50 Shades of Green

So, I figured: with all these new clans I'm doing, why not go for some different skin tones, as well? I like the way I currently do Ork skin, it looks decent, is easy and, most importantly, its quick, but I decided to change it up for some of the other clans. All these skin tones are made by just mixing another colour to the normal greens I use. (The quality of painting on these models is below even my usually low standards, because they are only test models. Please bear this in mind.

 

Goffs

The Goffs I see as the black orcs of space orks. I wanted them to look a whole lot darker and even more menacing than the other clans. I added brown to the green skin colour, and I really like the effect. These guys have the added benefit of being very quick to paint. After doing the skin, and the teeth and bone areas (and some areas of brown cloth), the armour is just a single highlight of Mithril Silver over the black basecoat.

Blood Axes

I wanted to give my Blood Axes a mostly grey city-fight-esque colour scheme, and to match I added a bit of grey to their skin tone. Orks are naturally adaptable in their muscle mass and physique, so I gathered their skin tone may well change depending on their surroundings, another genetic coding built into the race to make them better at what they do.

Frostbites

My take on the Snakebite clan. I've wanted to do a snow themed army for ages now, but I've never got around to doing it. I always preferred giving my armies cohesion with my desert and city themed boards, but I went against that for this army. Their skin was achieved by simply adding Ice Blue to the normal green colours, and I think it adds to their sun-depraved look.

For the time being I'm slowly working my way through my old ork models. I have over 3.5k points of orks from my previous freebooters army, ready to have their paint stripped and having a re-do. The Goff scheme above was very quick, so there will be a lot of Goffs in my collection before long.

Look at me Flash, boss!

Flash Gitz

Now that I've started adding new clans to collection, I figured it was the perfect time to add some of the more characterful units to my army. Flash Gitz are synonymous with the Bad Moons clan, so it was natural I would get some eventually. I've never used them before: I hear they're not too good, but who cares about that? I can see them being fun.
I was thumbing through a bunch of old White Dwarfs a few months back (that sounded so wrong), and I stumbled upon an article by ork legend Adrian Wood, and how he converted a bunch of Bad Moon nobz armed entirely with Big Shootas (it was possible back then). This was the inspiration I needed, and set about a box of 4 spare plastic nobz. The 5th one is in my other squad below.
I modified their guns quite extensively, added a bunch of tekky gubbinz, blades and other such stuff. I'm not a big fan of the whole pirate thing people go for with their Flash Gitz, so I opted for something more traditionally orky. (Also, I've not finished painting their ammo runts, yet.)
You'll also notice there are only 4 of them, currently illegal, but I have a painboy sitting idle on my desk, so he's going to be painted up and added to the squad, eventually.

Trukk Boyz

And alongside the Bad Moons I'm working on a small Evil Sunz army. My 'main' made up clan, da Big Teef, use orange for their clan colour, so having yellow- and red-wearing boyz made some sort of sense. These guys do not have their trukk yet, but they will get one, of course.

Inquisitor 28mm

So a while back, my friend introduced me to 28mm Inquisitor. This concept provides all the cool unique narrative rules of the Inquisitor game with the modelling/converting opportunities of regular 28mm models. He's had a small warband hanging around for ages, and while I've been meaning to get some models sorted for it, I've been putting it off for reasons I won't go into here.
Safe to say, I've done my first few little guys, and I'm quite happy with the results.

Inquisitor Devona Reinhardt

My Inquisitor. I did originally want a male Inquisitor, based off the Commissar Yarrick body, and while this guy will still be done in future, I settled for this lady instead. She's based off a female Vampire from Fantasy, with a few bits added to make her appear more 40k-ish. I think the baroque, gothic-style armour really suits 40k's atmosphere.

Brother Veraad Sobrath

Based on the Vampire Counts plastic Necromancer, Brother Sobrath is a heretic preacher. Once assigned to the Sisters of Battle as a battle orator, his descent into madness began during a battle against daemons. That very battle also took his eyesight, and since then he began to receive visions from the Warp, gradually turning him from Imperial light.
He is old and haggard, the tubes on his back pumping life-sustenance into his body. He also carries a staff, the origins of which are shrouded in mystery, but some say it has the power to control daemons.

Callus

A brutal killer, Callus is the right-hand man of Sobrath. He is based on the Wight King, again from the Vampire Counts range. His armour is ancient, but I added the Chaos Marine shoulder pad to "update" his look; maybe he found the shoulder pad and used it to upgrade his armour mid-battle?

Another fun little thing I'll be doing is using these last two guys as leaders for my cultists units in my 40k Word Bearers army, just to give those units a bit more personality and individuality.

