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On a recent trip to the former dollar store in my area I came across something that really gave me ideas. With just a quick glance I knew this would make a great base for a lot of builds and the $1.25 price point was just right. This Final Faction line really is the gift that just keeps giving. Assembly revealed just how big it is, it is intended for action figures after all, but this wasn't a deal breaker. It did however give me second thoughts on building a Gunwagon though as this would make for a very easy Trukk conversion, next time perhaps. Grabbing some random junk from my collection I started immediately. After just one build session I ended up with this. A pretty respectable start with minimal time investment. Session two really brought it all together. Not too bad for such a small investment (both in terms of time and money). With just a few more details and a some magnets it'll be ready for primer.

Thanks to a generous gift from one of my players, I got a chance to paint the new version of Zodgrod Wortsnogga, the first miniature I painted some 21 years ago. I tried to copy the bizarre color scheme of the original Tamiya Acrylics as much as I could, the new plastic version has some drastic design changes. The new one was using all Reaper paints and Army Painter tones.

With my Cadian army mostly finished (aside from painting nine more squads, the inevitable additions, and tweaks that never really end ) it seemed like a good time to start my wife's army. This week I finally picked up her codex and learned how to build the units to fit this edition (I didn't want to build a bunch of squads only to realize I was short figures because they can't actually take the loadout legally). Next came the task of deciding which clan/clans she wanted to play. She chose the Bad Moons to start, though that could change, but since we'll be using an original color scheme they'll be playable as anything if she wants something different. Choosing her clan lead her straight down the rabbit hole of the Orks lore however. She asked me if I knew anything about them which led to a condensed explanation of their culture, life cycle, tactics, technology, and of course the Waaagh! I honestly wish I had recorded her reaction as each fact seemed to make her eyes get bigger and bigger as she realized just how much craziness there is to absorb. This of course led to us putting a pin in the topic, with me telling her that reading the codex is way more fun than someone just telling you everything. Now she knows the Kill team rules and routinely destroys my Guard team but she has never played 40k, which means creating this army will be a joint venture. I'll assemble and paint the miniatures but we will create the army together with her deciding the troops and their loadouts. For the actual creation I'll be in a purely advisory position. So tonight we started out slowly and talked out the weapon choices of the Runtherder. She decided on the Grabba stick and a squigg, reasoning that she wanted the extra attack and the squigg's morale ability. Once everything was decided I got to work building her Runtherder and gretchins. Then came the task of gathering up everything else we've acquired over the last few months. With winter still causing problems for priming a trip to my brother's garage may be in order.

So I figured I'd just start a WIP thread, rather than clutter up the forum with unnecessary extras. I hate disorder (although you wouldn't be able to tell that from looking at my workspace! LOL) This week's been mostly working on Gremlins from Malifaux, I have Somer, Slophaulers and Skeeters almost done. Still waiting on flying stand order to come in for Skeeters. Somer's the Bayou Boss, and I have other Bayou Gremlins in my pile of to-be-done but we'll see how long it takes me to get to them. Betrayal at Calth (BAC) is a GW box set of Space Marines that's both a board game and a kind of starter set for Horus Heresy 30k (which takes place before the Warhammer 40k sci fi - just for those who don't follow this). My LGS is doing an escalation league for 30k, and is running a contest for painting the box set. it's about 38 miniatures I think. Really hoping I win, even if I don't play the game because the prize is a free Horus Heresy book of our choice And I love books, even more than I love models so books about models... I'm THERE! Anyway here's my pics (except for the BAC which is still currently in its box lol) ^^ Slophaulers - because they, wait for it, haul slop Just finishing base really on these guys Somer - almost done, working on base now and just need cloth highlighted I think ^^ Skeeters (mosquitos) - trying out colour scheme, pretty much still basecoating although I did highlight their backs, wings and eyes (which still need glaze) Also trying to work on getting more lighting in my room for my light box :( so maybe my pictures will come out better =/ C&C is always welcome :) It helps me get better!

