Ork Kommandos

Ork Kommandos

Some time ago I finished these Ork Kommandos but I never got round to post them on my blog.
I painted them in Desert camo and some yellow bits to tie them into my Bad Moons army.





They are not the most reliable unit in the Ork range but they certainly are a lot of fun to use in games.
The ability to surprise your opponent with a small unit of cunning Orks behind their battle lines is priceless. I have 4 normal boys, 2 burnas and a nob with a powerklaw. If you position them right you can get quite a few kills the turn the come on the table by using the burnas and the burnas also help if they get charged. The unit is quite small but it faces the opponent with a problem, deal with them now or let them roam free. usually my opponents try to get rid of them asap which is good because my other units are more likely to close in on the enemy.

Cheers,
Seb

Ork Weirdboy Showcase

My favourite HQ choice at the moment is a weirdboy or better a Warp'ead. I like the unpredictable nature of this character and although I have taken unlucky wound from time to time or killed some of my own boyz when using it's psychic powers I still think the Warp'ead rocks. The ability to deepstrike the whole unit he is in (usually 30 shoota boyz) behind enemy lines is just lovely. Because of wound allocation rules I like to deepstrike behind my enemy's units and usually the juicy targets are at the back which is then the front (insert evil laugh). But also his two shooting attacks are nothing to be sniffed at. Because I pay the 35 extra points I get to re-roll the effects on the psychic table and you usually end up with something useful. The top result I try to aim for is a Waaagh! when my Dakkajet is on the table and I get to double the amount of twin linked Supa Shoota shots. 18 strength 6 shots that re-roll to hit is a real pain in the a*# for any unit because it can glance, pen or rip though infantry models.

The model itself was fun to paint. Nothing special though but I liked the open brain and glowing eye. I guess my opponents will see his glowing eye of terror a lot in 6th edition. I like the unit so much that I'm actually scratchbuilding a second weirdboy so I can field 2 weirdboys for those extra cheese kind of games.

Cheers,
Seb

Big Mek Showcase

Just a quick post showing off the Big Mek with KFF I recently finished. I used this model a lot in 5th edition but I just never go round to painting it up. He's been fielded in his chaos black undercoat for over a year but now he can strut his stuff with pride on the battlefield.

I'm not sure what kind of list I will mostly use in 6th edition but I usually switch tactics between every few games just to mix it up a bit so I'm sure he will be used, (unlike some other models I have in my cabinet). My current HQ favourite is the Weirdboy or Warp'ead even. He's in black undercoat as well but I have put him on my desk for a quick paint job and I'm even making another one by putting spare bitz together.

Stay tuned...

Cheers,
Seb

Ork Blitza-Bommer Tactica

This is the third tactica in the new Ork flyer tactica series. Here you can find "Part 1: The Dakkajet" and “Part 2: The Burna-Bommer”. In this episode I'll look at the strengths and weaknesses of the Ork Blitza-Bommer.

The Blitza-Bommer:
This plane is carrying the Little Boy and The Fat Man for the Orks. Two massive bombs called “Boom Bombs” that each can only be used once per game.

Basics:
Unfortunately you can only take 1 plane per fast attack slot so that means you could have 3 planes max. This is ok but I hoped you could take them as squadrons of three leaving you with 2 more fast attack slots. Further more it is a Skimmer and it's Fast and follows those universal rules but there's nothing wrong with that for now but we'll probably see some major changes for flyers when 6th edition hits the shelves. The new edition is only one week away and from what I have heard flyers will be a lot harder to hit and that’s exactly what they need.

Special rules:
The Blitza-Bommer has a few special rules.
Aerial Assault: When you move at cruising speed(12") you can still fire all of your weapons.

Grot Gunner: You can select 1 of your guns and have a grot aiming that gun for you so it has BS3 instead of the basic BS2 for the plane. You have to choose if you want your big shoota or supa shoota before the game starts and it needs to be noted on your army list. It's a bit of a no-brainer that you put the grot at the trigger of the supa shoota because it's the better gun.

Supersonic: You can boost about on the battlefield moving a whopping 36" to get in or out of action.

Waaagh!plane: This special rule is great for a dakkajet because you can now fire all your weapons twice on the turn your Waaagh! is called but for the blitza-bommer it's not so hot. The Boom Bombs are "one use only" so you have the big shoota and supa shoota left. It's a nice bonus but it's just not that big a deal.

Weapons and options:
The main weapons of the Blitza-Bommer are the “Boom Bombs” and that’s what they’ll be feared for because once it has dropped those it’s practically nothing more that either a nice piece of scenery or an easy kill point (kill points will be dropped in 6^th edition).

The Boom Bomb is a crude and heavy weapon and when you manage to drop it on your target you place a large template over the units and and roll 2D6 on the “Screamin’Descent” table to see what happens. Now here’s the tricky part because there is a chance that things will go wrong and when they go wrong they’ll go horribly wrong. You either crash and burn(9% chance) or you will clip your enemy(18% chance) without dropping the bomb but instead you take a S9 hit! On AV10 that’s pretty dangerous. At least when you go down in flames you still drop a S9 AP2 Template on your enemy but you scatter 2D6.

