2003 to get the bits, assemble and paint. In retail terms it would have cost me at least $2000NZ, thankfully i did not pay full retail for much. i used ebay, friends, parts order and trade to get most stuff at discount or second hand. i think i spent around $400 for the army which is normal for a 40K army.

I wanted the army to have a strong visual appeal and put more time into painting than i usually do. I have seen a lot of Ork armies and most of them are painted average to worse. there appears to be an idea that Orks are badly painted, i wanted to dispel that :)

While the army needed to be chaotic and disjointed as ork armies should be, i decided that there also needed to be a strong theme or continutity through the army, to stop it looking like a hodgepodge of figures. To that end i decided on my colours after consulting the colour wheel. i was obcviosuly going to be using green (skin) and red (for evil sunz) and so blue was the obvious colour for the triad, i used it for all of my markings and some of the symbols and guns. also as orks use a lot of metal, i deiced upon a simple highlighted inked boltgun metal, and Dwarf bronze, iked with flesh wash and then highlighted with silver.

Some of the themes through the army is originality and Steeljaw, as in each model needs to be unique (usually by having a different gun), and all orks (with few exceptions) had to have a steeljaw or faceplate, this meant that most of them would have helmets, so i would have less variety for heads, thankfully there are a few fantasy ones i could swipe as well. Thanks to Jason Bury, David Capon, Geoff Teweriek, Pete Dunn, Richard Dagger, Hagen Kerr, Michail Woolf, John Tailby and a bunch of other people for selling, trading or giving me the weird bits i needed.

To keep each unit noticiable, they all had unit icons, mostly from the bosspoles or dreadnought. these banners also helped decide the unit name.

All the gretchin have blue warpaint, its just hard to see, i will try and get some decent inset shots done, so check back again in a few days as well.

Any questions or comments please email me at minipaint@paradise.net.nz

HQ

The Humungous

I needed the Warboss to stand out, so he had to be HUGE, especially as his name is the Humungous. Sadly he did not live up to his name, dieing ignominioulsy to nurglings and guardians in combat. I also lost best painted as one of the judges did not thnink he stood out enough. not sure what i wuld have done to make him stand out more though.

His body is from the ork warboss, removed by hacksaw, and placed on some ogryn legs. I used a pile of greenstuff to redo his back as there was a mnassive gap where i had made him more upright. His head is the banner top from the Fantasy black orcs and a great bionic bonce. his bionic arm is the sential chainsaw arm with zombie blades for claws. His banner pole is from the nobs box, and the basket is ghazkulls iron jaw, but hollwed out to allow the gretchin (Radge) in. His guns are from the Hammerhead and his scythes are the fantasy ork choppa. Every ork on a bike had different guns and scythes, his just needed to be the biggest.

TROOPS

The Skull and Bones Brigade

This is my only unit of bikers and since the boss is hanging out with them they needed to be done well and look like he would fit in with them. Their symbol is off the Dreadnought, each one has a different set of guns, scythes and has a different look. all the bike riders legs are from the fantasy ork command sprue, as i thought that the riders that came with the bikes were weedy. A bunch of the bikers have the metal torso from the 40K ard boyz, though you can't really tell from the photos. All of the evil sunz glyphs were removed from the bikes and one of the glyphs from the fantasy ork shield sprue was added.

The ork on the left has two Necron gauss cannons for guns and ork fantasy spear heads for his scythes, the head is one of the metal black ork ones and his sword is a fantasy orc sword. The ork on the right has the heavy bolters from the landraider, spikes from the fantasy orks for scythes and the cleaver arm from the fasntasy orks.

Ork on the left has the landspeeder heavy bolter and ork bike big shoota for guns and a pair of ork axes for scythes. the one on the left has a pair of the big shootas from the wartrakk on each side and two zombie sickles for scythes. they both have black ork heads and a mix of fantasy and 40k ork arms.

Left guy has two bike big shootas on each side and a pair of knives for scythes. the right guy has ork skorchas (form the warbuggy) for big shootas and two ork swords for scythes.right guy has black ork head, and plastic command arm for his right arm. left guys head is a plastic one with the warhammer face plate.

