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Hey all,

I've played Orks for a fair old while, since mid 5th, and have painted a fair few of them. After 6th edition landed I wandered off into the fabled lands of Fantasy, and managed to fully paint a 3,500pt Tomb King army in the space of a year and a bit. This has made me think that perhaps I should do the same for my Orks, and so I've knuckled down and have been trying to get a solid army core done. Previously I was really bad for erratic painting - while the Boyz and the HQs were mostly done, none of my other essential models were, so that unpainted monstrosities afflicted the eyes of my opponents at every turn. One big objective is to finish all of my Orks before the new codex hits. This is, well, quite a lot! It also includes a lot of useless units (10 Stormboyz, anyone) but hopefully I can spare some cash to round out the collection to useful unit sizes at the same time.

The army is a Kult of Speed; though I used to run Hybrid, with Boyz on foot and a Nob Squad in a Battlewagon, I've now migrated to fully mechanized, and the sound of dodgy V8 diesel engines is de rigueur for my force at this point. The painting style that I've gone for is "clean and shiny"; others may be content with dirty and mud-splattered vehicles, but my Ladz travel to war in style, and an army of grot polishers are assuredly hard at work behind the scenes, keeping everything nice and chromed. It doesn't make sense, but then it is an army of homicidal fungi in mad-max vehicles, so let's not worry too much about that.

Not everything that I've done will be put here, as that'd take a while, but I intend to show the most recent stuff (i.e. since I came back to 40k painting), as well as my efforts going forward. In the future I may rework this post into an index of sorts, but let's worry about that when we get to it.


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So let's start with my first 40k model in a while. This is a Warboss that I bought at 2am from Ebay. I paid too much for him, and it makes a strong moral message about why you shouldn't go on Ebay at 2am while in your pyjamas. In any case, I had a lot of fun painting him, and he seems to have come out ok. The helmet is a nod to the fact that I recently sold my Ultramarine army.










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But where would a Kult be, without any vehicles? These have been sitting unpainted for over a year, as I couldn't bring myself to start them, but I've now managed to get three done. I'm very pleased with the outcome, though I feel negatively about the hardship of carrying three boxes to carry them in for games. One thing that I've been very careful about is that each Trukk is colour coded to a mob of Boyz. So the red Boyz ride in the red Trukk, the yellow Boyz in the yellow Trukk, and so forth. This helps to keep things clear: I find nothing more irritating than having to count out the Boyz in each mob, especially when they are all spread out to avoid flamers, and try to keep them distinct on the table. Unfortunately I don't have a very good photograph of this right now, but next time I get a game I'll be sure to get an army picture.











The blue Trukk has a small conversion - that gunner is from the Bomber kit. There are some fairly compelling LoS issues with a gunner who can't see below the cupola of his turret, but I probably wouldn't play anyone who made a big issue out of it. Life is too short, just like the Gretchin.


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Finally, we have the Burnaboyz. I gave them a try at a friend’s behest; after seeing them roasting Necron warriors with gay abandon, I immediately rushed to get them painted!



Some more shots of the first four Burna Boyz below.

Hey all,

So I finished my Warbikers. I love these guys, and try to use them in every game - even though it is very easy to forget that they are not a melee unit, and try throwing them into random enemy squads at the first opportunity. The biggest problem with these models is trying to get the sods to sit straight on their bikes once you’ve finished painting them. And, apparently, taking a photograph that is worth looking at.





I couldn’t resist taking a photograph of the whole Warbiker mob. So much dakka

And for this final update of the year, I managed to paint my Lootas.

Not my favourite unit, either visually or ruleswise, but they are quite useful in these days of fliers. This makes the last of my units that I have to use for my current army, so perhaps some fun units are next.

Just read through everything you've posted, what a fantastic blog can't believe there were no comments up to now! I've played with orcs in fantasy but never 40k, so I have a bit of a soft spot for them. I like your colour-coding of trucks to boys- exactly the kind of thing I too am very anal about! How have you fared with them in combat? Keep up the great work, and definitely subbed

Lovely models!

