Blood Axe Kaptin (Part 4)

 At the end of Part 3 I had stated that I felt that this guy was mostly done, but that it needed something else...

"Sumfink! Go git 'em!"

That's right, an attack squig. Which definitely meets the criteria of "some thing".  And the one I chose was this classic Rogue Trader era ork squig. Well, technically a tyranid squig. It's a bit of a complicated piece of lore that was only ever published once (White Dwarf #145 specifically). But nevertheless this classic freaky squig fit perfectly on my Blood Axe Warboss' base and gives a sense of menace. Mirthful menace mind you, but menace. 

Bare metal.

Unfortunately the tab had to go!

Primed.  

For such an old squig, it's still fairly large. Here he is on equal footing being compared to a Dark Eldar warrior. 

It kind of looks like a fleshy battle-bot in a way...

I based-coated this thing using Contrast Paints. Skeleton Horde for the claws, teeth and spikes, and Blood Angels Red for the skin. 

Contrast Paints basedcoat. 

Next I washed the model in Agrax Earthshade then gave it a layer of Khorne Red. The boney bits were given a layer of Screaming Skull with Wraithbone highlights. 

Mostly done.

Once he was done it was just a matter of affixing the squig, now names Sumfink, to the base of this Warboss, which a bit of superglue took care of in no time. 

Left side details

I'll work out a name for this big git eventually. But like many of my characters, sometimes they earn their names during a game.  With all I got going on, that may be a while. 

Rear details.

To end this project I added a few grass tufts to the base.  The final thing left to do is to add a clear coat to help reduce the chance of chipping the paint.

The job's done!

And now my Blood Axes have a dedicated leader. WAAAAGH!

Blood Axe Kaptin (Part 3)

I was distracted a bit here and there, and real-life keeps complicating things, but finally I managed to finish this guy.  Mostly. 

Of course I had to make this Blood Axe Kaptin carry an actual  blood red axe. Well the head of it anyway.. But what really helped me get this guy done was Cryptek Armourshade Gloss. I used it on the mechanical parts of the axe, the big shoota and the two holstered guns on his back, as well as the metal plates on his boss pole and his body armor. I love that stuff and it has become a crucial ingredient for metallic rust effects. 

The leather straps were done using Khorne Red, Nuln oil and Pink Horror. This is the first time I have used this scheme of an ork model. Usually I use it on Imperial models such as Assassins and Space Marines. But I've found that I like to use this scheme to contrast against other colors, like in this case where is contrasts nicely against the green colors of this model.

The only things left to do is to flock the base and seal the model with a protective coat (part of the joy of metal models is trying to avoid chipping). But I can't help the feeling that he still feels incomplete...

I hope you agree, but I think it's looking good for a miniature that was released way back in 1999. Come back whenever part 4 is posted where I'll reveal this model in his truly finished state! 

Blood Axe Kaptin (Part 2)

Continuing now from Part 1, I applied a wash of Tesseract Glow all over his flesh. And wow did I love the result of this! Remember, the formula for his flesh up to this point was an Olive Drab Prime, Caliban Green basecoat, and Gretchin Green Foundation Paint. The next pic shows only his right arm with the Tesseract Glow so you can see the difference. 

Tesseract Glow on one arm.

And here is the front of model with Tesseract Glow all over the flesh. 

Tesseract Glow layer.

And here is the back side. Back in the '90s I probably would've called this done, as it looks very close to the scheme I was using back then. 

View of left arm. 

But I can't leave well enough alone.  So added Apple Barrel Kiwi as a next level coat, first level thinned down the next solid, before finishing it off with a highlight of Sunburst Yellow. 
 

"Me flesh is done!"

Next came some more details, In this case, his mouth. The tongue and gums were based with Khorne Red, then Screamer Pink before next a final coat of Pink Horror. Two layers of Screaming Skull were applied to the teeth and bone areas. 

Teeth cleaned by dental squig. 

And this looks like a good place to stop. Look out for part 3 sooner than later (hopefully). 

Blood Axe Kaptin (Part 1)

Here's a miniature I have been procrastinating on for.... gosh, make that two decades now! This is the first of the big Warhammer 40,000 3rd edition era Ork Warbosses which came out in the summer of 1999.  I liked him, but he didn't quite suit the Goffs whom I was running at the time. In fact when the 2nd version (the one with the attack squig arm) came out, that was the model I decided I wanted to build first. And this poor guy just sat in his opened blister pack bidding his time. 

