House Stark – Part 6

Time to add another unit to my House Stark army and you’d think I’d do the sensible thing and finish off one of the squads I’d already started – the Black Guard of House Bolton or the House Tully Sworn Shields – or something from the starter set that I’ve not got around to yet like the Umber Berserkers or the Stark Outriders. But no, that would be far too sensible – instead I decided to smash through a whole squad of Karstark Spearmen instead.

And there we have ’em – more grist for the mill of the North’s wars!

Still, this – dare I say it – bold maneuver now gives me a 30 point army, big enough to take to the battlefield should I so choose. The sensible move would be to turn my attention back to the Lannisters and get them up to 30 points as well, but sensible moves have rarely been my forte so we’ll see if it happens or not…

Going Berserk

The forces of Chaos have always, by their very nature, been an eclectic bunch, their technology unrestrained by by the strict edicts of the Imperium and their bodies twisted and mutated by their daemonic patrons. Here Games Workshop has almost limitless potential to be creative, and us hobbyists can kitbash to our hearts’ content. Over the years however the degree to which this is reflected in the Chaos Marines’ range has waxed and waned. When I first fell to Chaos back in the mid-2000s there really wasn’t a whole lot to differentiate the followers of one god from those of another. If I painted my Marines green I was sworn to Nurgle, if you painted yours red you were a follower of Khorne. There were a few god-specific models kicking around as I recall, mostly still made of metal, but not many. What really drew me to the service of the Dark Gods was a combination of several factors; a mate gave me his old codex, I had no money to spend on new models and I owned a load of loyalist marines, a bunch of bits I’d scrounged up and an over-active imagination. The result was kitbashing carnage and a life sworn to the ghastly powers that dwell in the warp.

In recent years however things have improved a lot. The release of the Thousand Sons brought us a range of kits specific to Tzeentch’s chosen legion and, although I now think some of those could be improved a lot and expanding the range further would be well worthwhile, at the time it was a revelation. Then along came the Death Guard and really blew me away. With its huge range of unique kits all designed around the theme of a single god this remains, for me, the gold standard for a Chaos Legion. Needless-to-say I’ve been waiting with baited breath for GW’s designers to turn their attention to the World Eater’s and Emperor’s Children and, at last, the former has arrived.

After months of build up, Saturday morning saw the full reveal of Khorne’s legion and for me they were well worth the wait. We’d already seen some of the range of course, the Khorne Berserkers for example were shown off back in September.

These are really nice models, workmanlike and perhaps not the most surprising or creative but fitting the bill perfectly and demonstrating that a model doesn’t have to be fancy to be good. When I first saw them I thought “Yeah, these are fine, they do the job” but the longer I’ve looked at them the more I’ve come to love them. I always say that you can swap out specialists and leave characters on the shelf but if you don’t care for the core troops then the army isn’t for you.

Plus they certainly beat the hell out of the old kit, which has been kept going long, long after it should have been shuffled off to retirement.

Then in October we saw the appearance of Lord Invocatus, a special character who rides around on a thunderous juggernaut spreading carnage.

Now I think the juggernauts of Khorne look really cool and I’m always happy to see someone perched atop one of these mechanical bulls and laying waste to the followers of the corpse-emperor so you’d think I’d be a fan of Lord Invocatus but honestly he doesn’t do much for me, especially now that we’ve seen the very similar generic Lord of Khorne (below) which, for my money, is much nicer.

Like the Berserkers the Lord on Juggernaut just gets on with doing it’s job and looking cool. Lord Invocatus meanwhile feels like it’s trying too hard to stand out as something special whilst working with a limited range of options crammed into a small amount of sprue space. From what we’ve seen so far my assumption is that one kit can make either the Lord on Juggernaut or Lord Invocatus, in which case Lord Invocatus’ flaws become a bit more forgivable – there will always be limits to how much you can do with just one sprue after all. If Lord Invocatus proves to be an entirely separate kit I’m less impressed, a special character should have a lot more visual impact than this. Either way the head with the crest and yet another topknot just doesn’t work, and there’s nothing about him that feels particularly unique or cool. Go big or go home I would say – give him his own kit with an extra large, souped-up juggernaut, daemonic weapons chained to his arms and a few crazy mutations, or don’t bother. As it stands I can see the generic Lord on Juggernaut finding a home at the head of my army but Lord Invocatus just doesn’t look all that special to me.