Thanks for the comments! Orks are in a strange place combat-wise right now. They struggle with a lot of things that are common in the game right now. Challenges, overwatch and the rest of the 6th melee nerfs hurt them. They are a lot of fun to use though, and I've become reasonably happy with the list that I've been using. Good to see a Fantasy player - my other army is Tomb Kings.

While recovering from my new year hangover, I whipped these little guys into shape.



I got them for Christmas two years ago, and I felt pretty guilty about not painting them yet. God knows what I'll use them for though. I'm hoping for the next codex to give Gretchin more use, even if just as Warboss wargear options.

I have now finished the core of my Kult list at 1500pts, and am free to move on to other elements in my unpainted list. The benefit of running such an uncompetitive list is that I am free to paint useless things, as they don't impact my ability to win games anymore. So here are the Stormboyz, or at least the first three.



(I've still got to apply matt varnish to the transfers...)

Now, before we discuss the models, let us look at what the Stormboyz unit is good and bad at. They are an infantry unit, with a Boyz statline, frag grenades and 3 attacks each, and a special jumppack that adds d6" to their movement, but if they roll a 1 then a Stormboy is removed. They have a 6+ armour save, and cost 12pts each. They can get a special character (Zagstruk), who has an I3 Powerklaw if he charges, and who allows charging out of Deepstrike. Zagstruk costs 85pts on top of the base unit. No IC character has the option for jumppacks, so they can't benefit from our cheap and useful characters.

They are good at:
Dying amazingly fast to any gun of S2 or higher.
Costing millions of points
Doing nothing.
Going faster than any infantry unit has a right to
Potentially abusing the feth out of the rules on throwing grenades into buildings.
Looking well flash
Giving up extra VC in The Scouring
Killing themselves

Things they are bad at:
Not dying
Claiming objectives
Shooting
Killing anything that Ork Boyz struggle with
Killing anything that Ork boyz don't struggle with
Justifying their existence in an edition about shooting
Hiding behind anything - they are about the same height as Wraiths
Being cheaper than an equivalent number of boyz riding a transport vehicle
Fitting into any army type - Kult can just take cheaper Trukk boyz, and they go too fast for a Green Tide list to keep up with
Showing restraint in January sales



In terms of painting, these guys gave me some problems at first, as they are not only hideously complex but I had trouble deciding what spot colour to give them. Red? Too many such units already. Orange? I tried, but was unhappy with that colour, so it needs more work. In the end I went for purple, as it looked good on the Burnas, and both are vaguely "mek" themed. Despite the fact that their rules are abject failures, their models are amazing, and I'm now dying to use them in a game even though I think we all know how badly it will go.

The fact that they're such great models over-rules all other negatives! I really admire you for going the non-competitive route and just painting models that you love; I always start out with similar intentions, but end up with my army lists slowly changing into competitive forms.

Are there any conversions on these Stormboyz?

Very Nice! I prefer armies that have a matching color scheme but still good models!

A few people have commented about the diversity of colours. Here are a couple of photos from last weekend's tournament, showing the army in its glory; I think that it actually looks quite uniform when taken as a whole.



In this photo you can see the units behind their transports, and the colour match system in operation.



While this one details my amazingly advanced Poker Chip Objective System(tm) in action.

Hey Charles. The orksies are looking incredible, hopefully we get to play in march. I need to avenge my first round troucning all those years ago.

Hope your well mate!

Awesome work - I do love stormboyz.

Thanks guys! Doug - what is happening in March? Are you coming up for the Crucible?

Hey all,

I have not forgotten my poor Orks, and have been busy painting away on them. The Stormboyz continued to be my main concern, and I have now finished another three.



I used these lads as counts-as Choppa Boyz for a Killteam game that I played in last Friday. Although I’d have loved to use them, Stormboyz are even worse in Killteam than they are in normal 40k, as each one has a 1/6 chance of dying each time it moves. Oh well.