But then there’s also the good results on the “Screamin’Descent” table, there’s 45% chance that thing go according to plan and you drop the bomb(large template) on the enemy scattering only 1 D6. And if you get even more lucky you have a 27% chance of shooting all your weapons on the same target as you have dropped your bomb. So all in all there’s a 28% chance things will get ugly but also a 72% things will go just right.
You drop the bombs in your movement phase but you can’t drop them if you have moved flat out. When you have dropped a bomb(or attempted to) in the movement phase you can still pick a different target with your Supa Shoota and Big Shoota in the shooting phase which is nice.

There’s also a chart for the Boom Bomb saying it is only S7 AP4 and just a small blast template but that seems to go against vehicles and you get to roll 1D6 extra for armour penetration. This seems to be the way you have to work it out when you drop it in the shooting phase instead of the movement phase and using the “Screamin’Descent” . To me this sounds illogical and I wouldn’t use it like this because with only S7 you might penetrate light armoured vehicles but chances against something better are slim and you don’t want your single use bombs to go to waist.

The Blitza-Bommer also comes with a TL Supa Shoota. The Supa Shoota has a range of 30" Strength 6 and AP4 and is an assault 3 weapon. Which is a nice bonus if you roll well on your “Screamin’Descent” table and you get to use your guns on the same target as your Boom Bombs for free. (you can fire them again in the shooting phase of the same turn).

You also get 1 Big Shoota as standard. It follows the normal Big Shoota rules and again you can fire it in the shooting phase and when you get a nice roll on the “Screamin’Descent” table but other then that it isn’t too much of a threat to your enemy.

Like the other Ork

Deployment Tactica:
I think you'll always want your Blitza-Bommer to come from reserves. You don't want your opponent shooting at it if he goes first or steals the initiative . The rumour is that in 6^th edition all flyers come from reserves anyway. The Blitza-Bommer only has an Armour Value of 10 so there's a lot of guns out there able to glance it or even penetrate it's fragile armour. A plane is very hard to hide so you won't get a cover save and since you don't want your new toy to go down in a raging ball of fire in the first round you keep it in reserve and you'll be able to shoot something with it at least once. You can get a Blitza-Bommer for 140points (incl RPJ) so it’s not as expensive as the Burna-Bommer but still…

Attacking Tactica:
When you come from reserve and move on the table you should probably aim for the closest enemy unit. Since the plane is only AV10 you want to drop the load as soon as possible.
The Boom Bombs require quite a bit of planning, luck and skill. The problem is that you have to fly over a unit to be able to drop you Boom Bombs, A good player will see this coming and will make sure you can't get over in your turn or makes you end your move in terrain so that you have to take a terrain test.

 Target tactica:
When you Blitza-Bommer is on the battlefield you must try to fly over something as soon as possible but that's unlikely to happen in it’s first turn. You might even be better off if the Blitza doesn’t come out of reserves until turn three or four because the enemy might have moved up the table closer to you and you don’t have to fly so far to use it’s main weapons. No use in going for heavy armoured vehicles so focus on infantry or maybe light armoured vehicles if no other targets are available. I’d say look for those juicy and squishy infantry units and make them suffer heavy losses.

Defencive Tactica:
 You better make sure you get some points back for it because it probably won't last until the end of the game but if it does you can make use of the Skimmer rule and contest an objective. The only way to protect it is target saturation. You should have a lot of things on the board and make your opponent choose what he's going to shoot. If you keep moving at least 12" all the time your opponent might have some difficulty hitting you and opt to shoot at something else instead but if he does manage to shoot it at least your mob of greenskins is one turn closer to the enemy and getting closer to assault range. The Blitza-Bommer is 135 points and 140 with RPJ(mandatory) so when you’ve dropped 1 Boom Bomb on an infantry unit it’s probably got it’s points back and done its job.

 The verdict:
I’m just not a big fan of weapons that can only be used once per game and with this one you also have to fly over your opponent leaving you open to be charged…yes you can charge a plane in close combat. The thing is that your opponent can spot you coming from miles away and anticipate. He’s probably going to target prioritise your plane and make sure it will never drop the Boom Bombs. Also the “Screamin’Descent” table is very unreliable. You have almost a 1 in 3 chance of blowing yourself up.
In my opinion this is also a anti infantry plane and the one thing the Ork army isn’t lacking is anti infantry. We need something that can take out or damage armoured vehicles from a distance. If you are getting this kit you are getting most out of it by constructing it as a Dakkajet.

Cheers,
Seb

Ork Bommer Project Finished!

It took me two weeks to get my Ork plane done and I'm very happy with the result. It really turned out exactly the way I wanted, a nice old, rusty and banged up flying suicide machine...

I only bought one box but I still want to be able to field all three types of planes so I got busy with magnets and ended up magnetising the bombs and rokkits, pilot's windshield, Grot gunner turret and a closing cap for when I want to field the Dakkajet and don't want the Grot gunner on the model. This cap is from the Ork Battlewagon kit and fits exactly although it would have been better if it was a little bigger.