However Lord Invocatus isn’t the only special character in this release. No discussion of the World Eaters is complete without mentioning the big man himself; the Primarch Angron.

Following in the footsteps of Magnus and Mortarion, Angron is the third daemon primarch to enter the setting and he looks outstanding. I do struggle a bit to paint these very large kits so perhaps I should restrain myself from rushing to buy him, and I sometimes feel GW are in a bad habit of making models that are bigger, and bigger still, but if there’s one time when being OTT is just fine it’s the daemon primarch of the World Eaters.

On Saturday Games Workshop revealed the rest of the range, the headline to the article even going so far as to promise “Hordes of New World Eaters Units”. What we saw was, for my money, some of the best things in the whole range – but “hordes” is stretching the truth a little.

First of all we have Eightbound, possessed berserkers who have been driven into a killing rage after discovering they have one of the daftest backstories in the setting. Chaos Marines which have been possessed by daemons have been around since the very earliest days and I’ve been hoping we’d someday see models which really reflected the natures of both the marine and the daemon doing the possessing (Death Guard marines possessed by daemons of Nurgle for instance, or in this case Khorne Berserkers possessed by the rage-filled daemons of Khorne). This would be more than enough to satisfy World Eaters fans but no, some silly eegit who probably communicates only in memes, decided that they should be possessed by not one, not two, but eight daemons of Khorne! Because OTT is cool right? Because eight is the holy number of Khorne right? Because everything Khorne should have something to do with the number eight right? Because I don’t know very much about the background and I don’t have anything in the way of an imagination but somebody gave me the job of writing this bollocks and nobody cares about “fluff” anyway!

As someone who turns from mild-mannered and easy-going Wudugast to a rage-fueled monster that Angron himself would tell to calm down at the mere mention of the word “fluff” seeing this kind of rubbish published has, in the parlance of da yoof, “triggered” me so let’s move swiftly on. The models, at least, are really cool. I shudder to think about the price but I want them anyway. Each one can be built as either a possessed marine…

… or an exulted version which has beaten the daemon within into submission and gained even greater power as a result.

I really like the way each one can be tweaked to be more or less possessed so that you can dial up or down the level of mutation on display your own taste. Personally I like my marines to be twisted by the warp, but too much mutation is by no means a good thing so I’ll probably end up somewhere about halfway between these two examples. I also really like the way the armour is forming into a mouth that’s swallowing the marine’s head in a nice nod both to the battle against the daemon that’s occurring within and to the icon of the World Eaters (a fanged mouth biting down on a planet – they never were a very subtle legion…).

Lastly we have the cultists of Khorne, deranged mortals known as Jakhals.

These are ace, I’m a big fan of Chaos Cultists and this has been a good year for them. I will undoubtedly be looking to get my hands on some of these; to serve as cannon fodder for my World Eaters, as a berserker vanguard for my Lost and Damned cultist horde, as more recruits for my Necromunda chaos cult and to kitbash with my Necromundan Corpse-Grinders.

The preview also notes “If you think they look nasty now, wait until you see what they can do when they’re all juiced up on stimms” which makes me hopeful that there’s an alternative way of building of this kit still to be shown.

This appears to be the unit champion…

…however it’s this brute that has me particularly interested.

He’s bigger than the other cultists and referred to as the Dishonoured so could it be that we’re looking at a failed World Eater of some kind who’s been stripped of his armour? We can’t see the back of his head from this angle, if we could we’d be able to see if the Butcher’s Nails are there or not, so for now all we can do is guess. Either way he’s a damn cool model as he is, although once again I’m thinking about Necromunda and wondering if he might have a use as a Goliath champion with a bit of kitbashing.

