Bad jokes aside, I was looking around the basement the other day, and I noticed my old ork army occupying a dismal spot on the 3rd shelf of my display case, and it inspired me to give them a bit of love.
Consequently, I'm going to go back through the army, and a pile of units to bring it up to 3k or so, and retheme it as a pirate list.
The whole retheming started, like any good WAAGH, with the old warboss. After a rather nasty battle with the dark eldar, he lost his hand (and attached squig hound!). After some long (for an ork) contemplation, he reached the conclusion that the "pirate-ee-ness" factor must have enabled the scrawny eldar to beat him, and he "needed to git sum of dat for 'imself". So he changed his name to "Ork Beard" had his best mekboy graft a hook onto his stump-hand and rework his old looted russ into the "jolly rogork"
Here are the initial pics - they aren't finished yet.
The rigging can be swapped for a boom gun.
Nice start! Very cool theme for 'Freebooters' that one would assume has been overdone but really isn't. That hat really sets the mood! Can't wait to see more.
The green is snot green, highlighted with goblin green/snot green, then goblin green, then a bit of goblin / skull white. I leave out one of the middle highlights for da boyz.
Now, on to the update:
Week 2
"Hey you mekkboy git, are you done wiff dat stuff I told you about yet?!"
"Uh, yeah boss, we's got lots done wiff it."
"Umm, first, here's da truck you wanted. We stuck lots o' wood on it like you said."
"Good. You can't have a proppa boat wiffout lots of wood on it. Dat'll get tha boyz into tha krunch ina hurry."
"What about those kanz? Has you got them all pirated up yet?"
"Yeah boss, they'z pirated up proppa now. The grots had a time tryin ta make dat hat though, an they still needz some paintin."
(Still a bit of work to go on these guys)
"Iz my battlewagon done yet? You needz to replace that one dat got all duffed up fightin tha panzees last week."
"Yeah boss, we found dis old humie tank that we's workin on now."
"Make sure it's got lots of wood stuck on. If it don't look like a proppa pirate ship when you're done, I's gonna krump ya good."
"Uh, right boss, da job'll be a good'un".
"Alright, I's done wiff you mekkboy - where's da nobz!"
"Right here boss!"
"Does you got all your pirate gubbinz on now? Dat'll make you right fighty it will."
"Yeah boss, we's got it all like you said."
"Good, now go get the boyz ready!"
(All of them have had pirate bits added - a cutlass here, a hat there, and of course, plenty of eye patches)
So that's the update for this week - as you can see I've switched to a more narrative format. The wagon is going to be a wopper of a project, but I think it'll go well. I wanted something bigger to work with than an imperial tank. I'll post more of course.
Hope you enjoy,
Time for another update. The mekkboyz have been hard at work on the boss's wagon this weekend.
Here are the blueprints:
As you can see, it's been preemptively christened "The Jolly Raw-Jork". It's loosely based on the pirate lord Bloth's ship from the old series, "the pirates of dark water". The front end is going to be a giant ork gob designed to eat other vehicles.
So far I've got the tank chassis itself built, and a good bit of the base plasticard put together. I figure there's about a million more hours to go, but it's at least starting to take shape.
I'll post more as it's complete - let me know what you think.
A software/music pirate might have to get worked in somewhere - that'd be a blast. I'll do a full on picture tutorial on the skin next time I paint a batch of orcs, until then, the recipe is above.
Alright, so first up today is a stolen Mekk's "blooprint". It's got a step by step description of the function of the MegaGob on the front of the wagon.
Top secret stuff there.
Next I have the completed (structurally anyway) MegaGob. Orkbeard is thrown in for scale.
Hope you enjoy - Next up I'm going to start working on all the armor plating.
This is an awesome army! Whenever you finish with the models, you should make some pirate harbor terrain, perhaps a tavern to help get the orks REALLY riled up!
The Jolly Raw-Jork has turned into quite a project. I've got the ship itself finished, all that's left on the construction end is the rigging. Then will come the painting.
For now, here are the pics:
Here's a closeup of the zzap gun turret:
And the rocket launcher (That's a piggy back gretchin firing it):
And one of the helm & deck:
And a final shot of the rear:
That's a hell of a lot of rivets!
Let me know if you have any suggestions on how to make it look sharper - I think I'm not even seeing the forest anymore, being a bit lost in the trees.
Awesome. I'd suggest adding some railing to the sides and maybe a boarding plank,; continuing the piratey theme. Just add a grot ina dress to the end of it
The ship nears completion - here are the shots of the ship as it currently stands:
I've got to add a rope swinging ork to the rear mast, ah-la every great pirate movie ever, and highlight the image on the sail. Then, all that's left is to load it up with 20 orks and see if they all fit!