I have also put up this model on CoolMiniorNot and I'd like to ask you to go there using this LINK and rate the model for me as I don't have that option here on my blog.

So here's my new baby...

You can see what I mean with the closing cap for the grot gunner's turret at the picture on the right. It fits in just fine and doesn't look out of place. I could have magnetised the whole part that fits the turret but I thought this was a good alternative.

With a few small alterations I can also use this model as a Burna-Bommer. The magnetised bombs and rokkits click under the wings quite easily. I can click on the back windows from the pilot's canopy (also magnetised) and of course the grot gunner looks fantastic in his little turret. In this picture you can see the grot without the glass top. I didn't glue it because it snaps on and off quite nicely by itself and I think it's always nice to be able to have a look inside.

I really liked to look of the pilot's glasses in the White Dwarf so I tried to copy that. I think it turned out well and it looks as if you can see the horizon in the pilot's glasses reflection. The rest of the pilot and cockpit are pretty simple and straight forward . He looks like a proppa fighta ace.( ready to go down in a blazing ball of fire...)

The engine was a pretty straight forward job. Some boltgun metal and a few washes and after that I did some highlighting and I picked out some details. The soot was done by simply drybrushing some chaos black in the direction of the flight of the plane.

And last of course the formidable Blitza-Bommer with it's two Big Bombs. I don't think I'll play this type of plane a lot for the Orks because to use a pretty wonky result table when you drop of the bombs with a pretty high risk of knocking yourself out of the air. But just because I've got the parts and it only cost me a few magnets more I thought I would paint them up as well.

Again I'd like to ask you to follow this link and rate my Bommer on CMoN. You can rate the individual Bommer here:

-Dakkajet

-Burna-Bommer

-Blitza-Bommer

If you want to see more posts on the Work In Progress the go here:

WIP part 1

WIP part 2

WIP part 3

WIP part 4

Cheers,

Seb





Ork Burna-Bommer Tactica

This is the second tactica in the new Ork flyer tactica series. You can find "Part 1: The Dakkajet" right here.In this episode I'll look at the strengths and weaknesses of the Ork Burna-Bommer.


The Burna-Bommer:
This plane has some potential in theory but I think the price and manoeuvrability are a problem.Here's why..

Basics:
Unfortunately you can only take 1 plane per fast attack slot so that means you could have 3 planes max. This is ok but I hoped you could take them as squadrons of three leaving you with 2 more fast attack slots. Further more it is a Skimmer and it's Fast and follows those universal rules but there's nothing wrong with that for now but we'll probably see some major changes for flyers when 6th edition hits the shelves.

Special rules:
The Burna-Bommer has a few special rules.
Aerial Assault: When you move at cruising speed(12") you can still fire all of your weapons.Grot Gunner: You can select 1 of your guns and have a grot aiming that gun for you so it has BS3 instead of the basic BS2 for the plane. You have to choose if you want your big shoota or supa shoota before the game starts and it needs to be noted on your army list. It's a bit of a no-brainer that you put the grot at the trigger of the supa shoota because it's the better gun. I think you can also let him fire the Burna Bombs or Rokkits but since those are template weapons it would mean the only benefit is scattering 1" less. (it doesn't say you cant use this on the bombs and rokkits)
Supersonic: You can boost about on the battlefield moving a whopping 36" to get in or out of action.Waaagh!plane: This special rule is great for a dakkajet because you can now fire all your weapons twice on the turn your Waaagh! is called but for the burna-bommer it's not so hot. The Burna Rokkits and Burna Bombs are "one use only" so you have the big shoota and supa shoota left. It's a nice bonus but it's just not that big a deal.

Weapons and options:
The Burna-Bommer comes with 1 TL Supa Shoota's and Big Shoota as standard. To make it a Burna bommer it also has 2 Burna Bombs that you can drop on your opponent when you fly over a unit. (you can only drop 1 per turn and you can not drop any if you move flat out). These bombs are using the large blast template and only scatter 1D6 at Strength 5 AP4. You can also buy up to 6 Burna Rokkits at 10 points each. These are also ST5 AP4 and have a range of 24" but use the small blast template.The good thing about these Burna weapons is that they ignore cover. I think 4 Rokkits should work but your plane is then a whopping 165 points at least.

Like the other Ork planes you can buy a red paint job for 5 points to move them an extra 1".

Deployment Tactica:
I think you'll always want your Burna-Bommer to come from reserves. You don't want your opponent shooting at it if he goes first or steals the initiative and also normally you won't be able to maximise it's firepower first round by calling a Waaagh!. The Burna-Bommer only has an Armour Value of 10 so there's a lot of guns out there able to glance it or even penetrate it's fragile armour.A plane is very hard to hide so you won't get a cover save and since you don't want your new toy to go down in a raging ball of fire in the first round you keep it in reserve and you'll be able to shoot something with it at least once.

