Hey, All-

My friend recently started up a Gorkamorka campaign, so I've been converting up some Spanners for my Morker Mob.



I tried to pattern them roughly on the old metal spanners, one with a bag full of tools and the other with some kind of welding equipment, using mostly parts from the plastic Ork kits.

I decided to build the welding torch out of a bit of plastic tube and some copper wire. The business end of the torch is the hilt of a Sicarian Ruststalker sword. The wrench is from a charm bracelet.



While I like the Ork plastics, all the faces have similar snarling expressions, which a little bit underwhelming compared to some of the old Ork artwork. I wanted to go for kind of a Paul Bonner feel to my mob, so I decided (for better or for worse) that I was going to sculpt smiles onto all of my mobsters. I also decided that I'd give this guy goggles to match his buddy. As I recall, I made them by slicing up a couple different sizes of spears.



I'm quite pleased with how he came out in the end. He ended up with an even goofier expression than I was going for, which is great. He makes an excellent aspiring mad scientist.



My second spanner went through a number of iterations. I ended up ruining several heads before going with the biker head. As much as I liked the charm bracelet wrench, I wanted to keep all my Spanners looking unique, so I decided to scratch-build a pipe wrench for the next one. I started with a choppa from the Savage Ork sprue (I think), cut down the blade and added some other bits and some plasticard. The teeth on the wrench are the bottoms of two shoota magazines and the threads for adjusting it came from an Imperial Guard vox caster. The rest of the vox caster got turned into a makeshift radio that the Spanner carries around in his pack. His face took a lot less sculpting (though his arms took a fair amount of work to reposition) than the other Spanner. I added some little balls of green stuff to make the lenses of his goggles convex so that I could paint them up like the other one as well as the obligatory smile.



I think the pipe wrench came together nicely. I'm especially pleased at how good the little bit of antenna looks all painted up.

They're really cool! I like the tools, especially the fact that one came from a charm bracelet

EDC

Here's Grizwoad, the Nob of my Morker Mob.




His head is from the Warbiker Nob, which normally has huge tusks sticking out of his mouth. I almost gave up on my plan to give all my mobsters big smiles and just gave him an Iron Gob, but it didn't really fit over his tusks. In the end, I ended up carving out most of his teeth, then reinserting a few of them that came out more or less intact.



He ended up having a really goofy expression, but it kind of grew on me while I was painting him up.

I also like how the little ork skeleton at his feet turned out. Too bad his choppa kind of hides it when he's actually on the table.

Gunna be watching this for sure!

I really like that scratch-built pipe wrench. Fun project. Subscribed!

Thanks, guys!

 evildrcheese wrote:
They're really cool! I like the tools, especially the fact that one came from a charm bracelet

EDC

Yeah, a collection of funny little charms, gears, and broken electronics is starting to accumulate in my bitz box. We'll see how much of it ends up being useful. I didn't post a picture where you can really see it, but the hammer strapped on to the back of my spanner's pack is another find from the charm bracelet store.

Here's the backbone of my Morker Mob, my Big Trakk:



It's the only model in my mob so far that isn't really converted (not counting the driver, Spike, and his big grin). It's basically just a stripped down Forgeworld Halftrakk that I got on eBay. I had intended to take all the other bits and magnetize them so that I could add them later as I purchased gubbins, but I simply ran out of time. That will have to be a project for our next game.



My Mob's not going to be all that shooty, because I didn't have enough teef to spend on a mounted weapon. I spent it all getting a second vehicle:



It's a pretty straightforward trakk, as I actually quite like the design of the standard GW Ork Wartrakk. Again, I got it off eBay, so one of the handlebars was broken (those things are surprisingly delicate). Most of the conversions were just fixing it up, rather than trying to change the overall style of the model. The main problem, of course, was the crew. The ones that come included in the model are tiny compared with the current Ork Boyz, so I went about making a new driver, mostly out of an Ork Biker. The arms that come with the Warbiker Mob are actually attached to the handlebars, which isn't really a big deal, but looks a bit awkward when you have to remove the driver. Instead, I cut up one of the open handed arms from the Boyz sprue and pinned it in place so that it could rest on top of the handlebars. I was actually able to use some of the arm that I had cut off to fill the gap back in, which meant that I didn't have to completely resculpt his muscles. I also gave him a smile to match the other members of the mob.



When I rebuilt the handlebars, I made my new ones a bit bigger. They're made mostly out of some old Chaos Marauder spears with some more Sicarian Ruststalker bits for the throttle. I made sure to pin them on so that they don't get broken off the first time this thing tips over. I was probably a bit overcautious, as I think the pin runs halfway up the handlebars, but you can never be too sure.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
And here's the whole gang, getting ready for their first big battle.

Looking good!

I love those grins.

Man and if you want to see tiny compared to modern boys, the old trukk was something else.

Some lovely grins. Did you splurge out the extra teef for the dental plan?

Quick Update:

My boys had their first big scrap of the campaign. It didn't go as badly as it could have gone, but we still got stomped pretty good. We decided to ease into the campaign by starting off with a friendly cooperative scenario. All four mobs were together on a team against some unruly grots and squigs. Nice and easy. Just required a bit of cooperation...



...Ork cooperation.

Just a few turns into the game, my big trakk got rammed by Urzig's trukk. I had only run over one or two of his boyz, I don't know why he had to get all indignant about it. Unfortunately, this sudden and inevitable betrayal not only damaged my trakk, it completely immobilized it, putting it in the shop for a round and leaving me with just my little track for the second game. We managed to grab a few pieces of scrap before fleeing, but our prize was hard earned. Abby, my brash yoof Trakk driver was gunned down. Fortunately, the teef we earned that game was enough to recruit a new driver, who was promptly given the name of Abby Junior in honor of their fallen comrade.

The final game of the day was Da Big Race, which pitted my Morkers against the other three mobs in a one-lap race around a dangerous track. One of my friends added some additional realism to the track by leaving a trail of broken parts behind his truck (apparently he didn't use enough glue ).



In the end, I took second and third place, which gave me enough teef to start adding some gubbins to my big Trakk, which will hopefully improve its chances of survival. All things considered, I'm pretty happy with how things turned out.

Also, the race gave me the best shot so far of the whole campaign:



We may not have come in first, but my mob definitely had the most fun.

Looks like the boyz did good

Love the battle report - genuinely made me chuckle!

Oh, man, this is great stuff here! This blog scratches so many itches I don't know where to begin, so in no particular order.

1. Gorkamorka is awesome and I'm so excited to see someone playing a campaign with it! It had great flavor and was so much fun.

2. I'm loving your conversions! The wrench and pipe wrench are excellent. The goggles fit the theme perfectly. And the smiles are an insane (in a good way) touch. So much character oozing from these boys.

3. There are battle reports with pics, one of my favorite parts of the hobby! Keep them coming with more game photos, please!

I can't wait to see what's next. I love it so far.

Thanks for all the encouragement, guys! It's nice to see that there are still plenty of Gorkamorka fans out there.

@The Riddle of Steel - I'll make it a point to post a few more pictures next time we have a game.

I've started modeling the gubbins for my big trakk, which has proved a bit more difficult than I had originally imagined. With my winnings from the last game, I purchased a big shoota and shoutas. I also made it extra spiky. My original plan was to simply create some plasticard plates covered in spikes and simply attach them with magnets. The problem was trying to decide where to attach them to the vehicle. There aren't a lot of big flat areas on the ork halftrakk, especially a rather stripped down version like mine. There are a few flat panels by the driver and toward the back, but that's also where a lot of the details on the model are, and I didn't want to stick a magnet in the middle.

In the end, I decided that rather than stick spike plates directly to the flat panels on the trakk, I would make some bigger plates that could hook over the sides and hang down over the windows.



I used some bamboo skewers for the spikes themselves, which I sawed off in my trusty mitre box. Actually attaching them to the plasticard proved way more difficult than I had expected. Super glue wouldn't stick to the wood, wood glue wouldn't stick to the plasticard. After trying every glue I had in the house, I ended up borrowing a hot glue gun, which worked great (although it got tiny strings of glue everywhere, which was a pain to clean up). The best part is that if I accidentally broke one off, super glue would stick to both the plasticard and the blob of hot glue around the skewers, so repairs were easy.

I had similar difficulties with my big shoota. The problem wasn't just where to install a magnet, but how to get my gunner in place. Although I was quite pleased with how my converted spanner turned out, I managed to make him in the least compact pose possible. I didn't want to make a second model for my spanner when he was in the gunner's seat (since that's where I was hoping he'd spend most of his time) so I had to make a turret that was big enough for both his outstretched arms and his bulky base.

I think my final solution was appropriately ridiculous:

Orky engineering. Lovely. Can we get a shot of them mounted on the trukk?

@CommissarKhaine Here you go:



You can't tell from the picture, but the part where the big panels loop over the top are filled with green stuff moulded to the shape of the doors so that they (in theory) they won't slide around and will stay in position when the vehicle moves. I didn't have the same amount of room with the small panels, so they're just attached with copper wire.

Hopefully I'll be able to post some pictures of them painted up in the next few days...

Well thought out system, thanks for sharing .

I'm more of a welded-on-metal spikes kinda guy, but I can dig the hedgehog look!

This is so cool, man I want to play Gorkamorka with somebody now!

Looks like quite the endeavor to get those spikes on there, but that's a clever system to make them detachable using the copper wire hooks on the front ones and the shaped undersides on the rear ones. Lots of little plates and rivets helps with the look, too!

I am looking forward to seeing the finished product with them painted up.

Gorkamorka! These guys are great. How many mobs in the campaign? Are you using the expansion as well, or just orkiness?

Thanks, everyone!

@goblinpaladin There are four mobs in the campaign right now, two Morkers and two Gorkers. No oddmobs yet. We're using a lot of house rules to make the Gorkamorka rules a lot closer to 7th edition 40k, as well as incorporating a few scenarios and such that people have posted on the Internets, so this campaign has also been kind of an extended play test as we try and get the balance right so that one strategy doesn't just steamroll all the others. The oddmob rules are a bit more complicated, so we're trying to tackle those in time for the next campaign.

Anyway, I finally managed to get some pics of my painted Spiky Gubbinz:



Both my spikes and my big shoota are now painted and properly installed on my big trakk. I think the finished product ended up a lot better than my original idea of just magnetizing them and sticking them right above the tracks. This method makes the trakk look appropriately both hazardous to approach and haphazardly constructed.



Just needs some shoutas and this one is ready to go.

Nice and orky, well done

Those ramshackle spiky bits are A+. I hear what you mean about the oddmobs and weirdness. Keen to see how it all works out.

Spanner number three is done:



I call him Shifty. Instead of scratch building tools for this one, I used the wrench and backpack from the Lootas sprue and focused my time on building him a kannon. I tried a few different guns for the base, including the big shoota from the Ork Boyz sprue, but in the end, I settled on a standard shoota, since it worked better for the pose I was going for. I removed the magazine and built a new barrel out of plasticard tube.



I'm quite fond of the various packs that this guy carries around. I'm especially pleased with how the patchwork leather wrench holder turned out. I think the random bit of scrap he's standing on is from the Assault Marine sprue.



I almost gave up on giving him a smile because it was so hard to even get a file or clippers inside his helmet that I didn't want to try to do any modeling in there. I'm glad that I tried anyway, because his smirk is one of my favorite things about this model. He might even be my favorite of the three...



...though it's pretty hard to pick a favorite.

Wow, I like the Kannon. It looks like a pretty simple conversion, but it looks like something that could do a lot of damage.

I have to agree, that smirk is very nicely done, very natural. And the kannon is looking suitably impressive as well. Nice work!