Anyway, apart from Lord Invocatus and some very dodgy lore regarding the Eightbound, this all looks fantastic and I’m already cracking my knuckles and pacing, a low growl building in my chest as the Butchers Nails start to bite and command me to paint, paint, paint for the Blood God! However, I can’t help but ask “Where’s the rest of it?”. Your way of estimating exact number of kits may vary but there’s no denying, the Death Guard got a hell of a lot more than this. The World Eaters, like the Thousand Sons, lean very heavily on the wider Chaos range to bulk up the numbers with borrowed kits and daemonic allies. For a long time I’ve been feeling that Tzeentch’s legion was short changed in comparison to the followers of Nurgle, and now the World Eaters seem to have gone the same way. Based on this release the World Eaters will get six kits of their own (the Berserkers, Eightbound, Jakhals, Lord Invocatus, Lord on Juggernaut and Angron himself – plus the already released Kharn of course). The Death Guard got somewhere around twenty and are visually much more complete as a result. I recognise that GW do not have entirely unlimited resources, just as I don’t have unlimited money, time or energy to spend buying and painting models, but it’s hard not to feel that more could have been done here. This isn’t so much eating the world as taking a small bite. Where are the juggernaut cavalry to follow the mounted lord into battle? Where is the World Eater’s Lord on foot for those days he doesn’t feel like riding to war? Where are the daemon engines with which Khorne has had such a long association; the brass scorpions, blood slaughters, berserker dreadnaughts, blood reapers, doom blasters, death dealers and cauldrons of blood? Where are the Khornate beastmen, the Berserker Surgeons, the Ogryn Berserkers, Red Butcher Terminators, a new kit for the Mutilators or the Teeth of Khorne – the World Eater’s heavy weapons squads designed by Jes Goodwin all those years ago? These last are particularly missed I think as they’d bring something to the army other than just angry men who want to get into close combat and hit people in the face. Having a theme to an army is good, but – despite what the kids with the memes would have you believe – there’s no need to treat Khorne as being one dimensional.

Overall I’m really happy with what we’ve got and I’m sure some of it will be finding its way into my Chaos collection in time. Part of me hopes that this is just the first wave and, like the Sisters of Battle and other recent releases, we’ll see a second wave with a whole heap of new kits in a year or so’s time. Part of me however fears that they may end up like the Thousand Sons and left on the sidelines.

Anyway, I’m off to eat some raw meat and sharpen my chainaxe. If you have thoughts other than the hammering of an angry god stabbing painfully through the raw flesh of your mind and want to punch the keyboard furiously until it spells out a message then the comment’s box is the place to do it.

Wolves Of The Old World

In the early hours of this morning (UK time), when sensible folk were still abed, Games Workshop rolled out another of their big previews. I didn’t set an alarm for it but I did enjoy taking a look at it over a cup of coffee and needless to say, now I’ve given it all some headspace, I have thoughts ready to inflict on you, my gentle and long-suffering readers. We saw quite a mix of stuff too, from World Eaters (which I may – or may not – talk about in a future blog once I’ve got my ideas in order) and some walkers for House Cawdor which seem to be a real “marmite” release which some people (like me) love and others hate. However today I’m going to talk about the green lads and their good boys; the new Goblin Wolf Riders for the Gloomspite Gits.

Well would you look at that! Somebody stop the presses and hang out the bunting – Games Workshop have managed to sculpt some decent wolves at last! Well done guys, pity it’s taken you 40-odd years but persistence beats resistance and these shaggy beasts were worth the wait! (Pedants will currently be desperate to remind me of the existence of Rippa’s Snarlfangs and the Soulblight Dire Wolves – both of which are ok – and the two wolves which hang out with Belladamma Volga which are actually really nice, but still, GW does have a reputation for missing the mark with their wolves on a regular basis so it’s still novel enough to be a relief when they get it right).

These weren’t the only new Goblins to put in an appearance either. We also saw the previewing of Grinkrak’s Looncourt who for some reason have the exact same back story as the Flesh-eater Courts – that being that they believe, against the evidence, that they are in fact chivalrous knights. I know it can sometimes be tricky to think up new lore but this is a direct copy and paste, and much like with the ghouls it’s not really reflected in the models. I guess “identifying” as a noble knight is the new in thing in the Mortal Realms and we should go along with it rather than risk causing offense – what harm could a goblin or a ghoul do to a damsel in distress after all? Not naming the warband “the Green Knights” is a missed opportunity too – and if there’s one faction in the setting that can run with the puns it’s the Gits. At least the models are cracking.

