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Allo All

I just bought my first WH40K intro army a couple of weeks ago - Start Collecting Orks.
So needless to say I am very new to all of this.

I was about to get started building the Nobz that come in the box, but then I realised that I had a problem.
If I wanted some or all of them to have 'eavy armour would this affect the way I built the actual model?
Basically does 'eavy armour have to physically be added to the model or is it something you state in your army points list?

Which leads me to my next point, many of the differing units have a large assortment of shoulder pads/pauldrons to use.
Are these purely just for appearance? or do they affect the model's stats.
On a related note, are cybork head options also just for appearance or do these affect stats.

I greatly appreciate any assistance which could be provided.

Firstly, welcome to 40k and welcome to Dakka!

Whether models need to show their upgrades is a term called WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get), and it used to be an actual rule in the rulebook but is not now - the amount or strictness of the WYSIWYG is entirely dependent on your local gaming group - some would be fine, as an example, using coca cola cans instead of drop pods, whilst others might be very keen on every possible upgrade being shown.

You'll probably find that most people are in the middle of the spectrum - ideally having the models are equipped with anything obvious (special/heavy weapon upgrades being the main one) not only makes it way easier on your opponent (they're not constantly having to ask "What were those Orks armed with again?") but as a new player it will also greatly help you remember that those units are upgraded ("Oh yeah, those Orks have 'Eavy Armour, so I get a save.").

Strictly speaking, all the shoulder pads and mechanical heads are decorative, but they're a great way of representing the upgrades as well for your own benefit. Mostly anyone who hasn't worked on an Ork army themselves, or regularly plays against one, won't even notice if they have them or not.

Well. I'm using two shoulder pads on each 'ard boy and nob that uses 'eavy armour and I leave the rest in their t-shirts hence the term "t-shirt saves". A set of ten 'ard choppy boys done this way took me 3 sets of boys the others I made shoota boys (2/3 of my core is shooty and the 1/3 choppy is 'ard). Little glyphs get picked up along the way and can hang off some pad edges making the odd nob look even 'arder.

Thank you both very much for all this help.

There is just so much info and sphere for customization in this game, and although that is what makes it so awesome, and can some times be somewhat overwhelming for a new player so I really appreciate the help.

It was overwhelming for me ato first too. I spent months reading and planning after I bought the books and no small amount of math hammer either. Once I was ready to buy models I already had established a plan, knew which colours I needed, knew what to expect extra on the sprue. Watched tons of YouTube modeling, painting, and games being played. It pays off to do the research in order to avoid what's known as buyer's/modeller''s remorse.

I bought the 'Ard Boyz box way back when (not a box of nobz, just normal boyz). It came with metal replacement torsos, extra shoulder plates and iron gobz. Looking at the 'Eavy Armor torsos they were pretty similar to many of the standard torsos, and you could only tell that they had a few extra armor plates by holding it up to your eye and looking at the really fine details. It was the double shoulder pads that had the most effect. Most of the time you're looking down at the models, so making their heads and shoulders look more armored will give you the most bang for your buck.

I give em all the shoulder, but paint their tshirt different colors. I have 30 red, 30 yellow, 30 blue, 30 black, 30 brown, 30 teal, 30 orange, and 30 white.

usually for simplicity I just run everything ard boys or everything tshirt save but if I want to mix then I just say red shirts ard white shirts not etc. (usually lighte colors for 6" bolder for 4+ but that is preference

Thanks a lot guys.
All great ideas and great advice.
I will try them out in games to see who benefits most from the different armour choices, and then perhaps add shoulders accordingly

 G00fySmiley wrote:
I give em all the shoulder, but paint their tshirt different colors. I have 30 red, 30 yellow, 30 blue, 30 black, 30 brown, 30 teal, 30 orange, and 30 white.

usually for simplicity I just run everything ard boys or everything tshirt save but if I want to mix then I just say red shirts ard white shirts not etc. (usually lighte colors for 6" bolder for 4+ but that is preference

If you don't want to have your models painted with this much variation in color you can always just do a line on the shoulder or the edge of the base in different colors, I want my guardsmen to be uniform so I do a line on the shoulder for veterans.