Thanks guys!

I've finally finished the last bit of gubbinz for my big trakk, the shoutas:



Believe it or not, this is actually one of the more restrained ideas I had for my shoutas. At one point, I was considering going all-out Fury Road, filling the whole bed of the trakk with shoutas and then building new platforms on top of the speakers for the crew to stand on. Ultimately, I settled on one big stack of speakers with some horn loudspeakers on top. It takes up a considerable amount of space, but since my mob is fairly small, it shouldn't be a problem.

I went back and forth on the paint job for my shoutas, too. I think black speakers look a bit more industrial or military than beige ones, but I couldn't get enough contrast that you could actually make out what they were, apart from a big black obelisk of some sort in the back of the truck. In the end, I went with a lighter color both to outline the drivers and the box itself, as well as for the four horns on top. I tried to make them look appropriately grungy for Gorkamorka (though I may have gone a bit overboard in some places) so they would fit in with the rest of the trakk.



Finding the parts to build what I wanted was challenging. The box itself is just built from plasticard, but the other parts were scavenged from all over. The speakers are snaps I got from a fabric store and some ball bearings that were sold as BB gun ammo. The horns on top were little bells that I was able to remove the clappers from. I was going to have a few different sizes and shapes, but I didn't really have the space and nothing else I found really fit what I was looking for.



And with that, the mob's all ready for the next big game.

That's.. some big shoutas :p. Like the effect, I could easily tell what they are (not that easy with what's essentially a big black box irl)

One final touch before the mob goes back into battle, da Boyz arranged a fitting tribute to Abby Sr, the former driver who was the first Ork to be killed in the campaign. Never ones for symbolism when literal interpretations will due, the gang figured out a way that their fallen companion could ride on with them forever...

Awesome work! Best Gorkamorka thing I've seen on Dakka ever!

Thanks, theCrowe! A lot of my conversions have come out a lot different from how I originally planned them, but overall, I think that most of it has turned out for the better so far.

DUDE....

The speaker rack is amazing! I love it. Thanks for the idea on using snaps and tiny bells. I was wondering what to use for something similar and those turned out great.

I also love the smirk on the newest boy.

And the skull with the helmet still on is pure genius! You are on a roll, my friend! Keep it coming. I walk away from this page for a week and there is so much new greatness here.

Those smiles are absolutely amazing. I'm going to have to up my greenstuff sculpting game and try to replicate that effect. I love your conversion work!

Absolutely fantastic stuff. Proper Orky. Gorkamorka is awesome, and you are awesome for making these awesome figs to play it with. Great blog and battle report, please keep this going!

Excellent work dude. Love the speaker.

EDC

Like the little tribute. It's these little things that make skirmish game mobs come alive IMO

Thanks, everyone!

@Riddle of Steel - You can probably find much better supplies online if you know what you're looking for. This was mostly the result of me wandering around craft stores for a few hours looking at every weird little bobble that I might be able to dismantle for parts. Smaller ball bearings would have worked better with the snaps I got, and a wider variety of bells and snaps would have looked really cool. Still, I can't complain. I never would have thought of using snaps at all if I hadn't stumbled across them in a fabric store.

@theocracity - The smiles are mostly pretty easy conversions, except for the nob (who required a decent amount of dentistry). It's mostly just a matter of filing off part of the lower lip and resculpting it a bit higher. Ork faces actually make pretty good practice, since huge lips and teeth are easier to sculpt than tiny human features.

Also, since Jambles, Riddle of Steel, and a few other people have expressed interest, here's a brief recap of da boyz latest adventures:

This time around, the gloves were off from the start. The first game was a four-way free-for-all between the four gangs. Grizwoad and Marvolork were on one side of the table, facing down the two Gorker nobs, Chad and Urzig on the other.



There were a number of dangerous cacti and mushroom patches on the table, but the biggest hazard was a rather ominous unexploded bomb that was right between Grizwoad and Chad. Two pieces of scrap were there along side it for the ork daring enough to get close enough.



Perhaps not surprisingly, both of us just shot at the bomb until we managed to set it off. Probably for the best, as we rolled so high for the blast that it nearly engulfed both our vehicles anyway.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, Urzig and Marvolork charged headlong into each other, immobilizing Marvolork's big trakk. Over the course of the campaign, Urzig had managed to become a close combat monster, so this encounter didn't bode particularly well for Marvolork and his boyz.



As hand-to-hand combat broke out across the far side of the table, Chad and Grizwoad's boyz were still blasting away at each other while trying to avoid the sizable crater left by the explosion. The shoutas and spikes on my big trakk were enough to discourage any attempt at boarding, so I was able to force Chad and his mob toward Urzig's truck.



In the end, I was able to snatch up most of the scrap on that side of the table while the rest of the mobs started bottling out. It was the first win for Grizwoad and his boyz.

The next two games went fairly quickly and were much less eventful. First I faced off against Urzig and his crew. Though they had the upper hand, they simply grabbed the nearest piece of scrap and ran off back to their mines (which everyone else agreed was quite un-orky). The third game against Marvolork was apparently so intense that I forgot to take any pictures.

In any case, I found myself in a good position going into the big race at the end of the day. I'd come out on top in all of my games and hadn't suffered any major losses (a refreshing change of pace). This time, however, I wasn't the only one with two entries in the race. Everyone but Urzig had picked up a second vehicle, so there were seven racers this time around.



Once again, Marvolork took an early lead in the race. As my big trakk tried to pass it, his grabba arm reached out and plucked Grizwoad right out of the back of his rig.



Naturally, the boyz were in a bit of a panic as their leader was being crushed to death in Marvolork's giant pincer, so they threw everything they had at the enemy trakk. Fortunately, one lucky shot managed to hit them right in the gubbinz, and the grabba was blown clean off the back of Marvolork's trakk, freeing Grizwoad, who ran quickly back to the safety of his spiky car.



Going into the first curve, the race had turned into a fairly orderly procession with Marvolork leading the way. By the end of the first turn, however, everything had erupted into chaos. True to form, Marvolork's boosta rokkits exploded the first time he used them, forcing everyone else to dodge the flaming wreckage of his trakk. Urzig's boyz also fired of several boostas, plowing their way to the front of the pack before spinning out. Meanwhile, a lucky shot managed to knock Grizwoad's shoutas off the back of his vehicle, ruining the vibe for the whole mob.

With nearly every vehicle at a dead stop after collisions or spin-outs, Urzig came charging across the middle of the track and started wreaking havoc. He nonchalantly tossed Grizwoad, Toast, and Shifty out of their vehicles, while beating Abby and Spike into unconsciousness. The height of the chaos saw Urzig and Chad locked in personal combat on the back of Abby's trakk (which no longer had any of my mobsters aboard).



With no drivers left standing, Grizwoad climbed aboard Urzig's trukk and started dispatching his boyz in the same fashion. Within a few rounds, the two nobs had obliterated each other's mobs.

Somehow in all this confusion, Chad's two drivers managed to sneak away (ignoring the fact that their boss was getting the tar beat out of himself by Urzig).



Grizwoad and Toast, who at this point were the only two boyz in the mob left standing, made a mad dash to the finishing line to try and stop them. Toast managed to get off a few shots before being flattened and Grizwoad got one swipe with his big choppa, but it was no use. Chad's gang managed to pick up first and second place. There was no third place prize this time, because there was no one left standing who could drive the abandoned vehicles that littered the raceway.

With an even more decisive win in this race than in the first, Chad and his mob are poised to win the campaign next time we get together. Despite a good showing this time around, my mob wasn't able to catch up to the frontrunners. It would take a miracle to pull ahead of both Chad and Urzig next time, but if nothing else, we'll give 'em a run for their money. I've got a lot of stuff to build before next time...

Looking great, and it sure reads like a lot of un . Quick question: what is that purple vehicle based on? Those tracks look like something I'd want to loot.

Great orky antics! Gotta love this game.
I also enjoyed the ubiquitous green ball cactus with red cocktail stick spikes! Classic stuff.

Oh yeah, seeing the battle reports brings back memories of this game. I haven't played in 15 - 20 years, but I would love to give it another go. What could be more fun than orks, orks and more orks causing carnage?!

Thanks for sharing your stuff.

What a great campaign! This thread is the best thread. (also, front page!)

@CommissarKhaine It's a Forge World Ork Big Trakk with some minor modifications and some additional gubbinz that have been added on throughout the campaign.

@theCrowe It's just not Gorkamorka without big spiky cactus balls...

@goblinpaladin Whoa! That's awesome! Thanks for pointing that out, I hadn't even noticed.

Cool write up of the game.

EDC

This continues to be everything I ever wanted.

Great campaign, I'm absolutely loving the Orky action. I lost it when the Nob got picked out of the trukk by the grabba claw.

@CommissarKhaine It's a Forge World Ork Big Trakk with some minor modifications and some additional gubbinz that have been added on throughout the campaign.

That's a very nice model! I may have to consider FW at some point... Thanks for the info

 Jambles wrote:
Great campaign, I'm absolutely loving the Orky action. I lost it when the Nob got picked out of the trukk by the grabba claw.

I lost it when Grizwoad was freed by the luckiest round of shooting imaginable... but that's my grabba claw his mob managed to shoot off!

 Marvolork wrote:

I lost it when Grizwoad was freed by the luckiest round of shooting imaginable... but that's my grabba claw his mob managed to shoot off!

That's what you get for going after the nob of the shootiest gang in the campaign. Next time grab Urzig.

 CommissarKhaine wrote:
That's a very nice model! I may have to consider FW at some point... Thanks for the info

It is a nice model and I do love it dearly, but be warned that it is a nightmare to assemble!

 Marvolork wrote:

 CommissarKhaine wrote:
That's a very nice model! I may have to consider FW at some point... Thanks for the info

It is a nice model and I do love it dearly, but be warned that it is a nightmare to assemble!

I figured that much, it being FW . I've bene eyeing some grot tanks for a while, might add in a big trakk.. we'll have to see what the wallet says

Work has commenced on a new vehicle for my Morkers. It's another Trakk based off the standard Ork Wartrakk, but this one will be much more heavily converted than my last one. I'm basically tearing it apart (I bought it fully assembled on eBay) and then putting it back together with plasticard and green stuff.

Unfortunately, I made the mistake of starting with nothing more than a single sheet of plasticard as the main structural element, which ended up breaking on three different occasions.



After finally admitting the error of my ways, I decided to reinforce my flimsy joints with a few good, solid chunks of sprue. I also cut off the three little boxes on the top of the tracks in preparation for another sheet of plasticard, which ended up being a much more difficult task than I had anticipated (I broke two hobby knives trying to remove them carefully). Finally, I added a crossbeam to connect the two halves, as well as a bunch more structural supports that will hold the top and bottom together and help to spread out the weight a bit.



Hopefully this will result in a fairly sturdy vehicle once I add the platform for the gunner. After that, I just need the driver's seat and some finishing touches and this one should be ready for a test drive.

I-beams are your friend for this kind of work . Curious to see how this will end up!

Taking a break from my severely overcomplicated trakk to add a new ork to my mob. Naturally, I've made him severely overcomplicated as well. Since I have a whole pile of Ork Boy legs in my bitz box that are all in the same squatty pose, I had the grand idea of simply repositioning a pair of them to add some variety to the mob. Not surprisingly, trying to straighten one of their legs has been quite an ordeal so far. I think I've got the joints all lined up where I want them to be, but it's going to take a fair amount of green stuff to fill in the gaps.



And since chopping one limb into multiple pieces wasn't enough work already, I decided to take a knife to one of his arms as well.



