shasolenzabi wrote:Looking good there Gitsplitta! a right fine land battleship ya got there!

Thanks shas, I'm quite partial to it myself!

inmygravenimage wrote:That's a great plan! I have to say that the one thing this needs is to be crawling with crew, IMHO. Do you have the old Rackham goblin pirates? They'd be awesome, too.

Unfortunately no... and apparently they come at a premium now-a-days, if they can be had at all.

Hruotland wrote:As long ze Kapitän has still his monocle, I giff you my blessing. Pirate stodgy german grotz are ze epitome of funny.

Done.

That's a funny vehicle. It will definitely look good when you paint it.

Yeeeeesss YESSS! You hit the nail right on the head with this tank, Gits. Cant wait to see it get color

Wow, can't wait to see you paint the gargantuan squiggoth! It's huge


Between that and the hierophant, you've got quite the airbrushing task ahead of you! Would be neat to do a scenario with them squaring off (or just an epic battle using LoW) when you're done

wow that is huge, didn't realise it was that big.....

Edit: Seems you have the power of making stealth squiggoth's RiTides

Excellent plan Gits

However if you are going the full pirate crew look then I really think your idea of wooden decking comes back to the fore

Wooden planks, badmoon be-dazzle and dwead piwates ahoy!

Good point.

Things may get a bit rearranged here as I have to do a quickie pain't job on an Ork truck for a campaign that starts next week. Anyone have a spare? I'm still one short & there's not much on ebay.

Posting your walls tomorrow, I hope, will throw a trukk in, but don't now how long it will take to get to you!

Thanks Cam. Usually around 10 days. PM the the cost so I can cover it. You are too generous... you should save that trukk for your own army!

I am afraid it is nothing special, just a standard trukk, with a bad Cam paint job, but it will do you in a pinch, you can give it a lick of paint later. I would suggest if anyone else has who is a bit nearer they should maybe offer as well.



Oh and my army? What army? I have an aweful lot of miscelanious rubbish, doubt it counts as an army even in this unbound world we live in.

The paint work on that trukk is alrghty, better than fighting the shiney metal Orks or the Grey Legion Orks, get it?

There's absolutely nothing wrong with the paint on that model. Thank you for such a generous offer Cam. It's far more than I was hoping for.

I haven't been idle over the past few days... though admittedly a bit side-tracked by the whole trukk thing. One of the many things that annoy me about the trukk model (I have one that's built & painted) is that the bed is so small that often you can't even put an HQ and one representative of the squad it carries. Not only that but the stupid rear roll-bar often prevents you from putting anything at all in there. Stupid.

In order to remedy this, I carefully removed the back roll bar from the trukk. I found a broken-off boarding plank (another gripe) and glued it on to the back of the trukk bed like an open tailgate. I then took the roll-bar and glued it on to the back of the truck (pointing to the rear) like a low rail over the tailgate. This simple modification made enough room to comfortably put two meganobs in the back (say to represent your warlord & the squad), six boys or an HQ and 2 or 3 boys (enough to cover the nob and special weapon so as to remind you what's inside). The low rail formed by the former roll-bar prevents the figures from sliding off the back when you move the vehicle on the table.

The second project is an e-bay rescue of a partially built truck I picked up years ago. Someone had built the chasse and put an enclosed cab on it. Neat build, if not quite as brilliant as we've come to expect from the super-star ork builders on dakka. It's missing some of the basic trukk parts though. I happened to have an extra trukk ram (no idea how I got that) so I put that on. I gave it the same tailgate treatment as the other though I didn't have any roll-bars, so I made my own out of plastic tubing. I had a chance to use some of Zinge's rivets... they worked brilliantly. I highly recommend them. I also added cab steps and exhaust pipe tops out of random bits (nothing special). It was also missing the outer trukk bed walls.... so I discovered a piece of bridge-girder that I'd picked up years ago for a special project and used that to make the trukk bed sides a little more substantial. My last remaining problem is figuring out how to mount some kind of gun so that it ends up in roughly the same place as it exists on a "stock" truck (just for ease of playability). The enclosed cab design makes this problematic. I also want the ability to add a boarding plank, but rather than sticking straight up from one of the sides, I might just magnetize one so it can be added to the side of the trukk.

Sorry I don't have any pics. Last couple of days have been busy at the extremes and I just didn't get the time to do photographing & photoshoping. I'll get some pics tonight for sure.

Sounds like some good changes to make the trucks more convenient to use.

Get some pictures soon though, or it didn't happen.

Finally home... fed the family, plowed the driveway, thawed out.

Here are some pics.

Truck #1: The modification itself is pretty subtle and blends nicely in with the rest of the truck. Just the tailgate and rail in the back. The "proof of concept" though is in the payload (which you can't do on a normal truck).




Truck #2: The build I got was the chassis, including the engine, cab with stacks from an old rhino the bed (just floor and angled walls) & tires of course. All I did was add the front ram bits (which I had), the steps, tops of the stacks, tailgate apparatus and girders to improve the look and utility of the bed. You can see six orks fit inside with no overlapping of bases... though I could go old school and just pile of a squad of 10 or so in there and I'd bet they'd stay just fine.

It really is fascinating to me to see the design decisions made when they make these things.

Gits, remind me to plan a trip to visit everyone where you are, sometime this year.

--B.

These are looking both excellent and practical, mate.

Really nice conversions Gits.

Nice seeing extended bed trukks

Spent tonight magnetizing the guns. I thought that would be the last impediment to painting but there are issues with the side sponsons that are going to take some work to sort out. Getting close though.



Magnetizing the guns wasn't particularly fun... and there was some fooling around to do, especially with the twin rokkit launchers in front. They just wouldn't line up properly & really looked like hell so I had to add a couple of cross-braces to keep them in place. The whole apparatus is magnetized however and can be removed. I'm also going to have to change the pose of the first mate on the bow a bit as his sword interferes with the movement of the front turret.

... and I think I just figured out a pretty easy fix fir the side sponsons... That'll be tomorrow morning's project!

Tis' a fine vessel you have there Gits. Needs more grots though.

I know this has been driving you totally nuts mate. But, it looks amazing - great job, grotmeister.

This... is what I spent ALL BLEEDIN' DAY on. Getting the side sponsons to fit and traverse correctly & getting they and their KMBs painted.



I expected to be working on painting the main part of the tank already... but I guess that'll have to wait for tomorrow.

But it was worth it, they look beautiful.

You a martyr to the cause of awesome.

Lol :-) I know the feeling, you spend all day thinking how cool it's gonna look and how much you'll achieve not to mention showing us! and then PRESTO you upload pictures and think "huh how did I waste today doing this?" but still pop them up because dammit I SPENT ALL DAY! :-)


but it really does look good Gits! is that Vallejo brassy brass I see?

They do look a tight fit. So good job.

It's the little jobs that take the time, I find, but they are always worth it in the end. Every little victory adds up.

Basic airbrushing is done. Here you can see how I intended those side sponsons to look given a proper tank color.

Trucks look great. All the Ork stuff looks too small.

Grot mega tank will be a excellent addition to you Grot theme. Keep us informed on the campaign.

That is gonna be one stunningly glorious Grot land battleship!

Had a really fun game with Thing 1 last night to practice with my grot army for a campaign that starts this week at my FLGS. Unfortunately I'm part of a team so I could drag have the participants down the drain due to my lack of 40k acumen & insistence on playing a very silly army... but what the hell. It's supposed to be an enjoyable pastime, isn't it? This isn't really a battle report, but I thought the first official fielding of the grot mega tank needed to be documented.

Here's our layout. We rolled "The Relic" as our primary, maelstrom cards as the secondary (the one where you pull cards equal to the turn number) with linebreaker, first blood and slay the warlord as the tertiary.



Here's the grot deployment... panzers and big squiggoth w/ meganobz & HQ as close to the relic as possible in cover behind some trees. Tree cover we try to go for is heavy enough to actually block line of sight.



I also put a unit of grots on an objective in the cover of some ruins.



Thing 1's army was anchored by twin Predators backed up by a tech marine with servitors. Tac squads in rhinos held the flanks while 10 deep striking terminators were to provide some up-close and personal punch.



Turn one the grots leapt forward to grab the relic.




The grots survived the opening Doom Eagle salvo nearly unscathed by rolling out-of-their-butts when it came to their 5+ invuls (in essence, the pieces blown off the grot tanks by the marines were totally unnecessary to the functioning of the tank!). The grot tanks then surge forward to take the battle to the spess mehrines, knocking out one of the Predators and killing all 3 of the servitors (God I love grotzookas).



Behind the chaos caused by the grot panzers, the mega-armored big mek and meganob escort begin to slip away with the relic.



The trail of tears.... the grot tanks lie burning on the frozen tundra, but not until they'd added the Doom Eagles HQ and a handful of marines to their total.



The mega tank was still unscathed even after being assaulted by a Tac squad with PF sergeant (5+ invuls come through again!).



By game'e end (T5), the relic was safely behind the line of trees under the watchful eye of the meganobz and warlord.



As the objectives piled up and the grot numbers dwindled, Thing 1 really started to catch up in points. I was up by 4... but had the game continued with a possible total of 13 new maelstrom objectives to be earned... he could probably have just sat his units on the 4 objectives he controlled and would have earned enough maelstrom points to beat me.

A really fun game. Thanks son.

Wonderful battle report. The Preds with Techmarine huddling up really impressed me. Also, that mat is lovely as well Gits.

Thanks for the batrep! Man, that table looks great.

Thanks guys. It was a really fun game. The more I think about it the more I'm convinced that Thing 1 would have come on strong in turns 6 & 7 if we'd have continued. It's a crazy fun little army though. Unpredictable but really flexible and tougher to knock down that first appears. It's also easy to play because there aren't a bazillion models to move around.

I just picked up 42 more trees (probably overkill) off ebay from the same company. My plan is to make some "woods" bases that are flocked, that the trees can be added to and removed from. I've always been a big fan of woods terrain pieces. We used to use felt blobs that gave a cover save at the edges and were completely LOS blocking more than a few inches in. My woodland sections should give us real LOS blocking tree areas, which will really add to the look and feel of the mat.

Nice looking game all round, Gits'. Good to see.

Gits I am heartened to see your relentless progress has never ceased lol! Good stuff like always bud

*squeaks like unicorn alarm in li'l sis' kindergarden group* Beakies in old-old-school style painting! Squee!

TOM!!! I'm so happy to "see" you posting on Dakka!! I thought we'd lost you forever my friend! *sob*

Yes, I am still a slave to my minis and the insatiable thirst of the mob. I did take quite a bit of time off to be with my family and just live life this summer though... so my mini tally's for last year were pretty pathetic. I am energized by my orkses however... thus am endeavoring to make as much progress as I can before I get burnt out on them.

@Hroutland: Ah, those would be space marines done by Solar_lion which were actually bought and painted in the period you wax nostalgic for. Yes... he's an old fart.

