I wrapped these guys up just in time for the tournament last weekend. Just got around to photographing them.

Behold, the photodump!

So, I ordered/dug up a bunch of junk to build/convert some Ork Warbuggy models that would have a better cost/appearance ratio than the GW models.  I finished throwing everything together over the weekend.

First up is the Mantic Marauder Quad Raptor.

I didn’t do anything fancy with it: I just put it together.

On the one hand, it went together fairly quickly, is cheap, and will work just fine as a buggy.

On the other hand, there were zero instructions with it (I literally snapped a piece of resin trying to just figure out how to dry fit everything together) and it’s got some fairly dire casting quality. This is bad-Finecast-level casting here, guys.  Also, I’m still unclear where the engine contacts the rest of the model. I had to give up, glue my best guesses, and hope for the best.

The regular Raptor won’t have any resin, which is a good thing, IMO, and would probably work just as well.

Next: the Robogear Helix:

The conversion’s nothing to really write home about: it’s the Orky equivalent of “Put a Bird on It,” but I guess that’s okay. At $5.80 a model, plus the cost of bits, it’s okay for this thing to not look amazing.

Plus those Rokkits actually shoot. That’s cool!

Finally: the Warlord Jeep.  I’d said yesterday that it was a mistake, and it was:

It’s the wrong scale!

Given that I was looking for 28mm plastic vehicles, I have no idea how I ended up with a 15mm resin jeep.  I’m going to blame the Warlord Games webstore for that. Every dang item should make it clear what material and, more importantly, what scale the model is in!

Considered trying to return it (which would probably be a mistake, given it’s an international purchase) or eBay it (which would be some degree of hassle).

Finally, I decided: Wrong scale? Zero fucks given.

Lots of clipping, sawing, slicking (and regluing of shattered resin), followed by some drilling and plasticarding and bits box digging and I ended up with this thing.

Although it’s the only option I would vigorously not recommend, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t the most pleased with it.  It’s like an Orky Power Wheels with poorly placed missile launchers.

So, I’ve been playing handful of games with Orks and I’m not surprised to learn that moving all of those bodies is a time-consuming hassle.

I’ve yet to play a tournament in 6th Edition, but I can’t imagine that things have changed that much: that Orks benefit (greatly) from incomplete games and that Orks (greatly) lend themselves to slowplay (deliberate or otherwise) by way of needing to move a million models.  Knowing that I’m not naturally the fastest of players and not wanting to Be That Guy, it occurred to me that I movement trays of some sort are called for.

Here’s my current stab:

Five models each.  One dude in the middle, and four guys equidistant around him, about 2″ from center to center.  I did up a template where they were just barely under 2″ apart altogether: although it’d be ultimate safety from blast templates, it was obnoxiously large.  This is spread out a bit, but not too much.

It’s plasticard (from a For Sale sign) and some business card magnets to hold the models to it.  Eventually, it’ll get the same sort of ballast/sand/static grass treatment the models will get.

More than this would be too cumbersome: positioning needs to be flexible in 40K, but I think moving five at a time will speed things up quite a bit.

The idea is to run a few of these trays, and then hold them in coherency with a model between the trays, thusly:

I’ve only assembled three of these: it was kind of a pain in the butt, and there’s no guarantee that they’ll be useful.  I’ll have to get a few games in with them before I make a few more.

If they work out okay, I’ll see if I can’t scan in/remake my template and post it.

Man, these guys are kind of a hassle to build.  They were kind of BS in 5E, but I’m now much more sympathetic to folks who ran them ’cause, dang: kind of a pain.

Wound allocation’s not quite as BS anymore, so there’s not a lot of motivation to build every Nob differently.  I’m liking Big Choppas on them a lot: for +2S for 5 points seems like a solid default choice.  After a few test games, it’s clear I definitely need to run at least one Power Klaw.  A Bosspole seems always worthwhile, and the Waagh! Banner looks really good for price.

Unfortunately, there’s only one Nob Torso in the bike kit, and only one Big Choppa.  A Waagh! Banner is woefully absent from the Warbiker kit, nevermind Painboy bitz.