As you might have noticed, these pirates have a Goff-pirate color scheme. I don't care for the usual overly bright freebooter look.
Oh, and the top hats are just a smooshed green stuff brim with a green stuff tube for the crown - it's way easier than you might think.
I think the basic Aobr warboss would be good on top of that boat with all its flowing things and pointing finger. But apart from that woah! sweet that takes orks to a new level
Some impressive work on that ship-wagon. I was surprised when I looked closely at your wood grain. It's really just lighter brown, slightly squiggly lines running in the same general direction. Seems too simple to work, but looking at the mast and plank ladder, the effect is really striking from a distance.
Dude, I'm a huge fan of simple, but looks good at an arms length. I'm not in the business of winning golden daemons here, and in my experience, most of the really nit-picky detail is wasted across an army anyway. At tournaments, I just don't spend the time studying the other armies closely enough to notice it.
I finished the first mob(ish) sized unit of orks - 47 of them to be exact.
Here is the lot of the scalawags piled onto the Jolly Rawjork. You can see Long Dong at the helm with his faithful helper grot (he'll get a parrot soon!). I know nothing about ship terminology by the way, so forgive me if I screw it all up. The ship itself holds 23, so it meets my intent of being able to actually hold 20 orks.
I don't know how well you can make it out, but most of the orks have some sort of pirate attire, be it a peg-leg, a bandanna, or a tri-corner hat.
And here is a hasty shot of the workbench. There are 50ish more orks on the way, with 5 power klaw'd nobz in the mix.
There's more on the way, but that's certainly enough for today.
I love the theme of the army, and it looks amazing. I can only imagine the confused look on a guardsman's face as this "sails" across open ground simply because the Orks believe it should!
Or as an alternative, would make for a hilarious narrative battle for a few kommando teams to sneak in and bust all the water mains in a huge city just to be able to float the Jolly Rawjork down the street...
It is built on a tank chassis, I don't think it'll take too much belief to get it sailing! - unless the Kaptin tries to actually take it into the water that is...
The mob grows! I can almost put a full green tide on the board now - one mob to go and I'm going to reward "Da Kaptin" with a stompa. I hope it doesn't go to his head!
Here are a few pics of the whole band, with a few close ups of the individual mobz.
Well, it's been a bit since I worked on the orks, but now I'm back on the greenskin wagon.
I figured the Kaptin has plenty of Gorka, but his boyz are missing a bit of Morka. Consequently, I picked up 2 trukk kits, and an old WW2 plane model.
First, let me say that the trukk kit is amazing - GW really outdid themselves on that one. It's exactly what I imagine an ork mekk would actually want to build a truck - a big pile of armor, engines and wheels that can be cobbled together into about anything.
Here are my WIP shots of the Kaptin's trucks. As you can see, the first is stock standard, where as the second has been Kustomized.
And second, I've got a WIP shot of a Fighta. It's still got a lot of work to be done of course.
So there they are, I'll post more pics as they're built/painted.
the second trukk looks halfway between a battlewagon and a trukk dunno why. but its still AWESOME the fighta bomma looks like its gonna be pretty cool too!
The Mekkboyz are still hard at work on the Fightabomma. (or just Fighta? Who knows which.) The burnaz have been working over time cutting up scrap metal - here are the results:
Next, I've got to add the gunz and bomz of course, as well as some gubbinz, a propeller, and a ridiculous number of rivets. Let me know if you think it's missing anything.
Thanks for the comments on the army - after I get this plane finished, I'm going to paint it and the two trucks at the same time, so stay tuned for more!
Landing gear or some extra armour plates to protect from abrasion ;P
The trukks and fighta are looking great. I was trying to figure how to have one hanging off the side like that too, for the shoota (instead of the turret). Thanks for showing me how it's done!
I'm really cracking the whip on the mekkboyz this week - the plane is finished up except for the payload. The plan is to give it enough ordinance to be a fightabomba, in spite of the bird not having a turret. Generally though, it's going to be a fighta.
Here are the pics - complete with landing gear (the snow chains were a last thought by Dong):
Hope you like it - I'm planning on missles, rocket pods and a whopping huge bomb to represent the Apoc (8) barrage.
Oh, and the swinging ork is just a normal ork boy with an extended arm and a drilled hand - and the pirate theme song was great.
Love the airplane! I'd consider integrating the guns a bit more (adding some cowling should do the trick), other then that: love it! For the bombs: how about tying a few valk missiles together?
Well, after eye surgery, a week of healing, and finally getting off night schedule, I'm back to work on what's really important in life - miniature painting.
First, I finished up the fightabomma. Here are the pics:
I stuck to a color scheme that is used across the army - dirty old metal w/ black, white and red accents. Nothing revolutionary, but I think orks look good in it.
