The Ork Waaagh!

 Today I want to rant a little bit about my Ork army.

As I was looking through the current Ork codex, I was a little baffled by all the pictures of the good looking armies in there. What baffled me was not that the armies looked good, everything Games Workshop puts in their books are painted with a high quality and the pics usually look quite well. No, what baffled me a bit was the unison look of the armies. They all looked like they were one big group of Orks come together for some sort of action group photo.

And that got me thinking, what would my Waaagh! look like on the table? 

Being an avid collector, my Waaagh! has several different generations of figures and vehicles and is just as ramshackle as I think an Ork Waaagh! should be. But still these pictures has gotten me to start thinking of being more color coordinated. 

I have decided to be more conscious about what colors I use to make it all fit nicely together. 

I have four basic colors for my vehicles at the moment, and I will try to keep it on that level. My Speedfreaks have red vehicles, and they need to have that as red goes faster. I am using two different reds but will try to use mostly Khorne Red for basic colors and then I can do some details in Mephiston Red if I feel the need on a few vehicles for diversity. My biggest vehicle is painted Mephiston red, and I will not repaint that. That is the Battle fortress of my Ork "General" and is made of Battlewagons and Baneblade tanks by the staff at Games Workshop in Oslo many years ago. It will not be used much in games though as it is so massive (I think it would be an army of its own) but it is cool to field when showing off the army and hopefully I could use it in an Apocalypse-type of game.

My biggest Mek in my army, Big-Mek MekGyvver, likes black and I already have one Stompa and one Morkanaught that is painted black. I will keep painting some things black with either Khorne red or Averland Sunset (yellow) details for his benefit. And I think that for the future all my Meks will have black vehicles as this will add some consistency to a multi-colored army. If you see a black vehicle on the battlefield you know it belongs to a Mek. It might not be driven by a Mek, but it is "owned" by one...

I also have some wehicles painted up in yellow in Averland Sunset, and I think that is a nice color to paint so naturally I will also have that color in the army. It is also a nice contrast color to use on red vehicles. What needs to go fast will be red, and what doesn't need speed can be yellow. It will not apply 100% to my planes, as I would like to have some yellow bombers, but the fighter planes will be red though, so maybe it still applies after all...

The final vehicle color I have at the moment is metallic. I have one Megatrakk Scrapjet that I am really happy with that is painted metallic and heavily washed with Nuln Oil, and I would like to use that color for some other vehicles as well (the Scrapjet have red fins though as they add speed). One of the vehicles that will get some of this treatment is the Rukkatrukk Squigbuggy, but on the areas where there has been a lot of squigs I will add some heavy rust effects. 

I will try to keep with these colors for all future vehicles, but I will need to add brown fur for my furry animals and I need to find a good color that is not too screaming for my Stegadon walker(s).

The Orks themselves I should also try to keep in a few colors, and lot of them will have black clothing, sort of the traditional Ork color. Then some armor will be red or yellow and there will be some metallic colors and rust as well as needed. Some of my orks already have some deep purple, but I will try to keep it at that and not add lots of other colors. The only exception to this rule will be my Flash Gitz that might get a few more bright colors to liven them up, but they are supposed to stand out so I think that is just fitting.

I also have some Grots that stand out from the rest, and the are my Tech-Grots that work for MekGyvver, as they have taken to wearing red clothing as they see that this is the custom for their enemies like the Astra Militarum, Space Marines and Adeptus Mechanicus. These Tech-Grots are rather few though, and except for those manning the Stompa called Da Punisha they stay where the Meks have their workspaces.

As for skin-color, I have used different greens from I started and up to today, but for the Orks and Grots that will be painted in the future, I have decided on what colors to use for their skin so from now on they will get the same skin colors. Waaagh! Flesh for the Orks and a light green for the Grots.