The Orlock Project (Part 2)

Orlock gang, ready (enough) for battle.

Here, in our locality, we have started a Necromunda: Skirmish campaign. The gang I assembled are these Orlocks. The majority of which are from the '96 starter set. A few of them have had some modern upgrades, and there's even a model from this century, the FW champion, that I am using as a medic. 

Assembled.

From right to left, we have the gang leader, Boz. Boz is armed with Bolt Pistol, Chainsword, Frag Grenades, photo-goggles and a Refractor Field.  Ripper is next. He is a Heavy armed with a Heavy Stubber. Then there is Fry, who is also a Heavy and be is armed with a Heavy Flamer. Brindle the ganger has an autogun. Burnz has a regular Flamer.  And finally we have Doc Dox , who you might have guessed is a Medic. She is armed with an autopistol and a fighting knife And equipped with a drop rig, medicae and Refractor Field. 

Primed.

They had their first game of the campaign vs. TheBob's Van Sar, in what I consider to be something of a revenge game.  Neither of us thought to take pics, especially me since I wasn't intending to write a battle report.  And since the paint job on these guys is currently extremely simple, I really see no need to write up a step-by-step painting tutorial.  Anyway, we had our fiight  and unlike last time,  I didn't play them like  berserker orks and I was a bit more strategic in their movements. The dice weren't against me either, and I was able to whittle down his gang while only having one go out of action myself. The Orlocks ended up winning this encounter.

Partial base coats.

The most memorable part  of this game occurred when my gang leader, Boz, was shot by a multimelta and was saved by it's lethal heat blast by his Refractor Field. He returned the gesture by shooting the multimelta wielding fiend out of the game. The fun part was that prior to playing our game we watched this chap  take one of Rob's Ogryns out of the game with ease, so I was fearful of this guy for sure.. The even funnier part was that his multimelta guy's lasting injury was "a learning experience" which gave that ganger additional XP! 

Battle ready.

One of my guys (Fry) is out in Recovery until the next Cycle. I have at least one more game to play before the Cycle ends. So far, it's been a good start but there are some tough gangs (and opponents) ahead. 

Van Sar sniper, preparing to end an ogryn's advance.

Ok, back to painting.; everything you see in the last pic of the Orlocks was done using Contrast paint. I diversified their flesh tones by using different ones throughout the gang: Fyreslayer Flesh, Guilliman Fleshwash and Darkoath Flesh. The blues were done using Macrage Blue, the red headbands was done with Baal Red and the blacks were painted in Black Templar. Of course I intend to get these guys up to parade level, as well as painting up any additional gangers that I assemble. .

More updates as they happen...

The Orlock Project (Part 1)

 

With the new edition/ relaunch of Necromunda (is this 4th or 8th edition? I'll just go with the crowd and call it Necromunda '26) going  through a bit of a revival locally, I was keen to get in on the action. I played the last version a year ago but I felt that it was too complex to properly write a battle report about it. It was fun, but complex. Regardless, I just wasn't properly motivated to build up any gang models. So now I want in on the action, but I just couldn't decide on which gang to build. I ultimately thought it would be fun to take some of the original, thirty years old (...dear God, really?!) Orlocks from the Necromunda first edition box and build some up wit the newer weapons. 

The first of these guys was going to get the big hammer. It seemed like it ought to fit this old miniature with a little bit of modification. 

Ok, so it took quite a bit of modification, but I think works well enough. 

Ultimately I decided to just hide the shoulder of this ganger by using an old shoulder pad. This particular one comes from the old Space Orks plastic box from 1989. And I think it works well.

This next guy was very simple. I just stuck on a plastic Cadian  Imperial Guard heavy flamer along with it's fuel tanks. I think it works great. But, um, don't ask me about his left hand...

This next guy was very challenging for me to build as getting the heavy bolter to attach right to the arms was a profanity inducing event. It came out okay I suppose. The ork shoulder pad was once again deployed to hide the gap issues with his shoulder. 

Well, this was a fun start. Keep you eyes peeled for more Necromunda fun on this blog. Definitely sooner than later. I say that confidently as we have just started a campaign in my locality and I an on posting updates here. 'Til then, cheers!

Mastablasta and his 29 Goons (Part 2)

 I managed to get the  first unit of my Call of the Crown pledge done! And I got it done with two hours of the month to spare! 

A wave of 30 Gnoblars.

After I finished the two Groinbiters I focused on the rest of these guys. I did that by pairing them up  and finishing them off six miniatures at a time. Right up to the flock and tufts. 

This was a great way to stay focused and get these guys done. I relied heavily on the Contrast Paints, but on the second stage I relied a lot on Agrax Earthshade. That was washed over on each figure to give them a dirty and earthy look. 

The noses on these Gnoblars was done using Bloodletter with a final, light, highlight of Pink Horror. 

The weapons were mostly touched up with Cryptek Armourshade and highlighted with Stormhost Silver.  And I was particularly conservative with that highlight as I wanted their metal weapons to looks as rusty and weathered as possible. 

And I did it, finished them in a month! And, in case you missed it, I also finished my Dreadtober pledge as well. Hopefully the rest of these Ogres will be fun as well. 

