The Green Oorookiagoths

"Any chance of some faction names we can pronounce? Please don't change Orks" asked a fan on the Warhammer 40,000 Facebook page.

The reply? 

"You mean, the green Oorookiagoths?" quipped Games Workshop to a multitude of likes. Including my own giggle.

The question was asked in response to the latest faction focus issues today -- on the Dark Eldar. Or as they seem to be calling themselves this week, the Drukhari. Drunk Hairs? Or something like that at any rate.

I get it. At least at an intellectual property (IP) level. 

To ensure that copyright is enforceable, one has to have an identifiable and unique name. Space Elves don't cut it. Neither does Space Marine. Adeptus Astartes, yes -- that is enforceable IP. Eldar. Well, I would have thought that that would be an enforceable name myself. So why change? I'm not sure. Its clear that Drukhari is a word that has never been used before, and therefore is eminently more enforceable though. I'm reminded of when Games Workshop changes all their paints. Gone was Skull White to be replaced by Corax White. And so forth.

The other item of recent news is the deep strike rules. Looks like you can come in to play on any movement phase after the first so long as you stay 9" or more away from an enemy. And no scatter either. I'm a little disappointed by the lack of scatter (or perhaps they're just withholding the full description of competitive play, but I doubt it). It has been such an iconic part of teleportation for a long time and the ways of minimising it (folks on the ground with chaos icons and so forth) have been integral parts of many army builds for a long time. How this will all pan out, I don't know, but I'm willing to wait and see at least. 

Just let's not start re-naming Orks. Okay?

Warhammer World: Ork Cabinets

Today, a down selection of the Ork Cabinets that are on display within the hallowed halls of Warhammer World in Nottingham (UK). I really like the top image here, but I'm also fond of the (now) very old sunburst with the grinning face in the centre of it. That particular image takes me back many decades to the very earliest of Rogue Trader days -- and Warhammer Fantasy days too. Yes, its associated with the Evil Sunz these days, but I think it made appearances in other publications along the way if memory serves. 

Warhammer World: Downed Craft

In this Warhammer World diorama, an imperial craft has crash landed … in the middle of an Ork held town. The Imperial Army are on its way to help out. But there are a whole heap of Orks who are interested as well!

Warhammer World: Rynn's World Battle

The home world of the Crimson Fists chapter is Rynn's World. It was invaded by the Ork warlord Snagrod, the Arch-Arsonist of Charadon and the Crimson Fists defended it, ultimately defending and saving New Rynn City from being over-run.

More famously, this battle is noted for being the original front cover of Rogue Trader itself. And within the halls of Warhammer World, this very scene has been reproduced.

The diorama is compact, but very detailed. The core of the Crimson Fists are set up so that when viewed from the side, it replicates the front cover of Rogue Trader very nicely. The wider fields of view show the wider battle scene with wrecked vehicles and Orks and their contraptions moving in for the kill.

Wargames Gallery: Typhus reaping orks

Charging in to a full mob of Orks, Typhus rolls a 6 for his daemon weapon and gains the maximum number of attacks possible. And he also does his stink bomb thing in assault. Plus his psychic powers. The Orks fail to cause a single wound and he slaughters many, resulting in the Orks bouncing off him and fleeing in to the distance. Sadly, he does not withstand the counter-charge by two more mobs of Orks the next turn, but this turn was epic for him! Such is Apocalypse.

Battle Report: Orks vs. Crimson Fists

From round 2 of the Wasp Campaign via cosec:

Mission: Battle Missions: Pillage (aka Resource harvesting), with 4 collection points
Deployment: Spearhead

Orks (1275 points) vs.  Crimson Fists (1150 points) -- the points disparity is due to the empires held and the spread thin rule.

Pre-game: The emergent Ork Waaagh! on WASP-987c has so far failed to gain momentum, following the decisive actions of the Blood Ravens in round 1.

The Crimson Fists, following in the steps of their Adeptus brothers moved in to crush the Orks yet again, attempting to remove the Ork blight from the West side of Wasp.

The emergent Waaagh! had attracted more orks from across the planet than last time, as more orks became aware of, and rushed to fight under the banner of Warboss Gutzspilla.