More and more lately however I’m wondering if the Old World ever really went away. Were the last eight years all some kind of bizarre dream in which my fevered imagination conjured up magical realms and Stormcast Eternals whilst the Warhammer that was has rumbled on much as it ever did? Looking at GW’s release schedule you’d be forgiven for thinking so. The new Wolf Riders are a classic example of this – they’re awesome but conceptually they’re lifted straight out of the old Orcs and Goblins range without the slightest tweak to bring them into the Age of Sigmar. Now I don’t mind this – I liked old Warhammer – but wasn’t the point of Age of Sigmar to create a new world in which new ideas could be brought forth and explored? Sure, in the early days we didn’t have a whole lot to work with, it takes time to produce a whole new range of miniatures so models from WHFB were reused to flesh out the setting, but come on – it’s been eight years guys! In that time GW has churned out a lot of kits, many of them fantastic, and of those very few would look out of place in the “World That Was”.

By the time 8^th Edition came around Warhammer had a lot of problems. The size of armies had grown so vast that new players could easily find themselves looking to paint hundreds of miniatures before their collection was ready for battle. To survive it needed to become more flexible, and desperately required a skirmish spin-off to serve as a stepping stone. Meanwhile the lore was a strange mix of cliches and ideas which were uniquely Warhammer, which the writers had to wrestle into shape whilst desperately seeking to ensure they had their own voice and weren’t trading solely on nostalgia. The range of models had grown large, and needed plenty of resculpts to keep it fresh, and the constraints of making models that rank up on square bases was clashing with the posing potential of the plastic models and new sculpting techniques. By the time the End Times rolled around Warhammer was desperately in need of some kind of soft-reboot. However absolutely nobody was saying “I really love this setting, but wouldn’t it be better if it was set on floating magical space bubbles. Oh and the Lizardmen need a silly name. Other than that it’s perfect”.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those who’s still sore about the destruction of the Old World, it’s just that the more time passes the more I wonder what the hell the point was. Much of what we’ve seen since 2015 would have fitted into the previous setting. Old Warhammer was an odd mix of the very generic and the uniquely creative – Age of Sigmar was an opportunity to break away and do something really creative but they seem to have lost their nerve. Now with The Old World project coming it’s harder than ever to differentiate AoS from WHFB. If, for example, I wanted to start an Orcs and Goblins army for WHFB I could find pretty much everything I might want amongst the ranks of the current Orruks and Gits. Wacky spelling does not new models make! Things like the Stormcast Eternals, Idoneth Deepkin and Kharadron Overlords serve to demonstrate what they can do if they want to but in the main they seem to be afraid of pushing the envelope.

This isn’t just an issue with the goblins either. Today also saw the previewing of a new Beastlord for the Beasts of Chaos. Again, he’s a really nice model – although the beasts need a hell of a lot more attention than just one new hero – but he’s no different to the kind of beastmen we saw in pre-End Times Warhammer.

Likewise the new Slaves to Darkness are just a revamped kit for Warriors of Chaos – they look cool but there’s nothing different here.

Some people might be saying “So what?”. The Warriors of Chaos and Beastmen were cool before and they’re cool now. Why reinvent a perfectly serviceable wheel? If it ain’t broke and all that. Now that’s fair enough but the thing is, they did – dramatically and unashamedly – blow their old setting to bits, burn their bridges and declare that this was a whole new era in which everything you had known before had been devoured by daemons. This wasn’t gentle – this was as subtle as Angron. Soft reboots, GW clearly thought, are for wimps! Yet here we are, almost a decade later in the real world and tens of thousands of years in the timeline of the game, and half the old characters are still around and everyone still dresses the same.

Lately Games Workshop has been previewing concepts from the forthcoming Cities of Sigmar revamp. Except is it a revamp? Everything we’ve seen so far, and I’ll admit it isn’t much, is very similar to what we used to know in the Empire.

Now I’ve got nothing against nostalgia (although I’m pretty sure it used to be better) but if I’d slipped into a coma in 2014 and woke up now would I see any difference between the Warhammer of now and the one I used to know? Of course given the state of the world otherwise this might be comfort, at least some things don’t change for the worse, but if you told me it was a whole new setting I’m not sure I’d believe you.