Ultramarines Balistus Dreadnought (Part 5)

 And now the conclusion: 

Done, totally done!

One of the things I had to do was the company  badge. I did this by using a yellow circle decal which I glossed over and painted red. I decided to leave a little sliiver of yellow exposed to give the illusion of a highlight. Next I glossed over that and applied the roman numeral three icon. And presto, it was finished.

The yellow circle.

The backside has the Adeptus Mechanicus icon which I like to make red. This turned out well on the Redemptor Dreadnought I did and I felt justified in repeating it here. 

 Backside with Admech sponsorship.

The campain badge on the right leg was also a repeat of the Redemptor Dreadnought, but I mo e it back a little bit so that it wouldn't cover the separation in the armor. That kind of annoyed me with the Redemptor Dreadnought and I didn't want to repeat that here.

Campaign badge.

Once done some foliage was added to the base. I tried to keep the choice of tufts consistent with the Redemptor Dreadnought since they are truly  battle brothers.

Profile view of the lascannon.

This next view shows the skull I put on the pelvic plate. I like the idea of a fallen foe looking up to see this icon as this mechanical death machine looms over them.

Groin of death.

And here they are, a pair of Dreadnought battle Brothers! 

"I have this flank covered Brother!"
"And I have this one Brother!"
"Brother!"
"Brother!"

Another Dreadtober concludes, see you all again next year! 

Ultramarines Balistus Dreadnought (Part 4)

 This is it, my 2026 Dreadtober Ballistus Dreadnought has had all of it's painting completed! 

Done with paint! 

To get to this point I had to finish the old Ultramarines Blue stage that I only had half done last week. Then I edge highlighted all these blue areas using Fenrisian Grey. The gold areas, mostly the emblems and the trim around the sarcophagus, was base coated with Retributor Gold. The red areas on the weapons were basecoated using Khorne Red, then a thinned Mephiston Red was applied over that.

Those weapons then got a highlight of Wazdakka Red. The gold areas were finished using a wash of Reikland Fleshwash and then highlighted with Stormhost Silver. Stormhost Silver was then used to highlight all of the bults and metal parts and also used to apply a few scratches and scrape effects on a few spots on this model.

The missile warheads were painted with straight Whitescar. Then I painted all the lights and did touch-ups where I thought I needed to. 

And that's the painting essentially done. I will save the decals for next week, which should also give me time to find them.... and finally I will flock up the base. 

Mastablasta and his 29 Goons (Part 1)

"Who runs Gnoblar town?"

This is my pledge for this year's Call of the Crown painting challenge. As previewed at the end of the Lookout Gnoblar post, I have chosen to paint 1000 points of Ogre Kingdoms, finishing a unit each month for the next six months. For the month of October I am painting 30 Gnoblars. And so far I have made better progress than I expected. 

30 Battle-ready Gnoblars.

Being sick earned me some time I might not have had otherwise, and of course Contrast Paint really made it easier as well. 

A better view of the front rank.

Before I posted this however I wanted to complete the two Groinbiters. The Groinbiters are essentially unit Champions. Technically this is one unit, with the horned one being Mastablasta, the big unit's Groinbiter. But it might be more practical to break this group up into two units, thus the necessity of the 2nd Groinbiter.  

A pair of Groinbiters.

These are the first two of the full thirty Gnoblars fully painted thus far, and I decided to give you all a closer look at them. The next pic shows the other Groinbiter fully basecoated with Contrast Paints. 

Battle-ready. 

And here he is fully painted and flocked. I am going with a cold snowy theme for this army, so I used snow flock and winter grass tufts.I like to think that they are raiding from a high mountain pass somewhere in the Mountains of Mourn. Also, the snow themed miniatures the 'eavy Metal team worked up for their AOS books and displays look really good. Following that track of inspiration I think this is turning out good so far...

Fully painted and flocked.

While painting these guys I realized that the gnoblar on top is, well, missing his lower legs. So the lower guy is wearing a kind of harness to assist his buddy with his desire to fight. A bit twisted but it fits the "Mastablasta" concept rather well. 

The backside.

As you can see here, I think the heads you select for this miniature can really transform the vibe of the whole model. Thus, Mastabla!

Battle-ready!

Some of the metals were pInted using an orange paint, which I the went over with Cryptek Armourshade Gloss  to get a really cool and different rusty effect. 

Mastablasta finished.

The use of Bloodletter on the tips of their noses really sells it to me that these guys are frick'n cold. Hopefully these guys find more scraps to keep them warm! 

Mastablasta from behind.

Ok, so now I have to try to get the paintjobs on the remaining 38 Gnoblars up to the same level as these two Groinbiter miniatures by the end of October. No sweat, right?

Ultramarines Balistus Dreadnought (Part 3)

 Here we are on the third week of this year's challenge. I was ill for all of the previous week so sadly that means little progress was made on this thing. But progress was made regardless! 

I was able to get Leadbelcher all over the non-blue metal areas. And so far that actually looks alright. Then I started on adding the classic '90s Ultramarines Blue (still the best Ultramarines blue Citadel ever produced) on the blue areas. But I only made it half way before being forced to stop (sometimes domestic life trumps hobby life).  So that's the current state of the thing. Hopefully I can get further along with it next week.