Attacking Tactica:
When you come from reserve and move on the table you should pick a target and fire all your Burna Rokkits at it so you might get some points back for all those points you invested. There's a big chance that your opponent will make your bommer a target priority if he has seen the effect of the burna rokkits and you still have some left to fire in the next turn.
The Burna Bombs require quite a bit of planning, luck and skill so if you successfully manage to drop 1 on the enemy you should call yourself a true master of the skies! the problem is that you have to fly over a unit with a 12" move, A good player will see this coming and will make sure you can't get over in your turn or makes you end your move in terrain so that you have to take a terrain test.

Target tactica:
When you Burna-Bommer is on the battlefield you must try to fly over something as soon as possible but that's unlikely to happen in the first turn it's on the table so try to fire off all your Burna Rokkits so you at least get some hits.No use in going for (light) armoured vehicles so focus on infantry. Preferably Units that are in cover because the burna rokkits ignore cover and your other units can fire at or assault  units that might not be in cover.

Defensive Tactica:
Like all the other Ork Planes and in true ork Spirit the Burna Bommer is really meant to be used.You better make sure you get some points back for it because it probably won't last until the end of the game but if it does you can make use of the Skimmer rule and contest an objective. The only way to protect it is target saturation. You should have a lot of things on the board and make your opponent choose what he's going to shoot. If you keep moving at least 12" all the time your opponent might have some difficulty hitting you and opt to shoot at something else instead but if he does manage to shoot it at least your mob of greenskins is one turn closer to the enemy and getting closer to assault range. The Burna-Bommer is so expensive that you want to fire with it at least once so you better know what range your opponents weapons have and stay well clear of them only to move in when you are sure your own weapons can hurt him.

The verdict:
This is a pure anti-infantry plane and it will be hard to keep your plane in the air long enough to be able to drop the Burna Bombs and your opponent can see it coming and anticipate on it. A good player will spread out his forces so you can not fly over them with your 12" move or he will move so you'll have to take a difficult or dangerous terrain test when your skimmer ends it's move in terrain. The Burna Rokkits will be more effective because you can fire them from a distance but they are pretty pricey. We'll have to see what rule changes of 6th edition will benefit this plane but in my opinion it's to fragile and expensive and the Orks have other options that are cheaper and more reliable.

Cheers,
Seb

Ork Bommer Project WIP 4

For those of you that haven't been following my blog and just started following since I started on the Ork Flyer the following pictures might come as a bit of a shock. For those of you that have seen my other Ork stuff like my battlewagon it might not be so surprising that I have managed to turn the bright yellow plane in an old rusty piece of scrap.

I like my Orks to look like the never really do any upkeep or maintenance on their vehicles. So why should a plane be any different then? I did loads of sponging and weathering with washes and the top of the plane is now nearly finished. I still need to do some details and paint on some oil leaks and stuff but The only thing that really needs to be done is the underside and tail. When those are done I will do the bombs and I have to think of what to do with the base. Any ideas are welcome...

See you next update...

Cheers,
Seb

Ork Dakkajet Tactica

Image by Black Library

This Month it's all about the new Ork Flyer kit and here's my view on how to use each of these new flyers. I'll start off with my personal favourite, the Ork Dakkajet. We all still have to play test the new flyers but we can already look at their strengths and weaknesses.


The Dakkajet:
This plane is my personal favourite out of the Ork flyer range and that's because I think it will work the best on the battlefield. This because you can fire all of your weapons all of the time and and you have more chance of hitting something and to top it off it is also the cheapest plane of the three.

Basics:
Unfortunately you can only take 1 plane per fast attack slot so that means you could have 3 planes max. This is ok but I hoped you could take them as squadrons of three leaving you with 2 more fast attack slots. Further more it is a Skimmer and it's Fast and follows those universal rules but there's nothing wrong with that for now but we'll probably see some major changes for flyers when 6th edition hits the shelves.

Special rules:
The dakkajet has a few nifty special rules.
Aerial Assault: When you move at cruising speed(12") you can still fire all of your weapons.
Supersonic: You can boost about on the battlefield moving a whopping 36" to get in or out of action.
Strafing Run: When you target artillery, infantry, monstrous creatures beast, bikes, cavalry or vehicles without the skimmer rule you add +1 to your BS and all your shots have the pinning effect.
Fighta Ace: to complement the Strafing Run you can take this special rule for only 10 points which gives you a BS of 3 against jetbikes and vehicles with the skimmer rule. In my opinion you want to take this because you will be able to shoot at everything regardless of what kind of enemy you are facing.
Waaagh!plane: this is the last special rule and it can be a devastating one because you can now fire all your weapons twice on the turn your Waaagh1 is called. For example, a Dakkajet with 3 TL Supa Shoota's that's 18 TL shots probably at BS3.

Weapons and options:
The Dakkajet comes with 2 TL Supa Shoota's as standard. The Supa Shoota has a range of 30" Strength 6 and AP4 and is an assault 3 weapon.For a mere 10 points you can take 1 extra TL Supa Shoota and I think you'll always have to take that. The Dakkajet is quite fragile so you might only get 1 or 2 rounds of shooting so you want to make sure you do as much damage as possible. You also have some firepower left in case you get a weapon destroyed result against you.
For 5 points you can get the Red paint job that will make it fasta! you can move an extra inch on your movement which could be use full to dodge shots at your plane but I still have to see if it is necessary.
And last you can take the Fighta Ace upgrade which I already mentioned above in the Special rules.