Waaagh?

At some point I decided to make him a Blood Axe Warboss. This was mostly on account of that big axe of his. Seemed obvious to me that a Blood Axe guy would be obsessed with big axes, right?  But he needed something but I didn't know what...

Oy, me 'ead's cold!

And one day,, like a bolt out of the blue,  Warhammer Community came to the rescue with an article about Bad Krumpany. I was totally inspired by the Ork Warboss Wade Price made for his Blood Axe Army, and I had to seek out that hat for my guy.  He had the perfect head for it too. After some scouring of bits sites online I managed to locate it. It's part of the Nork Deddog options from the Ogryn plastic kit, a Vox caster with a skull wearing a Commissar hat. 

Da Boss hat.

Having acquired this bit, I set about carving off the skull and speaker stuff to leave just the cap. Then I worked on hollowing out the hat enough for it to fit on the Warboss' domed head. 

Assembled! 

Next I primed him using an Olive Drab spray paint. It's not the best coverage job I've ever done,  but I got the areas I needed to. 

Primed!

Onto the basecoats. I used Caliban Green for the flesh base, and picked out the metal areas and boots using Abaddon Black. The interior mouth area and the wrap on the axe handle was based with Khorne Red. There are more details to pick out but I will deal with those as I proceed with the paint job

Basecoats! 

Onto the mid-coats! Yeah I was going to save this for Part 2, but I'm eager to share the progress. So I touched up all the areas. Then I washed all the recess areas if the olive drab with Agrax Earthshade. Then I used Gretchin Green Foundation Paint on the skin. Ontop of the Caliban Green, it gives the Warboss a weird pale look. It's almost freaky, especially with the  brown teeth. 

Gretchin Green flesh layer. 

I was really tempted to leave the axe Olive Drab colored but I decided that a Blood Axe Boss should be carrying a blood red axe. Also, It contrasts well with all the shades of green that the rest of this model is mostly going to be. I might put some Olive Drab back on the gun, but I'm not there yet.. 

Ok, let's stop here. I am excited to be  painting this guy, and I hope to get him done soon. We'll see in Part 2. 

Blood Axe Boyz ( Part 5)

Alright, here are eight more Boyz completed for Drab Squad. (I'm saving the Nob for last). It's been a long road for these guys (even longer when one factors in their age!) but we have arrived to their completion. 

At the time of this writing we are still in the first year of Warhammer 40,000 10th edition and it looks like my battalion plan for my Orks is pretty much still functional. So I will continue to develop my Bad Moons, Goff and Blood Axes. The Blood Axes are still going to mostly, and almost exclusively, use older miniatures. In fact I think they'll be all metal by the time they're finally done. 

But let's talk about these guys. This first one is a plasma gunner. Not sure what he'll count as in game since the Orks lost their plasma weapons way back in 3rd edition. 

This guy's has the least amount of olive drab on him as he has the most metal of leather jackets. He is also the only one I could squeeze a Blood Axe icon onto. In this case I imagined it as a back patch. I did this by hand; not sure if I like the results but I think it'll do. 

This guy has a visor in his helm. Definitely a look that never made it out of the early days of Rogue Trader. I like to think it's part of welding mask incorporated into his armor. 

I put a beaky helmet on the base of this guy. Of course I had to paint it in Ultramarines colors as the only beakies that my old Orks consistently fought against were my brother's old Ultramarines. 

This guy with the foreign legion hat has a Dark Eldar helm on his base. Painted in my favorite kabal colors of course, that of the Obsidian Rose. 

It was also kind of cool to see belts of bullets all over this guy that were actually scaled to look like normal bullets. 

Here's the second of the visor guys. He is distinguished by the rocks on his base. His foot was bent in an odd way so instead of trying to bend it back I just stuck a rock under it to give the impression that he might be walking over it. 

The next two Boyz are extremely basic. I painted their boots in different colors to make it easier to tell them apart. 

And the brown shoes guy has a skull on his base for a bit more distinction. 

Here is a heavy plasma gunner ork. I love how crude and cobbled together this thing appears. I still think orks should've kept their access to plasma weapons in the game but with the provision that they could only shoot on the maximal setting with the required 'gets hot' test.

