Gonna Smash ’em – Part 3

Nothing too fancy today, just a pair of stomping, smashing Orc Brutes for my small collection of Ironjaws. The first was built straight out of the box…

…whilst the second was tweaked slightly, with his chest armour removed and some small gaps tidied up with greenstuff so that he can show off his Orcy muscles.

I started these two alongside my other Ironjaws a year ago but whilst the others got painted they were left in the doldrums so I’m pleased to declare them done at last. What’s more they bring my total number of greenskins painted this Orktober to a healthy 18 – and we’re not even halfway through the month!

Back To The Primitive – Part 2

Yesterday I promised you that I’d been working on lots of Orcs over the weekend so now it’s time to deliver. One of my key plans for this month is to complete a warband of Savage Orcs (or Bonesplitterz if you prefer) for games of Warcry. The good news is we’re more than halfway there already.

Rounding out the rank and file we have an Orc with a suitably stabby looking spear.

Then we have this angry individual. I originally built him to serve as the leader for the warband but now, because I’m powering through the rest of the ranks so quickly, I may well paint up a Wurrgog Prophet as well so that we have lots of alternatives to add variety to our games.

Lastly we have this boy who carries the clan’s bone totem into battle for them. This tribal artefact provides a locus around which the rest of these barking mad Orcs gather.

With six boys painted now it’s already time for a quick groupshot showing the whole warband so far.

This brings the total number of Greenskins I’ve shown this Orctober to 12 (note “shown” not painted, I’ve got a few more up my sleeve that I finished over the weekend but they deserve a post of their own so expect to see them tomorrow). As many readers will be aware I’m participating in an Orc painting challenge with my brother-from-another-warband, the international man of mystery known only by the alias “the Imperial Rebel Ork“. If you like heavily converted greenskins and you’re not already familiar with his work go and take a look at it now – you won’t regret it!

The Gitkillas – Part 1

Readers, I know what you’re thinking. “Wudugast, old pal, you’ve started at least 7 Blood Bowl teams now by my count, and you’ve not finished any of them. And the only one that’s pretty much done (just needs that damn troll…) is the Orc team. So what, pray tell, are you doing starting another Orc team? Dammit man, finish one of the others!”

Which is all fair enough, but let me get my excuses in before you lambaste me further eh! About a year ago the new edition of Blood Bowl was launched, led by a nice big box of miniatures which contained – amongst other things – the new Black Orc team. Earlier this year I was looking at it and I thought “Well, if not before I’ll paint the Black Orcs in Orctober. By then I will have completed a couple of other teams…”. Well, the second half of that claim hasn’t materialised but that’s not going to stop me cracking on with the Orc half of the Black Orc team this month (the Goblin half of the team can wait…). After all the aim of the exercise here is to tackle the pile of shame and I’m not going to achieve that if my excuse is that I’ve not already tackled the pile of shame now am I?

With these two done I’m hopeful I can knock through the other four by the end of the month – and if I don’t at least the unpainted pile is ever so slightly smaller. This also brings the total number of Greenskins painted this Orctober to 9 which means I’m neck and neck with fellow blogger the Imperial Rebel Ork who has challenged to see which of us can paint the most greenskins this month. One week in and it’s still very much any man’s game!

Warchanter

I’ve always found the Warchanter to be a bit weird to be honest. He’s not bad per say, just odd, he appears to be showing off two huge, carved bones but quite why he’s doing this isn’t at all clear. His background suggests that he uses anything he can lay his hands on as a drum to beat out the rhythm of war, creating a rising cacophony – especially when the things he’s hitting includes other people – that drives the entire Orc clan into a frenzy and sets them into motion and into battle. It’s the kind of background that we saw a lot of in the early days of Age of Sigmar, where being original was held in higher regard than being good or making sense.

My initial plan was to use him for a conversion that just didn’t pan out, and although I tried him for various other ideas nothing ever quite worked as well as I’d hoped. In the end I decided I’d had enough and I’d just paint him as the designers intended.

I still think he’s a bit weird but I did really enjoy painting him all the same, a lot more than I expected to in fact. And best of all, he’s done at last (so now I’ll undoubtedly think of the perfect conversion to use him for – any moment now…).