Unit Nob. Guns are from the land raider crusader, scythes from the charitot spear, torso and right arm from the fantasy ork command sprue, power claw from a mega armour nob, and head from the ltd ed 1998 games day nob, plus iorn jaw.

Da Bludskulls
3 Warbuggies with skorchas, red paint jobs, turbo boostas, spikes and blades, and reinforced rams.

The turret is made from the metal bits from the scorcha warrakk, i added two glyph plates to the front, and replaced the crappy scorcha with two heavy flamers from the sentinel, plus two old armour plates to cover the mess as well as some greenstuff. the two rockets on the side (turbo boostas) are from Epic i think. the goblin is just a plastic warhammer one, and the driver is made up of the usual plastic ork bits and some cutting. the orks don;t fit too well in these so a bit of cutting and scraping is needed. Reinforced ram is from the wartrukk, the fromnt scythes are spear heads and the back are knives. the glyph on the front is from the fantasy ork shield sprue.

This is the first model i assembled and painted, before i worked out my rules for the arm, so it is the only one with the gun that came in the box. Also the gunner is the only ork without a helmet (his head is from a burna boy) so i gouged out a helmet and jaw for him and it is on his hip.these guys are the only omes with blue shirts, i decdied not to bother with anyone else. The fuel tank on the gunners back is from the sentinel, the turbo boosta is a storm boyz rocket. the reinforced ram is made up from cutting up the chaos ram bar. I had to turn the engine on the side to enable to gunner to stand up as well.

The ram bar is actually a dreadnought powerclaw, and the front spikes are off the front spikes from a chariot. the fron scthes are from the chariot as well, and so is the gunners torso. the back scythes are the large ork choppa from fantasy. a defiler gave itself for the scorcha and the gunner is actually standing on the foot plateof a marine bike. the inset shows the turbo boosta and it is made up of the barrels off an ork scorcha (the bottom bit) and the fuel tank is a sentinel one.

The Beaky Bashas
3 Wartrakks with red paint jobs and twin linked big shootas.

The gun is an old old ork cannon of some sort with an bike big shoota on either side, covered with armour plates (inset), it all rests on the frame that came with the cannon and a bunch of sprue bits.the bullets are two pinned together from the 40k ork sprue.

One of my favourites. the guns are the hellstorm cannon from the imperator titan and the gun mount is the titans torso upside down (so the guns are attacked to the base of his groin). note the massive amount of kill tallys, they may not be kills, just number of mags emptied trying to hit :). the spikes on the front forks are from the fansty mace.

The guns are assautl cannons from the LRC, attached to a killer can torso, which as a barrel on its back as well. the assautl cannons have the drum mag from ork shoota on the bottom. No idea what kit the gretchin is from, but he is cool.

Da Bludskuls
2 Wartrakks, with Kustom mega blasters, red paint jobs, armoured tops and armour plates.

The gun is from the Tau Ion cannon (painted in the scheme i am doing my Tau), the front and sides are off the orc chariot, the gun rests on an eldar support platform (vybro cannon i think( and it rests on a crate from the 40K accessories sprue. The shield is from the fantasy ork sprue and so is the skull, and it has the blast shield off the LRCs multimelta. Its a pity i can never kill landraiders with this army as i have enough of their bits in it :)

This one was a pig. the gun rests on the mount for the ork boarding plank, which in turn sits on a wagon wheel, which in turn sits on one of the feet of the imperator titan which sits on the old rhino top plate. more chariot sides make up shielding and floor, as well as the rebel grot cutta crows nest. i think the rope thingy at the front is from the pump wagon but i know the front of the gun is off the chaos vehicle sprue. i used armour plates and bits of sprue liberally here. if you look closesly you can see that there are two sets of tallys, one on the sprue bit in front of the gunner (kills), and one on the crows nest (malfunctions). you can;t see but the grethcins warpaint is the facepaint from Paul Stanley from Kiss (starchild)

Da Bluskulls
3 Wartrakks with rockets and red paint jobs.

Fairly crap picture but you get the point of the model. rockets are two tau missile pods.

Rockets are the Gorkamorka spear chukka.