This one has an even bigger gap, so it looks like I'm going to have a go at sculpting some muscles soon. I have some ideas in mind for what I want to do with this fellow, so hopefully I can do them justice.

I love the spike trukk. But those spikes look a bit bare.
Dry brush some blood on the tips to make it pop perhaps?

Either way I am loving what you're doing. Very orky conversions.

@Novelist47 I have been thinking about going back over some of my old models and doing some touch-up work. I'm not a big fan of the fresh gore look, as smeared blood actually goes brown or black in a number of minutes, though I have thought about painting the wiring on the engine red instead of black to add a bit more color. If we end up finishing the Gorkamorka campaign next time we play, I might go back and add a few details like that afterwards.

In the meantime, however, work continues on the new mobster.



Apologies for the slightly blurry picture. I've bent the wire I used to pin it to give him back a bit of an elbow and I've started filling in the gap with green stuff. I've toyed with the idea of just wrapping his arm with bandages, or having some bullets, teef, or other trinkets covering up the gap, however, I think I've decided to just go for sculpting muscles to hopefully blend it in to the surrounding skin.

Looking good so far! Too bad his time on the tabletop will be short!

@Marvolork Since no one has even attempted to board my Big Trakk except when it's immobilized, I'd say his odds aren't too bad. If anything, his close combat skills will probably end up going to waste.

The reconstructed arm is finished, and it's looking pretty good.



It did take four layers of green stuff to get to this point, so I probably won't be doing tons of major resculpts in the near future if I can help it.

Also, I've started work on some other bits and bobs for this guy.



They don't look like much now, but with a bit of work, they should end up looking pretty good.

Did a bit more work on that little chunk of plasticard. Hopefully it's a bit more identifiable now.

Looking forward to that boy. This is why I like skirmish games: you can be pretty ambitious with all your models.

 CommissarKhaine wrote:
Looking forward to that boy. This is why I like skirmish games: you can be pretty ambitious with all your models.

That's also why I have a Skaven army that's still only partially painted after fifteen years...

I think my hat has been sufficiently pimped out. I may have gone overboard with sticking little trinkets to it.



I've also finished another little accessory for this guy.

Hat is perfect! Now give him hi a curly hair squig and call him Slash

Things are starting to come together with this guy. Hopefully I'll have some finished pictures of him posted soon.

For now, have some Hand-crafted Ork Bum:

Some nice gs work

The next member of my Morker Mob is finally finished.




After months of being hopelessly understaffed, Grizwoad has finally hired a Slaver to help him with his organizational development. He comes highly recommended, with extensive experience in boosting productivity in the scrap mines, maximizing performance on the battlefield, and positively impacting a mob's bottom line. Hopefully, he should be able to "recruit" a couple of grots by the next time we head out into the skid.

This conversion has been in the works for quite a while. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I based a lot of my conversions off of Paul Bonner's artwork. This guy in particular was based on the Mek with the top hat from the old Rogue Trader Ork book.



I thought he had an appropriate sense of style that would fit in with my band of crazy spanner boyz and gearheaded yoofs.

As you might expect, project turned into quite an eclectic bit of kitbashing. I ended up using bits from the Ork Boyz sprue, the Runtherd, Warbiker Mob, Crypt Ghouls, and, of course, the head from the Painboy. I'm surprised I don't see more conversions with that head, since it's got so much character. It's one of the few smiling Ork figures left in the range, and it's also got a much less boxy face than most of the current models. It made a good fit for my dapper Rogue Trader Ork.

In the end, I had seven different sub-assemblies, plus the base that needed to be painted before being glued together.



Attaching the Painboy head to the Nob torso was actually a bit difficult, as it's sort of a snap-together model. I had to carve out the interlocking neck bits, pin the two parts together and then sculpt a new neck.

All together, the finished model was pinned in six different places. There might be as many pins in his head alone than in the rest of the mob combined.



I think I'm better at modeling than at painting, but I'm pretty happy with how he turned out. I ended up changing my mind a few times while painting, so his shirt went from black, to red, and then back to black. Quite a few other parts went through a similar number of superfluous paint jobs before I was finally satisfied. I also made the head of his staff interchangeable, so it's easy to switch between a Grabba Stik and a Grot Prod, depending on whether the runtherd is focusing on "recruitment" or on "boosting productivity."



Next thing to do will be getting some runts together so that our runtherd has something to herd.

That's a lovely model, don't diss your painting skills!

That's a great, characterful model. It really reminds me of the fun-and-toofy period of Orks which is exactly what you're after.

That guy is brilliant. I have such fond memories of Gorkamorka. Need to look at what I have left. Maybe get a campaign going.

Very nicely done! The top hat and pipe are awesome.
And maybe Da Dook's Blastas won't target him quite so much due to the purpley nature of his hat's feathers,

It's been slow progress the last few weeks, but the spannerz have been pulling late nights working on their new vehicle. With a little luck, it might even be ready in time for the next game.

It looks interesting! and i'm sure, very orky.

also i want to third or fourth the love for the top hatted ork. That is my absolute favorite thing i have seen on here for some time!

Interesting... I'm curious to see what the barrel rig is for...

I'm a bit behind with my photos, as I haven't set up my lightbox since we did some remodeling around the house, but hopefully I'll get it set back up soon and get some pictures of the new trakk.

For now, here's a work in progress shot of my converted skorcha.

Hot!

Always good to see some Gorkamorka action!

 The Turnip Master wrote:
It's been slow progress the last few weeks, but the spannerz have been pulling late nights working on their new vehicle. With a little luck, it might even be ready in time for the next game.

I spot a comically over-wide ork trakk! Fantastic!

 theCrowe wrote:


I spot a comically over-wide ork trakk! Fantastic!

Yep, that's the idea. It didn't come out quite as wide and boxy as I'd hoped, but I'm still quite pleased with it.

I'm anxiously awaiting the finished product and reports of your latest exploits!

This is really cool. I really like the top hat boss.

EDC

After months of planning, slow progress, and more than a few missteps, my second trakk is finally finished. As you can probably see, this trakk is armed with a skorcha, which has been outfitted with Loadsa Ammo gubbinz (my mob doesn't do anything halfway).



Since I already had one trakk that was only slightly modified from the standard Ork Wartrakk, I wanted this one to be unique, while still being easily identifiable as a trakk. The plan was to change the front to have two wheels instead of one, giving it a cab more like a buggy. I wanted it to be wider and boxier, like the Warbuggy, but I didn't want to make it any longer than the standard Wartrakk or it would basically just be a second big trakk. Also, since I had decided that I wanted to add a skorcha to the mob, I decided to base the design on one of my favorite cars from Mad Max: Fury Road, Firecar No. 3.



Obviously there wouldn't be any Volkswagens to modify on Gorkamorka, but I liked the idea of the car being a fairly sparse frame around a bunch of oil drums and a supercharged engine.

Figuring out how to get all the barrels attached was kind of complicated, and in the end, they took up much more space than I had originally planned for. I didn't want to stretch the trakk any longer, so I ended up just pushing it up higher (and a little bit wider). I also ended up scrapping the engine block, which was a shame, but it probably would have ended up stretching the length to almost as long as my big trakk.

Once I finally had everything mostly assembled, I had two main sub-assemblies, the front and the back, as well as a number of smaller bits to glue together after painting.



The two I-beams on the cab fit snugly around the two front barrels and extended most of the way through the interior of the rear section, making the finished vehicle fairly solid once it was glued together. I'm sure I carefully measured the width of the cab at some point during its construction, but since the project was stretched out over the course of months, I was actually quite surprised at how perfectly it all fit together when the two halves were finally completed.



I'm quite pleased with the finished model. It was a bit taller and wider than I had originally intended, but I managed to keep its length within about five millimeters of the standard wartrakk, which isn't bad for the amount of scratch-building I ended up doing. The skorcha turned out especially well. When I actually zoomed in with a camera, I noticed that the muzzle burn on the end of the gun ends rather abruptly, but it still doesn't look half bad. Finally Toast, our intrepid spanner and resident pyromaniac, has something appropriately burny to take into battle.



The only thing that was really disappointing about the paint job was the timing. Unfortunately, it was only basecoated by the time of the last big battle of the campaign, which was the first time I couldn't boast of having a fully painted mob. Hopefully I'll get some pictures from that up soon.

Looks awesome! Despite previous comments, it doesn't even look "comically wide" (though it wouldn't be a bad thing if it were).

Nicely done!

Wow, nice Skorcha! Is that kitbashed from an Imperial Guard flamer?

@AshNomad The tanks are from the Cadian sprue, the nozzle is a Sentinel flamer. I sawed the barrels off the basic wartrakk shootas to make the base so that the whole thing could be attached to the same standard gun mount. That also means that I can easily swap it out for other weapons if I need to.

 Marvolork wrote:
Looks awesome! Despite previous comments, it doesn't even look "comically wide" (though it wouldn't be a bad thing if it were).

Nicely done!

Yeah I was surprised at that too. The finished article looks remarkably well proportioned.
Great job all round.

That thing rules. Fire it up!

After some intense competition, our Gorkamorka campaign has finally come to an end. Sadly, we were all a bit rushed for this one, so not all the mobs are fully painted and a few big chunks of scenery were also not quite finished when we played. Still, it was a day filled with twists and turns and a dramatic (if not unexpected) finish.

Our first game took place at a Mektown Brewhouse, where our nobs were up to their usual drinking and brawling, unaware that an ambush was about to take place.



As the four mobs began to coalesce around the brewhouse in an effort to double-cross each other (or double-cross the double-crossers), my nob, Grizwoad was hurled out a rear window. Fortunately, Deezo, his big trakk was parked nearby, so he went to rouse the driver and start gettin' da boyz together.

Meanwhile, Chad was casually (and somewhat suspiciously) walking out the front door of the brewhouse, where Urzig's trukk was parked.



Whie Urzig was still inside brawling, Chad made a dash for the trukk, hoping to take out the unsuspecting driver before he knew what hit him.



One of Chad's boyz also made a move on Marvolork's mob, using the jump pack he'd won in the first race to get the drop on them

Unfortunately, Chad's careful strategic maneuvers were no match for Urzig's brute strength, and soon both he and Marvolork were fleeing for their lives, leaving Urzig and Grizwoad to rule the streets of Mektown.



Thus far, Grizwoad and his gang had been doing quite well. Apart from one spanner that got ambushed by Urzig's boyz, the rest of the gang had made it to the trukk and piled in. They still had all their scrap and had mostly avoided any fighting apart from a few of Chad's boys, whom they had run off with relative ease.

In retrospect, the gang should have driven off the table with their winnings right then, but at the time, that seemed rather un-Orky. Instead I decided to plow through Urzig's scattered forces and get a few more shots off before the game ended.

The outcome of the ensuing fight wasn't bad per se. My mob's shooting (not to mention my lovely spikes) kept Urzig at bay and everyone in the mob got out unscratched. Unfortunately, Urzig's mob decided to shoot out my trakks, reducing my movement to five, then four, until by the end of the game my big trakk was only moving three inches on its gas engines and two for each thrust. I offered to simply concede, but my opponent insisted on dragging the game out another half hour until my trakk finally was able to limp off the table.

The second round found my mob facing off once more against their old foes, Chad and his Ork bros. They were by far the leaders in the campaign, while my mob was battling for third with Marvolork's. This time, however, I had my whole mob and they were looking forward to avenging Abby Sr's untimely demise.