Back To The Primitive – Part 1

Back in Fembruary (that’s February for those of you who don’t following the Wargaming calendar) I used the month-long challenge as a spur to encourage myself into painting up a Warcry warband of Daughters of Khaine. Now we find ourselves in Orctober and I’m planning to do the same thing, this time with a warband of Savage Orcs (or Bonesplittas as they are now known). I’ve already leaned quite heavily into the forces of Destruction in Warcry, putting together warbands for the Ogres, Gloomspite Gits and Ironjaw Orcs, now it’s the turn of the savage boyz.

Feral berserkers these Orcs have abandoned the trappings of “civilisation” (to the limited degree it’s practiced by Orcs anyway) and instead live out their lives in the old ways. Their way of waging war may be low-tech but they counterbalance that very effectively with raw muscle and sheer Orcy self-belief. To start the warband off I’ve painted up these two primitive-looking lads…

…plus an Arrowboy to provide some ranged support for the tribe.

That’s three down already and the month has only just started! Hopefully I’ll be able to knock through the rest over the coming weeks.

In the meantime I’ve also got plenty of other green gits from all corners of the Mortal Realms, the 41st Millennium and beyond. I’ve also ended up involved in a bit of friendly competition with well-known blogger (and actual Ork) IRO who challenged me to see which of us could paint the most Orcs by the end of the month. This is very much just a bit of fun and not at all a tense and nail-biting head-to-head as two Ork-loving men battle dramatically for the honour of their respective tribes (although actually, it is that as well). The aim of the exercise is to inspire and encourage both of us into painting lots of green gits for our respective collections, and speaking personally it’s already lit something of a fire under me. You can read more about it here and whilst you’re about it you should also check out IRO’s first contribution, this seriously imposing and impressive Ork Warboss.

Right, I’m off back to my painting desk, the reputation of my Ork horde must be defended!

Kruel and Unusual – Part 2

The Kruelboy Orcs are, based on their name at least, both cruel and poor at spelling. Perhaps in an effort to combat this failure of the education system they appear to have embraced a kind of “bring your child to work day” – as we shall see below.

First of all however we have the leader of my nascent Kruelboy clan, a wily Killaboss. Lacking the raw brawn of most Orc leaders these lanky individuals make up for it with ruthless cunning, dirty tricks and a hell of a lot of spikes.

One of my favourite details on these models is the way that they have more armour on their backs than on their fronts on account of the fact that they are far more concerned about being stabbed by their own followers than they are by the enemy!

With foes in front and foes behind who can blame an Orc warlord for recruiting a “trustworthy” little squire in the form of a Stab-Grot.

Seen side by side of course it’s hard to shake the image of a father taking his diminutive offspring to the office.

Gathered together with their Gutrippa underlings and Hobgrot allies, this little warband already looks set to trouble Sigmar’s realm.

I managed to snag the Orc half of the Dominion boxset so don’t think you’ve seen the last of these nasty gits, there are plenty more boys lurking around the painting desk waiting for their moment…

Kruel and Unusual – Part 1

Given my usual habit of keeping miniatures sitting around on the painting desk for a least a few years, if not decades, before finally working on them it may surprise some readers to see me approaching the bleeding edge of Games Workshop’s frantic release schedule for a change. My love for greenskins however has proved more than enough to lure me into picking up a few of the Kruelboyz – the new “skinny orcs” currently stabbin’ their way out of the swamps and onto our tabletops.

I spent a lot of time experimenting – and even more time mentally debating – what colour to paint the shields. At first I considered something filthy and organic, perfect for sneaking around mist-cloaked fens or launching ambushes from dingy bogs (stop giggling at the back!) but in the end my love of grimy yellow won out. These are described as “scare shields” so must be intended to, well scare people, and they’re not going to do that if no-one can see them. Plus these are totemic items, the orcs are proud of them, and at the end of the day these are still orcs – even if they are sneaky ones – and they’re going to want to show them off. That said all the messing around that went on before I finally settled on a scheme probably went to the determent of the shields looking their best, something I’ll work on improving with the next ones I tackle.

Indeed, given how many orcs (and orks) I’ve painted over the years I was surprised by how steep the learning curve was with these but I did enjoy painting them (more – I must admit – than I am the little Hobgrots that I picked up at the same time – damn those are fiddly little dudes to paint!) so more will undoubtedly be emerging from the swamps sooner or later.