When the End Times was in progress I suggested that what we’d probably see was a partial apocalypse, shaking things up ahead of a new and refreshed setting. Chaos would come close to destroying the world but, at the last moment, the Gods would withdraw, laughing, to their own realm, leaving the survivors to fight it out amid the ruins. GW would have the chance to change anything they wanted, old characters with old models could be killed off, new characters and factions could arise, new rules – even a whole new game system – introduced. It would give the End Times some kind of significance, without needing to wipe the slate clean. The bathwater could be poured away without needing to send the baby with it. Afterwards I was (mostly) willing to give Games Workshop credit and let them do their thing, hopeful that the passage of years would create a setting that I could believe in and which would make the whole exercise worthwhile. I’m still waiting. Of the 24 factions currently present in Age of Sigmar all but 8 of them are essentially unchanged since before the axe fell on WHFB. Sure, some things have changed – breaking up the Orcs and Goblins into two separate factions, and dividing out the Warriors of Chaos into five new armies (one for each god) has given them room to grow and the results have been well worth it. However that, and the new rules for that matter, could easily have been achieved without the wholescale destruction of the world.

Let’s take a quick look at the eight new factions. Could any of them have existed in the World That Was? I would argue that all of them could. The Stormcast Eternals are perhaps the most iconic AoS army – and the one which, I suspect, precipitated GW’s decision to go through with the whole exercise. Space Marines sell – so why not have Space Marines in fantasy too? Double your money! It’s an understandable decision for a business to make but I reckon it could have been done just as well in a post-End Times Old World with nothing more than a few tweaks to the backstory. The Bretonians were in dire need of a range refresh and with Game of Thrones dominating screens around the world people were excited about knights. Most of the Stormcast concepts are not a million miles from a re-envisioned Grail Knights, granted superhuman power by the Lady to restore the realm.

The Kharadron Overlords and Fyreslayers could easily have been part of a re-envisioned Dwarf range, especially if some of the concepts were dialled back a little. Dwarves in Warhammer were traditionalist to a fault and extremely resistant to change but with their holds smashed and ransacked by daemonic hordes and many of the old guard killed and strung up by their beards a few young upstarts might be able to promote new ideas (ready to be patented by GW of course) onto a suddenly less recalcitrant population.

Fishmen were rumoured for years – apparently springing from a design studio in-joke that spread to tinfoil-hat-wearers and online theorists and never really went away. They too could have come to the surface in the form of a slightly tweaked Idoneth Deepkin. The Kruelboys could well have been lurking in the swamps and caves of the Old World, the Lumineth Realmlords tweaked into something closer to the High Elves and the Nighthaunt added to the undead ranks commanded by the Vampire Counts. Aesthetically speaking the Ossiasrch Bonereapers are the faction most unique to AoS – although ever here there are similarities to the Tomb Kings of old. Are they enough to justify the risky, and still controversial, decision to destroy a well-loved setting and start over from scratch? Those aside absolutely everything else from the mightiest Son of Behemat to the smallest gobbo could have been released in the old setting without stretching the lore one inch.

Ultimately I’ve got nothing against Age of Sigmar, it was a bold move and an opportunity for great creative strides, but since then their courage seems to have deserted them and as a result the whole thing starts to seem unnecessary. The wolf riders are amazing models but when it comes to their fantasy settings Games Workshop are living in the past.

Seven Skavens!

Time to turn my attention back to my little collection of sporting rats. You may remember that back in September I put together an Underworld Denizens team by combining my Goblins and Snotlings with a few Skaven. Now it’s time to return to those Skaven and, by adding a few more recruits, turn them into a team of their own. Part of my plan was to get the rest of the team finished but, as I mentioned recently, I’ve got a lot of things on the go at the moment. I’m excited about sporting skaven – but I’m also excited about lots of other things so I’ve got to prioritise. It was at this point however that I remembered some wise advice from that fount of knowledge on all things Blood Bowl – Faust of Double Down Dice – who reminded me of the existence of Blood Bowl Sevens. Sevens is a set of alternative rules for Blood Bowl with the key difference being teams made of just seven players, rather than the standard eleven. So whilst getting my rats ready for a full game of Blood Bowl called for quite a bit of painting Sevens was much more manageable – easily slotted into my jam-packed schedule. Later I’ll try to drum up a few more bodies to bring the team to full strength. To get us started though, here’s a Clanrat Lineman…

…and another one…

Lastly I wanted to add some savage muscle to the team in the form of a Rat Ogre. For this I certainly wasn’t going to pay Forge World prices for the official model, nor was I going to mess around with the plastic kit sold by Games Workshop (I’ve painted enough of those in my lifetime thank you very much!). Instead I had a rummage around on ebay and found myself a Powered Rat Brute, made by ResinWarfare and 3d printed and sold by Mousillon Miniatures.