Over the past few weeks I've been teaching my wife how to play Kill Team as a stepping stone to 8th edition 40K. There was only one small flaw to this plan however. My wife intends to play daemons in 40K (already has her first box and codex) but the daemons are not a viable faction in Kill Team. So we had to find her a team so I could teach her the much smaller game first. She looked at the different factions and decided to try the Orks. This seemed like a good fit to me, learn a more melee than shooting team in preparation for a more melee army. Seeing as we're transitioning from D&D to 40K we also have a lot of Orks to immediately create a proxy team for her. I assembled a mish mash of miniatures and built her a fairly basic team. We started playing about once a week and I'd introduce new aspects of the game each time. This meant the first couple of games were pretty basic but were easier to pick up. This probably wasn't necessary as she had learned and played a ton of Song of Blades and Heroes with our friends but I know learning new systems can be daunting and a little intimidating for her though, so our first games were really basic. Now that we're pretty close to playing the game with all the rules, tactics, and abilities I'm realizing we may play Kill Team more than I expected. Which of course lead to the creation of this thread because now I have to build and paint my wife an Ork Kill Team for Christmas. I've already purchased two boxes of orks and finished all the preliminary work before painting, so tonight I started my wife's orks. I began with the skin and used Viper Green as a base. That received a wash of Citadel Biel-Tan Green, with a highlight of Muddy Olive which I thought made for a pretty nice effect. I used Nightshade Purple for the "armor" because my wife's favorite color is purple and I simply couldn't think of any other way to get purple on the miniature. And let's be honest purple "armor" isn't any odder than some of the "official" color schemes. Though I managed to start some of the other areas most of the focus tonight was on the flesh and armor. I've also decided to do this project in batches of only two figures; this being a gift for my wife I want them to look better than my Cadian team.

Finished at the last minute, another year in a row of Nurgly Orks for Orctober! These were printed from Duncan Shadow Louca's designs

I was told that my early Orctober project did not count, as I had finished it last month. So, I decided on the last minute addition of some Ork-derived Poxwalkers to go with my current Nurgle Chaos Space Marine project: Parts are from the Warhammer Orks and Orc lines, the Nurgle Plaguekings, and the old Mutation sprue. Mostly.

So I finally got my Gorkanaut on his base, though not the base I wanted. I tried several times to build a grot sandcastle but it just wasn't happening so rather than keep failing I decided to let it go for now and just finish him off as is. Pix:

Praise be to Nurgle! Another Orctober complete, and we're all safe and sound, painting projects finished. Time for a short rest... "Hey, you lot hear that?" "They're coming to get you, Orkra..." "Join us, Orkra...Grandfather loves you, too..." Orks can be Poxwalkers, too, ya know! Even Gork (and maybe Mork) can't help ya now. Flyboy: The Catcher: The Spiker! Grimace! Smiley! Orks+Zombies in O(r)ctober...doubly appropriate for the season!