Deployment was a little bit tricky, as we'd each placed a large unexploded bomb in the other's deployment zone. I ended up with my forces split along two flanks, while Chad and his mob were mostly grouped around his heavily armed trukk,which had won a Kustom Force Field in the previous race. He'd also acquired a number of bikes, and since he was rollin' in teef, he'd made them all 'eavier. It was quite an imposing force for my tiny mob.



My big trakk rolled forward to contest a few pieces of scrap near a rickety lookout tower. Chad's trukk took up position in the center arch while two bikes and his jump pack boy raced around to flank me. Fortunately, the crew were able to lay down enough dakka to stop most of his vehicles in their tracks, and we ended up with a fairly stationary battle line for the rest of the game.



On the other side, one of his bikers rammed Abby Jr. and Shifty head-on, immobilizing both vehicles. Since both vehicles were 'eavy, their wrecks were all but impervious to fire from a standard shoota. As such, neither side dared leave the safety of their smoking debris and instead proceeded to have a lengthy shootout at just out of arm's reach.



A second bike tried to race across no man's land to break the stalemate but was deftly felled by a single shot from Grizwoad's gun.

While all this was going on, Toast managed to get his brand new flamecar all the way around Chad and his boyz and came up behind the whole mob.



Before they knew what hit them, Toast's skorcha had engulfed half their mob in flames. Chad's boyz bottled out, leaving nearly all the scrap for Grizwoad. With the bonuses for taking out a mob that was well over a hundred points ahead of me, this was easily my best game of the campaign.

Unfortunately, my fellow Morker Mob was not faring so well. On the other table, Urzig had finally managed to take out Marvolork, leaving his mob nobless.

Going into the final race, the stakes were as high as ever. Chad was within a few points of winning the campaign, but after taking a beating in the first two games, his victory wasn't yet certain. Marvolork was dead and I had no chance of passing them in one game, but if our boys managed to shut out the Gorkers (or if Urzig and Chad didn't survive the battle) we might keep the game going.



The race began and I was off to a great start. My two trakks raced forward while the other trukks and buggies spun and crashed. Chad and Urzig each had a biker that was keeping pace, but neither had the firepower to slow me down.



Marvolork's racers, as had become their signature, got off to a rocky start. Barely a car-length down the track, they were already stuck in a pileup.

Urzig had his own signature move at this point, and, as usual, jumped out of his trukk to start causing chaos. He leapt aboard Marvolork's big trakk to try to take out the mob that was already firmly in last place. Unfortunately for Urzig, his first target was Grokkenstern, who had recently been given a pair of De-Lux Kicking Legs while visiting the Docs for a completely unrelated issue. Grokkenstern was flung from the vehicle, but Urzig was laid out by a well-placed boot to the head. Seeing a chance to take out his rival once and for all, Chad rushed in to finish off the downed Urzig.



Unfortunately for Chad, Urzig had become a nigh unkillable combat machine, and the dastardly nob got a taste of his own medicine as he was beat unconscious by Urzig for the third straight race in a row.



Quite used to watching their boss get beat up at this point, Chad's mob pressed on, weaving through the jumble of vehicles while also avoiding their own land mines which they had strewn about the track.

At the end of the first curve, Chad's biker, Michael, had pulled out in front, with the rest of the drivers in close pursuit. In fact, at this point, everyone still had a shot. Even Marvolork's two vehicles managed to catch up to the pack.



As the racers passed the big arch, however, things went awry once again.

Urzig's trukk crashed on the inside lane, forcing the other racers to swerve around the rock spire, to varying degrees of success. Soon there was yet another pileup, and the larger vehicles found victory slipping away from them once again.



And so Chad's biker, Michael, won our third and final race, placing their mob firmly in first place and ending the campaign. Chad recovered from his wounds, robbing Urzig of a the satisfaction of killing his long-time rival.

Despite placing a distant third, my mob actually performed quite well. Looking purely at win-lose ratios, I did even better than Urzig's mob (and better than Chad if you don't count the races), though because we were tweaking some of the rules along the way, my early losses put me at a disadvantage that I was never able to recover from.

Our current plan is to do a mini-campaign in about a month or so to hopefully rebalance a few of the rules that were causing us problems. That also means that unless I want to run another mob that's 50 percent Spanner Boyz, I need to start converting some more mobsters.

Great write-up! I'm disappointed in how Da Dook's Blastaz did, but I still had loads of fun!

Thanks for documenting it all!

@Marvolork No Problem

And here's my not-last-place Morker Mob in all its glory:

That's a good-looking mob! I love that they're so orky and yet so cohesive, and the attention you put into every detail (even the bases) is very impressive.

Sounds like a blast. Thanks for sharing.

I just loved this Gorkamorka revival! Thanks for sharing it. Great job on your Orks.

I'm a bit behind on my prep for our upcoming campaign, but I have finally started making progress on getting some grots together for the mob.





This is the first of my converted Gretchin. Since my Morker Mob is mostly a bunch of crazy Spanner Boyz, I decided I'd keep the mechanic theme going through my grots as well. I decided to give this guy a nice Cogwheel Club, using some robotics parts I got from China. I also changed the furry loincloth to a cloth one.

Here's the next grot in my mob:




This guy got the same treatment as the last, with a greenstuff loincloth and a pair of goggles. As you might have noticed, I went through several iterations with my goggle making. I got much better as I went on, but a few of my early attempts, like these, actually turned out rather nice, so I ended up using them after all. I actually chopped this guy's hand off accidentally (one of the hazards of trying to convert a bunch of grots at once) and had to pin it back on. Fortunately, you can't really tell, which I guess is as much as you could hope for with pinning.

I love the grotz and the ork with the tophat, Great work.

Thanks, kitbashermagos.




This little guy is the example to the rest of the mob as to why you always wear your goggles. His left hand is from the new Poxwalker set, which happens to be mostly armed with nasty looking pieces of scrap, which work perfectly for Gorkamorka, though only a few have normal five-fingered hands like this one.

The next converted grot for my Morker Mob is ready.




This one is the most heavily armed of my space gobbos, armed to da teef with both a shoota and choppa. He's also the most heavily converted of the bunch. His torso is the ammo runt from the Lootas sprue, while his bottom half is from one of the Night Goblins from Battle for Skull Pass. His head is just one of the standard Gretchin heads, with some goggles added.

I actually ended up chopping his hand off and pinning it back on so that I could reposition his shoota a bit. It was a bit of a hassle, since I already had to pin his waist together, but I think it was worth it. I'm quite pleased with the overall composition.

Lookit his little demented face!

Painted up one of my grots for a trial run.




His cogwheel club turned out quite well, as did his goggles. I'm also quite pleased with how the color scheme for their skin turned out, which was one of the reasons I decided to paint this model first.

I guess now it's on to the rest of the bunch...

Looking good!
Tomorrow is (finally) Da Big Day!

Two more Grots done...




The Poxwalker club on this guy turned out great, but paint-wise, I think my favorite part of this model is just how well his t-shirt turned out. Just a really nice shade of grey.




This guy started off with few conversions and a pretty simple base, but he got one of the more involved paint jobs. I quite like how the patterns turned out, so I might use them again on some of my other grots.

Hahaa those Grots are great! I think Grots are hands down my fave GW models they have so much potential and character. I also have done work with that ammo grot and hats off to you, because mine broke its hand off at the wrist and I remember that being a HUGE pain in the ass to put back together. Its just so small!

@KingCracker Yeah, with as much trouble as I'd already had pinning all of his various parts together, it was a tough decision to chop off his hand to reposition it. It seems to have turned out though.

And here's a shot of the beginnings of a proper herd of runts:

Love this whole little set, from the top-hat wearing slaver to every goggle-eyed grot. You're really doing the grot world proud.

Though I tried to run a bunch of grots in my Morka mob once and never really felt they were very cost effective. Are you finding the same or have you worked out an effective way to run them?

 theCrowe wrote:
Love this whole little set, from the top-hat wearing slaver to every goggle-eyed grot. You're really doing the grot world proud.

Though I tried to run a bunch of grots in my Morka mob once and never really felt they were very cost effective. Are you finding the same or have you worked out an effective way to run them?

It depends on a few things. We generally run our campaigns so that the first mob to retire wins, so as far as progress, investing in a character always beats straight equipment because your mob rating continues to increase as they gain experience (albeit much slower than by spendin' teef). Also, no one in our last campaign took more than one or two grots, so my current plan is to get a bunch of naked grots a soon as possible for the purposes of picking up scrap, then start getting them weapons so that they lay down more fire than any other mob on the board. If there's one thing that I learned from the last campaign, with my small, but heavily armed mob, it's not to underestimate strength in numbers in Gorkamorka.

Another Grot.



This guy is mostly made from the Ork Mek Gun crew, with a nasty spiked wrench club from one of the Poxwalker sets. The rivet gun in his other hand will probably just count as a slugga.

A few more grots:



This one got his original hand lopped off and a nice six-shoota pinned on in its place. He also has one of the more unusual pairs of goggles I came up with during this project. I guess we'll see how they look after they get painted. The gears he's standing on are more of the random robotic parts that are all over my desk now.



This is the only grot model that I didn't really convert at all. He's just built out of some of the bitz from the Mek Gun crew.

Zog me! They're bootiful!

Really great conversions and the battle reports in between have made this a super fun blog to read. Keep up the great work! I'm looking forward to seeing how your grots do in the next campaign.

Thanks, facelyss! Have another grot:



This grot is also a fairly simple conversion, mostly just adding a pair of goggles. I'm quite fond of how the other bandana-wearing grot turned out, so I'll probably paint him up in a similar fashion.

My shoota grot is all painted up. I think he turned out pretty well. Since he's basically dressed like a ninja, the model is overall a bit on the dark side, though the bright red of his goggles and scarf, as well as the few bits of skin he has showing help to balance it a bit.




I'm now officially half way through painting my Gretchin Herd, which has turned out to be a rather daunting task. I do like how the models have turned out so far, so I guess I can't complain.

Hey, everybody-

As you may have noticed, I'm a few weeks behind on my posting, but while life has been pretty crazy as of late, I have not been (entirely) idle.



I have, in fact, made my big trakk even more ridiculous.

I probably should have stayed focused on getting the rest of my grots painted up in time for the campaign, but as is oft the case, I got distracted by another shiny idea and ended up spending a few days making gubbinz instead. In addition to my lovely spikes and shoutas, Deezo now has a set of boarding planks and a big grabba. The boarding planks were my first adventure into the realm of magnetization. I had originally intended building magnetized gubbinz when I was first assembling my trakk, but unfortunately I wasn't even able to get a weapon, let alone a full set of gubbinz completed in time for the start of our first campaign. I've still got a long way to go (plus two other vehicles that could use some love), but my trakk is growing into quite the monster.



Since this was all being done after the whole trakk was assembled and painted, I had to go about it a bit differently than I had envisioned in the beginning. Since the planks were detachable, I didn't trust the normal hinges, which weren't very deep. I ended up putting a pin in each side, which didn't quite line up with the center of the hinge. There was a lot of friction and sheering stress when you rotated it at first, but it seemed to eventually bend or warp itself into shape so that both planks rotate quite freely now.

There wasn't enough room between the truck bed and the tracks to slide the planks in between them (to say nothing of installing magnets), so I made some small platforms to extend the bed out over the tracks. I wanted them to be as sturdy as possible, so I also gave each platform two long planks with some pins that would be glued to the bed. Even with just a dry fitting, it held the platforms on pretty tight, so I'm pretty sure that they're not going anywhere.

Next up was the big grabba. I was quite fond of Cygnus' use of the Battlewagon grabba on his big trakk, but I didn't want to just copy him outright. I decided to base my grabba off a big mek power klaw, which had a nice robotic look to it, but was much too small to grab an ork. The obvious solution to this problem was to bulk it up with a ton of plasticard and sprue.