Nah, my level of interest is certainly far lower than it was a few years ago in the hobby (mostly because I was a GW only type guy), but the end-times stuff has kinda got me enjoying it a bit again fluff wise and made me more interested to see news again, so here I am! Certainly checking in on old friends doesn't hurt too

Work, an obsession with modding guitars and adding a few to my collection and children put a serious dent in my ability to hobby at all. Sooner or later though, I will be able to put in the time painting demands and get something on the table, certainly I want to paint something again one day, the blight knights and the FW verminlord are very tempting atm

Good to see you sir!

Bags of fun was had by the sound of it. And I do love that giant banana tank of yours

That was a good read! I had fingers crossed those little Grots would save the day! :-)

 Gitsplitta wrote:
Thanks guys. It was a really fun game. The more I think about it the more I'm convinced that Thing 1 would have come on strong in turns 6 & 7 if we'd have continued. It's a crazy fun little army though. Unpredictable but really flexible and tougher to knock down that first appears. It's also easy to play because there aren't a bazillion models to move around.

I just picked up 42 more trees (probably overkill) off ebay from the same company. My plan is to make some "woods" bases that are flocked, that the trees can be added to and removed from. I've always been a big fan of woods terrain pieces. We used to use felt blobs that gave a cover save at the edges and were completely LOS blocking more than a few inches in. My woodland sections should give us real LOS blocking tree areas, which will really add to the look and feel of the mat.

Hm. I am trying to make thick autumn and pine woods for my board, I am talking very thick. Tacticals having a hard time traversing it as only one or two fit between all the trees in any directipm etc with lots of brush in the center making it los blocking at times.

People once told me it was a dumb idea, what are your thoughts on it? I think it would be a blast if the trees were destroyable.

P.S Your tanks act like they are from Fury.

@Tom: Seems like you have your priorities in order. Nothing wrong with that. Good to see you again though.

@graven: Yes, quite the banana at the moment... but that'll change 'er long.

@nerdy: Grots for the win!

@Stormwall: I think it's a great idea. In years past we've played on completely forested tables before with only small open pathways or clearings here and there. We just used pieces of felt to simulate the tree stands with standard rules about visibility and movement based on proximity to the wood's edge. Completely changes the game and makes it very fun and challenging. Had a unit of gretchin win a game for me once by marching through the woods from one end of the table to the other because none of my opponent's forces could catch them (he'd committed them early) and nothing could see them to shoot at them because they were deep in the woods and completely hidden. I would recommend that your friends who think this is stupid; a) try something besides their IG & Tau armies, and b) try picking up a book about actual wars... like... Vietnam, Korea and WWII (both in Europe and the Pacific) just to name a few.

Got the wash done on the tank. This is actually a very tedious process as the tank is big enough that I could only do one section at a time... then had to wait around to remove any forming drips, etc. I'll hit it one more time with an airbrush to bring up the yellow a bit in places, but this is much closer to the yellow I'm aiming for.

I like how the wash has placed the details out from the paint for all to see!

Been reading through your plot.
Great stuff!


Love your warm painting style.

U got me hooked for more

 Stormwall wrote:


Hm. I am trying to make thick autumn and pine woods for my board, I am talking very thick. Tacticals having a hard time traversing it as only one or two fit between all the trees in any directipm etc with lots of brush in the center making it los blocking at times.

People once told me it was a dumb idea, what are your thoughts on it? I think it would be a blast if the trees were destroyable.

I'm going to throw my 2 cents in here. Do this. Warhammer 40K is about creating stories. If you create and play on interesting tables, it makes you have to think about things. It makes you have to use units you might not field, otherwise. Change the game up, play scenarios, put weird stuff on the table.

 Stormwall wrote:

Hm. I am trying to make thick autumn and pine woods for my board, I am talking very thick. Tacticals having a hard time traversing it as only one or two fit between all the trees in any directipm etc with lots of brush in the center making it los blocking at times.

People once told me it was a dumb idea, what are your thoughts on it? I think it would be a blast if the trees were destroyable.

I think this is a great idea. Assign the woods pieces the necessary stats like any other building to destroy. Then test run it. I think doing this would make a space marine player deploy a vindicator or two.

Looked like a nice relaxing game Git's. Really love the snow table, loads of trees around sounds like an interesting battlefield. Great for flamers thinking about it

A little battle report from last Wednesday... I don't really have the time to do a proper battle report with all the bells and whistles, but I know several of you were interested in what happened so I'll try my best.


Points: 1250
Deployment: DOW
Primary: The Relic
Secondary: control of 4 other objectives
Tertiary: first blood, slay the warlord, line breaker

Shawn's Sisters of Battle: (this is just a wild guess)
Celestine + 9-10 Seraphim
A priest of some sort
3? Sister's squads bristling with melta (5 each), 2 in rhinos
2 Exorcists
2 Immolators

Git's Grotzapalooza
Big Mek in mega armor, lucky stick, buzz saws, KFF
pain boy
5 meganobz w combi-skorchas
5 grot tanks, 2x grotzookas, 2x rokkit launchas, command tank w/ 2x rokkit launchas
10 grots + runtherd
10 grots + runtherd
Grot Mega Tank, TL rokkit launchas, TL grotzookas, rokkit launcha, 2x kustom mega blastas
Dakka Jet, boss, 3x TL super shootas
Big Squiggoth, snakebite combat drugs

My opponent Shawn is one of my favorite people to play. He's been playing as long as I have and has assumed the role of the "sun" in the Madison 40k solar system by being the principal organizer of the local league. He's also more interested in having fun and playing a cool army than being uber-competitive... so our similar attitudes pretty much guarantee a very enjoyable game. Shawn also has his own YouTube channel where he posts video battle reports, reviews, answers 40k questions and such. Here's the link to his YouTube channel "Wargamer Shawn", I highly recommend it. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCirv7zjwzoIuzVOVIERJ9pg The bonus is that Shawn recorded our game & will be eventually posting it. I'll add the link when I know its up.

To the game...

I deploy and choose to go first, Shawn does not steal the initiative.


Deployment:

Unfortunately in this picture you can only see one of the five objectives (the poker chip in the lower right). The relic is just behind the roof of the cottage in the foreground. The other objectives are scattered on the far side of the table on both the right, left and center. Having just ran a practice of this mission against Thing 1 (total coincidence), I had an idea of what I wanted to do. I placed the mega-nob laden Big Squiggoth as close to the relic as I could (unfortunately it was over 12" away due to intervening terrain) & put all the grot tanks in close support just to the right. The Sisters deploy their cowardly selves hiding behind whatever pile of rubbish they can find.







Ork Turn 1

The Big Squiggoth makes a b-line for the relic while the grot tanks split up in order to take some pot-shots at the immolators hiding (cowardly gits) behind the tower. I would have liked to concentrate all the grot tanks on a single immolator, but there just wasn't the space. I do a hull point on each. Not great but I'll take it.





Sisters Turn 1

The Sisters move out and a million melta guns and super PMS-ML shots unload on my grot tanks, reducing the squad to one... lone... intrepid... grot tank. They also knock a turret off my battleship.






Orks Turn 2

Well, all those Sisters with melta guns in my lines need to die. The squiggoth makes it's way to the relic and claims it, while the meganobz pile out of the beastie and put the wood to the Sisters. Their follow up move takes them around the corner so they can slam into the Sister's armor on the next turn.




A unit of grots come on and claim an objective behind the safety of a rock wall.



The dakkajet also arrives & takes out some infantry. Not as exciting as I'd hoped.





Sisters Turn 2

Unfortunately, I didn't get any pics of Shawn's turn 2... however in short... the meltas and PMS missile launcher obliterated nearly all of my meganobz, leaving only the big mek, the painboy and one meganob. They do not run however... so far, so good.



Orks Turn 3

My squiggoth falls back slowly with the relic, using the cottage to keep out of sight of the ML tank of death. The last remaining grot tank joins the mega tank and both shoot uselessly at the meta-nuns. Grots come on and take objective in center of my deployment zone.




More interestingly... the last remnants of the meganob squad multi-charges and blows up both Immolators. I'll take it.



To crown a pretty darn good turn, the dakka jet shoots the bejeezus out of one of the Exorcist missile launchers. Thank God.





Sisters Turn 3

Unfortunately at this point, the pictures I took don't really lend to a good narrative... but I'll remember what I can. Also my back decided to have a major malfunction... so I spend the rest of the game sitting and in pain.

The Sisters move forward aggressively. Trying to claim objectives and herding my squiggoth back into the far corner. I get lucky and only lose the last meganob while still retaining both HQs. My grot tanks make all their 5+ invuls so live another day. A Sisters rhino moves up towards where my squiggoth is retreating from... it's filled with a small unit of melta-nuns.





Orks Turn 4

Dakkajet flies off table. Mega tank moves to split fire between advancing rhino and straggling sisters on right side of tower. Squiggoth continues to move towards far left corner. Here's a shot of the Mega Tank... how I LOVE the battleship configuration and the fact that each gun can target independently (just look at the way the guns are facing). Last grot tank and mega tank finish off the melta sisters out-of-frame on the right while the leftward pointing turrets take a hull point off the rhino.




Sisters Turn 4

Saraphim squad of death finally comes in right in the center of my depleted line... then mishaps. I place them wayyyyyy over in the far corner. The blasted PMS missile launcher tank wipes both my HQs off the board along with melta sisters fire. Sisters unload out of rhino and shoot at my squiggoth, putting a wound on it. Seraphim start moving towards grots holding objective in lower right.



Turns 5 & 6

Dakkajet comes on and takes out the OTHER Exorcist. Squiggoth charges and kills 2/5 of the melta-sisters squad. Grot tanks shoot and wreck (I think) forward rhino. The various surviving elements of the Sisters army cover two of the objectives on my right while the Saraphim drive towards the grots holding one of my two objectives in the corner. In the last turn, my squiggoth finishes off the melta-nuns in cc and the Seraphim flame my grots off of their objective. Nothing else of note happens. We roll and game ends.



Final results:

Orks: Primary (12) and First Blood (1): 13 pts
Sisters: Secondary (10) and Slay the Warlord (1): 11 pts


Very close, very fun game. Thanks so much Shawn! My pleasure to play you any chance I get!

Da Orks prove dey iz da best!

Battle rep is up on YouTube!

Sorry, I can't figure out how to post the link from my phone.

Here ya go Gitz let me help with this... Check it out. If you like it please subscribe. Thanks and thanks Art for putting this up.
Gitz is always a joy to play. He and I have been playing this game long enough that cut throat competition is not really our thing. I also like to play armies that people say are bad and try to win with them.. Just to prove them wrong. I like the underdog. Thanks Art for posting. Cheers all.

Jesus! You put one on youtube? Thank you, can't wait to watch!

Not Jesus, Shawn!

... heh, walked into that.

You can see from the video why Shawn is so much fun to play. Very fun game. Lots of teasing to go around to be sure. I was very pleased with all of my grot units. Stupid of me to get my mega nobs killed but it seemed like a good idea at the time. I should have reviewed his video before writing the battle report though... there's some obvious inconsistencies in my account. *sigh* I've got a mind like a steel.... sieve.

Definitely getting another mega tank. Too useful. Next game goes up to 1500 pts. Was able to very cleanly bump the army up to that level while maintaining the overall theme. Clearly, I'm approaching this all from a fun/fluff standpoint... but then again it's a campaign... not a tournament. If I can't be fluffy now, then when??