Da Green Krusade

I think its time to gather an even Bigga Waaagh! And in doing so, other Ork tribes have gathered under Gorzag's banner with promises of an even bigger and better fight. The orks was rage across the galaxy in a tide of violence. Never before have the orks bothered to set aside their differences and unite, but when it does happen the universe will be plunged into untold carnage that none will survive. It has begun...

In a nutshell, I wanted a way to breathe new life into my Ork collection. I grew somewhat tired of painting the same scheme over and over, so I decided to change it up a little with different clans. Although I seem to have chosen some random units to paint up like this, I have written small 500pts lists for every major clan. If each of these other armies becomes big enough to be its own thing, I can use them as allies, but in the meantime they can simply be used as units from the same army without being illegal, which is nice.

Bad Moonz
The biggest rivals to my Big Teef tribe, the Bad Moonz were first to pledge allegiance to Gorzag. Although the local Bad Moonz are nothing more than a small splinter warband of the whole tribe, their riches have gotten then a lot of snazzy wargear and weapons of mass destruction, all promising to play an important role in the war to come.
Here are my Meganobz.

Evil Sunz
So I had another mob of bikers sitting on my shelf, so I thought why not add in some Evil Sunz bikers, too? Edit: I just noticed I forgot to finish the nob's wristband :P

Zl'Kahvorh and The Shifted
Ok, onto a different army altogether. I decided a while back to add some Daemon allies to my Word Bearers army. It makes sense after all, according to the fluff, and will add some much needed combat punch to my gun-heavy Chaos army... so I pick Horrors, one of the more shooty types of daemon. I know, ironic right? But I just love the models.
I rarely use psykers in my armies, so I decided to add a Herald of Tzeentch. I used the Changeling model because it's awesome. He's called Zl'Kahvorh, The Faceless one, and his Horrors are known as The Shifted.

 



Chaos Update

So I haven't updated for months. The reason? Guild Wars 2. But I've given it a break for a few days, and got some things finished up in my Word Bearers force.

Maulerfiend

I'll get the big beastie out the way first. I've never understood everyone's dislike for this model since its release. My only gripe is it looks a bit generic, but that's ok for an Undivided player like me. But it would have been nice to see different head or backplate options. I added a slight spin on the basic model by giving it 5 legs. Naturally, this meant I had to remove one of the Magma Cutters, but that's fine with me. Other than adding a few extra details, like the flames, and the scrolls to Word Bearerify(!) it, its a pretty basic build.
Its also, probably, the biggest model I've finished in my collection, not including terrain. (In fact, that does include terrain - I've not finished a terrain project either!)

As for the rules side of things, knowing this beast's limits is paramount. In my first game using it, my opponent (knowing it was my newest model) naturally targeted it with everything he had that could kill it; and kill it he duly did! But in the second game, it mashed a unit of sentinels, a Leman Russ and took a chunk out of some infantry, so at least it made it's points back. Shame it died to a single meltagun shot from a Guardsman!

Oberan's Revilers

Last blogpost, many months ago, saw the completion of my first Troops unit. Well, here's my second, so I now have my core Troops filled, at long last!
They run the same build, except the Champion has a power sword and meltabombs instead. The red blood on the skin looks especially vibrant on this squad, like it does on the Maulerfiend. Its not that bright in the flesh (excuse the pun); I need to mess around with my camera's settings a bit.

And here is Oberan's Rhino. This is still a PIP at the moment, so its not as shiny, and its missing the gunner for the time being. The top was very bare, so I added a large Chaos Star to spruce it up a bit.
I'm also working on a free-hand Word Bearer design on the right entry hatch, but I didn't photo it because it looks terrible at the moment.




Helbrute


 And finally, for today, my Helbrute, Brian. No, that's not his real name; I haven't named him yet.
I apologise for the quality of the picture. No matter how I photographed him he always came out blurry.
This guy is very much a WIP, too. I need to tidy some areas of the skin and "teeth", as you can probably tell.
I gave him a few simple convertions. I made the plasma cannon out of a spare Forgefiend gun leftover from my Maulerfiend. I also added green-stuff flames to his power fist to show his heavy flamer upgrade.

 

 

 

Spread the Word - Resurrecting my Word Bearers

A brief history lesson - way back during the 3rd edition, I started up a Chaos force. They started out as Emperor's Children, but later evolved into my own Renegade chapter, the Nameless Ones, another Slaanesh-aligned army. Eventually, I grew bored of the limitations that entailed, and I changed again to Word Bearers. However, my army were left in limbo due to my other 2 armies, Orks and Dark Eldar. With the coming of the new Codex, though, I figured it was time to dust off my Chaos models (literally, my shelves get very dusty!).

The Fist of Lazarus
Lazarus is the Champion of my first unit of Troops. He named his unit after the Power Fist he wears. The unit is a typical unit of Chaos Marines; 10-strong, with 2 meltaguns and Lazarus of course, who also bears the unit's Icon of Chaos Glory to summon a bunch of daemonic goodness should he need to.