The metal parts of a scorcha trakk again, this time i cut off the flamers and added dreadnought rockets to the side, the guy in the turret is a squig herder i think. and the guy with his ears shut is not complaining about the loud rockets.

Da Tuskas
3 Wartrakks with rockets and red paint jobs.

Whereas the last squad had the rockets up on turrets, this squad has them down and mounted in the back to differentiate them from the last lot.

Rockets are the havoc launcher from the chaos vehicle sprue, and there is also a guy in the back firing over the side.

 

Rockets are the old imperial hunter killa missles. if the new ones had been out in time i would have used them. if you look at the kill tallys, you will see that the orks can't count to 5.

The rockets are tau seeker missles and i made missle runs from sprue lengths. the plan is that the fire from the side and the top and back is where they are stored. the gretchin on the right side is 'convincing' a rocket to fire. The rockets are named, waagh, Kapow, Zok, and Funt.

HEAVY SUPPORT

Da Yella Star
Lobba Trukk, with red paint job, amrour plates and force field.

A blood angels rhino with the front and top ripped off and a doomdiver wacked in. if you look closely you will see that wherever the rhino was cut, the paint is all chipped as a buzz saw is not a delicate instrument. The drivers section has the front part of a trukk dropped in and it has a metal trukk front plate for a front plate. As well a LRC side shield for side armour. looks cool, pity it was rubbish :)

The target point. when i fired the lobba i wouldplace him down the line i was firing to and use him as my guess point and line of measurement.

Da Yella Skulls
2 ZZap trukks with red paint jobs, armour plates, extra rocket launcha and force fields.

The roll cage is made of sprue and fantasy ork spikes, the gun is just the basic zzap gun with a bunc of sprues making a cradle for it to not roll off the trukk, but i got bored so made it a double bareled zzap gun by gluing two together.

The gun is an old shokk attack gun and its resting on a crate. the shield at its front is the last part from the gun i used on a big shoota wratrakk a few models back. The front plate is one of the metal ones and the rocket launcha is a marine hnter killer missile. i replaced the back wheels with wagon wheels for no good reason. and the wee grot turning the crank is from the pump wagon.

Kernal Grodsnag and 'Da Secret Recipe'
Looted Hellhound with red paintjob, armour plates, hull heavy bolta, wrecker ball, spikes and blades and turbo boostas

Where to start. the skull is off ghazghull, the heavy bolta is an ork trukk big shoota. the shields are goblin shields, the spikes below the skull are gorka morka accessories, the spikes below the heavy bolta are from an epic ork vehicle The turret has an ork nob in it, and the wrecker ball assembly has the blast shields from the LRC on either side.

Spikes at the top are from the old old old ork battlewagon, the chainsaw is off the sentinel, the fuel thingy beside the chainsaw is off the top of the hellhound. the hook is from the chaos vehicle sprue. the boosta at the back is from a BFG space marine battle barge, and the blue spike is from a Dark Eldar Raider.

The big rocket in the back is an old pulsa rocket, and the hellhounds orignal fuel bit was replacd with half of the scorcha wartrakk barrel (the bit the gretchins on)

The spear at the front is about to fall off (the other side did).

FAST ATTACK (RESERVE FORCE)

Da Skull and Bones Brigade, Blu Boyz

To differentiate these guys from the other bikers, they have their guns front mounted, have spears and do not have iron gobs (the only orks in the army).The left guy has two horns for scythes and wartakk big shootas for guns. the middle guy has front facing knives for scythes and shootas for guns, as well as two spare shootas at the back. and the right guy has knives on his guns and his guns are a shoota and tau fusion gun.

Ride of Da Valkrorks
3 Dethkoptas inc a mek with burna.

I did not like the weedy guns or riders so the riders torsos were hacked off and replaced with normal ork ones. the left guns are the master of the ravenwings heavy bolters, and the right guy has two bike big shootas.

Ork Scheider, the mek riding Blu Funda. the meks gun is a tau burst cannon, his burna is a palstic dread heavy flamer and he has cadian flamer tank on his back, as well as a chaos skull shoulder pad on his right arm, the rifht arm is a fantasy ork command arm and i sculpted the strap hilding the burna on. his ledt side has a white scars shoulder pad