Gitz I thought the same at first for the meganobz, but honestly, I was going to go for them no matter what as they were my biggest threat as they could wreck me. They did take out a sister squad (dominions) and two immolators (which have TL multimeltas) before I stopped them, they did work and kept the rest of your stuff safe - namely the tanks and the squiggoth, who I had to ignore for a good deal of the battle. Now my stupid seraphim squad and St. Celestine could have come earlier or DS nicely. But thinking back I should have just started them on the board Celestine has a 2up 4up so she could have taken a lot of punishment and still dealt out more hurt. Anyway, fun as always and cheers man

Great batrep- looks like you guys had a blast
Nice to see some Sisters seeing the table, too. Always wanted to start up an army of my own, but those minis are really hard to get these days!

In other news, the yellows are looking great, as we've come to expect from your orks. Eager to see how you approach the rest of it!

Thanks Ramos. The big tank is just yellow at the moment, long way to go yet. Hope to get the ball rolling on it again tonight.

Good job on the win. Looking forward to the next Battle report of your Orks.

Cracking read, even if you did stick it somewhat to my beloved SoB. So, the real question is, which mega-tank next?

Thanks guys, nice to get some feedback. Well, still have a lot to do on this mega tank. Now we're at the tricky part because I have to figure out how I'm going to do the dazzle in black. I'll either pick a real ship to pattern it after (probably simplified) or sketch something out myself after studying some examples.

Tomorrow's round is a non-campaign round (I think people are using it to get ready for a tournament in Milwaukee) but my back is still out so it doesn't make much sense to play when I can't bend over the gaming table to move my miniatures around or measure distances. I'd love to go, it just doesn't make any sense. I'll spend my time working on the mega tank instead, so that next week when I'm playing my second campaign game, they army has been moved along a bit.

Gits, want me to send some ship pictures your way for a pattern?

British ships did it well, along with Americans. Thoigh since it is w40k you could use modern Swede camo. I love it.

Couple of the better shots from my game last night. 1850 "Gitskrieg" army. 3 dakka jets and all the panzers I can muster (grot mega tank, grot tanks, 2 trukks w/ 'aard boys & a battlewagon w/mega nobs. Faced a very nasty GK list. Terminators, giant terminators (2 dread knights), land raider, storm raven, teleporting squad (sorry, can't remember the name), dread, razorback, psychics everywhere... you get the gist. The game turned out to be remarkably close considering I had almost nothing to deal with the heavy armor and terminator-like organisms. Had it ended on turn 5 or 6 I would have tied at the worst... unfortunately it went to 7 giving my opponent's big machines time to do their dastardly deeds. Still, a 9-6 loss isn't horrible.

About the only disappointment from my perspective is that my battle wagon got taken out by the first shot of the game. This has happened over and over again to the point where I doubt I'm likely to field them any more. They're just a waste of points. Especially now that I have a big squiggoth available which is infinitely more effective as a transport.

Gitzkrieg ready to move out. Note the mega-nobs on foot. This was my very first turn.


Dueling flyers. This little engagement was won by the dakkajet (the Storm Raven chose not to jink). Storm raven survived another turn before a pair of dakkajets finally finished it off.


Struggle for survival and domination. The meganobs pit themselves against a dread knight. As you can see by the smoke and flames... it went badly for the DK.



Today's challenge:

I've set myself a very stiff challenge for today. I'm home with no specific responsibilities. My goal is to finish (or nearly so) the grot megatank. I'll keep you posted. My hope is that putting in a disciplined, full work-day on it, I'll be able to finish it off.

Excellent Pic of the Nob /Dk fight. Finishing the MT will be a good check off your 'to do ' list!

I've got my eyes on Dakkadakka all day, so I'll be free to jump in with some encouragement...

*gets out pom-poms*
Go Gits Go
Go Gits Go
Go Gits Go
Go Gits Go
Go Gits Go
YEAH!!!! GITS!!!!!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And yes... poms are as far as anyone wants me to go!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
umm... anyone know why 'pom-poms' and 'poms' are highlighted in my posts? Seriously starting to creep me out.

Mouse over them and you'll see for yourself.

As for the Battlewagon issue, they always say take at least 2, because one will just get shot up and your special snowflake is left in the dust.

As for the Grot Megatank cant wait to see it all painted in that dazzle camo scheme.

I'm really liking the battlewagon detachment from Ghaz's book... hard to beat 5 scouting battlewagons.

Yes... if you have that many battle wagons *and* the points. My one gripe about the ork detachments is that they're all HUGE both in numbers of models and/or points. I've seen other armies field detachments of just a few guys. If I want a detachment I have to make it the basis for my army and the CAD becomes an add-on (rather than the other way around).

I might have been a bit optimistic about my painting progress today. It's taking me all morning just to map out one half of one side of the dazzle scheme (and it's a simple one based on a scheme used on the Terpitz. I'll keep bashing away on it though... will post my progress when I get one of the sides done.

Agree here.. Not only are the formations large and Expensive. The special added rule(s) doesn't really give that much help for the value.

Time to change your holiday Avatar. Starting to have Seizures!

Here's my model. It's a scheme from the Terpitz, July 1943 - April 1944 according to smmlonline.com (one of five or so over the course of the war). The Terpitz is so long when compared with the length of the grot megatank, I decided to do the forward scheme on the port side and the aft design on the starboard side.



So far, only the port side is finished. They'll be a lot of highlighting and detailing to make things pop from here, but I'll have to be careful because I don't want to muddy up the scheme. I know this isn't the crazy zebra pattern that I imagine many of you were hoping for... but it seemed achievable given the model and skills I have available.

Gits, that is incredible, can't wait to see the starboard side!

Stunning mate. Simply stunning.

Wooooooooooooow!!!!
Gits that is just spectacular!!

Really really awesome, man.

It's not easy to do, especially on a surface that's as uneven as the grot tank. You have to eyeball your pattern lines all the way through the levels, then do your best to connect the dots with straight lines.

I'm getting to work on the starboard side now. We'll see how the design stage goes. At least it's nice to have something other than plain yellow on the tank. It didn't make for a very convincing paint job in my opinion.

Great work... It definitely looks like the trouble is worth it.

Thanks guys.

I'm working on the starboard side... uugh. Much more difficult than the port side though it probably won't look like it. Don't think I'll get it finished tonight though I'm hoping I'll get at least half painted and maybe 3/4 mapped out. Figure I have an hour before I turn into a pumpkin for the evening.

Don't get too drained, it's not even remotely near halloween yet, so it's too early to become pumpkin spice.

He picked the striking camo scheme that was also the simplest, just the basic gray of German warships with the darker "splinters", not the multi-color schemes the Tirpitz used at other times. Also makes that look like a big angry wasp!

Stunning !

That's better than the zebra stripes. And far more grot ish. This really is a *pauses for effect* flagship model! Badoom doom tish

Starboard side is done.



Here's a little bonus shot of what I had to do to get that "straight line" on the bow.



Now comes the hard part.... picking out just enough things to paint other colors to give it interest & highlighting a million little details in light yellow and light grey.

So purdy!

Just brilliant bud.

Looking good so far.

Wow thats really dazzling Git's.

I really think you pulled it off

That side is even better than the other, you pulled it off.

Gits', you chose the perfect pattern.
Just enough to give the idea of dazzle camo', but not too much to give people a headache while trying to decide which way it's pointing.

And you have executed it brilliantly. Very good work getting the lines straight (even when they are not straight).

Many thumbs up

Muy muy splendid!

Camo is looking great Gits
Keep up the great work!
Grtz
Mark

Very nice... a bit trippy from the front, but a great job.

Wonderful, just wonderful

@Anpu-adom: Agreed, but you have to remember this camo was really only intended to work from the side view. In many cases, the camo included a false prow and stern... even painted on bow waves! All attempting to make it hard for enemy gunners to judge the size, speed and even direction of the ship when looking at it from the side. What makes the prow design of this example so trippy is the crazy shape of the dozer blade when compared to the very gently sloping design of a normal ship's prow. The curves I have to draw in order to generate the illusion of the straight column on the bow are really extreme.

Thing 2 and I are having a wonderfully cinematic game where I'm taking a ton of pictures. I ordered a bunch of inexpensive, snow-covered trees so that we actually have LOS blocking copses of trees on the table. Man the snow table fat-mat is just so stunning with the right kinds of terrain on it. His Nids vs. an entire grot army of mine. The only things not gretchin in my army are the HQs and one big squiggoth. I will probably do some variant of a battle report when it's all done... we'll see how much time I have.

Sounds like a really fun battle Git's, look forward to seeing some pics.

We just finished. What an amazing battle!! Thing 2's dice luck was beyond amazing. His Tervi pooped out 10+ gaunts every turn without ever rolling doubles. His spore tower (cool IA thing) generated nearly maximum numbers of spores every single turn. I bet by the end of the game he'd fielded about 150% of my army value because of all the extra stuff.

Thing 2 has asked me to put the battle report on his Tyranid blog, but I'll post a link from here as well. Took lots of photos right up to the end. Not sure when I'll have to time to get the battle report done, but I'll let you know.

Very much looking forward to pics and write-up.

Envious of time spent with no.2. Wonderful thing to have. Really happy for you. Sounds like a blast.

That mat makes the battle reports, I want one so bad for BFG/Epic. I can't wait to see the report especially since it is against nids.

Some teasers for you...

Grot tanks move out down a snowy path.


A trygon prime hides safely out of sight in the big trees before choosing the time to strike.


Raveners skirt the edge of an old ruin to close in on the hapless gretchin.

Winter is coming. And it has teeth

Gitsplitta: Nice idea with the "camo"! Looks great.

Orks vs Nids, who's da best?

Tank Masterfully done. Love the action shots. Gotta start taking more bat rep pics.

Well, what I made tonight officially falls into the "clever boy" category. I'll try to get pics tomorrow before I go to work.


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OK, got a surprise for everyone. After adding a few points to my list for Wednesday's campaign game, I realized I was one Mek Gun short! Now I'm still using the old grot artillery pieces as my guns... so I was digging around in my bits drawer and found that I did have extra artillery pieces, just not quite the same model (lifta-droppas as opposed to the traktor cannons I've been using). Problem was the lifta-droppa is a much taller gun and I wanted it to fit in with the rest. Answer: make a custom base! Luckily the other guns are on resin bases that lift them off the ground a bit. I used a plasticard square with sheet cork on top to make the base, then dug recesses down into the sheet cork (all the way to the plastic) in order to allow the artillery piece to sit down in the base rather than being on top of it. This left the business end of the lifta-droppa at the same height as the barrels of my other artillery pieces. Bonus is that I have the bits to make two more lifta-droppas, so I can either make one very large unit or split them into two with identifiably different guns.

Unit:


Lifta-droppa:


Base: It's hard to see but in the brown areas there are actually recesses to accomodate the wheels and tail of the gun. I also did my best to dress up the base so it looked consistent with the other resin bases in the unit.