While I'm pretty pleased with the end result, it was far from a smooth conversion. Due to poor planning and a few holes that I drilled less than straight, this claw is pinned in somewhere between seven and nine different places. There are five pins in the "wrist" portion alone.

Fortuately, the arm portion was much more straightforward. Most of it is made from a Killa Kan arm, with a bit of shoota added on to give it some length. The arm, shoota, and claw were all connected by a single long pin that ran down the middle of all three, so at least I know I don't screw these things up all the time.

Oh, I also gave myself the option to swap out the big grabba for a wrecka ball, just in case...



Considering how long the big grabba is and how far forward its center of gravity is, I didn't trust the thin copper wire that I used to make the interchangeable weapon for my slaver, so I got some thin brass pipe to connect both my grabba and the wrecka ball to the vehicle. The tube it slides into was build onto one of the boarding plank platforms. The wrecka ball didn't have many changes made to it, other than adding a lot more spiky bits to the ball itself.

The finished gubbinz looked pretty good attached to the trakk. The platforms for the boarding plank now make my trakk super wide (which can be a big deal in Gorkamorka), but not any wider than it is with all of its spikes attached, so I can live with it.



The big grabba looks surprisingly good painted up, considering what a hodgepodge of sprue and plasticard it actually is. The mechanical bits that I used to cover up the huge chunks of sprue that made the wrist are a pair of vox casters that I happened to have lying around. I thought I'd try my hand again at hazard stripes, and I'm fairly pleased by the results. Ties it in nicely to Grizwoad's choppa.



I also made a little control panel to control the hydraulics.



The wrecka ball also turned out quite nice, though it probably won't get a ton of play because of how much fun big grabbas are. Maybe I need to add a mount to the back of my little flamecar...



So if my big trakk wasn't over-the-top enough before, it's certainly a lot more ridiculous now. Proper Orky. Although now that I'm to this point, I can't help thinking that it could really use a reinforced ram...maybe a mine layer too...

Sadly, finishing up the gubbinz took up the whole week before the start of the new campaign, so only half of my runts got painted in time to play. Still haven't had time to go through the photos from the game, but hopefully I'll post some of the highlights soon.

That's ... a lot of gubbinz Loving the greensin feel of it all!

I love the fact that your big trakk is completely modular. I think cramming all those gubbinz on one little chassis is really turning out to be one of the more Orky things I've seen. Also, a reinforced ram on the front could be really awesome. I say do it! Keep up the good work and I'm excited to see how your team did/does in action!

Hey, all!

Finally getting around to posting some of the pictures from our last game. Perhaps not unexpectedly, our mini-campaign last fall ended up being a larger affair than we had originally envisioned. Our one-day rumble in the desert might be turning into another year-long quest to see who's da meanest mob of Orks on Gorkamorka. Not that I'm complaining. The main goal of the "mini" campaign was to test out the tweaks we've been making in our house rules to try and make them more balanced and ensure that different strategies are still competitive. So far the results have been quite positive.

The only downside, is that I have a ton of pictures to sort through, so in the interest of actually getting them posted, I'm going to tackle the first session of the campaign in thirds.

Once again, we decided to start the campaign off with a cooperative game to hopefully get everyone that first important win to up their Nob's leadership and open up more options in Mektown. This time, however, instead of trying to round up a bunch of mangy squigs, we set our sights higher. Our four mobs embarked upon Da Hunt fer da Great White Squig.



This scenario used the Rollin' Road rules. In addition to our normal weapons, each of our mobsters was armed with harpoons. The basic idea is to drive up as close as you dare to the giant squig and try to get as many harpoons in him as you can, then slam on the breaks. If you can slow him down and drag him off the trailing edge of the table, you win. If he escapes off the leading edge, you lose. Easy, right?



Unfortunately, my big trakk that was carrying most of my mob spun out on the first turn and ended up facing backward. As the other mobs were closing in on the White Squig, Spike was trying his best just to stay on the table.



As I tried my best to make a giant U-turn, the other trukks converged on the squig. While the squig itself was pretty dangerous, we found out that the bigger danger was simply trying to drive so many vehicles in tight formation.



On the far side of the table, Gabby was catching up to the rest of the pack in his little wartrakk. Unfortunately, he didn't have any passengers to throw harpoons, so there was little he could do except to fire wildly at the squig's legs and hope that a lucky shot might put a slug through its thick hide.

As the Great White Squig neared the edge of the table, the other three mobs desperately tried to get enough harpoons stuck in it to slow it down. As the bikes and trucks swerved around each other, Marvolork's big trakk slammed on its breaks. Sadly, it wasn't enough to stop the squig, which continued forward, snapping the tow lines and sending the trakk spinning. Marvolork was thrown high into the air, landing with soft thud in the desert sand.



In a surprising turn of luck, Marvolork happened to land right next to Gabby's vehicle. The Dook of Skwag pulled himself on to the flame-less flamecar and ordered his fellow Morker to "Follow dat Squig!"

Gabby was so excited to be back in the game that he switched on the thrustas and shot forward like a flash...

...right into a cactus.



Gabby and the car managed to get through the cactus unscathed and continued to charge excitedly toward the squig. Unfortunately, Marvolork got a face full of poisonous spines and was once more knocked out of his vehicle and left face down in the desert.



Meanwhile, on the far side of the board, Grizwoad and the rest of the gang manage to finally get the trakk going in the right direction, just in time to see the White Squig escaping into the distance.

So the first round is a loss for everyone involved. As with the previous campaign, I go into the second round firmly in last place. The second round pits me against Urzig, who despite coming in second to Chad and his boyz last campaign, managed to soundly thrash his opponent in nearly every encounter. Fortunately, there are more scenarios in the rotation this time around and since I have the lower mob rating, it ends up falling to me to pick the scenario. I choose "Da Chase," another rollin' road scenario that as a Morker, would hopefully give me a slight edge, even with my lower mob rating. I also had two vehicles to Urzig's one, so even in a worst case scenario, he would have to choose which of my vehicles to beat the crap out of.



Naturally, I tried to maximize my advantage by deploying my two trakks far apart. My opponent countered by placing a bunch of barriers on the far side of the only sand dune on the table, taking away the only advantage that my trakks had over his trukk, which was faster. Fortunately for me, a bad roll on the thrusta busta table sent him spinning, allowing both my vehicles to escape, fully loaded with scrap.



So unlike last campaign, where an early loss tended to put you permanently behind the other players, underdogs really do have a chance of winning a big upset. There's also scenarios that favor both Morkers and Gorkers, so when the underdog gets to choose the scenario, it's actually pretty helpful.

This big haul gave me plenty of teef to spend back in Mektown, as well as a victory to bump up Grizwoad's leadership. This time, however, I wasn't going for a small gang with super-fancy cars. In fact, I was going in the opposite direction.

I was getting me some grots.

Great stuff - thanks for sharing! I enjoyed our Gorka Morka co-op scenario a great deal (we stormed a fort full of genestealers as a campaign finale). If we ever play again, we will certainly hunt the great white squig.

At first I felt bad that da Great White Squig wasn't fully painted and the table wasn't finished, but then I realized that I'm the only one that makes terrain and special models in the whole group, so I don't feel so bad.

Also, I'm glad you finally wrote this and got photos up! I'm looking forward to the next round...

I love these write-ups. Keep them coming!

Thanks, everyone!

One small addendum to that last skirmish. Although I did make out like a bandit in the end, Urzig did manage to take out my driver with a lucky shot right at the beginning. Since he was out of commission, one of my Spannerz had to jump in and take the wheel. It didn't really have a big impact on the campaign, but Spike was the only model that actually fit in the driver's seat, so it's driving me nuts having to balance the wrong model in that spot!

Here's the next chapter of our mini campaign, starting with the Nob uv da Kop scenario. It consists of a tall mesa loaded with scrap, but only accessible to troops on foot. There were also various hazards in the surrounding desert, such as cacti and a couple of deadly unexploded bombs.



Da Kop itself is a rather nice terrain piece that Marvolork made, which we ended up using in quite a few other scenarios.

Between games, I had picked up Slash, my dapper runtherd and as many runts as my two vehicles could hold. Despite my big score in the previous game, I didn't have the teef to give them all weapons, so they were mostly there to grab scrap while Da Boyz tried to keep the other three mobs busy.

Also, since Spike had been taken out during the chase, Grubmitz, my spanner, had officially taken over the driver's spot on my big trakk. This wasn't a great setup, since Spike's a terrible fighter, but he also couldn't take back his post in a challenge...because Spike's a terrible fighter. As such, he was relegated to the back of the bus with the grots for this round.



While I drove toward the Kop with my cars loaded with grots, the other mobs had filled out their mobs with options that had a bit more firepower. Marvolork and Chad each had a pack of bikers flanking their main vehicles, while Urzig, in typical Urzig fashion, had loaded up with boyz. Although I had superior numbers, I didn't think I had a chance at taking out one of the other mobs head on, let alone surviving against all three. As such, my plan was to rush to the Kop, grab as much scrap as I could, and hopefully get out alive.



Since Marvolork's mob was the closest and the most maneuverable, I threw everything at him, detonating a bomb in an attempt to blow up one of his bikers. Fortunately for me, he decided not to bother with me and turned to go behind the Kop where I couldn't shoot him anymore.



On the other side of the Kop, Chad's bikers had rushed down to harass Urzig's boyz while the rest of his mob rushed to the Kop, where Marvolork was already at the top.



With Marvolork already on the mesa and his big trakk shooting at them from below, Chad's boys had a fairly difficult time scaling the cliffs. Hoping to take some of the pressure off of his climbers, Chad brought his trukk in to challenge Marvolork's trakk. A challenge that Marvolork accepted...



...in proper Orky fashion.



Unfortunately for Chad, a head-on collision with Marvolork wasn't the only thing he had to worry about. His bikers were quickly being overtaken by Urzig's mobsters. Marvolork's bikers joined in the fray to keep the pressure on Urzig, but the heavily-armed Gorkers were barely slowed down. Now both Chad and Marvolork's bikers were in trouble, with Urzig himself "boarding" one of Marvolork's bikes and beating its rider to death.



As Urzig proceeded to pummel everyone who stood between him and the scrap-rich hill, Grizwoad and his mob burst onto the Kop in full force, taking Marvolork and his slaver, Shylokk by surprise. Grizwoad and Slash charged their two counterparts, while everyone else in the mob grabbed the nearest piece of scrap and made a dash for the waiting getaway cars. Within two turns, half the mesa had been picked clean.



Unfortunately, with Chad and later Marvolork both bottling out, my cunning band of Morkers were suddenly targeted by all of Urzig's firepower. Grizwoad took a round from Urzig's 'eavy shoota and went down, falling off the mesa and landing face-down in the sand. Gabby's little trakk took a beating as well, and was shot to pieces before it had a chance to make it off the table. This left only Deezo, my big trakk for the rest of the mob to pile into with their loot. They sped off, leaving Grizwoad and Slash to fend for themselves and ceding victory of the scenario (and half the scrap) to Urzig.

Fortunately, no one died after this round and another decent haul of scrap meant that I had enough teef to arm my grots, mount a skorcha on Lil' Skorchy (finally), and mount my brand new big grabba on Deezo.



The next round saw me facing off against Marvolork. We ended up using the Kop again, as it's such a nice terrain piece, though all the large terrain left very little space for bulky vehicles to maneuver in.



