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Teek presents:

Assault on BLAND Reach, Easy Ork Conversions!

So you figured out how great a value the "Assault on Black Reach" box set was, and bought a couple to bulk up your force. What has that left you with? Probably this:



That's right. A sea of ork boys, in mind-numbingly similar poses.

Problem: The box grants you 9 individual weapons, but only 3 different torsos. Bland...





Solution: A knife, some glue, and the following simple, easy tips!

What you will need:
Leave the plastic card and greenstuff at home. For these tips, all you will need is a hobby knife and some glue! I'll leave more advanced conversion tips to another tutorial. Just some cutting and gluing, it's really that simple!


Tip #1: Easy arms!

Cutting and re-positioning arms is a very easy way to drastically alter a model's appearance. The trick is to make cuts in places where they won't be noticed. Arm bands, wrist cuffs, sleeves, and other natural seams are great places to cut and reposition because they hide cuts well, and still look natural when re-assembled. I've grabbed one of each type of torso to demonstrate.


This arm is tucked in against the body, but you can still re-position it. A careful cut on the red line, and the arm band will hide any evidence when glued back together.


Cuts made at the wrist, and right where the arm meets the body will allow a good range of new poses, while using the model's existing detail to hide the cuts.


Another closely tucked arm, but this time we can cut the wrist and weapon itself to allow a little bit of posability.


Now all you need to do is pick a new pose, and glue the arms together accordingly.

In my examples below, the "new" pose is on the left, with the boring old stock model pose on the right.




In the last one, I've flipped the sword upside down to give the Ork a more cunning fighting stance. I recommend you pin these arms when you assemble them, for more info on pinning, check out Cypher871's excellent tutorial here.

Now on to the other arm...


Tip #2: Shoulder Armpits!

This is a great little trick I've used for a long time. It's a quick and easy way to change up the monotony of infantry arms. What you're going to do is cut a small, "orange slice" piece off the top half of the shoulder.




Your "orange slices" should look like this:



Now all you do, is take the "orange slice" that you cut off the top of the shoulder, and glue it to the bottom! See the pictures for explanation:



This raises the arm, and gives a bit more meat to the underside (armpit), changing the angle at which it attaches to the model's torso. A little filing, and they blend together seamlessly.



The final product!

A quick reposition of the right arm, and an easy shoulder-armpit on the left, and your model is now a brand new, one-of-a-kind! Ready to stand out in a sea of static poses!

Left side: Stock Model
Right Side: Converted model




Before and After:


And there you have it! A few simple, easy tricks you can use to help vary the appearance in a large squad of static posed troops. What other easy tricks have you come up with?

Nice work, but too ambitious for me. I just did a standard paint job on mine, and I'm not even done with all of them. But, if you want them to be different poses, more power to you! My big ambitious project will be the plastic Nobz box set, which I may even buy a digital camera for.

The "orange slice" idea is nice!

I did a similar simple conversion on my BR orks but simply used a tiny bit of green stuff to fill out a gap in the armpit and make the arms a bit more dynamic.


My addition:
If you are going to put these guys together, buy some of your other ork box sets either before or with it. (Nobz, Stormboyz, any vehicle)

The ork boxes come with SO MANY extra bits and gewgaws youll have tons of stuff left over to give these guys a little more character.

Nice, this should work for other races too, good tutorial

i used a similar thing too SM's afetr reading this , works well i must say

WOAH! i love the switcheroony on the top of the slugga arm!

Exellent tutorial shall be using this on my BR orks good job!

Very nice, and I'm jealous that I didn't think of it sooner. Looks like another box of AoBR is in my future.

Thanks! I have about 13 Black Reach orcs I am planning to convert, and this should really help with the ideas!

Here are some simple conversions I did in the Past with Black Reach Boyz+Nobz

-Big Shoota Convesion: I carefuly cut the Warbosses Shoota off the arm of my spare Warboss. I then Glued it to a spear arm from my Fantasy Orcs (Sans Spear). This gave me a cool new big shoota. I clipped the left arm off my Big shoota boy and replacesd it with a Fantasy Orc Choppa.

-Gunslinger and Two Axes: I selected a Nob that held it's Slugga in it's right hand. I then took a Left-Hand Nob Slugga and attached it. useing the spare Left-Hand Choppa, I then stuck it on a Right-Hand Choppa Nob. Easy!

-Big Shoota 2: For this, take the Big shoota From the first conversion. Carefully cut the Ammo Clip Off, then Glue it Onto the other Big Shoota. More Dakka!

If you pick up a box of Lootas & Burnas, too, you can combine the 5 bodies and 11 weapons from said box with 6 AOBR Boy bodies to make:

4 Lootas
4 Burnas
1 Mek with Kustom Mega-blaster
1 Boy with Big Shoota
1 Boy with Rokkit

I'll be using your recommendations on the other 14 though.

A really good way to break up the Monotony a bit is to use Fantasy Orc Bits to replace the Choppas.

PS: Tried a few conversions, they were sweet!

Nice, simple and effective. The hallmarks of a truly great tutorial!

simple and good fun
good work!

Simpe but effective. I have an AOBR set not assembled so I guess a litte conversion is in order.

this is a brill conversion to do iv all ready done most of mine

Awesome! I'm gonna start converting my orks tomorrow. By the way, like the title

@ Warhammer_4, while i thank you for bringing this up as it is awesome. Threadomancy (the act of bringing up old threads via commenting on them) is generally frowned upon. Please check the dates before you comment on stuff.

Nice Tutorial

Now if only you could turn them into the more useful shoota boyz!

Thank you!

I also used the Nobz box spare parts to make more conversions, but anyway this is very good way to make ork conversions.

Clthomps wrote:Nice Tutorial

Now if only you could turn them into the more useful shoota boyz!

You could chop off the front of the slugga and rplace with a shoota bit, I'll try and photoshop one up to show you

too bad i already assembled and painted my black reach orks AND sealed them before i read this...made me sad

Now if only you could turn them into the more useful shoota boyz!

You could chop off the front of the slugga and rplace with a shoota bit, I'll try and photoshop one up to show you

No need! This guy just cuts the choppa arm off:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO4KJQQ9oss
works like a charm

Great tutorial and just what I needed now (10 boys done and 10 to go).

Thank you for the ideas and tutorial.

You are the ace, teek.

ThaNK! this is GREAT, do you have one for Space Marines?

^^ Yeah a SM one would be great. But as i am an ork player i loved this!!

This is a very useful tutorial!

I will definitely be using these tips as I tackle my remaining 4 copies of AoBR!

Ive used the shoulder trick for years, it really is a simple/easy way to take a static model and make it look action posed. Nice tutorial

I hope people will forgive thread necromancy - it seems pointless launching a new thread, when this one is so fab, and comes up in Google searches.

We're bulking up our Ork boyz with 30 AOBR. So we're trying different techniques to convert sluggas to shootas.

First you'll see the easy way, if you have a spare shoota barrel. Bulk up the slugga, for instance wiht one of those little skull plates, and glue the shoota barrel on.

Second, you'll see three different constructions.

The problem with these is drilling the barrels well enough so they look passable. Any tips would be much appreciated, I'm drawing a line, setting the hole with a scalpel, then drilling.

One easier way might be to do the taped barrel, which requires fewer holes. Anyone with experience how to do that? I have green stuff, but can imagine being able to squash it flat enough.