You'll probably notice I've not highlighted the gold areas, yet. I'll finish that off when I grab some paint from GW next week.

After a game against my friend's Imperial Guard, my Chaos Marines got absolutely annihilated; it wasn't even close; owing in no small part to my complete inability to make any armour saves! But anyway, that game forced me to mount all my Chaos Marine units in Rhinos.




Please excuse the thick, gloppy-looking paint in some areas; leftovers from the previous 2 paint attempts which I failed to clean up properly.
Also, the red looks a lot brighter on the tank for some reason.
And, this is my first attempt at free-hand work; its only a basic 'text' effect, but I think it looks ok. I also added tiny little Chaos Stars, like the red one on the flesh hanging on the exhaust.

The Soulrakers

What's a Word Bearers army without a host of daemons in tow? The new Allies rules are great, and I intend to make full use of them. The Soulrakers are my Daemonettes. There are 8 in the unit, as you can see, and the one with the big, flappy hair has Transfixing Gaze. The unit is so small because I initially wanted 500pts of daemons, and I wanted to include a Soul Grinder, which ate up a fair chunk of that.

 

Future Plans



I have a bunch of Chaos stuff left over from my previous forays into Chaos. Back in those days we were a bit more lax when it came to points values, so I have a ton of Chaos Marines left. However, in my 'main' cohesive force, I have a second unit of basic Marines, some Noise Marines, Raptors, Vindicator, 3 Obliterators and of course, a Dark Apostle.
My daemonic allies will feature a Herald of Tzeentch, some Horrors, and a Soul Grinder, but I don't have any of these yet.
I'm attempting to get all this done before I get my grubby mitts on Dark Vengeance, which will add some awesome new models to my army and probably bump my Word Bearers up to 2000pts, not including the daemons.

Da Boss is Back!

During a recent clash around a small, but none-the-less vital Imperial stronghold, Gorzag finally met his match atop the structure. After a fierce ground battle, the orks had breached the Imperial Guard defences, but their ranks were in tatters. Not wanting to lose, the Warboss Gorzag Irontoof broke off from his mob and charged the bastion solo.
Crashing through the entryway, he cut down the few remaining guard on the ground floor, and barrelled up the stairwell to the roof; his eyes set firmly on his quarry. Erupting from the roof with a roar, Gorzag launched himself at the Imperial Guard Commander Mordecai.
After a fierce battle, the Penal Legionnaires showed their true repentant colours, sacrificed themselves in the name of the Emperor. But it fell to Mordecai himself to land the killing blow. Shattering the Warboss's bull-like helmet with his power fist, and casting the foul xeno over the battlements to his doom... or so he thought!
During the clean up operation, no trace of the Warboss's corpse could be found!

Fast forward to now...

WARLORD GORZAG IRONTOOF
Some say he was too embarrassed to show his face after the kumpin' he took from an 'oomie. Instead, he was carted away by his most loyal grotz, and taken back to their Base ov Oparashunz on the world of Ragd, the Big Teef's homeworld, of sorts!
From there, Gorzag led a series of lesser Waaaghs into the surrounding star systems, mostly against the Tau, and he would not threaten Imperial space for some time.

However, the time has come for him to seek revenge.
Armed with an even bigger shoota and even bigger power klaw, Gorzag is ready to bust some heads... with the help of his pet squig, Chompa.

LOOTAS
I've also painted up a batch of 8 lootas. In 6th edition, they appear to have had a bit of a buff in terms of damage output, especially against tanks. The fact that glancing hits can now destroy tanks (given enough shots), and they can Snapshoot on the move and against charging foes, Lootas have recieved some major improvements. Snapshots are basically made a -1 BS for orks, so its not much of a change.
I'm even considering having them drive around in an opne-topped looted tank, and having a mekboy with them to keep it going, but I'll wait and see how they do on foot.

LOOTED TANK

Loadsa looted stuff today...
Can you tell I used to be a Deff Skulls fan before I made my own clan?
Unfortunately, the camera I use doesn't pick up the orange very well on my models. Its probably the lighting, in that I usually photograph my models at night under artifical lighting. Even the camera's flash doesn't seem to help. Does anybody have any ideas about this?




Also, I tend to be somewhat impatient when it comes to painting. I prefer doing things by the quickest possible means, and because of this I very often miss certain details or fail to spot any mistakes. If you see any feel free to let me know, I'd be very appreciative :)

But yeah... its a tank, and it goes boom, in more ways that one. I'm not sure how it'll perform under 6th edition, as I've not had a game under the new rules yet.
I hear the new vehicle rules make anything less than armour 12 a bit redundant, and even armour 12 is rather questionable, but we'll have to wait and see. Either way, I love tanks, and I have 3 more in the pipeline.