Nice... I'd go with 2 smaller units of 3 each. Besides, the traktor cannon is murder against MFC's and fliers... a small unit will do.

Nice one!

Update? What an update! How awesome is that!

Nicely done. Very Old school look.

By the beard of Mork! That's some great dazzle work on the tank. Love the Mek Gunz too.

I think you're going to see a quick turn-around on the old lifta droppas. Namely because I really like the new smasha-gun (read as lifta-droppa) rules. I may end up stripping this one and repainting all 3 as a set so they look uniform (and distinct from the traktor kannons).

Second campaign game tonight... I'm really excited!

Excellent.. have fun and with your back... no Kick boxing demonstrations during the game.

Pics please!

Cry havoc and let slip the grots of war!!!

 Gitsplitta wrote:
Cry havoc and let slip the grots of war!!!

LOL! I bet ole Willy is rolling in his grave by now! hehehehehehehehehehehe!

Another victory for the Gitzkrieg last night. This time vs Space Wolves. My poor opponent couldn't make a dice roll and I was rolling like a mad-man. The scenario helped me out quite a bit too. Have a few pics which I'll post when I can.

 Gitsplitta wrote:
Cry havoc and let slip the grots of war!!!

LOL... I love it.

Oh god my sides.

That should be sigged!

And so it is.


Unfortunately I've been so busy with mundane tasks and actually PLAYING 40k that I haven't had much time for painting. However, I can show you a pic so you can see where I'm going next. Basically edge highlighting. two shades on the yellow and black sections. A medium light color of the base and a very light version as a spot-highlight. You can see in the pic below that I've finished highlighting the lower-right turret and have only the yellow highlighting done on the upper-left turret. These in contrast with the unlined parts of the main body of the tank should give you an idea where I'm going.



I *am* actually going to try and get the tank finished this weekend. By finished, I mean the edge highlighting, odd colored bits added, chipping and weathering. Maybe a few bits of free-hand detail. That should hold it so I can move on to the next project. Like the big squiggoth, I can always come back to it in the future to add more detail.

It gets better each time you slave over it. That dazzle camo is amazing, I might use that soon.

I just had the most wonderful 1500 point game with Thing 2. My grots vs. his Nids. Came down to the very last turn (6). I ended up eking out a victory 9-8 though we both made some rules interpretation errors that affected both of us... but probably him a little more than I. I tried to take photographs in an ordered and sequential manner so that I can write up a little battle report. I have also made progress on the grot tank. It's amazing how sometimes very subtle techniques can really change the look of a model. Look for an update on that tomorrow.

Man, I envy you so much... Yor p&m skills are superb, but that's something to achieve with time and practice. To have so many opportunities to have a stroll with your guys on the battlefield, that's another thing. (My merry men are just sleeping in their shelves for the time when the Kaiser will awake in his mountain again...) The best, though, is to share your hobby with your boys. You are a man of fortune, and everytime I read you had a game with on of your things, I must smile. God bless you and your family!

Nice touches on the warheads for the rokkits the landship has!

Hruotland wrote:Man, I envy you so much... Yor p&m skills are superb, but that's something to achieve with time and practice. To have so many opportunities to have a stroll with your guys on the battlefield, that's another thing. (My merry men are just sleeping in their shelves for the time when the Kaiser will awake in his mountain again...) The best, though, is to share your hobby with your boys. You are a man of fortune, and everytime I read you had a game with on of your things, I must smile. God bless you and your family!

That's very kind of you to say Hruotland. In fact, the whole reason I get back into 40k after a 6-year break was because my son came home from school all cranked up about it after finding a White Dwarf in the school library (he didn't know I'd ever heard of the game, much less played it)! So not only have I shared my hobby with my boys, but they brought me back to it after I thought I'd set it down for good. You are correct my friend, I am indeed blessed.

shasolenzabi wrote:Nice touches on the warheads for the rokkits the landship has!

Thank you shas... yeah, they did work out pretty well.


I have some progress pics for you today. No I'm not done yet. I'm not very happy about that either as I worked my mother-lovin' *ss off on it this weekend. Frankly I barely made a scratch, but I guess progress is progress. I finished the first round of yellow edge highlighting on the entire tank. I now have to come in with a lighter yellow and put in a second round of highlights and focus points. I then have to do all the black... two shades again. In a fit of pique, I painted the metal on the masts and main exhaust (oh, and painted & added the main exhaust). I worked on the captain a bit, as well as a 1-shot cannister bomb (S5, large blast). It's not very points efficient so I don't know how much I'll use it. but it looks cool.



Here's a close-up showing the stack & cappy.


Here's the canister bomb. It swivels about 270 degrees so it covers most of the approach lanes. It's just pinned in place so I could place it anywhere really. This just seemed to be the most practical.

That is sick. I can't believe you are still going to working on it from here, it's already an eyecatching piece.

I can see why it's making you demented. Freakin' cool though

Loving the copper pipes!

That's dazzlingly brilliant gits.

That mega-tank is looking great.
can't wait to see it finished.

Good progress Gits'. Getting better all the time. Good to hear you having fun with the game too.

Getting there...



I'm working on the top of the mast & there will be one more grot crewman for the starboard side of the ship.

Looks smashing. The spokes on the front wheel could maybe do with a contrast? Also, there's a number of vaguely U-shaped pipecables - are they going to treated separately? Just some thoughts!

I'd considered that (the spokes). Thought I'd see what it looked like as-is before going the next step. I think you're right though.

Same goes for the cables. I don't want to ruin the dazzle effect by adding in too many random colors. Kind of a tightrope walk... adding interest without undoing the main theme.

wowowowowow! Gits, that's fantastic!

Picking out the spokes does sound like a good plan. Visually it'd make it sharpen up and give more interest to the rest of the scheme. Unsure what to do about the cabling, though.... It certainly is a balancing act. One or two might not go amiss in a blue or a red.

Thanks Ramos, I'll work on it some more tonight & we'll see where it goes.

What did you do to your avatar? Gitsplitta is a cybork or old man scout, not a super expensive car!

RiTides b*the at me for still having my Cristal avatar up. This is the only pic I had to upload.


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Man, I thought those pics would impress.... tough crowd!

Looking good there, Gits'.

My "go to" colour for cables is often gloss black. That will let you keep the general black and yellow scheme, but should let the cables stand out as separate things.

If they do look a little boring after that, make some of them coloured. Spread out, they shouldn't detract from the scheme.

Got to make a little progress tonight. I apologize for the size of these pics... I just seem to have cropped them to the wrong dimensions and pixel size... they're huge! Hmmm... I think I'll spoiler them for you.



Began work on the Crow's nest. Only the lookout, flag and eye on the skull left to do. (sorry for the blurry pic)


Added another lookout to give the starboard deck some interest and color. (yes, I did paint the spokes)


Finally, here she is in her current state.

Good lad

Gits, the grot tank looks awesome. how many hours do you have in the paint job thus far?

Thanks guys!

@GdS: Oh Lord. You're going to depress me now. What's it been... 3 weeks? Painting for an hour or two most nights plus two weekends? This has been a *very* time consuming paint job, much more so that I originally thought. I keep telling myself that it's "almost done"... and it's not of course. As with the big squiggoth, I think I'm going to paint this to a "clean" standard... i.e. sans chipping and weathering so I can move on to the next in a long line of projects. I can (and will) come back to it later to give it the final touches that'll really sell it as a grot construct when I've got the mental "space" to approach it with creativity and a clear mind.

didn't mean to depress you...whatever it took, it was worth it, because it looks awesome. just figure your paint hours times two is how long it would take ME to paint something...

That tank is pretty amazing!

Actually the green of the grots do a lot to break up the Yellow and Black. Very nice. Sounds like time to take a break from it.

I *am* getting close. Crows nest, hoses & cables and some extra exhaust bits (still in the bag). Maybe done tonight, tomorrow night at the latest.

I think I'll do a simple project next. Three old-school lifta droppa artillery pieces. Quick and dirty paint job on nice bases should suffice & give me a new, very useful unit in a short period of time.

Awesome! Can't wait to see more of your ork artillery.

 Solar_lion wrote:
Actually the green of the grots do a lot to break up the Yellow and Black.

I wanted to comment on this because it points out specifically what I'm after. If you look at the photos of real dazzle pattern ship paint jobs... they go out of their way to make sure nearly everything matches the pattern. Too much off-pattern stuff and the scheme just doesn't work. So my struggle has been to find more "natural" ways of adding interest while keeping the basic pattern as pure as possible. The blue of the rokkits and the crewmen do this nicely. I think a few red hoses and exposed cables will also work. The white on the rims and the checkerboard patterns on the side sponsons are also part of this idea. It just dawned on me that I have a good sized bin full of old metal snotlings. I might add one or two just to break things up a bit more.

I keep seeing this landship improve with each pic posted!

Wow, Gits. I hadn't taken a good look at this blog since page 30 or so, and boy was it a great ride getting caught up and seeing all the fantastic stuff you've been up to since then! The Squiggoth is probably my favorite model you've done so far in this army. I love that you didn't paint him green for all the reasons previously mentioned. I really think the red skin contrasts well with the yellow plating. I think the land boat is looking really nice. I love the patterning you've done on it.

Keep up the great work! Though we all know that you will.

Da Turpitz is done! Chipping at weathering will take place at some undetermined time in the future. I apologize for the rather sketchy pics. No light box at the moment.

That is one damn fine looking battleship. You struck just the right note with the random cables, too. Makes a fine addition to the fleet!

I still cant believe that dazzle camo!

Dat looks spectacular Gits! The white edging has an interesting effect beyond making it pop.

That has always been my favorite came scheme... even if it is really just for boats.

Good stuff, Gits. Good stuff!

That's spectacular!

Good job gits. Really like it alot.

Thanks guys! Don't forget to vote if you like it. I haven't had anything on the gallery page in a loooooong time!

It's outstanding mate, most impressive.

I voted, smashing job as always Gits.

Just waiting on the Post office to open up this morning before I get your boards shipped off

What a mighty Land-Levvy-tun! I hope for your grotz no big meany from the boyz gets the idea to bully it off them - this might be the way to win Gorka-Morka!

Epic! Well executed use of one of the cooler forms of camoflage in the world. Plus you gota love the grots.

Voted for the glory of the greenskins.

Shot of all the grot tanks together. Da Pazer Corps has arrived!!

You have done an amazing job on it Git's, looks truly amazing.

Been holding back my comments as I have been speechless. That piece deserves a display board.

Fantastic job Gits!

Having a re-match with Thing 1. I'm trying to do a video battle report but in all honest thing the file is going to be wayyy too big to be able to upload. Anyone know a good (free) video editing bit of software? Perhaps there's something in Windows. I don't need to do much... just cut out the bad sections really & maybe put in a title slide (that's optional).

In any case I thought I'd share a few cool pics. This is half way through turn 3 (he went first). We basically charged forward together and the necron assault troops and my kans are meeting full force in the center of the table.