My son and I have been on a journey over the last nine months to play a campaign of Gorkamorka. Why so long you ask? Well, we decided that we really wanted to do it right and build terrain and mobs and vehicles from scratch. Sure we could have just played with some of the terrain I already had and lord knows I have enough orks to play a game, or thirty, of gomo but we wanted something to do together. We started by building a massive amount of terrain, WAY more than we could ever use on even four tables of gomo but we wanted variety and versatility. That thread can be found here, very pic heavy. After that was finished we started building mobs and playing games to get the rules down before we really start our campaign with our gaming group. I have been starting project logs for a few of them, here are the Diggas where I built their trukk and the mob itself. I have started painting them here but had to briefly put them on hold to build another mob for a test game coming up soon. That trukk and mob build can be found here, they are the Goffs and they are proud of it. This is probably our twelfth game or so, we are really starting to get the rules down and games are much quicker than our first couple. It had been a solid twelve or more years since I had played a game but once we started most of the rules came right back. This game took us less than an hour total, that was from table set up to post game book keeping. Granted this was a very quick and non bloody game so that helped quite a bit. Alright, here we go...3...2...1.... The dessert spread out far and wide before Gorbad and crew as they hurtled across the sand in their brand new trukk, it had only been crashed once before the meks sold it to him for only twenty teef. Pretty good deal since the mek had originally said he couldn't sell it for less than twenty-two. Gorbad smiled to himself, he had some hagglin' skills to rival a Deathskull, that was for sure. Sweat rolled into his eyes causing him to snap back to the moment as he wiped the sting from his eyes and the sand from his face. Overhead the sun beat down as relentlessly as ever, it was early day but the temp was already climbing to almost unbearable even for an ork such as himself. There was never a moment of respite on this world he thought. All the hardship,fighting and scraping was good for his lads though, gave them something to do and kept the yoofs out of trouble. Gorbad was snapped back to reality again as Grimgut, the new spanner and driver of the new trukk, was screaming something that he couldn't hear over the roar of the centrally mounted engine. Grimgut was now frantically pointing in the direction they were headed. Before Gorbad could turn to see what was out there Snazbad, the new yoof of the mob, was frantically tugging on his arm. "Wat!?!" bellowed Gorbad at the light green yoof. "Boss, I seez somethin'!", Snazbad was also pointing in the direction they were headed. Sneering at the yoof but holding off from smackin' him across the back of his skull for fear of finding a soft spot Gorbad was finally able to turn his attention to the desert in front of them. A large ramp down into the skid could be seen and right at the bottom of it, some no good stinkin' Freebootas! A smile crept onto Gorbad's face, "Hit the Red Button! he screamed at Grimgut. The trukk bounced across the rough desert ground and all the boyz roared in their excitement. (Here are a couple shots of the terrain we are playing over before anything was deployed.) (Here are the forces deployed.) (The freebootas) (The Goffs) Those git Freebootas was caught out in da desert diggin' scrap like a bunch a grots thought Gorbad, his smile gettin' bigger, and more full of sand by the second. The thunderous roar of his new trukk and boyz musta scared them no good