Here is a cheeky group shot of the completed Stormboyz thus far.



I also painted up another Mek, to lead my valiant Burnaboyz. This one has a Big Shoota, which is important for the unit as the rules allow the Burnas to kill models beyond 8”, as long as there is another gun in their unit which has a longer range. This is A Good Thing.



He has a fantastic hat, which was the other reason that I wanted to paint him up. Sartorial fashion is an important component of any warzone.



He is called Romork, after that fine wearer of hats, Erwin Rommel. Scholarly consensus is that the gretchin on his back represents the burden of logistics that defeated him in the desert. Some instead argue that it represents Italy. Others suggest that it is just an insane goblin with a bullet fetish.



Finally, I decided not to start on the last four Stormboyz, but instead move onto my Meganobz. There is a tournament coming up in a month, and although I don’t normally go for tournaments in the current anti-ork meta, this one is fun enough that I’ll make an exception. The Meganobz are currently chalked in as the centrepiece of my list, taking the place of the Burnaboyz. Whether they stay there or get swapped out may depend on whether I can get a practice game or two in.



I’ll need three Meganobz, and these two are now ready to be inked. They are standing on either side of the Megaboss that they’ll be bodyguarding, if all goes to plan. These guys will probably be the last Orks that I paint for a few months, as I’m about to start a major new painting project that will take up all my spare hobby time instead. I can’t say yet what it will be, so you’ll just have to watch this space...

Hey all,

It has been a while, as I took a break to paint my new High Elf models. However I felt sorry for these two, standing disconsolately on the shelf, and so I quickly whipped them through the finishing stages of their paint job.



Another reason for finishing them was that on the 1st of March I have a 1,000pt tournament, at which they might be in attendance. I am currently torn between three Meganobz and a Megaboss, or eight Burnas and a Shock Attack Gun. The Burnas have been hilariously good fun, and have treated me very well, while the Meganobz always fell flat for me...



...But they are newly painted, so perhaps I should give them another chance. Three of them cost 120points, which isn’t all that much, and they can absolutely flatten many targets in melee. Perhaps the problem is that flattening stuff in melee isn’t really as good an answer these days. In reality, I should be buying a box of Lootas and just running two squads of those instead of either Burnas or Meganobz, but I didn’t get into Orks so that I could shoot stuff!



Here they are again with the Megaboss, who looks fairly chuffed with his new bodyguards. He should, considering that many of the mistakes that I made while painting him were corrected on them. I think that I’ll try to get the third Meganob painted for the 1st, in order that I can use them if I want. Apart from a few Boyz and another Trukk, the Meganobz should be the last models to be painted yellow in my army, which is just as well because it is a frustrating colour to paint.

That yellow looks fantastic Charles. It's a shame that you're moving away from it. Do more yellow, I say. What's next?

I started painting another two Meganobz - the models are old and poorly posed, but have a lot of character regardless - but I have actually run out of Bronze would you believe. Bad times. Currently I'm working on my High Elves (http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/578573.page) who are draining my time badly. I hope to get the next two Meganobz and the last four Stormboyz painted at some point though - and the fourth trukk, which should be yellow as well...

Hey all,

Lately I've been painting some chosen units, with an eye to some games coming up and already gone. As anyone who saw my battle report may know, the Meganobz have been taking to the field in their painted glory. No doubt these models will be replaced by the new codex, and then I'll have to buy new ones. But at least that would reduce the weight of my case a fair way.







I had a strong urge to paint some slogans on their jaws, but I think that it would probably make the model too busy. Shame: casual insults of the enemy models always pleases me.

My other models to do include a few of the Stormboyz...



...and another five yellow boyz. These blighters are needed to bring my old foot-slogging unit of twenty Boyz up to two mobz of twelve Trukk Boyz. They are likely to make the rest of the yellow Boyz look a bit crap, considering that they were the first Orks that I ever painted. Ho hum.



Of course, they need a yellow Trukk to ride in. They are likely to share this with the Meganobz, until such time as I can finance another expansion of the vehicle pool.

