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How do you paint your Orks? Do you give the whole army one klan scheme, or perhaps make each unit a different klan as you see fit?

I'm tossing up how to do mine. On the one hand, I love the idea of a themed mono Klan army. On the other hand, being able to say that "the red Slugga Boyz are one unit and the blue ones are another" seems awfully convenient, and some units seem to fit certain colour schemes better than others.

im working on mine at the moment and im doing multi klan ork infantry horde with supporting guns^^

I run my Orks as SpeedFreek Deffskullz.

Or maybe Loota Evil Sunz...

I tell my units apart by the color of their T-shirts.

White and Yellow.

mine are multiklan, because i'd go fething INSANE if i had to paint all my models yellow and black (Bad Moonz being my favourite Klan)

I divvied up the vehicles to each klan, and each klan gets one boyz mob, one grot mob, one biker mob, at least one HQ and one speciality.

Stormboyz, for example, will be all-goff
Burnas will be Evil Sunz
Lootas will be Deffskullz
Tankbustaz are Snakebites
Kommandoz are Blood Axes
Flash Gitz are Bad Moonz

Each klan has a Nobz or Meganobz unit also.


Some decade i'll get them all done...

My army is all bloodaxe, which I personally hate myself for. Painting camouflage is a pain in the rear, especially on large squads like boyz or detailed models like bikes.

I chose bloodaxes because I liked their fluff, and because it didn't limit me from taking any choices from the codex. Freeebootaz, Bad Moons or Deff Skullz would work the same as there is nothing you can't buy/steal.

When I first devised my army, I was going to make them Bloodaxes like my 2nd edition orks, but with a twist. The army was going to be a Bloodaxe speed freaks band inspired by the SAS Long Range Desert Group of WWII fame, so instead of using mismatched camo patterns, I was going to paint them all in tan desert camo.

But then I thought that, seeing orks driving off-road vehicles and wearing turbans and kuffiyas most people would not get the WWII reference, so I went for Evil Suns instead.

Still, they are not a "pure" Evil Suns army. I wanted to keep a small link to my original idea, so I painted their shirts and trousers tan and brown instead of Evil Suns black. Also, details such as checkerboards, flames and glyphs are white, not the usual yellow.

Thus, the Red Raiders were born: A nomadic tribe of highway vandals and opportunistic looters that make heavy use of motorbikes, vehicles and aircraft. Initially formed from an Evil Suns core, their piratical ways have made them spend long periods of time behind enemy lines, cut away from mainstream Ork Kulture, so the tribe has ended up developing their own customs and insignia.

Mine is many clans gathered under a powerful Warboss: The Red Handed.

Yo, uh... It's clan. "Klan" makes things a littl, err, uncomfortable.

Deathskulls....with some Evil Sunz thrown on top. I have to (or want to) paint most of my vehicles red so I may as well have some crazy Evil Sunz at the helm of my mad fast trukks and battlewagons! Choo Choo! Watch out! Here comes the party-wagon!

my orks are a seething mass of all the clans... more variaty to paint and tell stuff apart.

also helps blend in all the OOOLLLLDD OOP orks I have with the new ones

Bad Moonz. Lotz and lotz of Bad Moonz

Split. Plenty of fluff support, easier to distinguish units on the tabletop (important for an army that relies on massed bodies), greater variety while painting (again, lots of models - it's both better exercise for painting skills and helps break up the monotony).

Personally, I keep the uniform simple and... well, uniform, adding the appropriate colors and patterns to the trimmings (loincloths, glyph plates, armor, hair(squigs), etc.), partly to keep the army more cohesive and partly due to the comparative ease (spray the legs/torso and the clothes are 90% done).

Mine are mostly freebooters, though not the space pirate type, clad in earthen, sensible colours like grey and brown. There are a few boys in more traditional clan garb like red or blue shirts, but generally speaking they steer away from garish colours. This was mostly inspired by the switch from 2nd to 3rd edition when Orks became more ferocious and less comical, along with the feeling that any choice of clan would inherently restrict me from putting the army together as I pleased. No sense of having to conform to any expectations in a freebooter list.

Multi-Klan Freebootas, but with a strong focus on Evil Sunz/Speed Freaks.

All clans, so I can tell them apart. Plus it's fluffy.

Running freebootas unda tha force o' Kaptin GoldTEEF

Har har, da richest und speediest der is!

Mine are mostly red for evil suns with plenty of Goofs mixed in, something about the checker pattern gets me. Bottom line, its orks and in a WAAAGHH they will band under a poweful leader anyway.

Mine paint their armor orange, so maybe they're a cross between evil suns and bad moons? They do enjoy vehicles, fancy equipment and elite units over hoards of boyz. But they do whatever it takes to krump dem softeez.

