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So over the past few years I've been bouncing around between a few projects: my retro Ultramarines, my Dark Angels, and my ever-present Valhallans. I find the Valhallans are the army I come back and add to the most, but I've never really had a great nemesis for them. Seeing how I'm going to be working on a Space Stalingrad table at some point, I'd want another army to share their basing that I could either have folks use when they come over or I could ally with them. I figured what better nemesis for Valhallans is there than Orks? Back in the day I had an Ork army I speedpainted called Da Dezz'urt Ratz that looks pretty sloppy in hindsight, so I figured this could be my chance to have a great looking Ork army. Orks have always been my favorite xenos and I thought it'd make a nice change of pace.

For army composition, I wanted to make a very "military" feeling Ork army, with armored Orks riding in trukks, artillery in the rear, and bombers overhead. For the line infantry I plan on doing Ardboyz in halftrakks, with a mix of scratchbuilt, Forgeworld, and kitbashed vehicles representing them. I figured this would also be a fun foil to my Valhallans, with their more serious Red Army look and mix of horde infantry and armor.

So after that wall of text, here's the first squad of 'Ardboyz.










I figure for future squads I'll simplify the scheme a little. These guys are a test scheme for the army, but I'll be trying to batch paint the camo a little more in future squads. Having to go and check every guy in the squad to see if his pants are jungle camo or his shirt is urban camo was a bit of a pain, so I figure by painting them slightly more uniform it'll speed up painting them. Either way, I'm happy with how they came out and there'll be more to come!

Looking forward to seeing these guys come together!

Well keep your eyes on the thread, since I've got some more progress! Today I got a Taurox kit and a Trukk kit and mashed em together to make a pair of Orky transports for the boyz:

Looks sweet. I especially like the looted taurox. er... I mean the one with the front half of the taurox...

I love it! Hopefully you will do a video battle report for us here on Dakka when your table is done and your Orks are painted.

We'll see! I've never done a video battle report, but I've done plenty of text and image-based ones. Then again, who knows what I'll be up to by the time I finish my Space Stalingrad table

Yer Boyz look good, and the looted Taurox is sweet. Some would argue it looks better than the original.

I love how people always say the taurox makes more sense as a halftrack, and then orks will just loot it, make the changes, swap the wrong tracks for tires, and still make it work! How can you not love orks looting stuff. Mixing and bashing stuff together like that makes me deeply envious of the freedom available to some armies. Well done!

I've finished up the first transport for The Blood Axes! I call it Da Scrumvee:






And with the boyz:

Haha, I love how it looks like the Orks stole it from your Valhallans.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Haha, I love how it looks like the Orks stole it from your Valhallans.

That's the idea! I've based them the same so they'll look good together.


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No Warboss worth his teef would go to battle without a proppa' hat.

I'm loving the army so far, and that taurox/ trukk mash up is inspired! I will be stealing that, as I do need 4 trukks for my next army, as it happens.
Top work.

Man that is one swanky warboss. Is he smoking a cigar? If not, he really should be.

 r_squared wrote:
I'm loving the army so far, and that taurox/ trukk mash up is inspired! I will be stealing that, as I do need 4 trukks for my next army, as it happens.
Top work.

Thank you! The Taurox kit is one I actually really like, and getting to use it with another army makes me pretty happy. And hey, it's not stealing, it's looting

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Man that is one swanky warboss. Is he smoking a cigar? If not, he really should be.

Ooh! That's a really great suggestion! He's just got a big cap on one of his teeth that might look like a cigar at that angle. The Nobz kit has a bit which is a cigar pouch; unforunately I don't trust my own sculpting skills since it'd look like he's smoking a giant joint if I ended up making it! I'll look into finding a cigar for him though, it's a good idea.

Time for more 'Ardboyz. I painted them in a more "uniform" style after painting every guy completely different in the last squad, and aside from the shot where you can see a bunch of them wearing the same pants it's not noticeable at all when they're all mobbed up. Once I divide the various boyz around various squads, they'll be a right and proper rabble without me going insane having to paint every guy distinctly and without batch painting.

Oh man, love the scavenged UM pads . Great motley looking crew!

 RiTides wrote:
Oh man, love the scavenged UM pads . Great motley looking crew!

Noticed that myself. I’d say your UMs should take some ork trophies themselves, but that wouldn’t be very 2nd edition of them.

Nice looking bunch of boyz.

Dang it SRM, now I want to go start Orks again, after I just sold them too.

 War Kitten wrote:
Dang it SRM, now I want to go start Orks again, after I just sold them too.

I mean, this is my second go at an Ork army, why not follow suit?

 RiTides wrote:
Oh man, love the scavenged UM pads . Great motley looking crew!

I can't help it - I've just gotta put Ultramarines everywhere I can

Between my guard and the orks I now want to start again it's a wonder I have any money at all.

I finished up my Warboss today, Goldtuf Skullsplitta. This dude was really fun to paint, and I like how the little bits of conversion work turned out.

Another really slick army from yourself man.

Really well done.

The truck conversions are fantastic.

That Warboss looks fantastic. Nice work

Thanks! I'm hoping he'll split some skulls soon enough.

Grots! Buttloads of grots! I got a bunch of these little dudes in a few lots when I bought this army, and while they weren't part of the original plan for my Blood Axes, this just kinda happens with armies, doesn't it? It's a fun mix of old metals, modern plastics, and in a few cases even old plastics when I was short a body or two!



And all 34 of them together. Batch painting will be the death of me:

After going through all those weedy grots, I thought I'd paint something with a little more oomph - finally got around to painting my second trukk!






I think this thing might be my favorite conversion I've ever done, it was a joy to put together, and that moment where everything just clicked made some all the frustration worth it. Fixing it after it fell off my table was less fun though.

Always have a soft spot for Blood Axes. They look ded propa ! Love your Rokkit Launcha on the last one. I always hated whenever a truck fell off the table!!

Thanks! I thought the combination of camo and a grittier look would contrast nicely with the Orks' inherent cartoonishness.

Here's the third mob of 'Ardboyz for my Blood Axes. I used the Kommando big shoota model because I had it lying around, and it's a cool mini you don't see too often. Still undecided what to do for their trukk since I don't want to just make a stock one.

Beautiful Orks. Really nice work.