Stormboyz may be among the most time consuming models to paint ever. I believe that I spent about two hours simply doing the silver highlights on these guys. But hey, they are well flash and that is the important part.



My love of jump pack troops extends even to Assault Marines. When I owned Ultramarines (photos still in the gallery, since I can't see how to delete them) I had a full squad of ten of them. Never did anything. Sad.



Stormboyz, by contrast, have done some stuff. They made my Blood Angels opponent very angsty, in my latest battle report.



They also had a gala time back in 5th edition, when I dropped them out of deep strike onto the table next to a parking lot of Rhinos. I had included Zagstruk, who lets them charge out of deep strike. Oh, glorious explosions.



One of the main things holding me back from buying another ten of these guys - beyond my poverty - is that I'm afraid of how long they take to paint! I do dream of a mob of thirty of these guys, though, boosting around the place and causing carnage.



I also took the time to go back and give the unit's nob a name. Whooshnak, of the New Hampshire Naks, despoiler of all he surveys and champion of the oppressed.



Next up is that yellow Trukk - it is about ready for inking, which means that I should be able to paint it reasonably quickly. The biggest sadness when painting this army is having to do all the metal highlights. It takes forever to highlight the metal on the Trukks! People have suggested just drybrushing instead, but I honestly don't think that it would look as good. For starters, drybrushing always comes out a bit duller. You need to work at it to get a solid chrome effect. Just as it should be.

Until next time, boyz and girlz!

 Charles Rampant wrote:


Stormboyz, by contrast, have done some stuff. They made my Blood Angels opponent very angsty, in my latest battle report.

We're angsty by our very nature. Stormboyz just make us jealous. They fly better than us.

Personal style is not quite a replacement for game utility, but it helps

Very nice army! I'm a huge fan of Meganobz and Flash GITZ myself

In regards to metal, dry brushing can work. The trick is to use a dark metal (like Boltgun or Leadbelcher) then follow up with a lighter dry brush of a brighter metal.

Holy crap it has been a while since I posted an update!

So, since March I've done a bit of painting, but I have not actually finished anything; I got some Boyz up to 3-colours-and-based, I half painted a Trukk, etc. There hasn't been the motivation. I mean, I have not actually played a game of 7th edition 40k, focusing entirely on my Tomb Kings and High Elves. I won Best Tomb Kings Player at a recent tournament though, so there is that. But, for my recent wedding, a friend gave me a surprise Ork kit!



Upon assembly, it transpired to be a second-hand Stompa, much to my amusement. He had warned darkly that my gift would "help me win games"...



So as you can see, I didn't get most of the bitz with the kit, and indeed it is lacking many of the parts used in the GW photographs. There is no left shoulderpad. I don't have the big face. I also seem to have fewer guns than I should, which I don't really care about I guess (perhaps the turret thing fires REALLY FAST?). I did have to perform repairs on the face, and use some wreckin' ball chains to re-attach the jaw. Can't leave home without a jaw.

The logical thing to do would be to start some major conversion work, but if we are honest I don't take any joy in converting, so I can't be bothered with that. I did take the dramatic step of blocking up all the gretchin windows, since I didn't like them that much. But otherwise I'm pretty inclined to move straight onto painting. What with this painting blog and all, perhaps I'll be inclined to keep ya'll updated. There is a deadline on this bad boy, however: I have an Apocalypse game on the 19th of July, where he will naturally be the central attraction. Tonight I feel like I might be making a trip to buy more Leadbelcher and Nuln Oil, as my current stocks are likely to be very insufficient...

That's a tremendous wedding gift Charles.

It's a shame that you aren't really into converting though, I feel like he needs rolly wheels rather than stompy feet. Otherwise he'll be left behind all sad, while your trucks and wagons and jet all piss off without him.

What are your thoughts on colours?

He actually moves 12" a turn, before he FIRES ALL WEAPONS, so he is fairly fast. The fact that he is a marvellous bulletsink and will distract attention away from other units in my army is also exciting.