In turn 2, I had both units of kans shoot at the 6-strong wraith squad. Unfortunately for my son, he rolled with his usual luck and I managed to take out the center of his line-abreast wraiths. I then charged one unit of kans into one end of the line, effectively isolating the combat on just the two wraiths on that end (as the others couldn't consolidate far enough to get into combat). The picture below is after two rounds of combat. I've lost one kan to his 4 wraiths (I'll take it). The C'tan shard also joined the combat but rolled abysmally, as I result I'm still in the battle! Go-go-gadget-grots!



In his half on turn 3, a fairly substantial unit of scarabs charged my other unit of kans with predictable results. I hate scarabs. I did manage to kill 3 of them but his dang spiders just keep replacing his losses (not to mention the reanimation protocol rolls from the canoptic detatchment).



He is winning it should be noted... thanks to maelstrom points (which we're using as our secondary). Given the cards I drew, I don't think I'll be catching up any time soon.

Amazing work on the Grot Mega Tank!

For video editing, you could use Blender- it's basically a catch-all media center, really. Though it's primarily used for 3d modeling and animation, there's a video and audio compositing system in it you could use. And it's free.

Or, if you're willing to go digging around the Old Internet a little, Windows DVD maker is free, basic software. It's not bundled with windows anymore, though, so you'd have to find it and download it yourself.

Got it, thanks Anvildude.

Stellar work on that Mega Tank Gitsplitta

So Beeyooteefull!

Thank you kind sirs.

Something a bit more humble. Managed to finish or clean up the basing on all of my dreads and kans. Not real exciting.



Have some decent action shots from the finish of tonight's game with Thing 1. I'll see if I can get them up tomorrow. Right now I'm very tired and longing for bed.

It's hard to imagine that in all the time i've been gone from here and the hobby, (like 3 years), you have kept at it...

Still just as impressed now as I was 3 years ago.

Welcome back Norn King. I'm really happy that you still found my blog work re-visiting. You happen to find me in the middle of an ork push for painting & modeling... so good timing on your part.



A few more shots from the epic battle between my orks and Thing 1's necrons. All of the real fun was taking place in the middle of the table where 8 kans and 2 dreads slammed into the necron assault elements. We join our valiant gretchin several turns after first contact on turn 2...



With his bretheren in flames, the last kan takes on the remnants of the necron wraiths.




Having dispatched the last of the killa kans, The Night Lord stalks across the plain looking for a new victim.



Amidst the carnage, two Ork Dreads take on the mighty C'tan shard... and eventually are victorious!



Wraiths slide effortlessly & silently through the wreckage of the ork vanguard.




Thing 1 ended up winning a decisive victory. 16 - 10 In spite of some early set-backs he stuck to his guns (literally) and in the end, massed fire from his warriors and immortals cleaned out most of the ork infantry which were my only hope to keep it close. The kans and dreads really held their own though... I was quite proud of them. *sniffle*

Game highlights from last night... taken from my phone so not the best quality I'm afraid.

My army, ready for battle.


My Warboss on a bike charges into some Death Company. They do really well until another squad of maries and a dreadnaught join the fray.


All my bomb squgs attack his dread on turn 1. They do nothing.


Game was effectively over in turn two, though we played his half of turn three just to be sure. Sanguinary guard with Dante' killed everything they touched.

Next project should start soon.

Boo. Filthy, filthy blood angels.

Wonderful to see you having fun again.

Grot tank is just amazing bud, beautiful job.

Thanks Cam. Really glad that you like the mega tank. It's awfully fun to play too.

Next project is finishing off my little unit of OOP mek gun lifta-droppas (now called smashas I believe). I am in need of two more of these OOP guns to finish off the units.

I need one of these...


...and one of these.


I have cash and a variety of things to trade (orks, SM, eldar). Don't really have a list of tradables... just tons of stuff, figures and bits. If there's something specific you're looking for, let me know.

I'm working all weekend but I'll try to make some progress in the in-betweens.

Nice action shots.

Can't help you with actual parts, as my collection is very thin when it comes to older models.

They don't look too difficult to scratch-build though, if they do prove too hard to find...

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Imperial_Guard/Death-Korps-of-Krieg/DEATH_KORPS_OF_KRIEG_INFANTRY_AND_ACCESSORIES/DEATH-KORPS-OF-KRIEG-LASCANNON-TEAM-1.html

Could be an option (if expensive) as part of a kitbash for the models you're after. The wheels look almost identical.

The wheels on the Ork guns are way bigger. I think that Kromlech or one of these places sell wheels which are a very close match. I've got one Smasha gun, but I won't part with it (sorry!). They do pop up on ebay every now and then though. Would be your best bet in my opinion.

I really like the look of these battle reports. Good stuff.

they are still available on the uk gamesworkshop site

Thanks for the link Norn King!

Glad you liked them Sigur. I've been planning on a Kromlech order soon anyway. Might just add a set of wheels. Either that or Zinge has some similar wheels that look like they'd fit the bill nicely. We'll see. I'm not desperate enough yet to try a scratch-build. Not my forte' really.

Was at my FLGS for our weekly fracas when an old friend of mine came by selling his orks. He wanted to sell the whole lot, but after some cajoling I managed to get him to sell me just one dread. Firstly, it's nicely built and painted, secondly it's the last dread I need to complete the "dreads as troops" squad that I can take when running an IA Dread Mob list, thirdly it's equipped the exact same way my other two dreads are. I'll make the base match the rest of my army and do a little tweaking to the paint job, but in essence I'm going to leave it in his original color scheme. My thoughts are that it was damaged in a battle, leaving the occupant in a semi-comatose state, kept alive by the machine. Months later, some grots from Gitsplitta's mob were going to scavenge it when their fiddling sent a jolt of electricity through the system, reviving the pilot. Having no hope of rejoining his clan, he joined Gitsplitta's Bad Moons.



Going to be good fun getting him fixed up right & proppa!

Nice find. Very deathskulls.

Yep. I'm already working on the base. I'll have it all fixed up by this weekend. One of 4 main projects I'll be working on...

1. Fix up the Frost Byte Klan dread.
2. Paint and base my 3 smasha guns (been working on their bases behind-the-scenes).
3. Make a display board.
4. Work on MW tankage.

Should be a busy & productive weekend!

Liking the new Dread. You don't see a lot of blue Ork stuff, so I look forward to seeing him alongside your guys. He should contrast nicely with all the yellow stuff in your Waaagh!.

First little project of the weekend... finish and base my OOP smasha guns. I realize this is a pretty weedy pic, but they look fine on the tabletop.



Second project was touching up Rudy's Frost Byte Klan Deff Dread. Came out rather nicely without really changing the color scheme at all. I just cleaned it up a bit.

It is quite surprising what a quick little refresh does to a paint job, both projects looking great.

Thanks Cam. Funny, I can't see much difference in the photo but I did work on it for quite a while. Edge highlighting & shading mostly. Cleaning up the lines, re-basing of course and re-doing the eye (at least that shows up). I think the flash overwhelms most of the painting changes unfortunately. It looks good in-hand though, so I'm satisfied.

@Darth Bob: You are correct sir, it actually looks quite nice with all the yellow of my other models.

I didn't know you were still going!

Can you make some fluff so he fits in with your army?

The story goes that the Dread was part of a Frost Bite Klan raiding party when they were ambushed by an Imperial air attack wing. The dread was damaged, putting it's occupant into a coma while the rest of the Frost Bite Klan's forces were driven off or destroyed by overwhelming air power. After months in this comatose state, the Dread was discovered by some grot scavengers who managed to send an electric feedback pulse through the dread while attempting to loot it. The pulse revived the pilot. Rather than trying to find his way back to his Klan's base (wayyyyyyyy to the north), the pilot decided to throw in with the local Bad Moons. His unusually painted Dread & his tale of battle and survival making him something of a hero amongst his new companions. They call him... "Da Blue Maxx".

Love it!

Da Frost Bite Klan? That sounds like it belongs on my board! I like the newest requisition Git.

Thanks Ice. He really looks fantastic on the tabletop. Think I'm going to acquire his bikes too. My normal bikes have a blue theme so they'll fit right in.

Looks excellent. The eye is outstanding

Yeah, good job picking out that eye with an inner glow effect. Really makes it stand out. The only thing I'm not sure on is the green saw blades. I personally think it would look better picked out in the silver, but he still looks great regardless!

Beautiful bloo dread. Looks great.

Thanks guys, much appreciated.


I'm going to make a very surprising (at least to me) observation... if you will indulge me.

I had an epiphany a few moments ago. As I was contemplating my upcoming painting projects, what I was interested in and what I'd worked on over the past year or so... it dawned on my that not only my production of my marine chapter minis had decreased... but also to some degree my interest as well. I've become much more focused and interested in my orks as-of-late. This could easily be ascribed to fatigue I suppose, but I suspect there's an underlying subtlety that isn't simply covered by the phrase "I'm sick of painting them." (meaning the marines) In truth, I haven't really painted much in the way of any marines in a year or more, so that reasoning doesn't hold much water.

What I think is going on, is that my marines... much as I love them and have doted on them for decades... are just that, marines. They lack character. Even with the Badab War and some small tidbits in IA 10... they're pretty much the same as any other marine force. The units I have on my painting slate have far more to do with "what's practical or efficient" than "what's cool or fluffy". Not that that's a bad thing by any stretch, but it's not very inspiring. I can ally with other Imperials... but that's a ton of new painting with rather dubious results (a marine is a marine after all). I'm not really even sure I could identify "fluffy" at this point that would be any different from any other marine army. My chapter tactics don't make any substantive difference between what's "good" for me and what's "good" for any other marine player.

My orks on the other hand... are brilliant! Even if they aren't anywhere near as competitive as the marines. I have 3 different sources from which to pull lists, CADs and formations (dex, supplement & IA8) which all can use the same figures (i.e. all can be Bad Moons). I have a wealth of units that are decent (at the least) to choose from, and a ton of wonderful things produced by FW. I'm pursuing a walker based force (kans, dreads, mega dreads, 'nauts & a stompa) a tank army (grot tanks, grot mega tanks, battle wagons & super heavy tanks) as well as a grot-based force that is a mix of the two with some extra units thrown in. So much character! At this moment there's just no comparison. The orks are more interesting and engaging by far.

So at least for a while yet... orks it is!

Yeah you do seem to be enjoying your greenskins and if that gives you inspiration to paint more then you're on the right route for sure.

Will you be replacing his missing tooth or making it look like it was lost in action, maybe add a bit of broken off cocktail stick to give it a stubby broken off effect.

Regarding the lack of motivation for the mehrenes, I don't blame you. I always struggled to paint marines, simply because they're so boring to paint. Not to mention EVERYONE collects them

Just stick to what you enjoy, you don't have to prove anything to anyone.

As a hobby, you should always do what is fun (and therefore motivating), and never feel that you should be doing any part that you are not feeling at the time.

Good for you Gits. Is always nice when you finally come to that realization of "this is the army for me!". I do hope you don't completely give up on your Marines, since as I mentioned in my AL blog your Mantis Warriors were my main inspiration for doing Space Marines, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't excited for the future of your Orks!

More Walkers?! A Stompa?! Superheavies?! Count me in!