Here’s the team, all set for action.

Lastly I decided to paint a couple of markers for the team as well.

And there we have it – another team of Seven’s good to go. Next step will be recruiting even more rodents and turning them into a full team, but that’s a job for another day.

The Roadwolves – Part 1

Cast your mind back to the start of 2020 and you may recall me painting this gentleman and claiming that my Orlock gang was soon to be unleashed into the Necromundan underhive.

Since then however things have been distinctly quiet on this front and, despite frequent promises to the contrary, my gang from the House of Iron has been idling in the doldrums; unloved, untouched and – most importantly – unpainted. Well, at long last a few new recruits have arrived.

I know numbers are still thin on the ground but it’s a start right, a few more gangers, a leader, champions, some of those very cool looking cyber-mastiffs and they’ll be all set to make their mark on the underhive.

Once again though that might have to wait (although hopefully it won’t be another two years!) but getting these recruits under my belt has helped me recapture my enthusiasm for the gang – more will be on their way sooner or later!

In other news this is my 900th post on this blog (and we’re just a week or so past it’s 9th birthday). Who knew when I set out that my little blog would keep going so long or be read by so many unfortunate souls all over the world!

Total Waaagh! – Part 6

…And here we have it, the final update of the annual Ork painting contest versus IRO (at least until next year of course). I’ll be away from home tonight so realistically I’m not going to get any more painting done before November. Still, my weekend was quite productive so let’s take a look at what all I managed to get done.

First up, another of the savage Beastsnagga Boys.

Inspired by a couple of Orks I saw at Dave Stone’s Wargames Terrain Workshop, which incorporated a bit of purple in the skin, I decided to try giving him some purple warpaint. I think it’s a bit subtle here, I was a little cautious with it and the blue animal-skin cape draws the eye away from it, but it’s something I’ll keep playing with as and when I get around to the rest of the squad. For now, here he is hanging out with the rest of his newly painted Beastsnaggin’ buddies.

Speaking of Beastsnaggas, next up we have an imposing Beastboss (a Snakebite Warboss by any other name). I built him pretty much “as standard” but swapped out his head – I wasn’t too keen on the original although I reckon it’ll work well on a different model.

He’s a big lad – towering over the rest of the boys.

One of my objectives for this month was to build and paint the warboss who rules over my rambunctious horde. Sadly he’s still in bits, but at least the Beastboss can stand in for him in the meantime.

Next up, another Kommando.

I’ve wanted a squad of these ever since I got into the greenskins and doubly so since the new kit was released. With these 5 sneaky dudes (plus Snikrot of course!) done I’m calling that objective achieved although I love these models so much it’s safe to assume there will be plenty more in the future.

Then, roaring over the horizon in a cloud of dust, we have another squig-hog boy.

I really like these models, especially this one with a wheel instead of hind legs, and getting at least a couple of them done this month was a key goal for me. In a perfect world I’d have liked to paint a squad of bikers as well, and kitbash some boarboys on cyboars (hint GW; add these to the next wave of Ork models you release eh!) but no matter, all of that will come in time. In the meantime at least these lads are ready to ride out.

Lastly, but by no means least, I’ve finished off the third of my Killa Kans.

Much like the Kommandos I’ve been wanting to add a squad of these to the collection for years and years and years so I’m chuffed to bits to have the three of them ready to go at last.