Freebootas, before Gorbad and 'is boyz could get to 'em and give 'em a good whoopin' they was in they trukk and tryin' ta get away. Their good for nothin' bad mek was behind the controls of the vehicle and hittin' the Big Red Button before he even had the gas engine started! Their vehicle lurched ahead straight toward The Last Rock forcing their mek to slam on the breaks. Gorbad was yellin' for Grimgut to t-bone them but somehow over the roar of the engine his message was lost and the new spanner skid stopped the trukk sideways, headed straight for the side of the cliff. Both mobs crammed to the sides of their trukks facing the other mob and let loose with every ranged weapon they could bring to bare. The bad mek, still without his gas engine started, was smooshing the Big Red Button nonstop! In an amazing turn of luck all this accomplished was that the low ridin' git wagon spun 'round and faced almost straight at the center of a large dune of soft sand. Gorbad saw that this was the moment he needed and once again he yelled for Grimgut to ram the stinkin' Freebootas while they were in a bad position. The spanner must have heard this time as he skillfully turned the new trukk 'round the right way and Gorbad could hear the thrusters begin to whine up, the vehicle lurched forward and then stopped. Gorbad, once again, whirled to see what the new spanner was doin' only to see him pulling out a hammer and beatin' on the Red Button....he must not be strong enough to push it he thought. He ducked just in time as he saw Zogstruk, the new gunner of the new trukk, fire the harpoon gun at the enemy. He wrenched his head around just in time to see the massive harpoon glance off the engine and stick in the sand. Then the roar of weapon fire was deafening as once more both mobs opened fire with everything they could. Gorbad's heart jumped in his chest as he saw the Kaptin' fall face first from their low ridin' trukk. His joy didn't last any longer than a few quick heartbeats as the tough old git crawled back into da trukk, the bad mek started his gas engine and tore off across the desert, followed by blasts from their thrusters taking them almost out of range to even think about chasing after them. Gorbad screamed at Grimgut to give her everything she had and catch up to them before they were too far away. The spanner revved the gas engine, threw it into gear, spun the vehicle around to give chase and mashed the Red Button only to loose control and skid to a stop facing the cliff and a tank trap. Gorbad watched as the no good Freebootin' gits sped off out of sight with a trukk full of scrap.... Needless to say, I(Gorbad and the goffs) did not win this one. My son did exactly what he had to do to win, get off the table with the most scrap, and win he did. It was a fun, funny, orky game, full of awesomely horrible dice rolls for both of us. However, in a game like this sometimes that will actually make for a much more entertaining game. Gorbad, his back against the side of the armored crew compartment, slid down until his bottom was on the bed of his new trukk. He began fumblin' through his cigar pouch searching for the only thing that may help him feel a little better about his life choices at the moment. At last he found it, the last stump of his last cigar. He brought it to his mouth and began searchin' for his lighter in his chest pocket. He found it, quickly pulled it out, struck it and nothing happened. Gorbad looked at the heavy, metal lighter and saw that it had caught a bullet, at least he could rely on someone in his mob he thought before he roared and threw it at Snazbad, hitting him behind his right ear. The yoof crumpled like a grot under a slavers whip. Gorbad and the other boyz roared in laughter. Hope you enjoyed it as much as we did...