Don't worry DB, I'm not abandoning them. Not at all. Just not "feeling them" at the moment. I will try to work my way through a few figures on occasion (probably tanks of various types), just to keep the whole thing moving forward though.

Just wait until you find the joy that is Orky Looted Units.

Also known as Ork Murines. Or Adeptus Orkstartes. Or looted Carnifexes, Hammerheads that 'hover' via dozens of grots carrying them, Trukks made out of Dark Eldar skimmers...


The beauty of Orks is that, with a little creativity and some Boyz, all kits are Ork kits.

Hey Gits. Do what you love. I am stuck in Marine love mod but, Orks have so much appeal. I have loved the latest works, they make my day to see updates and from the bottom of my heart cheers me up. I ca honestly say that when you update this or the Mantis warriors and I see it in the plog section I feel like a kid when the final bell for school goes off. Pure excitement. When I get stuck I look on here and to the riveters blogs for ideas.

Besides, I shamelessly steal your yellow technique. But hey, we all sin in regards to yellow, right?

Oh and OT but, are you a riveter gits?

Norn King wrote:Regarding the lack of motivation for the mehrenes, I don't blame you. I always struggled to paint marines, simply because they're so boring to paint. Not to mention EVERYONE collects them Just stick to what you enjoy, you don't have to prove anything to anyone.

Thanks NK, very sound advice. I do feel a bit guilty when I leave a blog hanging though after all the support my readers have given me over the years. Just natural I guess.

Dr H wrote:As a hobby, you should always do what is fun (and therefore motivating), and never feel that you should be doing any part that you are not feeling at the time.

To true. Just hard to set things aside some times, especially when you know folks are watching (see above).

Darth Bob wrote:Good for you Gits. Is always nice when you finally come to that realization of "this is the army for me!". I do hope you don't completely give up on your Marines, since as I mentioned in my AL blog your Mantis Warriors were my main inspiration for doing Space Marines, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't excited for the future of your Orks! More Walkers?! A Stompa?! Superheavies?! Count me in!

As they say... "the best is yet to come". Not giving up on my MWs, just not excited or inspired by the at present.

Anvildude wrote:The beauty of Orks is that, with a little creativity and some Boyz, all kits are Ork kits.

Somebody needs to Sig this. I would, but I think my sig is "full". :/ I actually know the guy who made the looted fex. We played together at my FLGS from time to time. He had the most awesome conversions. Then he graduated from the UW & went off to start a real life. *sigh* So much talent wasted...

Stormwall wrote:Hey Gits. Do what you love. I am stuck in Marine love mod but, Orks have so much appeal. I have loved the latest works, they make my day to see updates and from the bottom of my heart cheers me up. I ca honestly say that when you update this or the Mantis warriors and I see it in the plog section I feel like a kid when the final bell for school goes off. Pure excitement. When I get stuck I look on here and to the riveters blogs for ideas. Besides, I shamelessly steal your yellow technique. But hey, we all sin in regards to yellow, right? Oh and OT but, are you a riveter gits?

Very flattering Stormwall. Thank you. I'm really glad my work can still inspire. Yeah... we're good on the yellow. Nope, not a riveter. I'm sincere in saying that I'm not worthy. I've tried scratch-building before and I'm an absolute train wreck. I just have no mind for building. I can modify and kit-bash like a mad-man... but I need to start with someone else's work and go from there. I am a BIG fan of the riveters and their work however.


Well, since I mentioned that I'd actually worked on a little bit, I thought I'd better post some pics.

First, a little grot spotter. I think he'll go on one of my newly painted big guns/mek guns as crew. Quick little paint job but I think he turned out nicely. I just love this little old metal figure... one of my favorites.


Then after listening to everyone whine about the green blade teeth and missing tusk on the dread, I modified him to suit YOUR LIKING.... fethers...

He has now been re-named... "Blue Maxx Gold Toof" Hope this will suffice.

Spotter's neat, gold toof is cool, and I totally hear you about SM.

Gold tooth is looking cool Git's

Little spotter dude looks great, love what you did with the lens, looks like an eye.

I used vent's "black lens technique". He did a tutorial on it years back.

Gits, you have to do what gives you the maximum enjoyment, given a limited hobby schedule. If that means taking a break with the MWs, while you indulge in your glorious grot crusade, then so be it.

--B

PS: Grots are best.

Thanks Brian, more to come then!

OK guys, I have a *real* challenge on my plate. I have to model an ancestral ork "brain boy" Basically a hyper-intelligent snotling from the distant ork past. Armed with a pair of beefed up Jakero digital lasers and protected by a personal force field. I have numerous original metal snotling figures, none look anything like this. Also have a ton of grot parts and my imagination.

My current thought is a snotling body with the bottom part of a grot head (just over the eyes), then remove the head top and sculpt a huge bulbous cranium... something like mega-mind or the aliens from the Star Trek pilot.

No idea how I'm going to do the digital lasers, but I think I'm going to have to do a hand swap with pointing grot hands as a starter.

Oh yeah, giant brain all the way.

The question is whether you want it to be a Snotling supporting a giant brain, or a giant brain supporting a snotling. You could potentially play it as a super-duper-silly massive head, like, 3 times the size of the body or bigger, which is just floating in the air by means of... something, with this tiny body just dangling below it.

Hmmmm.... interesting thought.

I'd be another vote for a ridiculously huge brain/head with a little snotling body dangling from it. In a "I have no more us for this frail form!" kind of way.

Digital lasers could be either bionic laser eyes or two little snotling bodygaurds on the base.

Why not go a completely other way? When "I" think of the brainboyz before they became snotlings, I immediatly see a classical LGM before me! - Or meet in the middle, use a "Mars Attacks" 28mm fig. That crazy smile is promising orky crazyness, isn't it?
http://www.beastsofwar.com/mars-attacks-the-miniatures-game/mantic-mars-attacks-miniatures-game/


Ack, ack, ack!

Or what about something like Krang from TMNT? Maybe inside a Nob-cybork body?

I think trying to get a mars attack model as above and cut off the brain part and meld it to a snotling.

You will prod find loads cheap on ebay.

for what it's worth:

digital lasers, if i am not mistaken, are defining digital as "fingers", like this:

i don't know what jokaero digital lasers look like, but i am envisioning a grot with a powerfist....or you could make laser tubes on the back of his hand with wires, et.al., something like the back of a meganob's hand.

as for the grot brain: get some green stuff and a raisin. make a simple press mold out of the green stuff using the raisin. let the mold dry. coat the mold with olive oil or similar. press in a new wad of green stuff. presto majesto, a grot brain.

i like the idea of the grot floating in midair...interested to see your take on it.

Or you could give him a turban (and a cape) like Mojo Jojo:

I'm imagining a grottified version of Piccolo from Dragon Ball Z myself.

So... Mojo Jojo?

Black Cat bases make good 28mm brains, very cthulhoid, one of those atop a snotling head would look suitably groteseque.

Can you post me a pic? I don't have any idea what you're talking about?

OK, here we go.....

Tyranid brainy bit on top of a snotling's head, must have a couple electrodes sticking out. Should have one of the old 3 fingered powerfists with some cables connecting to a powerpack. He's sat in a howdah on top of a large nob, who is effectively brain dead. no weapons etc. but built like a brick cazzy, maybe knuckle dragger, probably heavy armoured.

That's the way I would go. Got most of those bits and all, so if you need anything.

Aaaahhhh... tyranid gland thingie... I think we have those... somewhere. Perhaps not. I'll have to look.

If not, lemme know. I betcha my bitz box has tons of em

Theres also the small rat things with brains on the back of the Skaven stormfiends kit.

Heck, stick a Zoanthrope brain on there.

That's just a wee bit silly Anvildude... Thanks for all the ideas gang. Have lots of things to think about and approaches to take now.

Another campaign game tonight, another tabling. That's two in a row. A "fluffy" campaign isn't quite so fun when your opponents are bringing high-end tournament lists. Ah well, at least I get to play with my nice figures.

You should bring your orcs to the next ApocLuk

That's a great idea wyfox. I wouldn't even have to bring my figures... I could just bring scraps of paper with the unit names written on them that I could take from the table and throw directly into the garbage... Save a lot of time and headache that way without any loss of tactical functionality.



Well, after playing this army for a bit... here are my thoughts.

Orks in general...
- bad. slow, poor initiative, poor strength after the charge, no invuls in CC, no way to ignore cover, paper vehicles. Granted there are units I don't have painted up yet. I suspect Gorkanauts & Morkanauts are pretty good.

Specific units...

Grots: OK - You get an ObSec squad that has no military function for 35 pts. I think that's fair.
Grot Tanks: Good - They always seem to out-last just about everything else on the table & are a great harassing unit. I really like them. Fast, 12 HP in a full squad, BS 3 & 5+ invul. They're expensive though which keeps them from being better than good.
Grot Mega Tank: OK - Like the grot tanks only less so because stopping 1 lightly armed vehicle is easier than stopping 6.
Grot Artillery (Mek Guns): Excellent - cheap, great variety of useful weapons, good BS, cheap, T7. I just spent some $ to max out two squads.
Big Squiggoth: Good - Really nifty transport creature. Can be taken down by concentrated fire by grav guns and the like but a great assault platform and can be it's own assault unit after passengers disembark, expensive.
Dakka Jets: Good - just hard to argue with but are rather limited in their role.
Meganobs: Poor - expensive, slow, no invul in cc, T4 so autokilled easily
Killa Kans: OK - slow but one of the only units in the ork race that have both shooting and assault capabilities
Deff Dreads: Poor - cant shoot and assault versions can be easily rendered useless by a single immobilizing hit (see grav guns)
Battlewagons: Very Poor - rented deployment platform... that's about it
Regular bikes: Poor - easy to kill, suffer from same problems that all orks do in CC


It's interesting to me that on-balance, I think the IA units are better than the standard ones... though they're expensive enough that they aren't overpowered (actually my opponents think they're probably a bit underpowered / overcosted).

One of the problems with 40k is the different levels of play. There is an enormous gap between “fun” and “optimized”. You really need to make sure you are playing at the same level as the other guy; a bit of a gentleman’s agreement needs to happen.

And while you might get tabled, at least you do it looking fabulous!

Heah, the last orc player still had a handful of models at the end of the game, which actually helped us tie as otherwise all of the taudar objective secured units were either dead or way out of position.

Also, crashing 3 dakka jets into a Reaver Titan to finally take the bloody thing down was the most epic part of the game!

I heard that. I *DO* have 3 dakkajets. Honestly, I would really love to attend one of the Apoc games... but I want to have at least 1 SH painted by then so I can feel like I'm contributing something other than a target-rich-environment.



@Nev: Yeah, you bet I do. I thought it was supposed to be more of a fun and fluffy event, but the local group is so competitive (even with each other) I don't think they can help themselves. Ah well, such is life. There's always next week.

Formations formations and formations. That is where the good stuff is. Bully Boyz and Blitz Brigade from Gahzgkul are some of my favorites. Others are having success on. The tournament circuit with the 100 Ork mob.

Edit: Editing all the mistakes that came from posting on my phone... dang, I've got fat fingers.