It was into these superior numbers that the Crimson Fists charged, bringing all their might to bear on this immense horde. The Crimson Fists brought an immense arsenal of heavy weaponry, including their newly requisitioned Whirlwind Missile Launcher. Pedro Kantor knew full well that he would need to bring his largest ordnance weapons if he was to stem the Ork horde.

The Orks saw the Crimson Fists slowly marching towards them, but elected to hide their numbers for as long as possible, choosing to deploy second. The battle was fought amidst the cratered landscape left behind from an earlier battle, littered with broken imperial buildings. Pedro Kantor and his Crimson Fists approached from one corner of the game board and quickly set up heavy weapons in the old buildings, whilst deploying their Whirlwind well behind their lines. The Ironclad Dreadnought that had fought boldy for the Crimson Fists in past battles waited excitedly for the battle to begin - he had been granted use of a drop pod, and eagerly anticipated flying in from the heavens to smite the orks.

Seeing such a devastating array of firepower gave the orks something of a shock. Most of them brazenly deployed in craters or behind barricades, whilst the Deff Dreads, Killa Kans and Trukks deployed on the flanks of the army, ready to provide cover as the ork horde swarmed forward. The Orks were led by one of Gutzspilla's key generals, Warboss Stabbyface, who, even though mounted on a warbike, cowardly deployed underneath some ruins. He however argued it was prudent, because he had a great fear of Pedro Kantor's Orbital Bombardment.

After deployment, a cunning unit of Devastators who had developed a knack for infiltration deployed in the centre of the battleground, holding one resource point. Simultaneously, an Ork Deffkopta turbo-boosted quickly onto an objective. Being a rather lazy fellow, he didn't move any further than this throughout the battle.

Turn One 
The battle began decisively for the crimson fists, with them throwing every possible pound of firepower at the Orks. Pedro ordered an Orbital Bombardment, which destroyed the Ork Trukk carrying the 'Ard Boys, and one Killa Kan. Lascannon fire immobilised another can. Whirlwind fire bathed the slugga mob in incendiary ammo, and pinning them until the next turn. The Ironclad dreadnaught arrived from orbit in its drop pod, and wrecked the Deff Dread with its meltagun. The Ard' Boys that had been in the trukk were blasted by the devastators, but fortunately passed their morale test.

Meanwhile, one squad of tactical marines ran for an objective, not quite making it all the way.

The Ork response to this barrage of fire was quite pitiful, the green-skin horde thoroughly embarrassed by being caught with its pants down by enemy fire. The Warboss turbo-boosted away quickly, hoping to make the most of his cover save. The remaining trukk sneakily hid behind a building hoping to outflank Pedro, and shoota fire took out one devastator.

Points from this round/Total points - Orks 2/2, Crimson Fists 1/1

Turn Two:
The crimson fists launched into the next phase of the battle with confidence. Torrents of bolter fire rained down upon the orks, as the devastator squad shot to pieces every remaining 'ard boy. The ironclad launched a barrage of close range flamer and melta weaponry on the remaining useful killa kan, exploding it easily. Lascannon and sternguard bolter fire managed to cause one wound on the warboss, who was threateningly poised to assault Pedro and his unit. Meanwhile, one tactical squad quickly sneaked around the side of the battlefield and secured an objective.

The Orks were however heartened by the scatter of this rounds whirlwind fire, and perhaps viewing it as a sign that they should attack with vigour, launched a strong assault on the space Marines. One deffkopta turbo boosted to the crimson fists table quarter, whilst the remaining trukk moved 12 inches to bring its cargo of nobz close to the tactical marine line. The slugga boys moved threateningly towards the dreadnought, seeking power klawed glory, whilst the shootas brought a wave fire down upon the devastators, killing one, and even spooking them into retreating off the objective due to their low squad members. Excited by the possibility of combat, at the beginning of shooting, Warboss Stabbyface screamed WAAAGH! thrilling the horde which joined in his chorus. The nobz ran and assaulted the tactical Marines, winning convincingly before consolidating onto the objective formerly held by the devastators. Warboss Stabbyface charged at Pedro, unleashing all his Power-Klawed might at the Crimson Fists commander (in particular trying to stab his face!). This suicidal manoeuvre cost him his life, but he caused instant death to Pedro also, somewhat redeeming him for his earlier cowardice.