The armament is magnetized, which I felt was a must because of all the 1 shot weapons.
Next up, I've got a runtbot sitting in my cabinet that a kind dakkaite shot me from the UK - stay tuned!
I turned the truck out pretty quickly. I built both of them together, so maybe a couple of hours for assembly (2ish). Then I painted both with testors metal as a basecoat, and after they dried washed both with Badab black. That took about a half hour (plus drying time). The detailing was the fastest part. I painted the black stuff black (thinned a bit so metal would show through) then stapled on a lot of scorched brown for the rust and grime. The white dags & checks came next, and the red highlights and driver were last. It took about an hour per truck to do all the last part. So... I guess 3 sessions total - maybe 6 hours for both trucks?
I finished up the 2nd truck - here it is in all it's dirty glory!
Hope you like it - the orks are going on autopilot for a bit while I tie up some loose ends in the Catachan army and the LOTR stuff. I'll be back to the greenskins soon enough though - it's about to be time for a full on mob of Flashgitz! (oh, and runtbot and maybe a stompa)
alexwars1 wrote:Make this your army's theme song. Pleeaaase?
I can just picture him replaying this song over and over again as his turn comes, his opponent staring in fear as a huge battleship sails along the table and the song askes for wenches and mead ...
alexwars1 wrote:Make this your army's theme song. Pleeaaase?
I can just picture him replaying this song over and over again as his turn comes, his opponent staring in fear as a huge battleship sails along the table and the song askes for wenches and mead ...
The orks have been on the back burner for a bit, but I snagged a deal on these guys, and had to pick them back up. Without further ado, I give you Kaptin Orkbeard's Megamatez.
I've also tossed in pictures of the painboy - Old Petey one eye, and the Long Dong Silvorks yet unnamed mechanical monstrosity.
Hope you enjoy them - I love these meganob models and couldn't resist updating them a bit. The grotbot model is going to have a good bit of pirate conversion work.
I finished up the modeling on Morkbot - I felt bad doing too much to the model, as it's really incredible, but I did pirate it up a bit and add a shoulder cannon. He's going to be either a 2nd (and not in charge!) warboss or a Dread. We'll see. Painting on the meganobz has begun.
MAN!! This army is absolutely amazing! I love these fully-themed armies, they always inspire me to get back to work on my own army. The pictures in this blog just call out to you in challenge, and I sit here thinking "if I could make something half as inspired as this stuff, I'll definitely be getting somewhere!"
I love the Megamatez, great use of old school orks mixed with new plastic, they really work well together. I understand your sentiment about the Morkbot, it's really hard to get yourself to alter such high quality (and high cost!) models, but I think the shoulder cannon and hat really tie it well into the army without taking away from the FW quality.
Also, imo, orky themed armies are really some of the best. Freebootaz and greenstealaz really benefit in feel from the theme; they gain a whole different flavor beyond that of the "normal" (and I use that term loosely) orks
The Megamatez are finished! They should be clanking onto a battlefield in the near future - although I was bummed when I realized the painboy couldn't join them. I wonder why the Meganobz don't get the same options as their non-stylish brethren?
Alright, so in my quest to add more Morka to the Kaptain's rather Gorka heavy list, I decided to find a few deffkoptas. After a bit of hunting, I found 12 of them for 25 bucks - that made my cheap little heart happy of course. Painting them was pretty easy, and I think the varying heights really makes the unit look sharp.
Wow, so it's been a bit since I updated this - the orks have been shelved for almost 6 months. In the last week though, Ole Orkbeard has put the boot in the mekkboyz to get more morka into the list. And so they have. I real life, I swung a deal for a big pile of buggy, trukk and trakk kits, and went to work on them. Here are the results (sin paint).
The only think missing are the pirate hats - I'll do them all at once when the last vehicle is finished. (I've got an order on some maximinis stuff on the way)
Yeah, I've got one more project in the works before they get painted, and it's a doozy....
Long Dong and the boyz are excited about this one (any guesses?)
So at long last, Long Dong has started his Magnum Orkus, the Blork Pearl. A skullhammer battlefortress. Methinks it may even dwarf the Jolly Raw-jork, but we shall see.
In true ork fashion, I only have a loose idea of what it'll end up looking like. This is mostly going to be a grip it and rip it project. I figure that'll make for the best results. Or at least some results.
'ere are the first shots:
As you can see, she's going to have a working assault ramp up front and (por supuesto!) a detailed interior. Past that - no idea!
I don't know about an actual row of cannons - I may go that way, but I haven't decided between that and sponsons yet. There will definitely be plenty of portals though, and wood, and a big, fat ork Kaptain sticking out of the top.