Yeah, the thing is that Orks are cheap, compared to most others. It's Boyz before Toyz for a reason, and that reason is 100 Boyz in a relatively small game, pretty easily. Well, if you have 100 Boyz, that is.

Or, in the old days, people could go with the CyberGrots army, maxing out with 120 Grotz with 5++ saves, plus various things. Grotsnik was cool in the old codex

Anvildude,
That maxim may not be true for orks anymore... the boyz are pretty much the weakest part of the codex, particularly truckboyz.
You can loose an entire squad from a single penetrating hit on AV10. Even if you don't lose the whole unit, it often loses it's effectiveness as a unit.
No... I want to reroll that morale check BEFORE I make the Mob Rule roll... Fearless would be even better. My two favorite ork HQ's are Grotsnik and Grukk Face-Rippa from Sanctus Reach for just those abilities.
No rolling up in trukks... give me battlewagons... out scouting battlewagons.Fill them with boyz that have better weapons... tankbustas and burnaboyz... so that you get more use out of them. Give the battlewagon three big shootas... because really... throwing that much lead is bound to hurt something.

 Gitsplitta wrote:
I heard that. I *DO* have 3 dakkajets. Honestly, I would really love to attend one of the Apoc games... but I want to have at least 1 SH painted by then so I can feel like I'm contributing something other than a target-rich-environment.



@Nev: Yeah, you bet I do. I thought it was supposed to be more of a fun and fluffy event, but the local group is so competitive (even with each other) I don't think they can help themselves. Ah well, such is life. There's always next week.

You would actually be surprised in regards to the superheavies. My Tau Superheavy did bunk all game long except make 15+ 3+ jink saves. I was jinking all game so could not fire the Heavy Rails in Blast Mode. 700 Point sink. 3 of our superheavies (Gargant, Skull Hammer, Revenant) got blown up in the first 2 rounds and didn't contribute much of anything. The Imperial Reaver was boss though. John Pickle didn't take any Super Heavies in his list and he did a lot of damage just spamming grav guns, melta, and lazcannons....and tons of drop pods.

Hey Gits, totally off topic but, you need to check your PM. I am trying to send you something!

Also, any excuse to use Dakkajets deserves my vote.

Hi all!

Sorry for not posting any updates in a while. Have been away on a family vacation and I'm sure you'll all understand that I didn't want to advertise that we'd be away from home. Had a nice break with the family but now I'm back at it.

My main point for this post is to mention that I'll be at Adepticon this year along with my eldest (who now is on Dakka by-the-way). I'm not signed up to do anything except to help out with a couple of 4-hour shifts at RiTides very cool little business venture/kickstarter called the ModCube. The dakka announcement can be found here: ModCube The rest of the time, I'll be looking desperately for pick-up 40k games. I'm counting on the "large open-gaming area" that they've been touting being a real thing. I'll have both my Mantis Warriors and my Grotsapalooza lists available from 500 to 2k points. Neither is particularly competitive but fully painted, fluffy and the ork lists features a ton of IA stuff that you might never have had a chance to see and/or play against.

Other dakka friends will be there as well (Solar_lion, Ramos Azura) so perhaps we could arrange group games as well. My son will be there for the first time with his Necrons (at the same point values) so you can challenge him as well. Please.... he's sick to death of playing me and his little brother all the time.

If you want a fun, friendly game... or even if you want to try out your deadly tournament list (just warn me first so I don't feel bad when you crush me)... please PM me & we'll work things out, or just walk up to me sometime during the event. I certainly won't say "no", but PMs help me plan my time intelligently.

I'm looking for group games with or against Gits.
I'll be bringing Marines and Necrons. Another friend (whom is still just a beginner) will be there will be playing Grey knights as well. Be looking to get in a lot of games!

I'm signing up to be the first one to play Thing1. Necron to Necron. This should lull him into a false state of self confidence.

I wanna see someone with a "Deadly Tournament List" go up against you and get utterly crushed.

Back to work.

Picked up a Kan off e-bay that was missing it's engine so I had to mock up one of my own. Also changed the grotzooka arrangement (I hate the guns hanging on the end of the gangling arms). This is more in-line with the old kans' arrangements, which I prefer).



Here's a comparison of the GW engine on the left (built and painted by nerdfest09) and my mock-up on the right. It's not intended to be an exact duplicate, but close enough that it passes the eye test.



I'm not exactly sure when this feisty little guy is going to get painted... going to take some time today to clean up my work space and fiddle with a marine project. Then we'll see.

Nice conversion!

It’s OK for ork stuff to look odd and different. I’d worry more it it looked too close to the others.

 Nevelon wrote:
It’s OK for ork stuff to look odd and different. I’d worry more it it looked too close to the others.

Yes, this. I second this opinion and endorse it.

Exciting times... got a nice supply drop... all second-hand off ebay. Two old metal killa kans and one old lifta-droppa and a couple of cool old gretchin mech helpers. I've got 12 kans now, just need to paint the last four. That's enough for two full squads or 3 squads of 4. I'm working my way towards two full squads of the old mek guns as well. I know neither of these figures are very spectacular... but it'll be nice to be able to call these units "finished" when I'm done.

Good work on the vent/engine. See, you can do this building from scratch thing.

Probably the last ork step today. Rounded up some bases and got them ready to go. Two for the kans and one for the new artillery piece. The different color gravel on the artillery (square) base is because in it's original version those shapes were inset. I just filled them up, glued and washed them to get them close. I'll do a final wash once the gun is in place to make it match better.



All the various kans and guns are soaking in simple green. Hopefully they'll be ready to clean in a day or so.

Looks good.. the bases look great. Love the moss on the rocks on the first one. Stealing that!

A little side project. Picked up the gun on e-bay. Nicely painted too. Just gave it a sepia wash and hit a detail or two and it was all done. The added the basing and the spotter. One more of these and the squad is complete!

Looking good - Great base as well.

Liking the Old Skool Traktors, I've got a mob of those myself
Makes them stand out a little more when next to the new Kustom Mega Kannon battery.

Thanks guys. I rely on basing quite a bit in order to make my models look decent... especially the older ones or Internet rescue projects that I don't completely strip and repaint.

Nice work! are the "stones" the Gailforce9 stuff?

That's a cast base. Normally my large stones are sheet cork, but I've also used the GF 9 stones and like them too.

Looks great!

Excellent! Quite liking the kans

 Gitsplitta wrote:
That's a cast base. Normally my large stones are sheet cork, but I've also used the GF 9 stones and like them too.

A cast base? very nice! the Kannons arer Koool!

Had a really fun game at league last night vs. Jeremy and his IG Elysian (sp?) drop-troop army with 4 heavily armed flyers. Mission involved two immobile relics in the middle of the table (primary), Adepticon maelstrom (secondary) and standard (first blood, etc...) tertiary. Hammer & anvil deployment, I go first. 1850 points. I must admit I did a lot of whinging-on when I saw his army. It was beautifully painted though and quite WYSIWYG... a real pleasure to play against.

These images are housed on facebook (sorry), hope they translate OK. Some were taken by me, some by Jeremy.

I take over one ruin with my gretchin. A unit of smasha guns on a maelstrom objective with an infantry squad as bubble-wrap on the ground floor (on my right flank). The tanks deploy to left of the building and another unit of grots is hiding behind a building on my left flank scoring another maelstrom objective.


The Imps have very little on the table... an infiltrating squad in the ruins by one of the primary objectives and another couple of squads on a maelstrom objectives on his flanks. OH... and a nasty, dirty, cheese-ridden eversor assassin it the top of the tower in his deployment zone. As we rolled night fight for turn 1, very little happens. I shuffle around a bit but don't want to expose myself too much to the troops that will be parachuting down all over the board. The Imps do very little as well. We're both playing a cat-and-mouse waiting game.



In my half of turn 2, I roll and I get one of my two dakka jets and my squiggoth. Yeppers... thanks to a relic I found in my very first campaign game & the fact that our TO can't remember what the relic rules are that he's given me from week to week... I had a deep striking squiggoth full of meganobs! They land on target & 3 combi-skorchas from the embarked meganobs wipe out his infiltrating squad on one of the primary relics. My mega tank makes a dash for the OTHER primary objective under the watchful eyes of the grot artillery (mek guns) above them in the building. The grot tanks shuffle around a bit, waiting for the drop troops to arrive before committing. My dakka jet comes on and has a *chance* of taking out the assassin... but only does 1 wound.

In the Imperial half of turn 2... everything comes in thanks to a variety of tricksy, cheating "rules" available to this army. 4 heavily armed flyers, infantry everywhere (most around by big squiggoth). He tries to land a squad in my deployment zone behind my grots but they mishap and go into reserve. Here's a pic of my poor, lonely squiggoth and dakka jet before all of his troops arrived.



The massed troops open fire, reducing my squiggoth to ash & leaving my meganobs exposed. (the shot below gives you and idea of the troop concentration around this unit)


A further 3 meganobs and a mek are slaughtered by a ton of AP2 fire and very poor KFF & FnP rolls.

In my turn 3, the last combi-skorcha from the remaining meganobs takes out about 13 guardsmen from 3 different units. I multi-charge & snap fire kills the last two meganobs, however my two HQs (big mek and painboy) wipe a smaller squad if IG and put the other to flight. My second dakka jet comes on and tries to kill 4 measly guardsman to put the center (primary) objective out of reach but only manages to kill 1 guy (talk about an epic fail). My mega tank takes up residence in the ruin and on top of the second primary objective (relic in the middle-right of the table from my deployment perspective).




In his turn 3... the routers rally... and everything lines up and obliterates my two HQs. Meanwhile his flyers start blowing the dickens out of everything. Second dakka jet, half the grot tanks a hull point off the grot mega tank (who I must say rolled pretty darn well on it's cover/invul saves). His guard squad comes down in my deployment zone and blows up a trukk parked there as a reserve, the resulting explosion kills 7/10 boyz (I really have come to HATE the standard ork units... they're just crap). The explosion also kills a bunch of my objective scoring grots and two of his storm troopers (neither of which run).

In my turn 4 I take the 3 remaining grot tanks and start to move them towards the primary we've been squabbling over & that his now 3-man guard unit is heading for, hoping to get a shot at them before they crawl safely into the ruins and claim it. The grot mega tank maintains it's position in the ruin on the other primary relic and takes some pot-shots at some infantry and a flyer. The grot artillery does the same and manages to take out one of the flyers. The three remaining orks charge the surviving storm troopers in my rear and take them out, then retreat to cover. In his turn 4 he drops more storm troopers (flamer armed) in my rear and kills all but the nob, who makes his morale roll. Somehow the grots get wiped... maybe flyer fire? Not sure. But, my lone nob is objective secured and preventing him from collecting a maelstrom point.

At this point... things are looking pretty grim. He's got the near primary objective while my 2 HP-left grot mega tank has the other. I'm slightly ahead in maelstrom points but have just drawn 3 impossible cards (not literally impossible, but practically so). He's also ahead in the tertiary & has a lot more units on the field. All he has to do is use his 3 heavily armed flyers to take out my mega tank and it's over. We're running out of time, so (since turn 4) we've both known that turn 5 would be the last turn.