Finally, the Slugga Boys near the dreadnought assaulted. The Dreadnought took out two boys, before a power-klawed nob dug into his armour, causing him to explode, a process which killed a couple more boys, who died quite happily, knowing they were still able to use their 6+ armour save!

Points from this round/Total points - Orks 2/4, Crimson Fists 1/2

Turns Three, Four and Five:

From this point, the battle became a lot more quiet. The orks sat on their objectives whilst being harassed by space marine shooting. Despite the valiant efforts of the space marines, there were just too many orks to shoot, and they had all managed to find some cover. Notable moments however came when the Sternguard Veterans ripped into an Ork Trukk, destroying it with Melta bombs, and then proceeded to shoot to pieces all they could of the remaining slugga mob. The Whirlwind missile launcher also rained down havoc from the sky, killing Orks, but not killing enough.

Turn three: Points from this round/Total points - Orks 3/7, Crimson Fists 1/3
Turn four: Points from this round/Total points - Orks 3/10, Crimson Fists 1/4
Turn five (final score): Points from this round/Total points - Orks 3/13, Crimson Fists 1/5

A great game was enjoyed by both players. The initial two rounds were quite epic. The first round definitely belonged to the Crimson Fists, eliminating all of the Orks heavy support, whilst the Ork assaults in round two changed the game back into the Orks favour. Some bad luck definitely hit the space marines when the devastators retreated from their objective, which helped the Orks secure a commanding hold early in the game. The later rounds were comparatively quiet, with the Orks happy to hold the objectives and win on points.

Battle Report: Blood Ravens vs. Orks

The space marines of the Blood Ravens chapter arrived on Wasp-987c and immediately secured an ancient brass keep. Had it not been for their subsequent action against the orks, more questions would likely have been raised about their true purpose on the planet's surface...

Battle report from paladin84.

Blood Ravens vs. Orks
Mission: Seize ground, 5 objectives
Deployment: Dawn of war.

Blood Ravens (space marine) list 1000pt:
Librarian, plasma pistol, null zone, Avenger 115pt
Tactical squad (10 man), flamer, missile launcher 170pt
Rhino, H/K missile 45pt
Tactical squad (10 man), melta, multi-melta, combi-melta 185pt
Sternguard veterans (5 man), 5x combi-plasma, power fist 175pt
Dreadnought, Heavy flamer, Assault cannon 125pt
Drop pod, Deathwind missile launcher 55pt
Predator, autocannon, las cannon sponsons, H/K missile 130pt

Orks list 1050pt:
Warboss, power claw, eavy armor 90pt
Nobz mob (10 man), power claw, big choppa, WAAAAGH banner, kombi-skorcha, pain boy 280pt
Slugga boyz mob (20 man), Nob, Power claw, bosspole 160pt
Slugga boyz mob (20 man), Nob, Power claw, bosspole 160pt
Shoota boyz mob (20 man), 2x big shootas 130pt
Deffkopta, rockets 45pt
Deffkopta, rockets 45pt
Trukk 35pt
Killa kan, grotzooka 45pt
2x zzap guns 60pt

The green tide was all too close for comfort at the beginning of this fight. The orks winning initiative found 2 large mobs of them calling for blood at the Blood Ravens' doorstep. Two combat squads of tactical marines set up their heavy weapons in some cover and braced for the tide, knowing that their brothers were behind them. A veritable horde of over 70 greenskins, outnumbering the space marines almost 3 to 1 rushed forward in their first round hoping to launch a devastating waaaaagh!, in the second turn. The ork boyz squad advancing on the dug-in tactical squads was reduced from 20 to 5 in the volleys of holy bolter fire bestowed upon them. Brother Corvus (Dreadnought) arrived via drop pod and immediately set flame to the second squad of advancing ork boys slaying 6.