Here are the Mekk's latest WIP shots:
As you can hopefully see, the boarding ramp and front guns are supposed to be suggestive of an ork face, with the mouth opening to vomit forth the green hordes!
Everything else is still in progress - I work pretty haphazardly.
Lookign good, thought he face thnbingy had too be pointe dout to me. Maybe you put could put a bit of armour/eyebrow/over the demolisher cannon, or lower the zzap gun to take the place of the viewport? I think that would make the' vomiting ork face' a lot clearer
I saw the face (though only after I looked back after you mentioned it). Paint will probably do enough to make it obvious - but any of the above would help too.
So after my wife agreed that the face is a bit nebulous, I've nixed it. We'll see if it comes out during the painting process, otherwise the Kaptain will just have to roll without it.
Here are the latest WIP shots - as you can see, it's working toward being complete, although there's still a bit of work left.
Comments and criticism are welcome as usual - and does anyone know why in the hell there aren't rules to slap a deff rolla on the skullhammer? It seemed like a no-brainer to me.
Alright, so after a bit of time in the field, I'm back home and back to painting. The orks still being on the work bench, I decided to get the skullhammer painted up.
Here she be:
The interior is full of motivational posters - I figure the boyz would want something awesome to look at before piling out into a storm of assault cannon rounds. (and yes, that's a Ghaz fanboy poster)
wonkobaggins wrote:Today saw the completion of the warbuggies - all 6 of them - as well as a general inventory of the Kaptain's forces.
"I wants ta know what I gotz" he said. Who am I to argue?
Here are the pics of the buggies and the muster:
Let me know what you think!
Dan
I'll tell you what I think. I think that's fething awesome and I would love to play against an army like that. Be proud dude, that'sterrific modeling and painting.
What's every pirate need? A boarding party of course! The only reason I haven't built any stormboyz to this point, given that their models are amazing looking, is the price tag. 25 bucks for 5 guys with a 6+ save? Really? That's a pretty stiff price tag for half a turn of bolter fodder. Luckily, I found a whole mess of them for half off, so for 60 bucks, I got the following unit (including Zagstruck) on the table:
Yessir, "Kaptin Krunch and da Bordin Party" is now officially part of the crew.
Your boarding party looks like alot of fun! Great idea and good job finding them on the cheap - Zagstruck looks particularly nice! Maybe painting the teeth on his iron gob?
Utterly beautiful work! the first ever contact i had with gw was white dwarf issue 135. you can still get it on ebay. it has the most glorious freebooter conversions in it. thus i have long thought of making an ork pirate army. FINE WORK SIR FINE WORK!
Alright, so as a freebooter army, there is one unit that I really can't help avoid including - Flashgitz!
I mean, nothing screams freebooters like 10 of these muldoons kroozing around the battle field on a pirate ship.
Here are the WIP pics of the boyz:
They've got the cybork upgrade modeled onto them - you'll note a few are cruising around on monowheels provided by Pigiron miniatures
I had pics of the 5 in the background, (including Badrukk and the painboy) but they were too fuzzy, so you'll have to wait until they're painted to see them.
I know the greenstuff on the one dude's arm is rough, but it'll clean up with paint.
Unfortunately, Orkbeard got a bit sore after seeing the amazing Badrukk model, so I've promoted him to Admurrl and spruced up his model a bit with an Admurrl'z koat (complete with epaulets!), a better base, and (at KreepyKrawly's suggestion) a squig parrot.
Finally, here's a shot of the ship's cook (and resident warphead) Squiggy McGee:
And that's all for today! Lots of sculpting done, and a good bit of painting to look forward to. I've got to get ready for an apocalypse battle with the ladz next week - 4500 points of fun against a guard army!
wonkobaggins wrote:This afternoon I finished up the first objective marker for the orks - in accordance with good orky tradition, it's a bit ridiculous:
First, that mainstay of all ork kulture, the drops:
And second,the one thing any ork pirate is going to be looking for - a big X. "Hey boss - what's dat big X on da map mean?" "It means we's lookin for a big X you git!":
And now the orks are ready for the big 5k game Saturday. The admurl, Kaptain Badruck, Zagstruck and da boyz are going to stomp some guardsmen into the dirt! I'll try to take some pictures.
Alright, so here's the last orky update for a while.
I wanted the skullhamma to count as a battlewagon as well, so I rigged up this:
The top bit is magnetized and removable so the turret can be put back on. The deff rolla was an afterthought - I just love those things.
And finally, here's a pile of grot assistants - I love the old sculpts and couldn't resist adding them to the army.
That's all she wrote on the orks for a bit - I'm on to other projects for a while! I hope you've enjoyed reading the string of updates as much as I've enjoyed producing them.
more grotz maybe?
)
the fighta bomma looks like its gonna be pretty cool too!