In fact, I’m really pleased with everything I managed to get painted over the last few weeks. IRO thoroughly trounced me in our contest of course, but that’s ok because it just means I’m going to have to work harder to regain my honour next year! In fact IRO has been an absolute painting machine this month, churning out awesome terrain and all kinds of Orks at a rate with which no mortal man can compare. He’s also been an excellent sport and a real gent, both on the blogs and “behind the scenes” as it were (although the less said about what his wife thinks I’m called the better…). It really is worth repeating that without the challenge I would have got an awful lot less done so thanks to IRO for giving me the encouragement to find the mental discipline to get these painted and keeping me on my toes all month. There is NO need to be concerned and one of his monkey ninjas is NOT threatening me, knife clasped in one hairy paw, as I write this. I repeat, there is NO need to send help and I’ve NOT been abducted and threatened into writing this praise by murderous simian thugs in the employ of a ruthless Antipodean.

At the start of the month I thought about laying out a list of objectives I was intending to achieve. Having given it more consideration however I decided that this would be unwise, I knew this was going to be a busy time with “real life” concerns and I wanted to have fun with the challenge rather than put too much pressure on myself to complete specific goals. Still I’m pretty damn pleased with everything I did manage to get done; Snikrot, the Kommandos and the Killa Kans have all been longstanding ambitions, and I’ve been wanting to get started on the Squig-hog boys for the last year or so as well.

There are a fair number of things I didn’t get done of course, but then my eyes have always been bigger than my stomach when it comes to painting miniatures. I’d have like to get the Warboss finished, and the aforementioned squad of bikers. Vehicles are another thing my Ork army is a bit short on; IRO actually has an awesome fleet of ork vehicles (seriously, don’t tell him but I’m a bit jealous – you should go to his blog and check them out if you haven’t already). I do have various unassembled ork buggies sitting around, plus a whole heap of ideas I’ve done nothing with, and part of me did dream that I’d so something about that this month – alas it was not to be. I also planned to add a squad of Flash Gits but that too fell by the wayside, although the balance was redressed somewhat when John of Just Needs Varnish! sent me this awesome git.

And although this month was mostly about my Warhammer 40k Orks I did manage to sneak in another addition to the Blood Bowl collection with the star player Varag Ghoul-Chewer.

So, where does that leave us? Why, in need of a parting group shot of course! Let’s take a last look at all the ugly greenskins I’ve managed to accrue over the last few weeks.

The score for this weekend comes to another 7 points (1 per Ork and 2 each for the Killa Kan and the Squighog rider). Add that to the score accumulated so far and we find ourselves looking at a fairly respectable 27 points. This falls a little short of IRO’s score (38 points at the time of writing although god knows, by the time I get around to posting this he’ll probably have knocked out half-a-dozen more mad, ramshackle vehicles and added a few more districts to his Ork town).

As for what comes next I’ve got a whole heap of projects that have been crying out for attention, and have been completely ignored over the last few weeks as I concentrated on Orks so all being well they’ll get their turn in the sun next. Or who knows, maybe IRO and I will just carry on painting Orks, disregarding all other concerns in a glorious WAAAAGH! that never ends! Watch this space I guess…

Total Waaagh! – Part 5

It’s Week 4 of Orktober and time for another roundup of my progress, after which I’ll have just a few more days to squeeze in a final ork or two.

I’ve still not finished building the Ork Warboss who’ll someday be leading this army but I did get around to kitbashing this nob to carry his banner.

Next up another rusty Killa Kan joins the one I painted last week.

Then we have another Ork boy.

Meanwhile this boy stands ready to annihilate IRO and his minions with his trusty rocket launcher.

Last, but by no means least, I’ve finally done it! It may have taken me over a decade but Boss Snikrot is painted at last!

Now I said back at the start of the month that if I could get Snikrot painted I’d be calling this month’s endeavors a win. As you can see that goal has been achieved so let’s all agree that I have indeed won and not look too closely at our respective scores…

Oh you’re going to insist on seeing the scoreboard are you? Very well – this week brings me another 6 points so the tally for the month now stands at 20 points. Meanwhile my painting adversary IRO has put on another burst of speed and extended his lead even further – at the time of writing he has 32 points under his belt. I’m no quitter but I think it’s safe to say I’ll need some very fancy footwork indeed to catch up to him now.

Ork Reinforcements Arrive!

