Orky post number 3! Battlewagons and Big Mek

Welcome to guest post number 3 of my friends Bad Moon Ork army. This week battlewagons and a big mek. I'm a huge fan of these vehicles and think the ork ramshackle nature of it all has been captured perfectly.

Now before we have a look at them a quick WIP of Praetorian Chosen Men...





Now time for some more orks!

Hi All.

Time for some more Orky pics. As promised this post will mostly focus on the Battlewagons in my army.

With front armour 14, 4 hull points and a transport capacity of up to 20 models – the Battlewagon is a great way to get your boyz safely across the gaming board to get stuck in with the enemy. I have 3 Battlewagons in my army – each quite unique - and regularly use all of them even in games as small as 1200pts. The base model is dirt cheap for what you get and you can upgrade them in whatever way suits your army.

My first Battlewagon has been converted from a Leman Russ model, but with some heavy conversions. I changed out the barrel of the main gun with a custom one mad from bits (to represent a Kilkannon), and then extended the chasis using some plasticard. I’ve then built a ‘deck’ to represent the open-top nature of it’s transport ability and modelled an ork climbing out of the hatch from the transport area. All of the Heavy Bolters were switched out for Big Shootas and then bits of an Ork and Gretchin were used to model people shooting out of the side hatches. Custom blades and Rams were added to the front of the hull which was than hacked, cut and drilled to show battle damage, including the removal of some of the armour protecting the tracks. Finally the turret was given a modified Ork as it’s Kaptin and a number of extra “bolt-on” armour plates to make him feel safe. It has been painted in a fairly standard Bad Moons yellow scheme but with a few transfers and bit of graffiti to give it a bit more character. This model can be used as Looted Wagon in games, but with the current rules, I find it a lot more useful as a Battlewagon.









The second Battlewagon started off as a Landraider model, but again has undergone some heavy conversions. The entire top section of the Landraider’s hull was removed to make it open-topped, and the top and bottom plates from it’s sponsons have been used as running boards to each of the 4 side doors. Firing positions for a couple of Ork gunners were made atop the 2 front corners of the hull with a ladder leading up from inside. A larger firing platform was then created over the rear of the vehicle which originally housed a Zzap Gun with a power cable going down to the wagons engine. This proved pretty ineffective in games though and so has now been converted in to a Dual Big-Shoota (used as 2 Big Shootas in game). In time, this will probably be converted to 2 normal Big Shootas though, as I’m currently not that happy with the look of it. The conversions were finished off by adding a chimney stack to the engine, plasticard “teef” to the front ramp and liberal battle damage across it’s hull. In games I normally give this wagon a red paint job for a bit of extra movement, but didn’t really want to move away from my Bad Moons paint scheme. That’s when I had the idea of red flames painted around the hull. The final scheme came after a few designs sketched on scraps of paper and I’m pretty happy with the end result.











The final Battlewagon is the only one converted from the actual Ork Battlewagon plastic kit. Even though the kit looked great if built normally I really like putting my own twist on each of the Ork models. I decided the the Kaptin of this Battlewagon liked to feel safer by having the transported Orks in front of him rather than behind, and the Orks would be happy as it means they’re closer to the enemy for shootin’ and fightin’. With that idea in mind I went about hacking and regluing the entire model including the addition off a removable Deff Rolla which I luckily picked up in a random hobby shop. The end result is a longer version of an already long and thin model – not ideal for gaming, but loads of fun. There is also a removable Kilkannon to sit atop the cabin, but that isn’t painted at the moment as I rarely use it in games. The paint scheme is much the same as the Landraider conversion as I enjoy the ability to move my boyz that little bit quicker towards the enemy.











And finally, to keep all my wagons in top shape, my Big Mek. If you have an Ork army I believe a Big Mek with a Kustom Force Field is another “must have” as the 5+ cover save he grants any unit within 6” is fantastic at keeping your boyz alive and the vehicles running. I often put him in the wagon with the Kilkannon (accompanied by a few boyz if I have the points) and then position the other 2 wagons (brimming with close combat units) within 6” on either side to create an awesome tank charge. I never thought that the standard Big Meks you could buy were big enough so I converted mine from an old Heroquest Ogre body. With the addition of Ghazghul’s head, some Nob arms and some other bits for armour and gizmos, he has become one of my favourite and most used models.









Right, that’s it for this post. I’m currently in the process of deciding whether to create my own blog at the moment and your opinions here will probably have a big effect on whether I do or don’t. If you’d like to see more of this army as well as some of my other W40K projects, please let me know.

The ork take over continues!

Apologies for not having posted in quite some time. This will hopefully change very soon, and with a little bit of luck some new models to show off!

In the mean time the orks have once again invaded and my friend has very kindly agreed to guest post again and show of some more of his stunning ork army. Enjoy!

Hi.

I’ve once again hi-jacked Col. Winterborne’s blog to parade some Orks about. Any good Waaagh needs a good number of boyz behind it and so this post focuses on a couple of 20 strong mobs of basic Orks.

The first unit is a mob of Shoota boyz. These guys mostly make it into my army for the single job of sitting on an objective in my half of the board. Their large number makes them very hard to shift, and they can chuck out enough firepower in their shooting phase or during overwatch to discourage most assaulting enemies. And if the enemy does make it into assault with the mob, then the orks can still throw a horrific number of attacks their way.