The second round saw a further bold advancement by the greenskins as the warboss and his biggest and da strongest nobz moved flat out in their truck right into the U'mie’s front lines. The ork boys inspired by the presence of their warboss brought the WAAAAAAGH! With the 5 man boys squad launching an assault on the missile launcher tactical squad and the other falling short on their assault on the U'mies with the melti guns running for the shiny bauble. The rest of the horde advanced.

With the greenskins over running their deployment zone the Blood ravens unleashed a tirade of fire, fury, las, plas, missile and holy bolt. When the dust settled, ancient Corvus had removed all trace of the shoota mob, the remnants of the boys mobs were going toe-to-toe with tactical marines and the war boss and his 5 remaining nobs along with their pain boy discovered what the u'mies were made from after ripping the sternguard veterans to pieces, followed by the valiant and unfortunate Librarian Zaphel.

Although the warboss was unstoppable in his close combat fury, his waaaaagh was annihilated, the remains of the ork horde were rubbed out and the warboss finally put to death. The Blood Ravens emerged victorious capturing the vital objectives for the emperor. The emperor protects!

Result: space marine massacre victory.

White Dwarf Number 122

A bit of a blast from the past today.  I'd like to feature White Dwarf volume 122 (UK; February 1990). 

On the front cover is a Death Wing Dark Angels marine (the artwork is curiously "eagle wing" -- the name of the terminator)  -- helping to support the sale of Genestealer / Space Hulk.  Also of interest is the prices in the top left: UKP1.50; USD3.95; AUD6.50; W.Germany DM 7.80.  How the exchange rates have changed!

The content features the usual round up of GW and citadel news and features a visit by Brian May (of Queen fame) to the design studio as well as a selection of works by 'eavy metal.

Konrad -- a WFRP character and series of novels -- features backgrounds and statistics of a number of characters including Anvila - a female dwarf with a hate of gobbos.  Yes -- female players and player characters were apparently rare.  Following this, the volume gives details about The Emperor Luitpold - a luxury liner in the warhammer world. 

Following up on the space hulk theme, rules are presented for traitor terminators, including rules for autocannons, missile launchers and conversion beam projectors.  Several new missions are also presented which give the traitors something to fight for.

Some blood bowl magic items appear next, followed by a series of Ork banners.  The stormboyz Khorne banners in particular are noteworthy -- those stormboyz did like Khorne a lot!

Excerpts from Realms of Chaos: Lost and the Damned follow, focusing on Tzeentch and a short advanced heroquest adventure about the "priests of pleasure".  Not sure if it is any good as I never truly got in to advanced heroquest. 

And there's also a section on "battlelines" -- w40k tactics.  The features a good length article on the most overlooked weapon in the game: grenades.  One piece caught my eye: imagine being chased by a dreadnought, but the marines being chased lob several crack (note the spelling) grenades every turn as they flee, but the dreadnought can't respond in kind with its own grenades!  Nice.  The parting advice is to spend points on crack, fragmentation and blind grenades for all units.  Those heady days when such items were optional upgrades!

Mighty Empires: Gork Effigy

An effigy to Gork (or is it Mork?!) amidst a lush fertile tile from Mighty Empires.  This will be the starting point/tile in the Wasp Campaign for cosec's Orks, but will otherwise serve no real in-game / in-campaign function (other than annoying cosec if and when enemies capture it, no doubt!).

Orks Army List for the Wasp Campaign

The third army list for the Wasp Campaign are from the waaaaarrrrghhh!  (comments and criticism welcome!)