When I first started playing there were more ork players than Space Marine and at conventions, I would usually end up missing a few of my orks, even with my initals paint on the bottom. So I started painting the flesh purple instead of green. As for the armor, I tried for years to stick with Bad Moon (yellow and black) but for the multitudes of the same figures, I add in different colors just to make them seem different - I still end up calling them the twins (even when there is 10 of them) slowly but surely the units start to look the same, especially when I paint more than one figure at a time.

Really? Man, I dunno about the purple skin but I might start giving them painted faces.

I'm slightly confused by your last sentance. You mean that even when you try to differentiate the Bad Moons mobs they just look identical?

Yes, the more colorful they become the more they just look the same. When painting in groups, usually it the whole squad, I tend to just give them all the exact same paint.

Yeah the purple was ... well ... not intentional is probably the best way to say it. Also, I would never say that other players intentionally pocketed my figures, but I did find my symbol covered up with black magic marker at some of my early Tournies.

Also, I would make a lot of conversion and at conventions I noticed that a lot of other people seemed to have the same ideas. I first started with red and even though I got a lot of compliments on them, I hated the red orks, next was blue (more like a grey-blue), but I didn't strip the red off and they actually started to bleed into a purple color (which I have never been able to match again.

So, in a game against another Ork player, I always know right off which are mine and which are his. Grots,Snotlings, and Squigies I had always painted Aqua-Blue, over the years it has just become blue.

Now a days, I'm lucky if I play against another Ork player, so I could go back to green, but after 25 years of purple, I'm just going to stay with it.

 Sleg wrote:
Yes, the more colorful they become the more they just look the same. When painting in groups, usually it the whole squad, I tend to just give them all the exact same paint.

Yeah the purple was ... well ... not intentional is probably the best way to say it. Also, I would never say that other players intentionally pocketed my figures, but I did find my symbol covered up with black magic marker at some of my early Tournies.

Also, I would make a lot of conversion and at conventions I noticed that a lot of other people seemed to have the same ideas. I first started with red and even though I got a lot of compliments on them, I hated the red orks, next was blue (more like a grey-blue), but I didn't strip the red off and they actually started to bleed into a purple color (which I have never been able to match again.

So, in a game against another Ork player, I always know right off which are mine and which are his. Grots,Snotlings, and Squigies I had always painted Aqua-Blue, over the years it has just become blue.

Now a days, I'm lucky if I play against another Ork player, so I could go back to green, but after 25 years of purple, I'm just going to stay with it.

Must a' been sum bad mushrooms man.

Multi klan for sure. Only a true WAAAAAGH has multiple klans and only a REAL warboss commands more then one klan.

 Dakkamite wrote:
Really? Man, I dunno about the purple skin but I might start giving them painted faces.

I have some Orks painted Purple too. My first ever game was against Chaos Space Marines. So I wrote this into the background of my army that the Orks that spawned from that battlefield spawned from Chaos tainted ground causing them to have Purple skin. However they were no more Chaos than any other Ork. More recently I've started using Chaos allies. Rather than use Chaos Cultist models I use my Purple Orks as Chaos Cultists. They're still not tainted by Chaos, they just find it fun to follow that huge purple Demon Prince into a fight.

My Orks are all Deffskullls. Full on one clan. I dont see why a clan shouldnt have every aspect of war. Just because Deffskulls prefer stolen goods and weapons doesnt mean they cant also have their own go-fast bikes!

Lots of blue paint for me.

 Icculus wrote:
My Orks are all Deffskullls. Full on one clan. I dont see why a clan shouldnt have every aspect of war. Just because Deffskulls prefer stolen goods and weapons doesnt mean they cant also have their own go-fast bikes!

Lots of blue paint for me.

What you say is true, only diffrence is they got most of their army based on shooty and loud dakka

 Las wrote:
Yo, uh... It's clan. "Klan" makes things a littl, err, uncomfortable.

Someone has never seen an Ork Codex....

Nor does everyone live in the southern United States.

Freestyle, just do whatever strikes my fancy when it comes to the next model. I don't paint to any clan, none particularly strike my interests so I guess in the end I've got a bit of a freebooter look perhaps, minus the ostentation.

I suppose I fall into the 'multi-clan' genre simply because I dont have the patience to be able to sit and glue/paint an army. I buy all of mine from ebay already put together and painted. The way I see it, Orks are looking for a fight- doesnt matter what clan they are from- follow the Waaagh!

 Al2ies wrote:
I suppose I fall into the 'multi-clan' genre simply because I dont have the patience to be able to sit and glue/paint an army. I buy all of mine from ebay already put together and painted. The way I see it, Orks are looking for a fight- doesnt matter what clan they are from- follow the Waaagh!

That makes sense, the part about Orks from every clan following the WAAAGH. I can totally relate to orks from everywhere joining together to fight something. But from an aesthetic standpoint, I like the look of a unified army. It just seems cooler to me. In my mind, it the warboss making everyone put on a blue shoulder pad or blue chest paint before marching under his banner.


"you fight for me, you wear the lucky colors of Gork!"

and then the big mek says blue is lucky color of Mork, and then they fight. and the winner leads my army that day