This is another mob build for our games of Gorkamorka. This one is a more traditional mob made of orks and vehicles, no grots allowed. Goffs are pretty straightforward, even for orks. They don't go for subterfuge, most of them don't even know what that means let alone understand the concept or why you would want to fight that way. They are the epitome of orkiness, believing that might is right, that the biggest and toughest should run the show and that arguing the point will just get ya a fat lip with a few less teef behind it. Now all orks view life this way to an extent but the goffs live it. Hand to hand, usually to the death, is their favorite way of settling any sort of dispute. While they understand there is a need for longer ranged combat it is viewed more as a sort of crippling or distracting tactic used to let the goffs get close enough to get stuck in. Understanding this about them I wanted their trukk to be a sort of ork delivery system. I decided that the ork crew should be right at the front of the vehicle for easy disembarkation into hand to hand. In game there will be no different rules for the trukk but will look truly proppa for goffs. I had a rough idea how I was going to make this work but as usual I just jumped in without blueprints and started the build. As per the directions the tires and frame are assembled first but this is where the standard trukk stops, I even went with a third party engine. As with most of my trukks I removed the middle suspension and cleaned up the frame. This made the perfect place for the engine to sit centrally on the frame. This made the distance between engine and rear axle super short so I had to cut down the drive shaft to almost nothing. I ended up cutting even more out of the drive shaft to finally make a fit. This set the rear axle at a strange angle but with the tires in place you can't tell. Moving to the front axle now to make sure everything sits at an angle that still makes the trukk look like a hotrod I was fairly certain I was not going to be able to use the axle as is out of the box. Setting it in place proved this to be the case as the front of the trukk was actually higher than the rear end, with the tires in place this would have made it pretty much level. Not really acceptable for this trukk. Looking at the front axle I could see that just flipping it over may work, which would be great as it would mean an easier fix than trying to rebuild a cut up axle. This had the trukk sitting pretty much level which means with the tires on would leave the rear end jacked up as I wanted. Alright, with the trukk sitting pretty much as I wanted I could move back to the engine. I needed to set the radiator somewhere and decided to just try to sit it right in front of the engine. This actually worked pretty well with just some very minor removal of some rivets off the frame and some bending of the radiator hose. I needed to attach the nitrous tank somewhere but this engine has no flat places for any sort of attachment.....what better place than to just have it dump into the fuel tank! Next up was the exhaust, the right side was perfect for the stock pipes, the left side not so much so. The problem here is that the pipe is in the way of the tire being able to sit right on the axle. I had originally thought I would be able to run it just behind and above the tire to come out the rear end like this. Which would have been cool had it worked. Now I am considering something more like this. The problem with this is that I was worried that it would be in the way of the central cockpit that I was thinking of building for the driver. In the end I went with this instead. With this settled I moved on to the construction of the cockpit. I started by cutting the front of the cockpit piece from the trukk kit up into the larger pieces, getting rid of the central connection piece and tracing the shape of the two pieces glued together onto some plasticard. I lost a pic of the front cockpit piece. It sits nicely onto the frame after cutting all the rivets and bolt heads off and adding a spacer to each of four plates on the frame to give just the slightest bit more height, mostly so the driver could see over the engine. Time to start adding some of the driver controls to the cockpit. The steering column and the floor mounted gear selector were fitted with the help of the driver. A rear panel, a windscreen and side roll bars added to get the feel of the cockpit. The driver is not glued and won't be as they need to be removable for game purposes. I realized at this point that I have no where to put a gunner, I didn't want to put him in the front crew compartment with the rest of the boyz.as he would take up enough space for two boyz that way. Giving some thought to this I decided that using the rear of the drivers cockpit was the only option at this point. More thought and some time playing with some bits I actually found a use for the mostly standard gunners turret of the trukk kit. Playing with this piece and some tubing I created a sort of rear turret that I got involved in the build deep enough to not take pictures of the process. I may need to reinforce this as it just sort of hangs off the back end and is only attached by the pipe frame and the front of the turret plate. Moving on to the front of the trukk and the crew compartment made me realize that it would have to be a multi level deck with a lower central area sitting on the frame and raised areas over the wheels. I wanted the deck to be long enough and wide enough to be able to hold six to eight orks, With the 25mm bases and the wide orks this meant that the deck needed to be roughly three inches by three inches. With that in mind I cut the central piece to get a feel for how this would look on the frame. While this appears very long it actually puts the total length of the vehicle at just two inches longer than the digga trukk, which is roughly one inch longer than the standard build of the trukk. At this point I got into the build and forgot that I even had a camera nearby. Here is the final overall shape of the vehicle with some minor details started. Comparison shots with the digga trukk. Same width and just slightly longer. The big shoota/weapon connection sorted and magnetized. The gunner is not glued in place as removal may be needed during the game. A bull skull with big horns is the goff clan symbol so of course the trukk needed one. If I can find a larger one I'll switch it out in a heartbeat. That is where I left this yesterday and all it needs now is rivets and some plating here and there to look more ramshackle and proppa. The boyz and nobz will be built after I get the trukk finished. Oh yes, that is another big difference the goffs have to other mobs, they can have two additional nobz in the mob. Other ork clanz can have only a single nob to lead them into battle. Well, hope you guys enjoy my mad mek workshops as much as I do. Until next time.