Deployment Tactica:
I think you'll always want your Dakkajet to come from reserves. You don't want your opponent shooting at it if he goes first or steals the initiative and also normally you won't be able to maximise it's firepower first round by calling a Waaagh!. You can still get a Waaagh! first round if you take a weirdboy and use it's psychic powers, hell I'll even go as far as saying we'll be seeing more weirdboys from now on or even Warpheads. ( a warphead is a weirdboy that can re-roll the psychic power result)With weirdboys or warpheads you'd be able to Waaagh! every turn in the game, how cool would that be if you had three Dakkajets flying about...but anyway.
The Dakkajet only has an Armour Value of 10 so there's a lot of guns out there able to glance it or even penetrate it's fragile armour.A plane is very hard to hide so you won't get a cover save and since you don't want your new toy to go down in a raging ball of fire in the first round you keep it in reserve and you'll be able to shoot something with it at least once. Of course you can get a cover save if you have a Big Mek with a Kustom Forcefield nearby but you don't want your plane to circle 6" around you Mek and forfeit it's manoeuvrability. When you come from reserve and move on the table you can move 12"and still fire all your weapons which have a 30" range so you could target enemies that are 42" from your table edge, that's nearly your opponents table edge depending on mission rules.

Attacking Tactica:
Like I already mentioned I think you should max out on firepower and take the exUnfortunately your opponent still gets a cover save(if he's in cover) but that's still pretty good for an Ork. You can also try and take out those pesky bike squadrons, (dark)eldar jetbikes that would normally run circles around your boys. Even light armoured vehicles are a valid target because ST6 is not bad at all and with that amount of shot's you're bound to roll some sixes.

Defensive Tactica:
The Dakkajet is really meant to be used aggressively like most of the Ork units. You better make sure you get some points back for it because it probably won't last until the end of the game but if it does you can make use of the Skimmer rule and contest an objective. The only way to protect it is target saturation. You should have a lot of things on the board and make your opponent choose what he's going to shoot. If you keep moving at least 12" all the time your opponent might have some difficulty hitting you and opt to shoot at something else instead but if he does manage to shoot it at least your mob of greenskins is one turn closer to the enemy and getting closer to assault range. Between 110 and 135 points the Jet is expendable but you want to get at least one round of shooting out of it.tra Supa Shoota. Pick a juicy target and call a Waaagh! when you fire 18 TL ST6 AP4 shots (re-rolling to hit!!!) at BS3 you can do some real damage. Mathhammer says you should hit about 14 shots and probably wound at least half of those. Target tactica:
Ok, so your jet is on the board and it's time to pick a target. What to shoot at and what not? Well the Dakkajet is designed to shoot at other flyers so whilst your other units might have trouble shooting something from the sky the Dakkajet has both the range and firepower to do so. On the other hand if you see a unit of infantry in open ground it might be hard to resist not going for it but if there's no flyer or unit in the open I'd look for some units in the back of your enemy's army that are giving long range fire support like sniper scouts, devastators, lootas etc. Since you know your plane will probably go down you want to take at least one unit with you especially if you're playing kill points.

The verdict:
It will be a fun new unit to use and it broadens the variety of anti infantry and skimmer units in the Orks range but there are already some good unit's like Lootas who can do that. It would be better if at least one of the three planes was a specialised anti tank plane, I guess it wasn't meant to be so keep on struggling with those powerklaws.

Image from Deff squadron Black Library

Cheers,
Seb

Ork Bommer Project WIP 3

I made some progress again. I finished the grot gunner but I still have to do it's guns. He's a characterful little fella. This is why I love Orks!

I painted in a lot of details as well and added some decals. Normally I'm not a big fan of decals but these are too nice to ignore. I couldn't get that checkered pattern on the wings myself. With the help of some Micro sol the decals go on smooth as silk.

The bad moon flames are harder to paint then it looks. I'm quite happy with them now but need some touch ups. I'm not sure if the flames should run along the whole length of the wing or if I should leave them like this. The wing mounted Supa Shoota's are a bit in the way.

I Also painted the nose art freehand. and I'm pleased how it turned out. It now looks like a proppa winged beast.

Last thing I did was to magnetise the rear window of the pilot. It's canopy is made from a front shield and a back bit. I magnetised the back bit so he can open it up when flying hot missions... no, seriously I want to be able to open it so you can have a better look in the cockpit if you want. It works well and was little effort.You can see the little hole behind the pilot.

So hopefully tomorrow I can do the last details and some minor freehand stuff and then it's up to the fun part of this project where I will take this bright shiny and new plane through the washes, pigments and other weathering techniques to make it look old and used.

Cheers,
Seb

Ork Bommer Project WIP 2

Hi, I just wanted to give you a quick update of the progress I made today.

Cockpit Close up

I prepared my airbrush and sprayed the plane with a 50-50 mix of Lyanden and Golden yellow(sorry I don't do new paints yet). After that I took some chaos black and painted over all the bits that will be metal. I tested the drybrushing of boltgun metal over the black exhaust pipes but they will need a wash and a touch up before they are done.