Presenting cosec_x's Orks!, (1500 points):

HQ:
Warboss; power klaw (85 points)

Elites:
9 Nobz; 1 painboy, 1 power klaw, 1 big choppa, 1 banner, 1 kombi-skorcha (280 points)
5 burnas (75 points)

Troops:
Slugga Boyz; 19 boyz, 1 nob, power klaw, bosspole (160 points)
Slugga Boyz; 19 boyz, 1 nob, power klaw, bosspole (160 points)
Shoota Boyz; 20 boyz, 2 big shootas (130 points)
Ard Boyz; 11 boyz, 1 eavy nob, power klaw, bosspole (160 points)

Fast Attack:
Deffkopta; rockets (TL) (45 points)
Deffkopta; rockets (TL) (45 points)
Deffkopta; rockets (TL) (45 points)

Heavy Support:
Killa Kans; 2 killa kans, 2 KM blasters (110 points)
Killa Kans; 1 killa kan, 1 grotzooka (45 points)
Big Gunz; 3 zzap guns (90 points)

Transports:
Trukk (35 points)
Trukk (35 points)

TOTAL = 1500 points

Wargames Gallery: Black Reach Flashback

A scene that could have been taken right out of Assault on Black Reach: the Ultramarines look upon the incoming Waaaaaaarggggh!

Khorne Ork Boy

If you are fortunate enough to own an old copy of Realms of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness or Lost and the Damned, you will see part of the chaos army lists contained therein include other races who have turned to the darker powers (e.g. chaos retinues can contain squats, orks, and so forth).  In today's post, I explore this idea a little bit by painting up an ork boy in the colours of Khorne: black, red and brass.

It is perhaps not too hard to imagine how an ork boy might turn to Khorne.  They already love the carnage and squabble over petty insults.  Perhaps even Gork and Mork are unsubtle plots by Khorne to get more followers even? 

This ork boy does not have any conversion work applied.  All that has been done is to paint it up a suitable Khorne scheme.  The reds are applied to the helmet, trousers and body plate, washed down with brown and black and highlighted with blood red and blazing orange.  The ork's skin tone is goblin green with a dark green ink applied to get the recesses looking alright.  The weapons are mostly picked out in brass and gold colours, with brown washes applied to create a duller finish.  Although the image is a little saturated, the teeth, runes, and eyes are two tone white.  Overall, the boy gives a vibe of Khorne, without losing anything of his orky origins. 



Ork Bastion

Taken at Games Workshop, Camberwell (Melbourne, Aust.), this is an orky adaptation of Imperial Ruins, suitable for use as a planetstrike bastion perhaps.  

I like the way that the orkification makes it look like an ork face.

Wargames Gallery: Ork Crunch

Before anyone points it out: I know that the only painted element of this picture are my plastic horrors of Tzeentch. But I like the artistic merit of this shot -- the colour of my horrors really juxtaposes well against the otherwise bland background.
The orks are, frankly, crunching my Tzeentch horrors who were happily hanging out in a crater and (almost) minding their own business... it's not going well for me in this game.

Why I still use Inks

Despite the availability of washes, I'm still a fan of using inks on my miniatures. In the picture, you can see the results of applying a goblin green basecoat to an ork boy's exposed flesh followed by the green ink. The results can be seen. The ink does a great job at getting in to the recesses and darkening the miniature. As I'm slowly using up my remaining citadel ink pots, I'm mixing up some of my own by diluting my darker colours with with equal parts of water (or less). After the inking layer, I'm still applying a highlight colour or two (or more), followed by a wash to bring everything together. This is because washes are excellent at blending lots of different tones in to a smooth transition that retains the highlights and lowlights very well. It'd take many layers of washes to achieve the same effect as inking (or moderately diluted darker colours), and so that is why I'm still using them to this day.

Battle Summary: Daemons vs. Orks (1000 points)

I tend to enjoy lower points value games more than higher ones. They can be played faster, and concentration loss is not a significant factor. Plus it forces you to make very tough choice about what to include (or not) in the army.

This is a game that happened last year that I am only just getting around to writing up. The army lists are below, but I will point out that I do not know the precise make-up of my opponent's army list, so please treat it as a good approximation rather than the exact truth.