Right out of the gate, Marvolork's bikers rushed forward to contest the scrap while he sent a few footers up the Kop to get the few pieces up there. Toast and Gabby managed to give one of the bikers a face full of skorcha (which he somehow survived), while the rest of the mob drove toward the sand dune. Marvolork's third biker managed to survive a hail of grot bullets and headed off to flank Gabby and Toast, leaving the two big trakks to battle it out on the dunes. Marvolork's bikers continued to run circles around Lil' Skorchy, shrugging off Toast's attempts to incinerate them. I decided it was time to deploy the grots and start getting the scrap loaded into the vehicles in case things went south.



Meanwhile, the two big trakks charged at each other across the dunes. Just as it looked like Marvolork might try another head-on ram, Grizwoad reached out with his big grabba and deftly ripped the engine out of the Skwagmobile, leaving it immobilized.



With the primary threat now neutralized, the gang turned their attention to the bikers, who were now in serious trouble.



In a last-ditch effort to score some scrap, Pukk, the driver of the wrecked Squagmobile jumped out of his vehicle and charged Zhak, my grot, who was on scrap duty. Not ones to leave even a lowly grot behind, Grizwoad, Spike, and Slash leapt from the trakk to defend the little grot. And with that, the skirmish was over. Marvolork's boyz managed to grab a few pieces of scrap from the top of da Kop, but the rest fell into Grizwoad's hands.

Next up, the final round of the event...the ever-popular Big Race!

I finally got around to uploading the last few images from our Mini-Campaign. The final event of the day, as usual, was Da Big Race.



Unfortunately for Marvolork, the Meks were still trying to stick the engine back inside the Skwagmobile after it's encounter with Grizwoad's big grabba, so the Dook of Skwag was forced to run two bikes as his entries - a first for da Big Race. The two Gorker nobs ran their usual trukk and bike combo, while I tried my luck with my two trakks. I also managed to scrape together enough teef to install shoutas in the back of my big trakk. Because shoutas are awesome.



As soon as the race began, the bikes took an early lead over the other vehicles. Although there was a bit of the usual chaos, the fact that the racers didn't have to swerve around the smoking wreckage of Marvolork's trakk on the way to the first curve meant that the start of the race went uncharacteristically smoothly.

Despite the lack of the usual catastrophic crashes, however, the bigger vehicles seemed to be unable to keep up with the Marvolork and Urzig's speedy bikers.



What no one realized is that while they were all having the Meks make their bikes fasta, I was the making my trakk fasta. The Meks only squeezed another two inches of movement into my thrustas, but it was enough for Gabby to catch up to Marvolork's biker and start tailing him.



Just as Gabby finally got a spot of luck, the bikers' luck seemed to run out. A series of thrusta malfunctions and spin outs befell the lead racers, sending nearly all of them careening into the corner of the racetrack. As we headed into the straightaway, a single biker lead the pack with Gabby on his tail.



Since most of the excitement usually happened on the first half of the racetrack, we decided we needed to spice up the final turn a bit. We did that by placing a few gun emplacements with 'eavy shootas on the cliffs overlooking the last half of the track. Fortunately for Marvolork's lone biker, the shootas weren't able to hit him.



This time around, we had not one, but two large bombs near the finish line. Fortunately for the biker, he was able to avoid the blast as the first one went off and carefully make his way between the crater and the nearby sand dune as Toast fired wildly in his direction with his shoota. Sadly, Gabby wasn't able to get close enough for Toast to use his beloved skorcha.



And so Marvolork's biker won the race, scoring the first race victory for Da Dook's Blastas.



Gabby and Toast took home second place for Grizwoad and his Chop Squad, despite Urzig's attempts to stop them.



Finally, Spike and Grizwoad managed to take third, but not before plucking Chad's gunner right out of his trukk using their trusty big grabba.

And thus ended our epic, full-day campaign. The plan was for it to be a one-off, but now that Marvolork has scored his first big race win, it looks like we might continue this campaign so Marvolork can use his prize - a rare set of Mega Armor. That also means we might be starting off the next session with a rescue mission so that Chad can get his gunner back (or at least try). That also means I need to start building a fort so we can have a proper rescue scenario. Lots to do.

Now it's time to get back to painting grots...

Some lovely battles,turnip master, good thing to see your guys pull off some nice stunts

Thanks, CommissarKhaine.

Also, to theCrowe's question about the cost effectiveness of grots before the campaign started, so far they've been great, though a grot-heavy mob plays differently than a pure ork mob. Last campaign, I had a small mob of highly skilled, heavily armed orks, and although I think I technically had more wins than any other mob, I came in at a distant third in the campaign (though there are actually a few reasons for that). This time around, even though I technically lost the Nob uv da Kop game right after I bought all my grots, I had way more models on the table than the other mobs, so I was able to make off with more scrap than even the mob that won. The extra teef let me load up my grots with gunz, and basically kicked off a positive feedback loop that built up my mob to the point where I was winning scenarios and taking home all the scrap.

There's a few other factors at play as well. One of the major tweaks we made to our house rules after the last campaign was to nerf some of the close combat skills so that you don't get a single nob that can tear through every other mob on his own. This means grots aren't completely worthless in a fight, though even with the adjustments, I'd probably be in a tight spot if I ended up in a combat scenario against Urzig, and since he's the underdog now, there's a good chance he could get the chance to choose the scenario next time we meet. So grots definitely have their weaknesses, but going grot-heavy is at least a viable strategy now.

That said, I'm not looking forward to trying to balance the Rebel Grots list against the other mobs...

One of the goals of the rules rewrite was to familiarize people in our group with 7th ed. Warhammer 40k / Horus Heresy rules, so the Orks got a bit of a profile change (WS 4 BS 2) to bring them in line with more "modern" Orks.
Just that change made Grots significantly more viable in the early game as they give mobz some semi-reliable shooting. It's also my hope that long-term it'll help to further differentiate the Orks from the Oddmobz.
So far, I think the modification has led to much more aggressive play from the all-Ork mobz, which is something I'm quite happy with (though, as The Turnip Master pointed out, it did require some minor tweaks to the Muscle Skillz after our first campaign).
Overall I'd call our house roolz a success so far, though we continue to make minor tweaks here and there. Next campaign we should be ready to include some Oddmobz to try and get them balanced, and I have a bunch of bits just waiting to be used for a Diggamob.

I don't want to come off as self-serving in this thread which I mostly follow to see fun conversions, but I do have a bunch of Diggas, Marvolork, which I'd be willing to sell for Probably a Reasonable Price I Guess. Feel free to DM, I guess? I am in Australia, though, so, blah blah postage blah.

More on topic, I didn't remember Gorkamorka Orks having WS 3 BS 3. Amazing how time warps memory.

 goblinpaladin wrote:
I don't want to come off as self-serving in this thread which I mostly follow to see fun conversions, but I do have a bunch of Diggas, Marvolork, which I'd be willing to sell for Probably a Reasonable Price I Guess. Feel free to DM, I guess? I am in Australia, though, so, blah blah postage blah.

More on topic, I didn't remember Gorkamorka Orks having WS 3 BS 3. Amazing how time warps memory.

Yeah, back in the good ol' days when the only difference between an Ork and a basic human was a point of Toughness and Initiative.

As for the Diggas, it's a tempting offer (and I do love classic models), but I'm rather excited about my upcoming conversions and will stick to the current plan. Thanks, all the same!

 The Turnip Master wrote:



Finally, Spike and Grizwoad managed to take third, but not before plucking Chad's gunner right out of his trukk using their trusty big grabba.

I love how all you guys built your mobs and vehicles to be all articulated and movable. That shot of the grabba arm pulling the poor ork out of the trukk is fantastic!

This blog is one of my absolute favorites on the site. The combination of modelling and battle reports is perfect. Speaking of which, how about a picture of the full mob? Grots, vehicles, parts, boyz... the whole lot. It sure seems like you've started to amass a good size group.

Marvolork, I realize this is The Turnip Master's blog, but I would love to see some of your battle exploits from your side. Especially the scenarios in which Turnip wasn't a part. I think it would be add a good bit of variety to an already varied and entertaining blog. Or even some pictures of the other mobs in their entirety so we can see what you're up against in all their orky goodness.

Keep up the excellent work and I look forward to the next update!

Yeah, Marvolork, where's the thread with all of your pictures from the campaign...

Unfortunately, my mob outgrew my tiny ten-dollar light box some time ago, so I have a group shot from the end of our last campaign further up in the thread, I think, but it's not the greatest photograph ever. Still haven't figured out the best solution to getting them all in one picture.

I write rules and scenarios, make scenery, and paint monsters and hazards. My photography skills are seriously lacking.

That said, I do have some photos you were kind enough to take and may post them here in due time.

Now I have a pair of Telly-porta pads to make...

Managed to get one more grot painted:



Generally pleased with how he turned out. The rivet gun in particular turned out pretty well. I actually tried to make his shirt a bit more blue than the other gretchin in the mob, though I'm not sure it really came out. Still, I'm quite pleased with his overall aesthetic. Those little gears hanging off his apron sure were a pain to get right, though.

Nice! That's a Poxwalker weapon, isn't it?

Nice grot! One of the tekkies from the mek guns?

You're both correct. The body and rivet gun come from the Mek Gun crew, while the spiked wrench club comes from the Poxwalker sprue.

This is a really great blog. So inspiring and I’m even enjoying the battlereports which I would normally skip. Enjoying all the little details added to each character and grot!

The most impressive part is managing to meet up and play the campaign through to finish!

Thanks, Zwan1One. Trying not to bog things down too much with battle reports, though it's fun to see the models in context. Glad I'm striking a decent balance.

Did manage to get a couple more grots painted:



This guy got the weirdest pair of goggles of the bunch, which turned out alright. I'll probably end up counting those cables in his hand as a chain or flail, since that's one weapon that nobody in my mob has been equipped with yet, but I'm not sure how effective it will be in the hands of a weedy little grot. Hooray for playtesting!



I'm actually quite pleased with how this guy came out. He's the only grot without any major conversions done to him, but he still ended up looking pretty decent. You can't tell in any of the pictures I took, but I actually got some half-decent hazard stripes painted on the little cable sticking out of his box.

Oooh... I love the checker pattern on the six shootas, and the goggle grot looks suitably maniacal. Both just ooze character.

Nicely done!

Those grotz look great. The red and skin tone look awesome.

The grots look great as always. It is almost hard to remember they are just grot sized as the detail is so excellent!

Thanks, everyone!

After months of slow progress, I've finally finished the last of my grots (at least the ones I've built so far).



This last little guy was pretty straightforward. His goggles turned out quite nice, as did the checks on his slugga. I liked how the toothy pattern on my other grot's bandana turned out, so I decided to do a similar pattern for this one. Since this model didn't end up with any red on him other than his goggles, I decided that I'd give him some big red teef on his bandana. It doesn't stand out nearly as much as the white, but I think it turned out alright.

Another great model. Nicely done. I'm looking forward to our next round of games.

the wrench alone makes these guys, great job

More grots is always a good thing . The little guy's looking great, love those checkers on the gun, and the teeth on the bandana are looking ace! I recently got hold of a copy of gorkamorka myself; if I ca get my hands on the rules for grot revolutionaries... Who knows what might happen?

Thanks, guys.

@CommissarKhaine Nice. You can find some decent scans of the Digganob book and the rules for Grot Revolutionaries around online. I'd be interested to see your take on all the low-tech Grot vehicles like Cuttas and Luggas.

And here's a shot of my whole grot mob:



This is more grots than I can currently squeeze into my Morker Mob unless I get a few more vehicles, so I'm probably going to be turning my attention back to gubbinz before our next game. After that, I have to decide if I'm going to pick up a few more and go for a Rebel Grot Mob of my own.