Took some pics of my finished warbiker conversion (this is based on a deffkopta, basically a little helicopter) - WIP pics are in my wip thread. I tried several new things, mostly water effects in a more cinematic style. Tried to make the water look like it was spraying or kicked up by the bike wheels. Also did some droplet effects. Overall it's ok, not quite what I was hoping for but next time will be even better I'm sure.

A friend on MWG (Sperian) came up with a guide for converting a deffkopta into a bike. Something that seems to get done a lot, actually. But anyway, I used his guide, so this is not my idea or anything, I just executed it. It's mostly done atm though I am trying to decide if I maybe want to put a KFF on it. So, I cut the skis off the deffkopta, the arm holding the rotor and the back... rotor thingy off. I used a wheel from a Space Marine bike and a large buggy wheel from Kromlech (they do awesome ork bits). You can see I broke the handlebars off, which are of a piece with the riders arms. I also cut off two of the four rockets on the front, to be able to mount guns. Second one is not yet in place in this shot. The mudgards on the back are from the deffkopta rotor - which conveniently had broke anyway. The hubcap thing is a fantasy ork shield. In these shots, I decided I needed to add a fork to the front, on either side, so I cut some likely sprue bits and plasticard tubing to mimic them. Hard to see but I also stuck a ork emblem, from a deff dread kit, on the front of the bike. The "chain" is my fave part of Sperian's invention here - it's from the wrecking ball of a trukk and you just basically cut it at an angle and glue it as shown. I had a bit of trouble getting it to align right - per usual he makes everything look easy. Here it is in its current (done) incarnation - at least til I decide to add more! I stuck a spare gun on the bike, a back plate (hanging off mud guards), a couple of exhaust pipes (which I'm pretty sure are from a Trukk kit), I cut out the inner part of the back rotor and stuck it on the front wheel. The second gun on the front is, as best I recall, one of the guns from a character from GWs Betrayal at Calth set. The head is a Kromleck 'cyber pyrate' head; it's only blue tacked on so it looks pretty funny atm. the arms aren't actually attached yet either, permanently as I wanted to be able to get in there and paint. And finally I made a holder for the boss pole, with the grot hanging off of it. It's also not 100% glued in yet, also for painting. The GS was still really drying in this pic too. I need to go back over stuff and fill holes etc. make sure I got mold lines and all that. Then hopefully I can start painting! *edit* for reference: a view of an unconverted kopta Some other views for those interested:

I'm BACK! Sorry for the long absence. But, I've still been painting and I give you a 200pt Ork Kill Team I painted up and played. These won the best painted award nearly unanimously (I never vote for myself) and sadly went 0 of 3. I though I'd share them here and let everyone know I'm still ok. Group Shot (sorry, camera was really dirty and didn't know it) Some indiviual shots of some of the Orks (not all of them though)

So when this model came out I had to have it, as, I suspect, did every other ork player as well. It just screams WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHcoughcoughOrk. Anyways, been working on it for about a week? I think. Sadly it is now finished and I have to find a new project :( :( Sadness.

Just like 2015, I realized the end of Orctober was quickly approaching, and I hadn't painted a single Orc! I had to remedy that, but I went through the box of "primed and ready" and found the Orcs...lacking. I had to build a few, and these were the results of those most near completion already. First, we have a group shot: "C'mon, boyz, dance like ya mean it! Show the crowd what they came here fer!" Some solo shots of the notorious Kap'n Kee-Runch, a Freeboota of little note. He's assembled from the Tankbusta Nob, arms from the plastic Nob box, and a pirate Ork head from Spellcrow. Then we have savages, the lot of them: A very agile lot of Savages. Check out those dance moves! That's the end of that.

So, I'm about to start really painting my Orks for 40k and my theme for them is Pirate - which is going to include a lot of conversions eventually and what not based on nautical ships. Where I'm stuck atm is coming up with a more or less cohesive colour scheme for them. 40K orks are fairly garish but dingy, as they've seen a lot of battles. Reds, Yellows, and Blues are common, pretty much primary colours. Their skin is almost always done up in dark greens. I am going with the greenskin but for an overall colour scheme I just don't know what to do. Some of the guys I've painted with blue pants (which are going to have white stripes on them, eventually). I don't want blue to be my main colour, overall, nor the other two most prevalent just because they're done a lot. I was thinking about the use of orange as an accent, to tie all the army together. The metals are going to be pretty usual steel, with maybe some brass here and there. Ruddy leather for the leathers, where appropriate, I think. 40k orks have a lot of orky symbols, and such that people usually paint in a variety of colours - these are more what I was thinking of doing the orange on. I was wondering what the more experienced painters thought about this idea, and other accent colours to go with? Purple's not too far off the colorwheel from blue, which is across from the orange. I am not into colour theory, I try to stick with what I know goes together, and I really don't know about orange, nor have I every used it to my knowledge, to paint anything other than fire. So it's good to stretch, and Orks give a lot of room for variety as well, I think. So suggestions are appreciated :D thanks all!

Studs for the Stud Throne! LEGO Warhammer 40k