How is that not orky?!

Either way,  I like the idea that the Blood Axes have tankers full of olive drab paint that they spray all over everything (kind of like what the U.S. military used to do back in 1970s. Everything on the bases I spent my youth on was olive drab. Well until they fell in love with cammo in the mid-80s. But I digress). Thus even pieces of equipment such as this heavy plasma gun just has to be olive drab. 

This grinning guy is the last of the lot. Again, more of his gear is olive drab than not. -As it should be! 

Ok, as I stated at the start,  only the nob is left for this unit. Look for him in a future post. 

Smash'n yer Gob!

 Behold, the Epicast Gobsmasha! I bought my first Gobsmasha directly from Epicast way back in the mid '90s . They were a mom and pop operation and it was fun to support them, and in return, get some funky new toys to bring to a 2nd edition era 40k game. I bought the Vindicator add-on kit for the Space Marines and the Ork Gobsmasha. The original model was a heavy, solid, brick of yellow resin. A friend of mine thought it was both crap and cool and convinced me to let him toy with it. He hollowed it out, molded it, and recast it in a better resin and gave me three copies back. The battle cannon was replaced with a piece of PVC to make it a little longer, deeper and well,, cooler. This is one of those. 

Gobsmasha. 

If you look through my Ork battle reports from over the years you'll see that I have used this as a battlewaggon in many games. I recall that the 5th edition Ork Codex (which was valid until 7th ed) had a battlewaggon variant called Gobsmasha which I simply used this model to represent. 

Scene from The Rise of Mad Dok Grotsnik-part-2.

Scene from Challenge Made, Challenge Accepted.

My Gobsmashas have't seen action for a few years, and that's kind of a shame. 

1st page of the White Dwarf article.

As I look back on it, I wonder why GW never made a proper plastic kit for this model? Before Epicast made their licensed version, Games Workshop had a template in White Dwarf for players to build their own. There was even a datasheet for it in the 1st Edition Vehicle Manual. Here's a fun fact, this was the first appearance in Warhammer 40,000 of the Battle Cannon. A weapon the Orks seemed to have lost but is still a mainstay of the Imperial Guard. 

1st Edition vehicle manual template and rules.

But they didn't even produce  a Forgeworld version. It seems to me this would have been an easy kit for GW to produce and I bet it would've sold well for them. At one point it looked like it could happen; In the mid- '90s GW produced official datafaxes for 2nd edition in Citadel Journal #8, but not counting the 5th Codex stats, the Gobsmasha has since vanished. 

Datafax from Citadel Journal #8.

Well I won't let that get me down! In fact I have every intention of getting mine painted (finally). And back on the table and into the fight. It will still work as a hardtop, basic, battlewaggon. Keep your eye on this blog to see how this first one works out. 

Did you have one? Either a custom creation or a resin cast version? Let us know in the comments. 

Sites of Power

 

Battle Royale. 

Once again Da Masta Cheef and I gathered for a 28mm heroic scaled tussle at the Outpost. 1250 points on each side. I continued to see what I could do with the Tyranids and this time he brought Orks. I decided to mix it up a bit. I swapped the Winged Hive Tyrant out for a Swarmlord. I swapped out some termagants for some Zoanthropes and barbgaunts. This seems like it could be a decent force to throw down with. 

The Tyranids gather. 

Da Masta Cheef brought Da Masta Cheef. A fella that hasn't appeared on this blog in years. Mostly because he sold the original model. But, as fate would have it, Rob/Murl gifted him recently with another of the same model and,  bonus,  it was already painted. 

Da Waaagh of Da Masta Cheef!

We tend to build our board out before we select our missions. It's just more fun to do, and then we might tweak it a bit afterwards. Today we decided to fight over a ruined forgeworld. 

Human ruins make the best xenos playgrounds. 

Da roolz for dis fight are: 

Hammer and Anvil Deployment, Scrambler Fields and Sites of Power. 

This deployment suited out armies well, and deployment went without a problem for either of us. 

Tyranid deployment (Right flank).

Tyranid deployment (left flank)

Ork deployment. 