That said I’m not feeling particularly drawn to starting an army of them, which is a nice change for me because usually I’ve convinced myself that I must start at least 2 or 3 new armies before I’ve even had breakfast. Then again maybe that’s just because I’m distracted currently by the thought of all the new orks gathering over on the 40k side of the fence…

Orc Champion

I’ve no idea what the origin of this old Orc is. He’s been knocking around in my collection, started but not finished, for a good decade at least, possibly longer. The aesthetic of him reminds me very much of the models produced by Rackham for the – sadly defunct and much missed – game Confrontation. However I’m pretty familiar with that range and I’m fairly certain he’s not one of them. Any readers who happen to know where he came from please shout out in the comments.

Anyway, needless to say he’s been neglected for a long, long time – but he was never forgotten, which means he’s perfect for the Neglected But Not Forgotten challenge being run by Ann’s Immaterium.

He didn’t actually take me that long to get him from his half-finished state to completed, maybe an hour or so, which goes to show I could have done it any time in the last ten years or so. Still, he’s done now and I’m pleased with how he’s turned out. Big thanks to Ann for running the challenge, I’m fairly sure he’d still be gathering dust without it!

The Mean Green Geezers – Part 5

Well, I spent a lot longer talking about painting them than I did actually painting them, which goes to show these projects are a lot more achievable if you just crack on with them. Yes, that’s right, my Blood Bowl Orc team are ready to take to the pitch at last (minus their troll who’ll come later – possibly much later…). 

There’s quite a lot of stuff to cover in this post, covering as it does all the odds and ends needed to complete the team. First of all we’ve got the final two orc players.

Add them to the ones I’ve already painted and we’ve got six linemen ready to do whatever it is they do (anyone coming here for in-depth tactical advice must be feeling sorely disappointed right now eh!).

Now one thing I do know is that if you want to play Blood Bowl you need some balls. Who wants to see an Orc’s balls? You do? Ok then!

Then we have some re-roll tokens. I tried to make these look like artefacts which belonged in the setting partly because this made them easier to paint and partly because I thought it would look cool. As well as the two for the Orc team I painted the pair for the Human team at the same time.

We also have these which I believe are turn markers. They proved to be tricky to photograph, mostly because they keep falling over, so I’m wondering about sticking them on bases for a bit of extra stability. Is this a normal solution or does it have any game play implications? As usual, if there are any more experienced Blood Bowl fans reading this who want to share their thoughts I’m all ears. If there’s no major reason not to they’re going on bases ASAP, all this falling over every time I look at them is bloody annoying, and only likely to be more so mid-game.

Lastly, what we’ve all been waiting for, the whole team ready to give any opposing players a kicking.

Of course for that to happen I’ll need to find some opposing players for them to kick, and the easiest way will probably be to paint my own. I’ve been working away on kitbashing my human team and I quite like the look of most/all of the other teams as well. Life is looking quite busy over the next few weeks however so it might not be for a little while yet. Oh and at some point I need to roll up my sleeves and paint that damn troll…  

The Mean Green Geezers – Part 4

It’s been a busy old week but I’ve managed to fit in a bit more time to chip away at the Blood Bowl orcs. Let’s take a look at the latest recruits. First of all we have the team’s second Thrower (or as I imagine the orc describe him behind his back “Tosser”).

Next in line, another Blitzer…

… and finally another Big ‘Un Blocker (who used to be called “Black Orc Blockers” in the previous edition, before the Black orc’s got a team of their own).

Each of these models has been tweaked a bit, the boxset being made up of 2 sets of duplicate miniatures – and as I’m not a fan of the idea of fielding a team of twins that’s something I needed to fix. In the main I just used headswaps, I wanted to keep it nice and clear which models represented which positions (something I’m undoubtedly going to find tricky enough to keep track of), and stuck with using spares from the savage orcs kit. For reference, here’s each pair with the original model on the right and the converted version on the left.

With these done I’ve just got two more orcs to do (plus the troll, which I’ll get around to eventually…) and various tokens, re-roll markers etc, which I’ll aim to finish up over the weekend.