The second unit is full of Slugga boyz. These guys are all about close combat and if they get to the enemy without losing many of their number then they can do it very well. They generally go around in a wagon for protection and to get them in to the fight quicker. Unfortunately, 6th Ed. Has made this unit weaker as they no longer get an initiative bonus when they charge, and they can also seriously suffer to overwatch fire.







I tried a few different colour combinations when first painting the boyz, but I quickly realised that black fatigues with brown leather straps gave a nice contrast to the bright yellow armour of the Bad Moonz, and so I have now painted all of my boyz in this way. The armour on the standard Shoota boyz was painted with one of my earlier attempts at a technique for painting yellow. These still look pretty good, but I think my later attempts (the Slugga boys, Big Shootas and Nobs) have come off even better.





Big Shootas are a “must have” for Ork mobz in my opinion. With their high strength, high fire rate and long range they beat Rokkit Launchas as an upgrade every time. In fact, at 5pts per gun on Ork Vehicles aswell, I encourage everyone to have as many as they have the models for. I never felt that the standard Big Shootas that came in Ork mobs were big enough to stand out effectively in the unit, so I decided to use Loota models as Big Shootas instead. I’ve never really liked Lootas as they are quite static so this seemed a good use of the kit, but now that they can move and snap fire in 6th Ed. (even at flyers) I may have to reconsider the use of Lootas. When I ran out of these models and realised I still wanted more Big Shootas in my units I decided to do some converting instead to make their guns properly Big.







And finally to lead the mobs you need a couple of Nobz. These two guys are actually to be part of a larger Cybork Nob Squad, but they worked effectively as Power Klaw wielding Mob Leaders in the Throne of Skulls tournament this January. I put all of my Nobs on 40mm bases to make them stand out more, and to be honest, the minis are so big these days they’d dwarf a standard base anyway. I always advise giving Ork Nobs a bosspole, as morale checks can be a bane for depleted or small Ork units and with challenges being so prevalent in the current game giving the Nob Leaders ‘Eavy Armour isn’t a bad option either. Big Choppas or Power Klaws is always a difficult decision. Big Choppas lack of AP is a pain against Power Armoured foes, but it’ll get you another 3 boyz and all of their attacks which can be useful.









That’s it for this post. Again any comments and/or feedback is most welcome. Another post is in preparation to showcase my Battlewagons.

WAAAAAAGH!!! Warboss Gorblud takes over the blog!

A treat for you today on my blog. When I first started this blog well over a year ago my army got posted on Col Gravis' blog and well now its time to pay it forward. A good friend of mine has a been working on a fantastic ork army and while he's hasn't got himself a blog yet he very kindly agreed to do a guest post on here!

If you all seem to like it I'm sure his arm can be twisted for a few more posts of his brilliant orks!

Enjoy!

Hi All

Col. Winterborne has kindly allowed me to hijack his blog this post as I have so far been too lazy to set up my own. I have collected W40K for about 10 years and began collecting a Chaos army, then a Tau one, and finally moved on to the army I’m painting at the moment – Orks!

I started collecting Orks because I love converting miniatures, and Orks seem to offer more opportunities for this than any other race. I then – purely on the basis of one cool looking Meganob in the Ork Codex – decided to go for a Bad Moons army. This is a decision I have often cursed every time I start painting the yellow armour (my current technique requires 6 different coats of paint), but every time I see a finished mini I normally decide it was worth it.

So, on to the pics. No Bad Moon army would be complete without a decent unit of Meganoz, so I thought they would be a worthy choice for the first post.




The 8 Meganobz are sometimes fielded as 2 units of 4, but I have often found that one unit of 6 or more becomes so hard for the opposition to take out, that they often survive the entire game, destroying far more points worth of enemy than their original cost. For this reason I often take them as the one unit of Nobs that your Warboss allows you to take as a Troops choice as they can occasionally steal objectives away from your opponent.





The squad contains 2 members with Kombi-Skorchas (a very effective upgrade) and the rest with Twin-Linked Shootas – I find that taking rockets to be a waste of points as Orks rarely hit with them, and so I converted the couple of models I had with these back to Twin Linked Shootas (Orks love re-rolls).





The Meganobz only have 2 real weaknesses: 1) They can’t have an invulnerable save (unless you take Grotsnik) and so can be particularly vulnerable to high AP shooting weapons – especially those strong enough to cause instant death. 2) They have poor Leadership (7) and rarely form a unit big enough to benefit from the Mob rule.





The second weakness is easily overcome with the attachment of a Warboss to the unit, and so here is mine:









The mini is converted from the Ghazghkull model (one of my favourite GW creations) with a few simple mods and a bit of reposing. I made the decision to base all of the orks on dark bases, as if they are marching through the ruins of a hive city. This, along with the dark shades of green I like to use for the ork skin, are intended to contrast nicely with the bright yellow armour. To make the Warboss stand out even more than some of the other models I used some Cityfight terrain and a Guard Tank Commander to decorate the base, along with an Attack Squig made mostly from Greenstuff.





Well, that’s it for this post. Please let me know if you have any feedback or questions on the minis or the painting – Col. Winterborne might even let me do another post if the feedback is good.