I also had some fun and painted the pilot and the cockpit. It's slots in and out really nice so it was easy to paint. I did the same with the grot gunner but he's only 50% done and will needs some layers and highlighting before he's done.

Here's some pics of the progress I made today:

Cheers,

Seb

Ork Battlewagon WIP 3



My battlewagon is nearing it's completion. Yesterday I finished the overall battle damage. It might seem pretty straight forward but it was really time consuming. I'm really happy how it turned out although I'm still a bit bummed about the army painter primer. It's obscuring details because it's on too thick.
After I took this picture I realised I still need to paint the glyphs on the door and I want to add some more details on it by making a flagpole where the periscope should go and I want some trophy's dangling from the sides. More pictures to come later.

For now I'm calling it and I'm back on infantry models again.

Cheers,
Seb

Ork Battlewagon WIP 2

Not a huge update if you look at the progress on the whole model but I spent a lot of time getting the look on the undercarriage , wheels and tracks just right. I wanted them to look rusty and banged up and I think I have achieved just that. I went crazy with my blister sponge creating the basic rust effect and drybrushed some boltgun metal over it. A little more drybrush over the areas where the orks would walk. I also painted under the hatch (open on photo's) and you can see this truck will not get a "Red Paint Job" but as a little joke it does have RPJ...



The colors I have used are: Dark flesh - fiery orange - lyanden darksun - boltgun metal - tin bitz - gold - mechrite red- chaos black - adeptus battlegrey - codex grey

I will add some dust pigments when the whole model is done as a finishing touch.

Next part to paint is the drivers cab/ cockpit...


Cheers,
Seb

Ork Battlewagon WIP 1

Ork Battlewagon WIP

Two weeks ago I finally got my shipment in from Maelstorm. I had placed an order for an Ork Battlewagon and I had to wait 3 weeks for it to arive. In those three weeks I had plenty of time to think about what kind of color scheme I would paint it and what it should like like. I decided on an all Yellow Battlewogon but with loads of rust and battle damage.

I'm painting the wagon in stages because it's easier to handle and paint that way. I've assembled it so that I can take everything of if I decide to go "open topped" or full armour with battle canon.I can take everything off and change it to fit the specifications on my army roster.

I have also added some armour plating above the rear big shoota's to give them some more protection. I just think it looks better this way instead of the big gaping holes in the sides and top.

As you can see some parts are still in the armypainter yellow undercoat and some part are already painted. It was the first time I used an army painter colored primer and probably the last. Yellow is a hard color to paint and the primer didn't cover properly in some areas and was too thick in other areas. I went over with a can from the DIY store and painted lyanden foundation over that and finished it off with a layer of watered down golden yellow before I started the weathering.

Still need to do the Tusks.....

The reinforced ram will probably not get used a lot because I want to go for a "deff rolla" but it was great fun painting it up. The bad moon icon on the front was done "free hand".

Cheers,
Seb

'Ard Boyz Concept part 2

Ork 'Ard Boyz

It's been a while ago that I published my first 'Ard Boy concept here on my blog and now I'm back working on that project again. I got loads of possitive feedback on my first 'Ard Boy so now I am working on the other 10 Boyz in armour.I aim for a unit of 12 (11Boyz and 1 Nob) so I can put them in a trukk and hurl them acros the battlefield straight into the enemy lines.I recently finished the Nob so now only the normal boyz to go. They all get a WW2 German "Stahlhelm"(helmet) with a spike on top(WW1) and lots of armour plates. I recently played the "Space Marine"game and that featured some 'Ard Boyz wearing shields so I want to give halve the unit shields as well to make them look even more distinctive on the table,

'Ard boyz are just regular Ork Boyz but with a keen eye for metal scraps lying about. They collect them and use them as armour plates. Not exactly mega armour but it gives them a 4+ armour save which is a lot better then the normal Ork Boy T-Shirt save. You can only field one unit of 'Ard Boyz in your army so therefor I'm aiming at a unit of 12 first, if they work really well I can upgrade them to 20 and put them in a Battlewagon but I don't think a bigger unit would work because they would have to get across the battlefield on foot and there are too many nasty AP4 weapons. Close combat is where they need to be and the need to get there asap!

Cheers,
Seb

Painting Ork Skin Tutorial

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Over the past months I have been asked the same question over and over: "How do you paint Ork Skin". I have replied to those questions but I thought it would be nice of me to make a dedicated article on how I do it.
The way I do it you get a light colored skin tone but it isn't bright. The key to this is GW's foundation paint "gretchin Green" and normal plain water. I can't say it enough that you need to water down your paints to get the best result. undiluted paints tend to look "thick"and messy and most of all they obscure the finest detail of your models specially if you use multiple layers.



So here's my step by step recipe:

-First basecoat all the Ork's skin with watered down Gretchin Green. I use 60%GG & 40% water, because it's a foundation paint it has loads of pigment and diluting it will not make it transparent but will make it flow easily and will give you a thin layer.

