Last year I attended the harvester of souls in spoken Washington. I brought a ghazghkull supplement dredd mob…needless to say it didn’t do well at all.
My bigmek warlord “geargutz” went back to the mek shop drawing board. The killa kanz, deffdredds, and morkanauts were all dedd ‘ard, killy, and had some uv the best dakka, but they were too slow and easy targets. He needed some way to make them fast and harder to hit.
After a while, the local painboy, “dok blud back,” had done a little extra cybork surgery to a stormboy. After several hours, and a few nicks at the hydraulic scrap bin, the 1st stormbork was created. When geargutz saw the stormbork in action he found the solution to his problem.
Teef stompah the 1st stormbork was an amalgamation of speed, dakka, and survivability. He had new shock absorbent cybork legs, a snazzy twin linked dakka gun, an extra rippy poweklaw, and some quickly bolted on ‘eavy armor. This all would normally make him as slow as a mega nob, but a triple thruster nitro rokkitpack solved that. What was basically three normal rokkitpacks strapped together would jettison any stormboy into the stratosphere, instead it allowed the stormbork to just skim above the ground at great speed.
Geergutz took the concept of the dok’s stormbork (ork patent pending) and enhanced it, making harder, better, faster, stronger stormborks. Soon enough he will have a force that will sweep over the harvester of souls.
Enter his mekshop and see the creation of “dah dredd storm.”
(sorry for the horrible lighting on the photos…had to use flash or else I wouldn’t get any real detail in the pictures)
Droves of stormboyz gather for the chance to become stormborks. Most will die horrible deaths, much to the entertainment of their comrades, before they earn enough teef to undergo the surgery, but they keep trying.
Instead of buying actual stormboy models, I decided to dip into the large pool of boyz I owned. To get their legs in a convincing enough flying pose I simply cut off their feet, trimmed a little off the heel, and reglued. That coupled with nails for flying bases (I have the clear flying stands…but cheap hardware store nails are much more durable), and these boyz look like they are ready to leap into combat.
The rokkitpack and pauldrons were made from cut up mechanical pencils. The pualdrons made from the outer caseing help represent the harness that holds the rokkitpack on them. The other rokkitpacks were from some megablocks sets and tau jet thrusters and skyray missles. Plasticard (from for sale signs) helps tie in the different parts with bolted on plates and spikes.
The leaders of my stormboyz (they help make the stormboy zagstrukk formation). The nobz were actualy made by my brother, you can see his amazing conversion work on
http://bitsaddiction.blogspot.com/ . the bigger one in the middle is “eye strukk”, he’s my counts as zagstrukk. His main body is made from a starwars droid toy.
Eye strukk’s jump pack is made from old gundam toys.
Now for the stormborks. They will be my next big project. I will need to make 17 of these guyz. If you haven’t guessed by now, my stormborks are counts as warbikers. On the right is the nob with
pk (body made from a tau crisis suit). The two models on the left are what will be the rank and file storm borks. They are mega blocks halo “elite” minifigs….with enough plasticard and paint I can make them look like something else then the original minifig.
rokkitpacks on the normal stormborks were made from cut up pens. Despite the bike base, I have been worried that they don’t look warbike enough to be accceptible “counts as.” I think ill add wheels to the legs (for a code geass nightmare frame/heavy gear sort of feel). The nob ill think ill keep as is…he is the only warbiker boss nob in my army, and if he stays with the stormborks he will blend in enough (I hope).
Now while the majority of the “dredd storm” are all variants of improved stormboyz, these “deff jumpahs” are actually lootas put on a mobile piloted frame. They will be my counts as deffkoptas.
All my counts as defkoptas will come with
tl roket launchas. I added extra roket pods above the driver (personally I feel like the original
aobr defkopta model should’ve had more rokets to represent at least 4 turns of
tl shooting). The legs are made from old gundam toys (the action figures sold here in America when gundam was big on cartoon network).
The combination of the
aobr deffkopta as the main body, and the reverse jointed gundam legs makes these deff jumpahs look like an ork copy of the
ig sentinel. Though to help sell this as a counts as defkopta, I added thrusters to the legs (with more platicard and a good exhaust paint effect it will look like convincing jet thusters). The way Imagined these boyz moving was taking large strides, and when they need to fly over terrain and ruins they would jump and activate their thrusters…hence their namesake.
The stormborks were much more survivable then any normal boy, and so eventually more of them grew to the status of nobz. Those strom nobz who also collected themselves a hoard of teef could afford the next phase of the stormbork surgery. The stormdredd has the firepower of the deffjumpahs, vastly improved jet thrusters for incredible speed, and the addition of used killa kan klaws. The storm dredds will be my counts as deffkoptas with buzzsaws.
The base model is from the recent “gundam assault kingdom” model line. These models are small enough for conversion work in Warhammer
40k (not as big as average gundam model kits), I can easily see people using them as tau battle suits, admek automatons, or any plethora of stompy robots in the setting. The normal boy arms popping out of the torso give that great look of the “land mate” from the anime “appleseed.”
Another assault kingom model. The giant klaw is from my old collection of gundam toys. The grenade launcher is bashed together from a mechanical pencil (I love these cheep writing utensils, I can make jet thrusters, roket pods, and all sorts of large barreled guns).
This storm dredd was bashed together from many different toys.
a comparison scale. Just to make sure that the counts as defkoptas with buzzsaws are close to the same size of the counts as normal defkoptas… well, close enough for me.
Not based yet, but this is “dok limb scav”. My counts as painboy on warbike. Used more of those awesome tau crisis suit bits. Its hard to see but he has ork arms and legs collected in his pack.
This is my bigmek on bike with
kff, they call him “mek gyvah”. The riptide shield makes for a perfect conduit for a
kff or mff….those cute little tachikoma models are going to be his counts as ammo runts….ungh…too cute
And now for the warlord of the dredd storm. After many fights and upgrades, eventually teef stompah (the 1st stormbork) became a warboss of great influence and is now known as “dredd stompah.” He leads the stormborks into the heart of battle with skill and ferocity. He will be my counts as
fw “zhadsnark”.
The giant chainsaw with roket thrusters helps represent the initiative 4
pk. The
tl bigshoota is made from an old gundam “heavy arms” toy. The main body is yet another old gundam toy (I just love those zeon mobile suits).
As for being a counts as zhadsnark…I hope many would be willing to overlook the fact that he looks nothing like a warbiker warboss… but I just love the flying pose. I might add some wheels or tredds on the legs (just like ill do for the counts as warbikers).
As you might tell im a big fan of stompy robots. One of the things that drew me to orks was their amazing looking walkers…but unfortunately for me, and many other ork players, I found out that walkers suck in 7th edition.
While ive never been interested in doing a warbiker army (unfortunately for me again, it is about the only ork army that is good), I am willing to run warbikes if they are all converted to gnat robots and cyborgs.
There is a lot of work left to do on my buyz. Much more conversion work, ample application of plasticard, and an attempt to do a paintjob that will do them justice…and ill post pics of my progress in the future.
I am open to criticism and advice (as long as it is all constructive).