As Quanar said WYSIWYG is fairly important, special weapons are the most essential but it's definitely helpful if you have a way to keep track of other upgrades as well if not everyone has them. At least for my stores, "All my sergeants have melta bombs" is okay or "sergeants with chainswords have melta bombs" but "this sergeant has one, this one doesn't, I'm pretty sure this one does, or maybe was it this one...?" drives people a little crazy and is frowned upon. Just know, however, that it varies between every store and is usually a lot more strict in competitive play; they don't want someone saying they lost a tank because they didn't know you had melta bombs. Eavy armor would be less enforced, but again, if you have a bunch of stuff near each other that all looks the same but has different saves it's a good idea to have some sort of indication. Heck, I even saw a guy that would keep a token next to which units had eavy armor.

Also, welcome to dakka and 40k! Blessings of the Emprah upon you and your dice!

You can mix up how you paint them in another way too.

https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/catalog/product/920x950/99120103013_OrkBoyz10NEW01.jpg

There are a lot of details on the models, that could be interpreted differently. On the Ard boyz you can paint patches as metal panels, on the regular boys these could instead be painted as cloth/leather repairs to their shirts.

If you select the pieces, and paint them appropriately, you can create a much heavily armoured look on one set of boyz than another, especially if you have a good number of boxes to begin with.

 OrkyBorkySmorky wrote:
I was about to get started building the Nobz that come in the box, but then I realised that I had a problem.
If I wanted some or all of them to have 'eavy armour would this affect the way I built the actual model?
Basically does 'eavy armour have to physically be added to the model or is it something you state in your army points list?

Problem here with "state in your army points list" without physical representation comes from clarity. Imagine you have 5 models that armour wise all look more or less same. 2 of them have 'eavy armour.

Which one? The way rules are set up that can actually influence result big time so either opponent or you forgetting which were which could alter how game goes and lead to arguments. Not fun. Nor is it fun if game gets bogged down to checking constantly which model has what.

And that's 5/2. Imagine greentide with say 150 boyz of which 40 have 'eavy armour! Fun fun fun.

When entire unit has it fine no problem. Unless you get units intermingled at which point it gets tricky(btw good idea to have something that can be used to identify which unit model belongs to. You don't want huge pile of combat with 4 units involved and start wondering did one unit just get wiped out or is there still lone survivor).

Again thank you all, lots of great ideas and solid advice too.
Eavy armour was something I just wanted to try in a few games on my single unit of 5 nobz, so luckily won't create much confusion (basically I would have said - all nobz have eavy armour). I just wanted to test if eavy armour worked well on them, and if it was at all beneficial.
At this point it is a stretch getting enough points in the first place to field a decent army so I may use it just to buff up my points till I have bought and built more.

Once again, thank you everybody!

Welcome to the Waaagh, With that said, let me offer you some advice. Typically Eavy Armor isn't worth taking, neither are nobz But since you only have the Start Collecting Box I realize youre very limited so if I were you only give Eavy armor If you absolutely need to.

As far as modeling, there are no "Eavy Armor" models so in this case its really a matter of book keeping. I do like adding the Shoulder plates and the metal Gobz to certain boyz with helmets and call them my Eavy Armor boyz (on the rare instances i use Eavy Armor)

 OrkyBorkySmorky wrote:
Thank you both very much for all this help.

There is just so much info and sphere for customization in this game, and although that is what makes it so awesome, and can some times be somewhat overwhelming for a new player so I really appreciate the help.

personally I found plasticicard (technically styrene) is really good for additional armour, and looks proper orky, or just heavy... it's also really cheap and comes in many thicknesses and even structural shapes (I beams, channels, tubes) making it basically your best friend. Most hobby stores have a big display of it labeled Evergreen

And the customization options are what got me into this hobby in the first place I really like building stuff...

As you are building these just remember you are lucky to be starting with Orks. Painting and playing they are not quite as forgiving, but building and scratchbuilding is the most fun for me as an Ork player

Specifically for 'ard boyz I have been using the old metal Black Orcs models from the WFB range. In your case especially regarding Nobs, when I have to take them on foot I -always- pay for the 'eavy armour, so there is no confusion for me or my opponent. I also try to build whole units with the helmeted heads or something like that.

On the tabletop don't expect them to be overly impressive. Treat them like just a slightly better boyz mob and every three or four games your opponent is going to get disproportionately frustrated when they actually make a few armour saves!

One cool way to do 'eavy armour nobz would be to use AOS orruk brutes as a basis. Just give them 40K weapons and they will look awesome.

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Ironjawz-Orruk-Brutes