Daemons (my list):
HQ: Herald of Khorne on Juggernaut, blessings of the blood god (110)
Troops: 7 Bloodletters; deployed with the Herald (112)
Troops: 8 Bloodletters (128)
Troops: 7 Plaguebearers, icon, instrument (135)
Troops: 10 Horrors, icon, Changeling, instrument (205)
Fast Attack: 3 Screamers (48)
Heavy Support: Daemon Prince, daemonic gaze, iron hide (130)
Heavy Support: Daemon Prince, daemonic gaze, iron hide (130)

Orks (opponent):
HQ: Warboss with Power Klaw, Attack Squigs, Cybork, Boss Pole (115)
Elites: 8 Ork Nobz, 1 x Power Klaw, Cybork bodies, 1 x Painboy, Waaaaaaaagh Banner (270)
Troops: 20 Boyz with Choppas and Sluggas, 2 Big Shootas, Nob with Power Klaw and a Boss Pole (165)
Troops: 20 Boyz with Choppas and Sluggas, 2 Big Shootas, Nob with Power Klaw and a Boss Pole (165)
Troops: 20 Boyz with Choppas and Sluggas, 2 Big Shootas, Nob with Power Klaw and a Boss Pole (165)
Battlewagon: Reinforced ram, Stikkbomb chukka, Red paint, Kannon, Grot riggers (120)

Set-up.
The mission is annihilate. The board is a 4'x4' one. The terrain consists of scattered craters on a red planet and there are two manufactorum ruins as well - one in both deployment zones. Naturally, I do not set anything up since I'm playing daemons. My opponent spreads his forces out along his deployment zone and places one of the boyz mob inside his manufactorum ruins.

The die is cast and it appears that I'm going to go first. In a competitive game, I would have tried to "seize the initiative" so that I can go second, but this is not a tournament game.

Early Turns.
I manage to get my preferred half of the army down on the board. This consists of the Herald (together with his "retinue" of 7 bloodletters), Horrors, Screamers, and one of the Daemon Princes. I deep-strike the horrors first. My intent is to place them infront of one of the ork boyz squad that is out in the open. They proceed to scatter to near to the edge of the board. The screamers scatter on top of the Battlewagon. We roll to see what has happened to them and they get placed on the board by my opponent. He places them on my manufactorum. They get hurt and two die. Ouch! The bloodletters and the daemon prince do not scatter though. They land near to my opponent's manufactorum. The prince shoots up some boyz. Three immediately die. My horrors of Tzeentch let rip on the boyz in front of them. Over half of them perish!

But then, my luck starts to run out. The boyz that were in front of the horrors shoot and charge them. All but one dies. I manage to retain the horror who has the icon. In exchange, only a few boyz die. The nobz get out of the building, and start at the daemon prince. After charging in to combat with him, he only has 1 wound left already!

The bloodletters get shot up pretty badly too. I lose several of them and a wound on the herald as well.

In my second turn, the plaguebearers arrive. The deepstrike next to the horrors.
The bloodletters then charge in to the nobz. With help from the daemon prince, they slaughter them all in a single turn! One kill point to me. The boyz terminate the last horror readily though. One kill point each. Although the plaguebearers get shot at, none of them die.

The warboss along with a mob of boyz then proceeds to shoot and charge my bloodletters. All of the bloodletters die, apart from the herald. Kill points are now 1-2 (against me).

Middle Turns.
Sneakily, my screamers move up the field of play. They're not in range of anything just yet though.
My second daemon prince joins the party, deep-striking off the plaguebearer's icon. I only have the second squad of bloodletters held in reserve at this point in time.

The daemon prince succumbs to the warboss, but the warboss' skull belongs to the blood god thanks to the herald. 2-3 in kill points (against me).

The boyz who killed the horrors now got locked, or should I say tar-pitted, with the charging plaguebearers. Along with the second daemon prince, the boyz succumb. 3-3.

The newly arrived daemon prince is made short work of by the wagon though. 3-4.

Late Turns.
The other squad of bloodletters arrive and survive the boyz shooting at them. In turn, they kill of the boyz. 4-4.

The rest of the game soon becomes a game of cat-and-mouse. I move forward with one unit. The boyz move backwards and shoot. I try to move out of range or behind some scenery and the waaaaagggh follows me.

There's only one way to settle this. I'm going to use my few surviving screamers to try to eliminate the wagon. They can move fast (like jet bikes) and the wagon is caught un-aware. Despite scoring some palpable hits, the wagon is only immobilised in the end. In retaliation, the screamers promptly die.

The game ends and I have lost 4-5.

