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I would like 5 lobbas, but would rather buy one each of the lobba, kannon, and zzap gun for the gretchin models, and some gretchin crew from FW, and cobble together something cool any suggestions or pictures?

I've actually been looking at kit bashing some lobbas myself. I've been leaning toward using IG mortars, probably two or three together as a lobba. Still trying to find good inspiration for the gun carriage though.

Also doing something similar myself; so far I've been looking at Kromlech, Puppets War, Victoria Miniatures and Zinge Industries.

They all have variations on "Big Gunz", most of them also do bits for conversions.

I've also been using spare weapons from the Ork Battlewagon, because they have different versions of Kannon, Zzap gun, etc. (Although the Lobba is a bit rubbish)

I managed to pick up 3 second hand Empire mortars for £10. They look great next to my 2 lobba models. The extortionate mek gunz kits come with 5 crew ( or 6 if you count the binocular guy) so, if your a fool like me and bought some, you can use some of the spares from those to help make up the numbers.

http://www.games-workshop.com/en-BE/Empire-Mortar

Lobbas can be wicked easy. I did mine like old school calliope guns. Five or six tubes side by side and another row of four or five tubes stacked on top. Angled at about 45°, rack made from sprue, add wires and gubbins to taste.

PourSpelur wrote:
Lobbas can be wicked easy. I did mine like old school calliope guns. Five or six tubes side by side and another row of four or five tubes stacked on top. Angled at about 45°, rack made from sprue, add wires and gubbins to taste.

Or something like the WW2 Nebelwerfer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_cm_Nebelwerfer_41 can look great and is easy so long as you have some plastic tubing. A rocket launching lobba is perfectly fluffy.

I went the other way, going for the howitzer look (http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-550-23673_Orks.html for them and my other ork artillery), but really, they just have to look like they 'lob' a large projectile and clearly not be a kannon.

^^ Wow! Those are exactly how I want mine to look. Real artillery from WW1 era howitzers, only orky. Would 1/35 scale look good?

My howitzers were just built from bits box bits and leftover cannon bits and plasticard tubing. (If you scroll lower in the link, you can see them unpainted.)

Certainly you could use WW1/2 howitzer models, and yes 1:35 would probably be best, but be aware that the barrels will probably look too small in diameter, simply because all 40K stuff tends to have ridiculously over-scale barrels.

Before I forget, the other modelling option would be heavy mortars - a mortar is just a low-tech howitzer, after all. Relatively easy to scratch-build using plasticard tubing.

I would use Crayola Markers and bottle caps.

Markers for the mortar, caps for the wheels. Popsicle sticks or sprues for the frame.

It's built by gretchin, so it wouldn't be particularly well made.

Lobbas are fairly easy to build out plasticard/tubing.

If the crafting is something you enjoy and specifically enjoy then ignore this post by me.

I've noticed that the Forgeworld Lobba (£13) and Big Lobba (£19) are far cheaper than the GW ones and look fantastic. Alternatively I've used Kromlech artillery for Lobbas which are around £12 each.

Nice conversion, Oguhmek - I'm looking at doing something similar with Kataphron tracks.

Nurglizer, one other issue to think about if you do convert: it's relatively easy to design the wheels/tracks/base to be separate from the weapon on top, so you can make multiple weapons to fit on the same base units - you can then just swap weapons depending on which artillery you need for a particular game.

 Clang wrote:
Nice conversion, Oguhmek - I'm looking at doing something similar with Kataphron tracks.

Nurglizer, one other issue to think about if you do convert: it's relatively easy to design the wheels/tracks/base to be separate from the weapon on top, so you can make multiple weapons to fit on the same base units - you can then just swap weapons depending on which artillery you need for a particular game.

That's the way to do it I think. Man, those Kromlech ones are really nice! Better than GW. I'm probably going to get one each of the old mek guns, convert 2 of them to lobbas, FW crew and lobba, and the Kromlech one. Scratch build a tow base for the FW lobba. Also I have a new mek gun that I'm going to use the gretchin crew. That should be about 75% GW stuff for the entire battery, in case that's ever an issue.