Deinitley will have to dig around for the rules then . I'd love to see you do a grot gang, but then I am a tad prejudiced . I have abunch of ideas for the cuttas and the luggas, seem quite doable to me. Maybe if I can get my clubmates going...

Subbed to this; the blog is incredible, conversion and painting work is excellent, the battle reports are a blast and the whole thing just oozes character! Marvolork, would you be interested in posting the rules changes and modifications you've made for Gorkamorka? I would love to have a look at them, this has inspired me to run such a campaign myself in the future! Though my collection is more dreadmob-oriented, so it's possible I might use the rules as inspiration for a robot pit-fight, thunderdome type campaign...

ManTube,

Here are the basic rules - they could probably use a good edit and may have some contradictions as we continue to fiddle with them a bit. Still, they provide a decent foundation. I'll add in our other two books (Da Uvver Book and Da Uvver Uvver Book) when I have a chance.

The rules are a mish-mash of games and editions our group has played. For example, we use 7th ed. 40k rules for shooting and (mostly) for weapon profiles - this is largely because the Orks are BS 2 and playing with shooting modifiers means that nobody can hit anything! For the sake of simplicity, we use the same basic injury roll table as Mordheim (I don't like tracking Flesh Wounds).

I've had a blast with them, but our group is definitely not the most competitive, so I can't say they're especially balanced...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And I added Da Uvver Book to that link as well.

Long term, I'd like to make these PDFs into decent books with illustrations, diagrams, etc., and not just text, but we'll need to play at least a couple more campaigns to really get the rules solidified before that happens.

After that, we've almost got the first go at the Digganob supplement done, and I'm about halfway done with an alternative to "Da Uvver Book" called "Port Grog" that gives rules for boat-based battles hunting for Scrap in da Boilin' Sea to the East of Mektown... so hopefully all that will get done, play tested, and finalized in the next year or two.

Rather than hijacking The Turnip Master's thread, if you have comments, questions, or suggestions, feel free to DM me.

Hey, Everybody-

Sorry for the long break. We're in the final run up to the next round of Gorkamorka, so I'm a bit behind with my posting (not to mention my painting), but I thought I'd post a few pictures of my latest distraction that's keeping me from actually getting my vehicles ready to go:



That's right, I spent a whole week working on nothing but squigs! We actually do have rules for squigs in our house rules for Gorkamorka, but they are thus far untested because no one has taken the time to actually paint up some squiggly beasts...until now!



Even with his cool shades, this guy is easily recognizable as one of the old metal Warhammer Fantasy squigs. I thought this happy-looking guy would make a nice addition to my cheerful Morkers, so I gave him a pair of goggles to protect him from the desert sands. The original model is designed for a slotta base, so I chopped off the tab and pinned him to some interesting looking scrap. I like how the broken conduit full of cables turned out, though in hindsight, I could have made the break in the pipe a bit more jagged to show off the cables a bit more. Still, I'm quite pleased how it turned out.

Painting my squighound involved a bit of trial and error. My usual red scheme using Agrax Earthshade made all the little recesses by his scales way too dark, so I decided to try using a glaze for the first time. A nice coat of Bloodletter calmed down the crazy contrast I was getting and gave his skin a good strong shade of red. I also decided to make his spikes look extra jagged by painting the lines on his horns, rather than just using a shade like I usually do. It took way too long on this spiky guy but I like the finished effect.



So now Slash, my runtherd finally has some help keeping the grots in line. Now I'll just have to see if I can save up enough teef to actually take him in a campaign...

Excellent stuff! Very characterful model.

I'm excited to hear another round of Gorkamorka is going to start soon! The squig looks great. The goggles certainly make him feel very much a part of your gang. Are you planning on making any more squigs for the next go?

Also, I thought I would mention that when I first saw your various orks with the resculpted mouths and faces, I was not sold at all. After seeing many many more ork blogs and miniatures since then, they have grown on me quite a bit. They are some of the most unique orks I've seen out there and in a faction that prides itself on being completely one-off that is quite the accomplishment! Slash, your runtherd, is definitely my favorite.

Here's the next squig in my herd:



This little guy is an attack squig for Grizwoad, my Nob, though he would also make an excellent mimic squig or squig parrot, since I made this guy to sit on his shoulder.



This guy is based on the little attack squig from the nobz sprue, though I always thought that he looked kind of weird sitting on his perch atop that really tall back pole, so I chopped him off and made it look like his perch was bolted directly onto my nob's shoulder pad. I also shaved off his hair and gave him some bony spikes, which I liked much better. Finally, I gave him a pair of goggles just like my squighound.



I also did a bit of touch-up work on Grizwoad while I was at it. I repainted his big choppa using better paints, and although the streaky texture from the other paint still shows through a bit if you look really hard, the new coat (actually more like two coats, as I kept splodging) is definitely an improvement. Attaching the squig, fortunately, wasn't too hard, as his left shoulder pad already had a couple of bullet holes in it. I just drilled one of them out so it goes all the way to his pelvis, and now he's got a perfect squig mount that blends in perfectly.

Here's my next Squig:




This little beastie is based on the standard plastic targeting squig from the Flash Gitz sprue, though he didn't seem smiley or toothy enough for my Morkers, so I gave him a pair of tusks and a big grin and now he fits in great. I painted this squig the same way I painted my others, though the eyeball gave me a lot of trouble. The eye itself turned out great, but the little targeting reticle ended up giving me a lot of grief. The first time around, I just drew it on with an ink pen, which gave me a nice thin, straight line that looked great. The only problem was that as soon as I tried to put some gloss on it, it smeared all over and I had to repaint the whole eye. Of course, having done it perfectly the first time, I ended up splodging it several times with a brush. In the end, the center of the eye had so many coats of paint that it was starting to look like it was wearing a contact lens, which I guess is as good an explanation as any as to how these things supposedly work. In the end, the only real complaint I have is that since the black lines are a bit thicker now, it kind of breaks up the gradient and makes it look really yellow in the middle and really orange on the outside, rather than a smooth transition. Were I to do it again, I might try having the whole center of the eye solid yellow with the washes only around the edges, but I'm still quite pleased with the finished look.



The conversion wasn't terribly difficult. The tusks are from some Space Marine lightning claws, which I then sculpted his big underbite around. Fairly simple, but I like the way she turned out.



I decided to give this squig to Shifty, my Kannon-toting spanner boy. I removed the boss pole from his backpack to add the squig perch, though I also made some modifications to his kannon, adding an ammo feed to the bottom. I wanted the ammo to look a bit like the rounds from the old Ork Biker autocannons, but a bit smaller. I got a bunch of random ammo clips from the Flash Gitz sprues, but the ones I managed to find were all either too similar to normal shoota ammo (which I removed to convert his kannon) or were too weird looking.



In the end, I ended up just building my own rounds out of plasticard tubes and the tips of some plastic golf tees, which were rather difficult to work with. They're still a bit on the large side, as the cartridges are as big as or slightly larger than the action of the gun, but they look good and orky.

One more Squig:




This one's based on the squig from Grukk Facerippa. I painted this guy in the same way as my other squigs. Washing the model with Agrax Earthshade made him look really brown and splotchy, but a nice coat of Bloodletter did wonders, making the red stronger and mellowing out the extreme shadows that he got on his skin. It did tone down some of the highlights as well, so I went back over a few places again to brighten them back up.



The conversion was pretty simple, just adding some goggles to the model to match the rest of my mob. I used glass beads for the lenses instead of molding them from greenstuff, which I think turned out pretty good. There was also a pretty big ridge where the face attached to the body, which I was mostly able to hide with greenstuff.



Since I think our current house rules only allow slavers to take squighounds, I officially have more squigs than I can take in my mob, which means it's probably time to move on to other stuff, like finishing my trakk. I'm a bit behind on posting as well, so hopefully I'll get some shots of my mob in action posted here in the not-too-distant future.

Excellent! Love all of them. Do the rules allow for bomb squigs? I'd love to see you try your hand at one of them!

They do, in fact, and I've been collecting parts to make a couple. Unfortunately, I haven't even begun assembling one, so it will probably be a while before I have any finished bomb squigs to show off. One of these days, though...

Hey, everybody!

The last month or two has been kind of crazy for me, and while I haven't managed to get much posted, I have managed to get a bit done here and there. First and foremost, I finally managed to get all the gubbinz for my big trakk finished.




While I didn't manage to model all of the possible gubbinz you can get in Gorkamorka, I managed to model all the ones I think I'll be taking on my big trakk. Bonus points if you can spot them all!

Sadly, I wasn't able to get it painted quite in time for the end of the last campaign, but I still got some shots of da boyz in action, so hopefully I'll get some pictures of that up soon.

Love this! any chance you are planning to introduce the new war buggies GW just announced into your campaign?

There is just so much good stuff going on there it is a bit overwhelming. I really love how customizable you've made everything.

When does the next campaign start?

@ManTube I've already got as many vehicles in this mob as I can realistically take in a campaign. Still, those shiny new buggies are so tempting...

We'll have to see.

@facelyss Next campaign is probably a long way off, but we did finally finish our last one, so I can post some of the highlights right now:



Since the previous scenario ended with my mob grabbing Chad's gunner and driving off with him, we began the next session with a rescue mission, with Chad and his boyz attempting to free their comrade from Grizwoad's fort.

Unfortunately, the fort was one of the many things I wasn't able to get finished in time for the campaign, so Grizwoad's mob had taken up temporary residence on top of da Kop while they waited for their new lair to be completed.



When the Gorkers struck, the only mobsters defending the camp were Grizwoad, Slash, and Snikshok, my shooty grot. Despite being outnumbered, the Morkers were confident that they could deal with Chad's trukk from the safety of their makeshift fortress.



As soon as the trukk got close to the camp, the Gorkers let loose with a barrage of stikkbombs that pummeled the entire Kop, taking Grizwoad out of action and even knocking out the tiny grot cowering on the far side of the defenses.

Slash quickly rushed over to block the Gorkers from scaling the rocky walls of their camp, but a second volley of stikkbombs made short work of the burly Runtherd. By the time Chad's boys entered the camp, the only remaining defender was a somewhat dazed grot, desperately trying to stall for time.



Fortunately for him, the smoldering remains of their temporary stronghold had caught the attention of the rest of the mob, who came rushing back to repel the invaders. The two smaller trakks arrived first and charged toward the trukk with guns blazing.

Wasting no time, Chad's boyz released their captured comrade and made a break toward the open desert, climbing down the rear cliffs on the side of the mesa furthest from the approaching trakks.



This time, however, the tables have turned and it's Chad's boys who have to try and stall the trakks long enough for the rest of the mob to get away. The trukk, up against a wall of solid rock, has no room to maneuver and gets shot to pieces.



In a valiant attempt to slow the trakks' pursuit, one of Chad's bikers rushed in and dropped an oil slick right in the path of Toast and his flamecar, only to be hit at point blank range by the trakk's skorcha.



Just as it seemed that the biker's bold maneuver might have bought the fleeing Gorkers the time they needed to escape, Spike and the big trakk came around the other corner of the Kop, cutting off their escape and ending the rescue mission in a hail of dakka. Grizwoad would keep his prisoner and Chad would have to hire a new gunner.

Belated congratulions on a very nice big trakk, and not-so-belated gratz on a battle well fought

Thanks, CommissarKhaine.

The next scenario in our campaign surrounded a mysterious tellyporta pad that had been discovered deep in the desert. Built long ago by a crazy Mek, the pad connected to another one far from the skid in an unexplored region rich with scrap.



Naturally, all four mobs were eager to plunder this new source of riches.



