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.

Presenting the Armored Stegadon Walker

I promised some pictures of the armored Stegadon when it was built, and now the Mek-Grots of BigMek Gyvva have done the job and are ready to present it...

The Idea was to make my own Squiggoth, as this model cost about 1000 Norwegian kroner (pluss postage and fees) from Forgeworld. So for a half the cost (actually a little less than half) and the use of my bitz boxes I managed to put together the little brother of the Squggoths, the Stegadon. I did not expect it to be so small though, but I made the best of what I had to work with.

 Here it is from the side and from the front.

 

I built the Stegadon after the instructions provided by Games Workshop, but stopped once I had built the animal and the basic platforms on its back. Then I went into my bitz boxes for the Astra Militarum (Imperial Guard) and collected shields from the Ogryn/Bullgryn sets and an autocannon from my  heavy weapons sets. I tried arming this little beast with two heavy bolters but they would not fit properly because of how the front platform is constructed in the set, and I also thought about using mortars, but there was not enough room for that with the current configuration (but I have not totally dropped this idea yet). 

I had two thoughts when making this little beast. First I wanted to have something to walk alongside my organic bikes (Gore-Gruntas from Age of Sigmar) that I plan to build shortly (just need to build some Boyz so I get some spare hands with shootas as the Orks in the AoS start collecting box all have choppas as they are made for another time and place). 

Secondly I've been wanting to use some of those Ogryn/Bullgryn spare shields for a long time as they take up so much space in my bitz box. I have thought about making defense lines with them, but decided it would be much cooler to let the Orks have some of them as spoils of war. I have so many left that I have enough to make at least one more of these walkers if I feel like it at a later time, and I can also equip a unit of Orks with these shields if I like (but I fear the shields might look too big for them as the Ogryns/Bullgryns are quite a lot bulkier than your average Ork). 

I am very happy with how the front armor and the back part of the side armor turned out on this build. The back could only be one single shield because of the space I had available so it is as it is, and the platform is designed so the front part stands out further than the back so I had to add a single shield on each side of the front platform. That is why I'm thinking of using steel girders if I make another one as I could have the same width for the entire platform. Also it would be nice to fit a little more armament on such a beast.

The crew for this one will be a Grot gunner and a Grot tech (had one Grot with a wrench left after building my first stompa some time ago). I am considering putting an Ork on the back of the platform to have command of the walker, but I might sacrifice him for some more dakka and a few more Grots. This is something I don't have to decide on right away as the weapons will be added after some of the paintjob is done so I can reach the details that needs painting.

For my next AoS to 40K project, I am playing with the idea of making something with a set from the Ogor Mawtribes range, the set that can either build an Ironblaster or a Gnoblar Scraplauncher. Not sure what kind of weapon it would be yet, but the Gnoblars in this set is just amazing, and they would probably make for some nice Grots for other builds in the future if I decide to not use all of them in one build. From looking at the original sets, I either see this as some sort of walking artillery piece with a cannon of some sorts, or maybe as some sort of catapult lobbing some type of small bombs.

Right now I am building a Wazbom Blastajet for the Orks and this will leave me some spare rokkits and bombs and "big shootas" that I can use for my next Stompa but also maybe for a Scraplauncher or a future Stegadon build.

Something for the Orks

I got my new conversion-piece a few days ago.

I plan to convert a Seraphon Stegadon dinosaur in to a walking fortress for my Orks. Forgeworld have some very beautiful models of Squiggoth and a giant Squiggoth, and I was hoping for my Stegadon to be about the size of a Squiggoth, but it seems after I took a look in the box that it is a lot smaller.

Time will tell how many Orks I can field on the Stegadon, but the idea is that it will have a heavy weapon of some sort (probably autocannon or a big shoota) up front, and some troop carrying capacity. I might need more than one to transport a unit though.  

The Orks will be shielded with armor from the Ogryn/Bullgryn box as I have a lot of the big shields in my bits boxes and the whole idea with this conversion was to use some of those to free up some space in the box.

I will post pictures once I have done the build.

Sons of Behemats update

Just a quick little update on the Sons of Behemat army.

I have gotten the last two Gargants home. News came that the Games Workshop store had to close down for two weeks due to covid-19 restrictions in Oslo, so I took a quick trip to the store on Monday (they closed from Tuesday morning) and collected my mail order with the Mancrusher box, a dinosaur from the Seraphon range that I plan to convert to a Warhammer 40K Ork "vehicle" and the new Uriel Ventris Space Marine figure. 

I found how to make the magical item in the hand of the weird Gargant, or at least I found the piece.
I was gifted a burning globe that belongs to Magnus the Red (Primarch in Warhammer 40.000), but the builder of the fig liked him much better without it, so he gave it to me and I am now trying to decide if I should cut it to get the flames on one side stand straight up or if I should just use it as it is. Booth look rather good, so I will try to figure it out by trying to hold it at different angles and see what I like the most. If it had been smoke I think it would have to stand straight up from the hand, but since it is flames they might just as well go more sideways than upwards. I don't need to decide before an our or so before priming, and it look like the weather will be good for priming all week.

Hopefully the last two Mancrushers will also be built when I go out to prime, but if not they will follow shortly. I still haven't decided how to paint their pants, but that is no stress anyway as I can decide while painting the other four. I also need to decide what heads to give them, but usually I decide on that when I build anyway. 

I hope people will find that the army has enough diversity once it's done, even though it is based only on two models (Mega-Gargant and Manchrusher Gargant). At least I've enjoyed thinking out how to build them and make them look different and making my modifications.

I will make a post just showing all the Gargants when I have built the final two, and also post pictures as the army is painted up.