The Orks went first.  It was noisy and loud but in the end the Tyranids lost only a few models, but one of those, quite painfully, was a Zoanthrope to the well aimed shot from the ork bubblechucka. The Tyranids surged forward and like-wise did little damage to the orks. The Zoanthropes eliminated one of the Nobs from Da Masta Cheef's retinue, an insult he would not soon forget. The Screamer Killer, laughably, missed all six of his shots! 

End of turn 1

Turn 2 and it was time to crank up the heat. The arrival of the ork dive bomba did just that as he dropped a bomb on the Swarmlord and inflicted him with 5 Mortal Wounds! 

Bombs away!

The Kommandos arrived in style in my back field and wiped out a brood of Termagants (the one's with the brains on their backs).  Leaving the Rippers sitting on the objective exposed to a potential charge. 

There was another squad of Termagants here.

Another fight broke out as the termagants that had a toe on an objective was charged by a Boyz squad led by a bad-ass nob. 

Tyranids Turn 2, and I opened up everything that could shoot at the ork Dive Bomba. It's ability to drop Mortal Wounds was too much of a threat to leave it unchecked, however the combined assault left it smoking but  still very much a threat. 

I had a brood of Genestealers assault the Kommandos, however Da Masta Cheef wisely played the Stratagems "orks are never beaten" and "unbridled carnage" to allow them to fight back after their elimination. And they took out half of the Genestealer brood! 

Kommandos and Genestealers bloodbath.

The other of brood of Genestealers on the opposite flank charged a Boyz squad wiping them but sparing the attached character. That guy was a banna waver . And that banna is a bad-ass weapon and it was used to beat the bioengineered snot out a handful of purestrains. Much to our mutual surprise! 

Yell loud and carry a really big stick.

The Swarmlord and Screamer Killer charge the orks hold and objective and totally overkilled that unit. But now they were exposed...

Turn 3, and all the ork guns were trained (or vaguely pointed at) the Tyranid monsters that were on the threshold of storming the ork lines. However the Bubblechucka, again , showed it's worth as Da Masta Cheef rolled a '6' on it's chart which resulted in a Dense Bubble. That was more than enough to destroy the Swarmlord! 

Imagine a dense bubble enveloping the Swarmlord.

The Deffdred (that's the baby squiggoth) and the nob mob along with Da Masta Cheef, charged into the Screamer Killer which is felled by the overwhelming onslaught. 

Dies screaming. 

After killing off the Banna Waver in the Orks turn, the Genestealers charged the Deff Dred/Squiggoth on their turn 3. They were actually successful in tearing it up, but it was still alive and kicking, locking the Genestealers in combat. 

Bring it down! 

On the other side of the board, the Genestealers who had previously tussled with the Kommandos now set their sights on a Boyz mob that was in their way of an objective, only to have that squad's nob survive their onslaught but also kill a few stealers back in return, thus halting the bug-eyez advance! 

"Oy, you can't go on!"

Cheef's turn 4 and the dive bomber returned to cause more havoc. It threw its bomb and bullets into the barbgaunts, eliminating them.

Buzz bomb is back! 

Da Masta Cheef wanted in on the tussle so he and the Boyz wet after the Genestealers that wuz locked in combat with the deff dred/Squiggoth. All of the purestrains were killed but the Broodlord remained. On my go in this Fight Phase I decided to throw everything into the Deff Dred/Squiggoth in the hopes that it would blow up. And although it was destroyed, it failed to blow up. In fact, nothing in this game had a Dead Demise, which is disappointing. 

Broodlord kabobs tonight! 

The Nob was joined by another mob of Boyz who managed to wipe out the Genestealers, that nob was killed however. But now the orks had the so-called Doom in their sights, as well as the last stand of Rippers. 

Dibs on da balloon! 

And we called it here. The nids were not going to survive the war of artiiton, clearly, but by this point the orks were not going to  be caught in the points games either. Final tallied points was 10 to the Tyranids, and 26 to the Orks! Waaargh to Da Masta Cheef, 'e's back!!!! Waaaaaaagh!

It was another fun game. That damn dive bomba really messed up my plans, and although I had some bad dice rolling it wasn't as bad as some of the games I've recently had. I think the MVP of the whole game has to be that Bubblechucka. I am now enthusiastic about building mine and playing orks in this edition. Their rules seem well suited for this edition, where I'm still very much struggling to get a grip on the nids. And this edition in general. I am still 0-4, where Da Masta Cheef remains undefeated...