-Then I wash all of the skin with Devlan Mud wash. I also dilute this to 50/50. You don't have to dilute it but I prefer it so it doesn't look too thick.

-Next I paint all the raised areas like muscles with the same paint I used in the first step.Make sure the wash is completely dry or it will become messy. just leave the deepest areas as they are. this will create the first bit of definition.

-The next step is mixing up Gretchin Green with Bleached Bone and again dilute the mixture it water. I use about 60%Gretchin Green and 40% Bleached bone and water this down again to get a nice flowy paint. I use this mixture to paint the higher areas leaving just a bit of the previous layer visible.

-The 5th step is highlighting the most raised areas and edges. For this I use a mixture of 30%Gretchin Green and 70% Bleached Bone but I water it down quite a bit so it becomes a bit transparent and blends with the previous layer.

-The last step is to blend it all together a bit and for this I use Thraka Green wash that I water down a lot. 20% Thraka and 80% water. If you leave the Thraka too thick it will puddle in the deepest areas and Thraka Green has the nasty habit of leaving a very light color. If you dilute it like me it will blend all your layers together nicely without any nasty side effects

As an alternative you could experiment with the color of washes. I sometimes wash a model with Greyphone Sepia to finish it up or use a purple wash instead of devlan Mud in the 2nd step.

This is a very simple guide on Ork Skin. Of course you can add extra detail by painting in the veins or tattoos.

Cheers,
Seb

Moonshine Boyz finished

It's been pretty quiet here recently. I have focussed on painting and modelling this past month instead of blogging. So don't worry, I'm just building up more content for the next few weeks. I got a lot of things done and took a lot of pictures but I just haven't had the time or will to make articles out of it all.

One thing I do want to share with you already is the unit of Ork Boyz. I painted them up like I did the rest of my WAAAGH and I even did an extra Nob as a bonus.

I hope you like them all, let me know what you think.

Cheers,

Seb

Skrapsmacka's Moonshine Boyz FLUFF (prologue)

The planet Belis Alta was once a thriving and prosperous planet but after a vicious attack from a kraken fleet of thousands of tyranid swarms it could now only be classified as a dead world. The tyranids had killed every living thing on the planet and like a swarm of locust moved on to another unfortunate solar system. All that was left were the ruined hives in the middle of vast deserts.

For a dead world there was a lot of noise and racket coming from the ruined manufactorum. Grots scouring for scrap were wildly squealing with pleaasure when they found something they could use. The grots were so busy and imagined themselves safe that they didn't hear the creaky sound of armour tracks that were approaching them. It was only when the imperial Chimera had come to a 100 meters from the old manufactorum that one of the grots happened to look up from his scrapheap and saw the outline of the transport. Immediately he screamed in high pitched tone "HUMIEZ!!!". The rest of the grots looked up and froze at the sight of the imperial Chimera, confused they stood completely still but then fled leaving all their valued collections behind. For creatures with such small legs they were incredibly fast and within a second there wasn't a grot left to be seen.

The Chimera halted it's approach as the top hatch opened. Clouds of dust carried by the hot winds swept over the vehicle obscuring the drivers vision. It couldn't safely get any closer to the ruins without knowing what lied waiting for them ahead. From the vehicle some figures appeared. It was a small inquisitorial force sent out to investigate. A couple of days ago an imperial drone had picked up a scan of some life forms but they were too small to identify. The inq. grey knights came with few but were well prepared to face anyone or anything....This was a simple recon mission, if it were humans they had to be captured, if it was anything else it had to be killed.

 In an old and abandoned bunker nearby a pair of red glowing eyes glistened in the dark doorway. The large figure slowly moved out in the open muthering some words:"..pesky... humiez..". Like a troop of awakening wolves some more large Ork Nobz came out of their lair. They gazed at the chimera that was still far away at the far end of the ruin. They stretched their backs and arms wide in the air holding their heavy and rusted weapons high above their head. "Finally sum aktion!" their leader shouted to his companions.One of the slightly smaller Orks reminded the Big Nob that their warboss Skrapsmacka had forbidden any contact with enemies if any presented themselves. In true ork fashion the big Nob punched the smaller ork in the face and ordered the immediate attack.They started running from cover to cover to get as close to the enemy without being seen.They were gloating with the thought of the opportunity to slash their rusty blades through some human spines.

 Meanwhile all but one of the grey knights had left the chimera. A grey knight warrior with a meltagun was to stay with the chimera and give the others cover as the others would causiously move through the ruins. These humans showed no fear and even when they eventually saw the ork Nobz only meters away instead of looking for cover they kept advancing but spread out.

 Two of the crusaders with an agro flagelant went wide close to the edge of the ruin whist the other crusader advanced though the middle accompanied by 2 Death Cult Assassins and an agro flagelant, the warrior in the chimera remained in possition overlooking the site. The dust winds made it hard for him to see what happened in the ruins and all the chimera's shots  missed their targets as they could only see them for a split second.