So, I bitz-ordered some Nob Big Choppas.  Unfortunatey, the two-handed ones… didn’t line up too terribly well with the Nob Biker torso.  Vexing.  So, pinning and green-stuffing happened.

I only got so many of them, though, and had to make use of the Warbike Big Choppa.  I didn’t want the models to look identical, though.  So, sawing, clipping, pinning, and green-stuffing happened.

Similarly, the Painboy: sawed the dude in half, and then (you guessed it): sawing, clipping, pinning, green-stuffing.  the usual.  I clipped off a needle, thinking it was flash (Finecast, etc), so I replaced it with some paperclip.

The Waagh! Banner is from the WHFB Orc Warboss kit.  It seemed like a dang impressive banner that would look cool on a space motorcycle.  Well, it turns out the Orc Warboss is a little weedier than a Nob Biker, because getting the arms to line up on the Nob Biker torso was not easy.  LOTS of pinning, clipping and sculpting.

I ended up pinning and reposing the banner to the pole so it’d flow in the right direction.

The left arm… looks a little weird.  I’ve mitigated that a little bit, I think/hope/pray by widening the pauldron over it.  This’d be easier with a Space Marine, I think.  I don’t think it’ll be too bad when it’s painted.

So, those are the Nob Bikers.  But that’s not all: I knocked out two Dakkajets (one while waiting on election results) with, like, zero trouble.

All in all, it took me about three weeks to knock these guys out.  That sounds much, much worse than it really is, though: there was a lot of time in there that I couldn’t paint, a lot of time waiting to pick up new paints, etc.  They actually sat varnished but unbased for a week, because I couldn’t decide how I wanted to base them: Dark, mid, light grey like my Dark Angels? Cryx Base, Cryx Highlight, Khaki like my Skaven (the best most awesome color set in the world)?

In the end, I decided to go with a Martian, red clay base, which didn’t come out perfect… but came out okay enough.

Teeth

In an effort to take my own (and others’) advice, I decided to paint a one-off just-for-the-heck-of-it mini to help get out of the rut I’m in. After some fishing around my sprue bins, I settled on an Assault on Black Reach Ork. Like almost everyone else, I’ve got a few, and I haven’t really done much with them.

For the record, I’m extremely happy with the way I paint green flesh. I’d love to do an Ork army, and probably would… if there were fewer models involved. (How I’m going to reconcile that with the Orcs and Goblins I’m getting from the Mantic Kickstarter, I have no idea.)

So, I sat down and started on him. Then it occurred to me that I could/should give him to a coworker of mine (who we’ll call “Just Belligerent”) that I’ve worked with for a very long time that’s constantly harping on me to give them a painted “figurine.”

(As an aside: I get this… not infrequently. I always take it as a polite expression of interest in my hobby. “Would you give me a painted mini?” is how someone not involved in the hobby says that there’s value to what you do, that you’re probably good at it, and they don’t think you’re a thirty year-old manchild… and that they don’t really grok the cost or time investment this hobby sometimes demands.)

Anyway, that seemed like a nice idea. Then, it occurred to me that I shouldn’t just paint this guy as a standard Ork Boy. Given that JB is one of those folks who’s utterly obnoxious about their Hokie Pride… I could do better than black, checks, and dags.

Obviously, I did the guy up in Hokie colors, which unfortunately makes him a Horkie. I suppose there’s an unintended insult in there (your school’s fans are eternally belligerent fungoid football hooligans), but it is unintended, and I don’t think JB’d catch it anyway.

I’m fairly pleased with how the colors came out. Bright, but still the right tones.

Of course, there are a couple of goofs on here that I’d fix, but I was pretty committed to getting this guy done in less than a day: the sloppy rivet above, a lack of color in his mouth, and I never did figure out the right way to fit 9-11-2010 into the model somewhere. I’m more disappointed about that than anything else.

This HDR shot kinda sucks: I couldn’t get the camera to focus correctly. Still, I like taking them, so here it is.