Aftermath.
It was a fun game mostly due to the screamers. They started extremely badly and got hit from a hard landing on scenery. After spending most of the game dashing here and there, they finally made it to the wagon but were not effective enough! At least they tried.

Also of note were the plaguebearers: not a single one of them died. Well done Nurgle!
I also liked the warboss - my opponent really got in to his characterisation with a few vocalized "waaaaaah"s! How many other ork players do that? I think there's lots of you out there as I've heard many of you do this before! It brings the game alive more (as long as its not done too annoyingly and too frequently!).

Orky Table

This is a picture that I took of a table from a 2009 tournament that I played in. I found it in my archives and thought that it was worth showing!
The table is a desert world cut up by a river, with Ork buildings constructed in a typically orky / hap-hazard manner strewn across the field. Looking at each individual building, it is possible to see that each one is made of composite bits from multiple sources (Space Marine rhinos, and so forth). Enjoy!

Another Ork Tyranid Hybrid

"I waz gonna say sumfink, but last time we 'ad a fight, 'is 'eadbutt nocked out seven of me teef. I waz like skint for weeks."

--Attributed to one of the boyz who thought that the new hybrid lot were a bit un-orky.
I'm beginning to warm to the idea of ork / tyranid / genestealer hybrids! This one is a standard ork boy, with a tyranid warrior head part. They've been put together with a combination of glue and milliput (greenstuff). A very, very simple conversion all in all. Yet, somehow, very effective. The tyranid warrior's head perfectly suits the size of the ork's head and fits snugly over the top. For me, it really communicates the concept that I thought about in the original posting I made on this idea. The paint scheme follows the previous one: purple skin, with some Khorne runes here and there from plundered parts. The tyranid head was outlined in ultramarine blue and given some thin line streaks toward the rear of the the head in a grey colour. Otherwise, the painting was rather similar to the previous ork hybrid.

Ork Hybrid

Not too far removed from Octavius, there is a remote M-class star, around which orbits a solitary Jovian type planet. In turn, a large natural Moon supporting its own atmosphere and biosphere orbits said Jovian. For millennia, little had disturbed the Moon. Little that is, until the arrival of a battered and stolen rogue trader's vessel. On board were chaos renegades, both astartes and humans fleeing from imperial space. It was on this Moon that their vessel set-down to carry out essential and critical repairs. And to evade both the chasing agents of the false emperor and the true owners of the vessel for a time.

Sadly for the unwitting renegades, they carried with them dormant ork spores: in the airlocks, under the soles of their shoes, and in a plethora of other nooks and crannies of the rogue trader's ship. They either had no time to follow standard biosecurity procedures or didn't know how to fully operate the vessel - no surprise given their lack of techpriests. The result was the same in either case.

On the Moon, the renegades were forced to stay marooned for weeks as repairs progressed painfully slowly. The weeks developed in to months. And the vessel came no closer to getting fixed despite the beseeching of the pantheon of chaos. The renegades had truly lost track of the amount of time they'd been there when they sighted the first ork and took their first casualties.

Resources were redirected into defending the stricken vessel; their home. Scouting parties were sent out. Repairs were halted. But it wasn't enough. The time between each wave of greenskin raid was perhaps over a year to begin with. Then months. Then days. They didn't hold out long after that.

In control of the Moon, the orks set about the old vessel with a new waaaaaaa in mind. With a more intuitive feel for the vessel's systems, they made quicker progress to repairing it than the humies ever did. It was then that the Great Devourer came.

A tiny splinter fleet, possibly from Octavius, perhaps elsewhere hungered for the biomass of the Moon. A remarkable thing happened, though. The orks repulsed the invading species. But somewhere along the line, a new species was created. Part ork, part tyranid. New orks emerged from the flora. The older orks saw them for the unorky creatures that they were and set about exterminating them. But no new purebreed orks were being created. All their spores were turning into hybrids. The hybrids came to replace the old order of the orks. They took over the repairs of the vessel and succeeded.