The Ork Nobz were confused when they realised that their opponents seemed unfaced by them. Maybe it was because of that then when the two forces colided that the first nob was slew with ease. When his body fell to the ground the other Orks went crazy and with furious anger they hacked away at their opponents. Although the grey knights seemed without fear they were no match for the primal power of the orks. One by one they were slaughtered in close combat. The grots that had been hiding in the ruins saw with great pleasure that the grey knights were no match for the Nobz. Their eyes started glowing bright red with excitement and they hastely came from their hiding places. Cowardly they singled out one of the last two remaining crusaders and raised their blasta's at him. The grey knight crusader stared down at the vile green grots, this was not how a noble grey knight should die. Nevertheless, before he could react the grots unleashed a hail of bullets from a save distance and the crusader was struck down. When he fell to his knees, blood spilling from his mouth he held his hands to his chest. Quickly his dark red blood was spilling through his fingers and he fell over, dead!. The grots screamed for joy and hopped from one leg to the other when they realised that they had managed to kill the mighty crusader. The only remaining crusader saw that all was lost and tried to get back to the chimera.

When he was only 10 meters away from the chimera he could finaly see his transport through the clouds of whirling dust. He smirked and then tried to warn those who stood there waiting for him. "QUICKLY, FALL BACK! THIS PLACE IS ........ARGHHH!"... The crusader stopped running and his legs caried him a few more steps before he fell down with his face in the sand. A huge axe was sticking out from his back. The warrior tried to look through the dust to see what had thrown the axe but he saw nothing. A second later he jumped in the chimera and shouted at the driver to head for the extraction point as fast as possible.

Back on the battle barge the surviving warrior was immediately summoned to the comms room for debriefing. All he could tell his superiors was the confirmed sighting of grots, nothing else. The commander fumed with anger and sent out a high altitude drone to the site that had been appointed by the Chimera driver. The recon footage showed nothing, no enemies, no bodies ,nothing. Could this have been simple feral orks and grots or was it something else, something bigger, something more dangerous? What could live on a dead world like Belis Alta, it was a planet of no importance whatsoever so surely no organised enemy force would risk living there. It was nothing like it's neighbouring dead world planet "Belis Corona" other then it's harsh climat.

The actual battlefield (200 points kill Team)

This was an actual 200 points Kill Team game that was turned into a battle report/story by myself. The fluff of my "Boyz" will largely be based on further battles I play and some background and history in between.  This is a very fun way to get a real feel and connection with the army I'm building.

First Killa Kan

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No Waaagh is complete without some Killa Kanz so I have some to and I just got the first one done. I really love these models and they are Orky to the max I think. Full of little detail and a lot of different parts to mix and match.

I want my vehicles and armour bits to look like rusted old metal that used to be bright yellow. A bit like the background image of my blog. To create that look I painted it golden yellow and added rush and weathering layers with dark flesh. I used the sponge technique the most because I like the result the best but I couldn't reach everywhere with tha sponge so I had to do a lot by brush as well.


All and all this model took me three weeks to complete but that said I didn't have a lot of painting time in the past few weeks.

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Here's a shot of the complete model. As you can see it has a close combat weapon and Grotzooka. I really like the detail on the grotzooka and the idea behind it. hurling pieces of scrap towards the enemy can have quite devasting results. (so I have heard) . I haven't had time to play this model so I have no idea if it's any good.

Here's a shot of the close combat weapon. I like how it turned out but I think I should have added more scratches. looks scary anyway..

And on the left you can see the Grotzooka side a bit better. If you want to see all the little details and the effect the special crackle paint had that I used on this model then have a look at my earlier article on A Cracking Crackled Paintjob.

'Ard Boy Paint Concept

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 I've had an extremely bussy week so I didn't get round to do much painting. I did however manage to get some warpaint on my 'Ard Boy. (that sounds odd and a bit dirty...)
So anyway, you might have seen my earlier post on the 'Ard Boy conversions but if you have not you can have a look here. I want the "Ard Boyz to look "proppa 'Ard" so I stuck some extra armour plates on him and gave him an old german WW2 helmet of which I have plenty so I can do about 20 Boyz like this. I didn't do much else to him because in the codex it says an 'Ard Boy is like a normal Ork Boy only with a lot of extra armour plates which confer a 6+ armour save to a 4+.

So on with the painting. If you haven't seen any of my other Orks you should just trawl my blog for a bit and you'll find some. I like the "Bad Moons"so my paint scheme is based on that clan. I use sunburst yellow and a lot of rust for the general look of my army so the 'Ard Boys fit within this scheme perfectly.

Unfortunately my camera doesn't seem to pick up the different shades of skintone but I use Gretchin green as a basecolor and after a wash with devlan mud I work that up with bleached bone/gretchin green and a faint highlight with rotten flesh to top things off.

I Didn't go all out on the clothing, Just a simple highlight and a wash. On models that will have to stand out in an army I would put more effort in but as it stand I have about 100 infantry Orks left to do and this one already took a couple of hours. To speed things up when I start batch painting these I did cut some corners but I still think it looks nice enough. Like with all my bases these guys will also stand on a pile of rubble and rust. Making these bases alone costs me a lot of time and making a unit of 10 will cost an extra hour or so.

I can't wait to see 20-some of these guys running across the battlefield..

Seb