Well here we are, the clock ticking inexorably down towards midnight on the 31^st of Orctober and the end of the annual Orktober Wudugast vs IRO greenskin showdown. You might think I’m on the ropes, with IRO having pulled out an unassailable lead. You might think I’m as good as beaten already. You might be right. But this is the moment in any good high-stakes action thriller when, just as you think the hero might be defeated, that help arrives from an unexpected quarter. The villain (in this case a certain nefarious Australian) hesitates mid-way through his triumphant speech. The hero, paint-splattered and exhausted but still defiant smiles grimly. The audience shifts to the edge of their seats, watching events unfold with baited breath…

Alright, maybe I’m over-egging things a little, but I’ve got something really cool to show you today. I do have a load of Orks painted (not enough to defeat IRO yet but enough to make my defeat less humiliating) and I was going to talk about them today but instead I’m going to save them for tomorrow (by which time who knows, I might even have painted some more). Instead we’re going to look at an Ork painted by someone else – and no, it doesn’t count towards the contest because that would be cheating and if I’m going to be beaten by IRO I’m going to do it fair and square. (The orks painted by my production-line of slave minions locked in the basement do count, of course, but we don’t talk about them in case they start plotting to escape again).

A few days ago I was contacted by fellow blogger and all round top bloke John from Just Needs Varnish (seriously, if you’re not already familiar with him do yourself a favour, go and check him out and give his blog a follow). Those of you who are familiar with him will know Orks aren’t the kind of thing he usually paints but as it happens he did paint one recently and he sent it to me as a gift. What a guy eh!

Now funnily enough this is a Flash Git and I’d been planning to paint some of them this month but, for various reasons, I’ve not got around to them and I really don’t see it happening now. So having resigned myself to not adding any to the army for a little while it was a particularly nice touch to have one arrive out of the blue. The story of how the Ork came to John, and why he then decided to paint it and send it to me is for him to tell if he wants, suffice to say I’m chuffed to bits to have this classy-looking guy in my collection.

Edit: If this has whet your appetite for Gits of a flash variety and you want to read John’s side of the story, he’s now written a post about it which you can find here.

Total Waaagh! – Part 4

Well here we are at the end of week 3 of the great annual Orktober painting battle between the Imperial Rebel Ork and myself. After IRO’s storming start to the month and my fairly dismal performance in week 2 a lot of people will have sensibly written me off so it’s time to come back swinging.

First of all we have this clanking, smoke-belching, rusty monstrosity; a Killa Kan. I’d quite like to add a whole squad of these to the army this month but we’ll see how it goes.

Next, another ork boy…

…and another of the new Beastsnaggas.

Lastly we have a couple of the new Kommandos. Have I mentioned how much I like these models? I like them a lot! This boy is ready to smash the door and unleash havoc!

Whilst his mate is a vicious knife-fighter, and he’s ready to get all stabby!

So let’s see what that all adds up to. To keep things (relatively) fair we’re using a scoring system which you can find out all about here. As a vehicle the Killa Kan is worth 2 points, whilst each of the orks (plus Varag Ghoul-Chewer who got his own post earlier in the week) is worth 1 point each, making this week worth a total of 7 points. Add that to the 5 points I scored in week 1 and the 2 I scored in week 2 and we find ourselves with a grand total of 14 points with just over a week left to go. IRO still has a lead on me but I’m back in the game (note “in” not “on”) and there’s still everything to play for as we hurtle towards November and our cataclysmic showdown.

Varag Ghoul-Chewer

I think I promised that this month was going to be all about Orks with a “K” but needless to say an Orc has rudely barged in anyway. The infamous Blood Bowl star player Varag Ghoul-Chewer has been on the edge of my painting desk since last Orctober and I finally faced the fact that he’s not going to paint himself – impressive though that might be – so I’d better get on with it myself. Anyway, he’s done now – rival sportsmen beware!

Incidently, those of you who’re viewing this through the WordPress reader may find that some of the pictures are strangely outsized and distorted. I presume this is yet another case of WordPress deciding to make work for themselves and irritate their users by finding something that ain’t broke and attempting to fix it anyway, bless ‘em. If the problem doesn’t resolve itself soon I’ll look into seeing if there’s anything I can do at my end – in the meantime the website doesn’t appear to be affected so if it bothers you (and it should!) please go to convertordie.wordpress.com and look at the posts there.

Anyway, time to get back to the 41st Millennium!