Aims and Model.
Rummaging around my bits box, I came across a very old plastic ork body and head. Originally, I had thought to create an ork-genestealer hybrid as I had also found an old space hulk plastic genestealer arm that had long since snapped off its original model. But I also found an old tyranid bone sword arm. Could I possibly use all of them in one model? You bet. Add in to the mix a chaos marine bolter (slugga?!), a khorne berzerker scabbard, a space marine shoulder pad, and I had all the parts for an interesting conversion!

The only parts that needed a bit of greenstuff was where the arms attached to the shoulder parts - they were the wrong size. The marine shoulder pad disguises this on one side of the miniature, but on the other side pure greenstuff was used to bulk out the shoulder joint.

Painting.
There was one rule here: the skin was to be something other than green! I chose purple in the end as it seemed fitting for a hybrid model. After undercoating in black, the basecoat was worm purple over the exposed ork and tyranid flesh areas. This was followed up with a purple ink and highlighting by mixing the purple with bleached bone in a number of layers.

The leather armour was coated in brown, inked brown / black, and highlighted with bleach bone. The bolter (slugga) was drybrushed in silver along with the shoulder pad and the scabbard on the ork's back. Red was applied on the lower portions of the scabbard, the bolter, and across the shoulder pad. However, when I painted this miniature it was a very warm day (some 30 deg C with high humidity) and the red didn't dry evenly on the shoulder pad. As it dried, it cracked over. At first I was very bothered by this. But then I thought: wouldn't the original renegade's equipment be remarkably damaged by this point in the narrative? More than likely. So, I left it as is and painted Khorne's symbol over the top of it.

The bone sword was painted in sunburst yellow, progressing to white toward the tip. Brown and bleached bone was applied to the lower portions of the sword and a similar prescription was done with the genestealer claw arm. Several streaks of brown were carefully drawn upward on the bonesword to make it look old and well used. Final details (eyes, teeth) were completed in bleached bone and white.

Evaluation:
Positives: A most unusual miniature! I like how this has turned out on the whole; especially given how many different spare parts make up the creature and the various painting styles (genestealer, Khorne, ork) that were used.
Negatives: I got worried by the cracked red paint on the shoulder pad, but grew to like it. Further, I'm genuinely worried I might start a chaos-worshipping ork-hyrbid army now. Can I resist?

Overloaded, struggling gretchin

"Oi, Grot! Fetch me spanna. Get da ammo to. An' da chayne..."
Ork Mekboy Warspanna, Goff Clan.

Aims and Model.

Lurking in the depths of my bits box was this 1980's gretchin sculpt that positively oozes character. Like a number of ork and gretchin models, there is a strong component of comic relief here that is not found in other warhammer 40,000 armies. My personal interpretation of this model is that the gretchin is being bullied around by an ork mekboy. The mekboy is half-way through constructing a kustom shoota and needs a few more parts urgently before the waaaaaaa.

Painting.

The painting here was straight-forward an non-innovative. Following a black undercoat, multiple basecoat colours were applied: dark green on the skin, red on the trousers, brown on the boots & ammo boxes, silver on the large wrench and chainmail coat, and fold on the cylinder that the gretchin is carrying under his chin. Each of these areas was inked with a good amount of stain to really penetrate in the the recesses: green on the skin, chestnut on the trousers, ammo boxes and bronze cylinder, black on the wrench and chainmail. Highlights were applied to each area in progressively lighter shades of the base colour. Final details included picking out the eyes, nail, yellow for the bracelet around the left wrist, and carefully picking out each individual bullet on the gretchin's back.

For the base, PVA glue was used to stick s mall amount of green scatter down and the rest was covered in black ballast. Once dried, the black grains were dusted with a drushbry of red, making for a slightly muddy & rough looking surface.

Evaluation.
Positives: The cylinder below the gretchin's chin sets the model off very nicely and draws attention to the face. This gretchin's paint scheme very much gives the desired appearance of a struggling and overloaded orkoid trying to fulfil orders and I'm happy with it overall.
Negatives: Picking out all the little details was time consuming but necessary. The right ear squashed up next to the wrench was particularly difficult to get looking correct. I did consider painting some orky markings on the spanner, but didn't bother in the end.