Marvolork's bikers were the first through the pad, though they were followed closely by Chad, who brought his whole mob through the tellyporta.



Meanwhile, Marvolork, who had acquired a spiffy new suit of mega armor, charged toward Urzig's mob, determined to keep the other Gorkers from reaching the pad.



Not wanting to miss out on all the scrap, I sent Abby Jr. and Shifty through the tellyporta. The speedy little trakk tore out of the immaterium just inches from Chad's trukk and flew off toward unexplored territory. Unfortunately, they didn't make it far from the pad before Chad's entire mob opened fire on them, immobilizing the trakk and dashing any hopes of quickly grabbing some scrap.



Back on the near side of the pad, Marvolork and Urzig, once again, had demolished each other's vehicle in a head-on collision. The resulting carnage would cause both mobs to bottle within a few turns.

In an unexpected turn of events, Chad was knocked from his trukk onto the pad and tellyported back to the other side, where Grizwoad and his mob were waiting. Although Chad's thick armor and Nobby toughness would allow him to survive the ensuing hail of dakka, he became trapped in the tellyporta, going back and forth between the two pads and perpetually being shot to pieces before he could actually stand and run off the pad.



Never ones to fret while their boss is getting the tar beat out of himself, the rest of Chad's mob continued to cruise the deserts on the far side of the pad, shooting down the last of Marvolork's bikers and gathering as much scrap as they could.



Unfortunately for the overconfident Gorkers, just because the scrap was uncontested, it didn't mean that it was safe. One pile of scrap happened to be right on the lair of a giant desert scorpion that was eager to make a meal out of Chad's boyz.

With most of the other mobs now fleeing the table, I decided that it was probably safe to send another vehicle through the tellyporta...



...I was wrong.

The trakk exploded during transport, flinging its occupants through the air and emerging in a heap on the far side. The smoldering wreck essentially blocked any other vehicles from using the pads and ended any hopes of the adventure being profitable for anyone. I believe Chad's mob ended up winning, though I don't know that anyone did much better than break even after all the repairs.

So, in summary, everything exploded, everybody basically lost to varying degrees, and it was one of the most entertaining scenarios of the campaign. I can't wait to try it again.

That sounded... like a great battle! Thanks for the write-up!

I do love these write-ups. The teleporter scenario was especially entertaining and turned out about as orky as could be hoped for. Keep 'em coming!

As the writer of the Tellyporta scenario, I appreciate the comments and agree that the Turnip Master did a bang-up job on reporting our game!
Since I wasn't sure how the scenario would play-out, I rushed the work on the tellyportas and used less-than-durable materials - since it was such a great game, I really regret not doing a better job.
Maybe for next time.

I love coming back to this thread and reading of the new scraps these orks get into. thanks!

Thanks guys. I've got one last bit of excitement from the last campaign for ya.



Our final scenario was, as had become customary, a race between the four mobs. I had finally earned enough teef to take all my spiffy new (though sadly still half-painted) gubbinz, which made my big trakk quite the imposing figure on the racetrack. I also had my trusty flamecar, which I had made fasta earlier in the campaign. Urzig had decided to go with two bikes as his entries, which meant that the Nob had to watch from the sidelines this time.



Right out of the gate, the bikers took an early lead, with Gabby and Toast keeping pace in their trakk. My big trakk, unfortunately, barely managed to lurch a full car-length forward before a thruster malfunction.



Seeing an opportunity, Marvolork quickly moved against Grizwoad. As the bikers flew past us, Marvolork's big trakk pulled along side Grizwoad's, a somewhat risky move considering how my big grabba had made short work of his vehicle earlier in the campaign. Unfortunately for Grizwoad, Marvolork was able to drop a boarding plank and stomp aboard his trakk in full Mega-Armor, which he had won during the previous race.



Meanwhile, the bikers were scrambling to avoid the tar pit on the far side of the first curve, a considerably more deadly hazard than the usual cacti. At this point, one of Urzig's bikers had pulled ahead of the pack, out of range of Toast's skorcha which meant that the spanner had to pull out his trusty shoota to have an hopes of taking him out.



Back at the starting line (none of the trukks had even managed to get to the first turn at this point), Marvolork had made short work of Grizwoad and his crew. Even with their new squigs, the Morkers were, sadly, no match for Mega-Marvolork. Grizwoad was skragged and Slash was hurled unceremoniously onto the racetrack. Grubmitz, who was still driver despite Spike's many attempts to get his position back, was also knocked out of the trakk.



With its driver incapacitated, the track drifted forward aimlessly, crashing into the steep canyon walls and blocking the narrow pass leading to the first curve. This meant that Marvolork and Chad would have to take their vehicles around the outside of the track, making it even less likely for them to catch up with Urzig's bikers.



By this point, the lead biker had pulled far ahead of Gabby and Toast, making full use of the free thrust that bikes get. The gun emplacements shot wildly at the speeding biker, but couldn't hit him. He would make sure that this was the only shot they got, zipping well out of their range by the end of the next turn.



With little chance of making it to the finish line, Marvolork went full-Urzig, charging toward Chad's trukk (which had spun around backward, still within spitting distance of the starting line).

With the biker now long gone, the gun emplacements turned toward Gabby and Toast, who fared far worse than Urzig's boy. Gabby was blasted out of the vehicle, dashing any hopes of stopping Urzig's mob from taking first place.



The biker crossed the finish line with no competition. The big vehicles were still in a jumble by the starting line and every other racer had spun out or crashed and was still trying to recover. Although my mob still won the campaign by a considerable margin, Urzig's decisive victory in the race gave him plenty to brag about.

And thus ended our Gorkamorka Not-So-Mini-Campaign. I think that all of the rule tweaks we made between the two campaigns really helped balance things out, allowing my mob to come back from being in dead last to having a huge lead, though even that didn't stop my mob from getting trounced now and again. I think we overdid it a bit on the racing. Ending every session with a race was probably too much, though I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that we've increased the diversity of available scenarios a lot since we first started playing. Now there's plenty of other scenarios that can easily match Da Big Race in terms of hilarious orky mayhem. The Tellyporta scenario was a blast, despite (or perhaps because of) the massive casualties each mob took. I was also impressed with how well balanced the rescue mission was. Despite having a triple-digit advantage in mob rating, I only just barely managed to hold onto my prisoner.

Next time I'll have to make sure I have a proper fort built...

These reports are always a pleasure. I plan to try and use your rules soon enough myself once speed freeks comes out and I have more vehicles to use for a campaign. None of my friends play orks, but that just gives me an excuse to buy up a huge arsenal of vehicles myself to loan out for a campaign. When we eventually start, I'll let you know how it goes and any questions that come up. It all looks like a blast!

It's been a while since I posted anything here, in part because I was distracted by Mordheim, but also due to the fact that my town has been hit not just by the global plague that is currently rampaging largely unhindered through my country, but also by earthquakes, food shortages, and whatever the desert equivalent of a class 3 hurricane is. Fortunately, we're still alive and doing pretty well, all things considered. And although I haven't had a ton of free time between work, repairing the house after disasters, and staring blankly into the void, I have made some progress on a proper fort for my Morker boyz.



I actually started this fort over a year ago and the planning began long before that. Since my gang was the most obsessed with vehicles and gubbinz of any in our campaign, I wanted them to be based out of a remote fort on the far side of the Skid, where the the grots are unruly and the spanner boyz are even more eccentric than usual. I designed their fort to be built up against the side of an especially large chunk of the 'Ulk that had long since been stripped of any useful scrap. I also wanted to make the fort modular so that the other gangs could use the parts and swap in their own sections to make their own custom forts.



Like most of the gubbinz for my big trakk, my plan was to hold everything together with magnets. Since there were going to be models standing on top of the walls, I wanted to make sure that the whole thing didn't tip over if someone bumped the table. It also had to fit the dimensions for the fort scenarios and be tall enough that all the vehicles in the campaign could fit through the gate. Fortunately, my mob has the most ridiculously tall vehicles in the campaign, so hopefully this will accommodate everyone.

Since in-person games are on hold for the time being, I'm hoping I have enough time to finish this one before the next Gorkamorka campaign, or at least before we play any fort scenarios.

Welcome back! Looks lie you're of t a good (and well thought-out) start. Will you be repeating the elements from the hulk in the corner? Good use of the nerf guns over there . Here's to hoping the biblical plagues stop hitting you!

Thanks, CommissarKhaine. I also hope to personally experience fewer biblical plagues.

None of my other wall sections have huge chunks built into them, though that could certainly change. One of the main reasons that I decided to build my fort with modular walls (apart from much easier storage and transport) was so that I could swap out standard, straight sections with alternative ones. This meant I could make diagonal or curved walls, two-story towers, or whatever else I thought might be cool and Orky. At one point I was going to make one side of the fort built into the side of a rocky cliff, but that was too much work. Maybe I'll make a cliff section in the next batch of walls.

I do plan to have some other big chunks of the 'Ulk as terrain pieces, but I have yet to start them.



The chunk of the 'Ulk is built mostly around parts from one big nerf gun, with a lot of other nerf guns and water pistols stuck to it with hot glue. Also, hard plastic water pistols tend to shatter into razor-sharp shards when cut, so I think I'll use fewer of them in the future.





I started painting the walls at one point when we were about to start up a new campaign, but it's been on hold since the outbreak of the plague. I also decided that the outer walls needed some additional detail to make my fort look appropriately ramshackle and industrial. My general goal was to make it look a bit like the remnants of old machinery that broke down and was just kind of left in place. I might add some dangling cables or broken rails as well. Also, every good fort needs a drainpipe.



After a lot of slow work and planning, it's finally starting to come together.

Great job on all the terrain pieces. Showing GorkaMorka the dedication and investment of time and effort it deserves. Great stuff.

Love how it's all coming together. And the modularity is a blessing indeed - until you realise your project isn't actually finished that way . I have the same issue with some of my buuils.

Never played this but really appreciated the original rule set and concept. Great painting and modelling mate! Gorkamorka is clearly the place to go for those who want an Ork force without being obliged to collect hundreds of figures!! ... Well maybe...

Just had a read through of some of your batreps. Teleporter in the desert sounds like the single greatest GorkaMorka scenario I've ever heard of. Fantastic fun.

Thanks, everyone! And yes, the teleporter scenario was among the craziest scenarios we played, but it was a lot of fun. We'll definitely be doing that one again.

Speaking of crazy terrain pieces, added some more detail to the fort.

I wanted to add some detail to the inner walls of the fort to make it look like someplace a band of gearhead orks actually lived in. Basically I imagine their fort to be a sprawling auto garage that has grown out of control.



This section is just a bunch of pipes and conduits, with a convenient access hatch on the top. This piece also has the outside, so presumably all the waste from the generators and refineries (and, of course, the Orks) flows through these pipes before being unceremoniously dumped into the desert.

I used a pretty eclectic assortment of materials for this section, including a chunk of a model railroad car, a box of raisin bran, some drinking straws, and loads of plasticard. The rivets and bolts are mostly tiny hex nuts, though quite a few of them are actual nails I used to attach the bits to the underlying XPS foam structure. I also inadvertently melted a bit of the foam with super glue in a few places, which required some appropriately Orky repair jobs.



This piece was a bit more straightforward in its construction. It was mostly plasticard with some random bits from my bits box. Most of the rivets on this piece were tiny glass beads, which I'd previously used on my Big Trakk. These were a lot harder to work with than the bigger greeblies I used on the other section, so I kind of gave up on the beads after this.

I was especially pleased with how these big electrical panels turned out. Not bad for mostly scratchbuilding.