flashback friday: armored krumpany: support trukks

I recently found myself rummaging through pictures of several old and/or incomplete projects and thought it might be nice to try and put them all in one place. To this end, I'll try to dredge up an old project once a week to share with the world and reminisce. This week, we finish out the Armored Krumpany!

WHAT WAS IT THEN?
As detailed last week, the Armored Krumpany was my attempt at Orkifying the Imperial Guard's "Armored Company" rules. Tanks were the back-bone of the army, to be sure, but the supplemental rule-set also featured armored fighting vehicles in support roles. Most of these support vehicles were based on the stalwart, mutable Chimera chassis, which sees use as a troop transport, mobile artillery cannon, giant flame-thrower and missile launcher. To that end, I got to work kit-bashing the new (at the time) Trukk kit...

Belcha: final work-in-progress shot

First up was "The Belcha," an Ork equivalent to the IG Hellhound. Using multiple types of plasticard sheet, I-beams, rods and tube, along with various Ork bits and a smattering of non-GW kit, the intention was to make a relatively fast-moving, flame-spewing, death machine.

Belcha: painted

Belcha: details (clickable)

While I made the rules for the flame-throwing cannon particularly nasty, I tried to balance that by giving it a nice, Orky weakness:

BELCHA Capable of reducing whole squads of infantry to smoldering piles of ash and metal, Belchas are one of the most fearsome vehicles in an Armored Krumpany’s motor pool. Unfortunately, its light armor combined with its massive fuel cannister make it fearsome to the Orks as well.   Armor BS Front Side Rear Belcha 2 11 11 10 WARGEAR Belcha Cannon: Essentially skorchas on growth hormone, Belcha Cannons are capable of spewing large gouts of liquid fire over long distances. To fire, place the flamer template over an enemy unit so that the whole template is in range and LOS while over as many models as possible. Roll to hit once. If successful, all models touched by the template are hit. If unsuccessful, each model is hit on a 4+. SPECIAL RULES Bada-BOOM!: The massive fuel tank used to arm the Belcha Cannon makes the Belcha particularly susecptible to penetrating hits. When the Belcha is penetrated add +1 to the roll on the vehicle damage chart. This stacks with the +1 for being open-topped.

Building the Belcha just got me warmed up. With the back-story of the Armored Krumpany firmly rooted in a Big Mek lootin' his ideas off the battlefield, I figured he needed some way of draggin' back the big bits. I launched into the next support vehicle right away.

Wrecka: from above

Tanks and other armored fighting vehicles are at the forefront of any Armored Krumpany - both as fighting machines and as spoils of war. However, in it’s no easy task to recover conquered vehicles in the heat of battle. Without the Wrecka, damaged and disabled vehicles would be nothing more than battlefield debris. Born from a simple Trukk chassis, Wreckas have been retrofitted with hooks, chains, cranes, arms, magnets or other bits designed to transform debris into scrap, and bring it back as loot.

Wrecka: right and left

I gave it a super-sized "towin' engine" by keeping the engine halves separate and bulking out the space between. The headlights, one of my favorite single features on this build, are the searchlights from a Chaos Vehicle sprue sandwiched between two pieces of plastic tube. The towing apparatus in back was all from scratch, the chain coming from a dollar-store necklace.

Codex wise, a Wrecka was the dedicated transport for a Wreckin' Krew - a 12-strong Ork Boyz unit whose special rules (the ability to tow vehicles, including the enemies) was tied to the Wrecka.

Wrecka: details

WHAT DID I LEARN?
These were my first truly kit-bashed vehicles. They're where I started refining my plasticard skills and figuring out how to view model parts not so much as pieces of a puzzle, but as elements for a collage. With a sharp hobby knife, the right structural bits, and some glue, a given piece can become just about anything.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
Like may completed builds, they sit on a shelf in my hobby room. The Belcha on the shelf of painted and finished stuff. The Wrecka on the shelf of things I still need to paint. Looking at many of the pieces I have from defunct projects, I feel like many of them would make great test beds for honing various painting techniques. When I look at the Wrecka today, I see an opportunity to try out various weathering techniques - salt mask, oil washes, weathering powders - to approximate the look of a famous, dim-witted tow truck...

flashback friday: armored krumpany: krumpin' wagons

I recently found myself rummaging through pictures of several old and/or incomplete projects and thought it might be nice to try and put them all in one place. To this end, I'll try to dredge up an old project once a week to share with the world and reminisce. First up, the Krumpin' Wagons of "Codex: Armored Krumpany!"

WHAT WAS IT THEN?
Somewhere in the middle of 2007, when I was just dipping my toes into 40K, I got the idea to satisfy my inner Big Mek by looting the Imperial Guard's Armored Company and making a mini-Codex of my own. From the inside cover...

In the grim, dark future, a Mekboy slaved away building trukks, buggies, and koptas for a nigh-unstoppable embodiment of Gork - his Warboss. With a load of strength and a smidge of cunning, the Boss had ransacked the planet, destroying or mobbing up all the planet’s clans into a single green tide. His green tide. The day an entire battalion of mechanized ‘umie made planetfall, the Boss was ready. With a cry of “Waaagh!” so tremendous it shook the earth, the clan rushed forth ready for another great krumpin’. As battle raged around him, the lowly Mekboy could not contain his excitement when a well-placed stikkbomb crippled the treads of a Leman Russ. He rushed to the tank and climbed inside, his wrench absently dispatching the crew as his mind boggled at the new technology. His world shrank as he focused on the shiny, new worky bitz, trying to fathom the orderly tangle of ‘umie engineering. He did not notice the dissipating thunder of his clan outside. Climbing out of the Russ a day later, his pack full of gubbinz and good ideas, the Mekboy could just make out the silhouettes of ‘umie tanks and transports disappearing over the horizon. At his feet laid a sea of dead orks. Putting two and two together and somehow getting four, he decided that if the brute power of tanks could destroy the most powerful thing he’d ever known, then by Gork, he would have some of his own...

Unfortunately, I couldn't afford all the Leman Russ kits I would need for the project, so I went about figuring out how to make my own. Armed with a compound saw, basswood strips and some plasticard I was able to start churning out chassis.

Suitable turrets eluded me until I chanced upon electric plugs at the local hardware store. With a little work, I started churning those out, too.

Exterminator Turret | Eradicator Turret | Plain Turret

Slap on some bits and bobs for detail, nick and scrape it all up with a good hobby knife, and add lots and lots and lots of rivets, and you've got a "Krumpin' Wagon!"

Ultimately, I ended up with 9 Krumpin' Wagons, 3 of each turret type, before I moved on to other projects.

WHAT DID I LEARN?
Despite their simplistic nature, the wooden framework and hard plastic shell of the electric plug makes for a sturdy, resilient model. This project is also where I started working in earnest with plasticard. I figured out that the thick sheets are best cut by using a sharp knife, metal ruler, and multiple light scoring marks before they'll just snap apart. I developed a few different ways to weather the edges of plasticard plates. Scraping a sharp hobby knife along an edge, pulling the blade along the edge while constantly changing the angle of the blade, and multiple quick, sharp angled attacks each create a very different look that look great alone or when used on top of each other. This project is also where I started slicing off bits of plastic hex rod to make Orky rivets, a method that would be de facto standard until I started using Grandt Line rivets a few years later.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
One of each tank type was painted and donated to 40K Radio's annual Toys for Tots auction back in... 2009 I believe. Three more were given away as a Christmas gift the year after that. The other three I still have, unprimed, a few shelves above the one in the picture.