In my turn 5, I roll all three dice for the grot tank movement and get 15" (out of a possible 18"). I reverse direction and move them so that 2/3 of the tanks are within 3" of the primary that I'm controlling. Now he's got to take out both units in order to knock me off the objective. There's some shooting on my part, but nothing that really matters happens. The Imps do the only thing they can. Three flyers line up their best shots and attempt to knock both of my units off the primary objective.

How did it turn out???


Final Score:

Great bat rep. I love the pictures and your ork army. I hope some day we can meet on the field of battle.

Way to take a pounding and stay in the fight!

Nice as always Gits - however a little harsh to say "TO always forgetting stuff". To be fair your TO is managing 20 players each with individual missions and relic pieces and he only forgot one item. Good battle report and I would say a win win for both as you both needed a relic piece for your mission. Cheers. I am a little biased though

Hey gits, thanks for the bat rep.

Fab batrep, sounds a lot of fun.

Fun is the name of the game!
I see your Orks were up against the "Not-IG" troopers.

Yep. Nice looking figures. I'd like to see them when Jeremy finishes painting them.


Sorry for the lack of any progress. I'm kind of hung up until after Adepticon next week. The next big project will be a Meka Dread, though I may sneak in a couple of artillery pieces or a Killa Kan here or there.

I haven't finished reading through this entire blog but I am working on it, I just wanted to take a moment and tell you that your work is amazing, very inspirational, makes me want to start my own blog and get my Orks up on here for others to see. Please keep up the good work and keep the updates coming, I will be following this blog.

Welcome aboard Skull_Krusha! Thank you so much for your kind words and taking the time to post. My ego needs some reinforcement from time to time and having people enthused enough to post is a real boost & keeps me slaving away at the models late into the night. Starting a blog is a great way to improve your skills as well as make friends. You just have to be patient. "Rome wasn't built in a day" as they say.

Hope to have some very fun models on the table soon. On hold for Adepticon, but I'm thinking of snagging my wife's lap top and our video camera and try my hand at some video posting on YouTube (which I've never done). We'll see how things go.

Feel free to chime in any time!

Very excited about Adepticon coming up in a couple of days. Note I said "excited" and not "stressed and raving" which is how I usually am before Adepticon. Not being in the team tournament does make a difference. I was up until about 11:30 last night drawing up my ork lists and getting all my figures packed up. I also made a quick-and-dirty removable KFF for the FW Tin Boy figure that I use as my big mek in mega armor. It's a very silly list & it'll be a miracle if I win a single battle... but I don't really care. I just want to show off models and have fun.

At 2k my list looks roughly like this (I'm doing it from memory so take this with a grain of salt). Kind of the anti "boys before toys" list.

Ork CAD:
HQ: Big Mek - mega armor, saws, KFF, lucky stick
HQ: pain boy, orderly
EL: 5 meganobz - combi-skorchas
EL: 6 grot tanks
TP: 10 grots
TP: 10 grots
FA: grot mega tank
HV: big squiggoth
HV: 4x mek guns (smasha)
HV: 2 or 3x mek guns (traktor)

IA Dread Mob det
HQ: Big Mek
TP: Deff Dread
TP: Deff Dread
FA: 4x killa kans, RL, riggers
FA: 3x killa kans, grotzookas, riggers

All of the smaller point value lists are sub-sets of this list with the exception that in the smaller lists there's a regular mek. With the exception of the meganobz... I've kept the whole list grotty & meky, which was the whole point of this little exercise in the first place!

Sounds cool, looks like a very fun list to play.

Do we get a pic?

Unfortunately no. Everything's packed up and I don't think I'll have the time to unpack, photo & re-pack (have a big honey-do project that needs to get done tonight). If you're nice though, I'll dig out the tin boy and show you the KFF build. For a quick-and-dirty thing it worked out pretty well.

Silly question, are there actual rules for squiggoths and grot tanks?

Yes. They're both IA. The rules and versions of rules are a bit scattered. Most go back to IA-8 but that's mostly outdated now. There either are updated rules at Forge World, or in the most recent Apoc for 40k book. I can't keep track of what's where anymore... I'm just sick of lugging around a stack of books so I scanned in the applicable data sheet for each unit & made copies.

All of my IA stuff is useful, but probably a bit overpriced (points wise). The models are so cool though it's easy to overlook that in order to get them on the table.

Don't worry about digging stuff out of their cases Git's, take some pics at Adepticon and all will be good.

It was right on top so here you go... the definition of "quick and dirty". Would like to dress it up a bit, but for now it gets the idea across just fine. Made this using zinge bits by-the-way.

That looks really good, very orky.

That Big Mek looks all kitted out!Kustom Force field, and klaws!

Goodness, if that's quick and dirty, I should just turn my painting supplies back in now . Very nice!

It looks good at arm's length, just don't look too close. I wanted to add some wires and such but have been so busy over the last couple of nights that I haven't had the chance. At least he's WYSIWYG.

Hey gang, back from Adepticon. I did manage to take my grots out of the box... only 1 time unfortunately... and that only at 1000 points. However, they accounted for themselves well against some beautifully painted Marines Errant painted and run by Dakka's own Ramos Asura. I took enough pictures to do a complete battle report, which I will work on anon.


Next Projects:
Well, the next big project will be my mega/mecha dread.
I do however... have 4 kans (2 new and 2 old) and two vintage lifta-droppas that are all rescue projects from the web, as well as two more vintage meganobz. Each of these three relatively small projects will complete their respective units... as such, they are rather high on my "to do" list. Metal minis are all stripped and ready to be re-built and primed. Plastics are built and ready to go.


The actual meet of this update is to share some comments by an extraordinary ork scratch-builder Wazoo2000 used to post regularly on dakka until all of his photos got mysteriously wiped out (hundreds of them). Waz didn't have the heart, or time to reload everything... so he took his show on the road. I still get to see him post at his other location however, and wanted to share with you his "13 Rules of Building". Some very interesting insights from an amazingly talented ork scratch-builder. (and I do have his permission to re-post)

The rules I live by when building. (According to Wazoo2000)
1. Copy the gak out of better modelers.
2. Get a good supplier of plastic card, rods and tubes.
3. Keep them topped up so you don't cut corners, and end up sticking gak to you work of art.
4. Always build it to look like it would work, orks are fun and quirky, but we are not a joke.
5. Never use super glue to stick plastic to plastic.
6. Keep your eye on the kids toys, chocolate is always a good swap.
7. Never build when drunk.
8. Drinking while building is fine, rule 7 applies if you can't see any more or the model starts talking to you.
9. Never chuck anything away when it comes to your models.
10. Everything in you home, place of work and vehicle has the potential to be an ork work of art.
11. You must have fun
12. The rule of kool. ("always applies" - Gits)
13. Over the top models may not be good looking models

Hm. That's odd, I use superglue for all my plastic models.

Been thinking of switching to a cement or something better... :/

Number 4 is my main rule when building any model. Every little detail has to have a reason to be there.

9 and 10 are also important to me as I don't have money to burn. But also using the odd shape of something you've saved can lead to "better" shapes than you could make from scratch.

11 and 12 are a must.

I'm not one for "silly" over-the-top models, as that can interfere with rule 4.

Plastic glue/cement, for when you absolutely definitely want your model to stay in one piece. I always do.

Will the kromlech grot from the AdeptiCon swag bag stuff make an appearance in this army, or is it out of scale? Looked a little big when I glanced at it, but just curious

It's big, but I'll find it a home. I must admit, some of the things that Kromlech spends their time on confuse the hell out of me.

 Gitsplitta wrote:

The rules I live by when building.
1. Copy the gak out of better modelers.
2. Get a good supplier of plastic card, rods and tubes.
3. Keep them topped up so you don't cut corners, and end up sticking gak to you work of art.
4. Always build it to look like it would work, orks are fun and quirky, but we are not a joke.
5. Never use super glue to stick plastic to plastic.
6. Keep your eye on the kids toys, chocolate is always a good swap.
7. Never build when drunk.
8. Drinking while building is fine, rule 7 applies if you can't see any more or the model starts talking to you.
9. Never chuck anything away when it comes to your models.
10. Everything in you home, place of work and vehicle has the potential to be an ork work of art.
11. You must have fun
12. The rule of kool. ("always applies" - Gits)
13. Over the top models may not be good looking models

Great rules... I'm just starting my one scratch building projects... and I need to expand rule #2.

Solid rules to live by.

Maybe its high time to get back to my own scratchbuild projects, eh?

 Gitsplitta wrote:
It's big, but I'll find it a home. I must admit, some of the things that Kromlech spends their time on confuse the hell out of me.

They're making money at it, aren't they? If the people want ridiculous Grots, the people can pay for ridiculous Grots.

Well said Anvildude. I just wish they'd scale their stuff down a bit so I could use more of it.

For the IA Detachment, you have a compulsory Spanna Boyz Mob...

Thing 2 got to play in his first Apoc game today. While he was playing... I managed to get a little painting done.



Yeppers, my Smasha-gun battery is now complete!



Still need to add a few grot perma-gunners... but I'm really happy to be done with this unit. I'll admit they aren't very exciting... but they're simple, old artillery pieces and I kinda like them this way.

Nice old lifta-droppas! Excellent repurposing.

Are they like the new Ork-Grot gun things released? I'm not familiar with them yet, seen the models in the online stores but haven't seen anyone mention or want to use them!?

Yeah, the new mek guns are just re-dos of these old artillery pieces. The modern "smasha gun" is a renaming of the old "lifta-droppa". "Traktor cannons" remain the same and the "bubble chucka's" are back. Woot! I need one more OOP traktor cannon and I'll have a full set of those too, though I think that rules-wise, the smasha guns are the cream of the crop.

Not sure what I'm going to do next. Something small I think. Grot gunners maybe. Got a couple of OOP meganobs soaking in the Simple Green, which I'm going to need for another project, so they may get a quick paint job too.

Smasha guns have come out really good, I like the grotty look to them.

Bases are cool too, just wish they were on round bases however!

Well, since the actual figures never came with (nor still do) a base... I guess it's just for looks. I had the bases lying around and couldn't use them for anything else 40k. They seem appropriate however for the artillery. A hold-over from my ideas of U.S. Civil War and Napoleonic artillery I guess. It does serve the added purpose of elevating the guns slightly. The "modern" mek guns have a much higher profile than these old artillery pieces so the bases bring them more in line with the models that they're standing in for.

Definitely love these old school guns.

I quite like them based.

Every time i come back to your thread i am tempted more and more to revisit my blood axes..

REALLY TEMPTING!

Camkierhi was kind enough to send me this trukk a while back & I've just started a minor re-paint on it. All I've done so far is re-paint the panels which he has several colors into a solid light brown which I'll taking up to my standard vehicle yellow. The take-home message here is that with a highly complicated model (from a visual perspective) like the trukk... you don't want to add even more complexity over the top or you end up with a very confusing image. Keep it simple and straight-forward to begin with... you can always fiddle with it more later on. I'll finish this little project up in the next day or so. It'll be nice to have a second painted trukk in my army. Need more but this is a good start. Thanks Cam!