Naturally it means that I am beholden to try and acquire some more walkers for him to chill out with.

I'm currently dousing him in silver, but I think that I am going to go for red on him. That is the colour that I am best at, thanks to the High Elves and have all the highlights for. Silver and Bronze will still be the predominant colours though, I think.

A few hours of painting later, while watching Arrow, and much of the base colours are done. Unfortunately my silver paint is also done, so the painting process is at something of a standstill until I can replenish!

After months of neglecting him, I finally felt guilty enough to finish inking the Stompa and begin highlighting. I had to buy a new pot of Nuln Oil after doing the inking! Last night I sat and listened to a battle report and did some of the highlighting on the metal plates. This is how I know that I have already spent an hour and ten minutes doing nothing but edge highlighting of one colour on this model.



I hope that he'll justify all this effort by looking good in game. The Stompa already attracts attention, since most people haven't actually seen that many of them in the flesh, so hopefully moar colour will result in moar attention. That is the plan. Also, if he is fully painted then he might actually survive a whole game without being punched to death by thunder hammers or power klaws: every game that I've taken him in has resulted in a massive explosion as he gets destroyed in melee around turn 2 or 3...

Looks good Charles. And I salute you commitment to edge highlighting. I'd have just drybrushed the life out of it.

Definitely looks good for it though.

Hey all,

After four years of collecting and painting Orks, after two edition changes and a new codex, I finally succumbed to the ladz' insistences, and bought myself a second Battlewagon. The Battlewagon kit is sufficiently expensive that I never impulse bought it, while my previous army aspirations required more Trukks than Wagons. But it has become apparent that some units really benefit from a Wagon - such as Lootas, squads of 17 boyz with a Megaboss and Painboy, that sort of thing - and I have high hopes of receiving a squad of Flash Gits this Christmas, who will of course be needing an appropriate ride.

So I present to you: the Dakkawagon!



The blue colour scheme is to tie it into my Lootas and Shootaboyz. Plus the blues were rather undersupplied in vehicles, with only one trukk to their name; the reds have a Stompa, a Battlewagon and a Trukk, while the purples have a Dakkajet. Never let it be said that I am blind to the needs of my troops.



Here I tried some fancy two-tone lettering, but I'm not sure that it came out quite right. Ah well. Orks, innit.



The transport bay, where the magic happens. Also, drop pod flamer squads. D:



Here we have the twins together. The red Battlewagon was actually one of my first painted models, and I think that it has stood the test of time relatively well. I've changed my highlighting style since then - while doing the Trukks, I began using much more frequent edge highlights, doing every individual plate as well as all the rivets - which gives the vehicles a bit more of an startling vibrancy. You can see the difference especially on the two rams.



And finally we have here some of the blue boyz and their vehicles. All hail the kings of dakka!

Next time: Charles paints some Lootas! Or maybe he actually finishes the Stompa! Either way, stay safe and stay shootin', kids!

Hi all,

When Father Christmas came this year, he knew that Terminators and their ilk had been mean to the poor boyz. He knew that what I really wanted, deep down, was the ability to shoot the crap out of marines and make them know how it felt. So he brought me a Mek Gun. Which I promptly assembled as a Kustom Mega Kannon, dripping with plasma and inimical to all marine life.



I decided to paint it up in yellow. I was originally planning on painting the whole battery of five in yellow, but after some consideration decided that I'd rather paint the other ones in different colours, like my Trukks, since that would not only look nice but make it easier to tell the crews apart. Speaking of the crew, I spent most of yesterday painting them. They are some seriously fun models! I've even dug out some part-painted Gretchin plastics, since I enjoyed these guys so much.



The gun itself I don't think looks all that great, but it fits into my army and should look fine on the tabletop. Though surprisingly imposing for a simple artillery piece. Hopefully the next one that I'll get will look better, since I don't think that the yellow worked out so well on this. I'm also looking forward to varying which Gretchin stands on the model itself - there is a lot of comedic potential with the right placement!

Until next time.