Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

My local FLGS is having a little competition / league they are calling the Call to Arms. It is essentially an army building league. We have two month's to build a 1250 point army, and at the end of the two month's there will be a tournament for all those who participated. At first glance one may think this is a cash grab(which it may very well be), but upon signing up for this, we are getting $25 in store credit to put towards our army. The store is also creating a victory pool, in which for each participant there will be $25 in store credit added to the total, which will be split by those of us who complete their army in the time span.

I decided to use this as an excuse to bolster my Orks, and I will be creating a Nob Biker army. Yes I know an army that only has two squads may not be too competitive, but I think it would be fun to play. Unfortunately since GW does not make any Nob Bikers, I'll be doing a lot of conversions. Some will be overly simple, as I will just put a Nob on a Warbike, others I may scratch build.

If I can, I hope to work on this project a little each day, so that I don't have to crunch when it comes close to the deadline(April 3rd). As it stands, the list includes 19 models(Two Warbosses, two Painboys, and 15 Nobz, all on Bikes). I would ideally like to finish (at least)one model every 2-3 days, although progress will be slow to start as I wait for models to come in.

I went into the store today to pick up the first makings of this army, and was somewhat disappointed as they had few Ork's left on the shelf. But I did find two Painboys, and a box of Warbikers. I also picked up three Chaos Marine Bikes, and some plasticard/ plastic rods.


Unfortunately they did not have any Nobz when I went in, so I will have to return to the store later this week to get some, so that I can finish the models I have. Well time to stop typing, and do some work. Hopefully I'll have an update to post soon!

Neat. Good luck. Eager to see what comes out of your little workshop.

Sounds like a nice little competition, if they did one over here i'd join it for sure.

bunnygurl wrote:Neat. Good luck. Eager to see what comes out of your little workshop.

Thanks.

Well I've already ran into one small problem, and I'm only on my first model..... I wanted to give the Bikers Cybork Bodies, even thought their not in the list, but so that I can use them later on in other lists. Well I forgot to do something to make it Cyborky. I realized this after I had finished and primed the model. I told myself this was unacceptable, and that I had better think of a way to fix this! So thats what I did, I opened by bitz box, and started looking around. Thats when I found a guitar string. I decided to still two small oles in the Nob, one in the side of his body, and the other in the Power Klaw, and then glued the guitar string in place. Here are some pictures of the first bike so far.



On a side note, I guess I should probably start thinking about what colours I'm going to use to paint this army.... I think I'm going to use the same skin as I do with my other Orks, which is basecoat of Knarloc Green, then a wash of Gryphonne Sepia, followed by highlights of Gretchen Green, followed by a wash of Thraka Green. Although I may darken this up a little, perhaps use Ogryn Flesh or Devlan Mud instead of Gryphonne Sepia.

Well It's been a couple of days, and I have now finished my first Nob Biker for this list. I decided to keep the same method for painting the skin, but went with something different for the remainder of the model. I'm still fairly new to this hobby, started my first army last January, and as such I'm not the best painter. I have improved quite a bit in the past year, and I still have much to learn, but I'm enjoying myself. Well perhaps it's time for me to stop rambling for a bit, and get to the point of this blog, posting some pictures of my bikes.






Now some of you might be thinking, "Where is the base?" Well I'm just about to start working on that. I'm goign to follow the same theme for the basing as I have with my other miniatures, a stony/granite ruin/battlefield. What I usually do for those are put some small pieces of slate from the 40k basing kit, along with any battlefield debris I feel like adding(weapons, equipment, half buried space marines etc...).

Many of my friends have also joined this competition, and taken up the Call to Arms. One such friend, Loki Kaden, has recently joined DakkaDakka and after seeing this blog, had taken it upon himself to document his attempts at recruiting the Dark Angels Ravenwing to his aid.

Well We got hit with a pretty big snow storm last night after my last post, so I've been too busy shoveling(and sleeping) to do much work since I finishd the first bike, but I do have a picture of the basses as a WIP. I like simple bases, nothing too elaborate, but I do like to have some stuff on them. All that remains for the bases, is to prime and paint.


I'm having some people over this evening, so I don't know if I'll have any time to work on stuff tonight, but if I do I'll keep you posted.

Well I have finished the base for my first biker, and have glued him on. Due to the fact that each were painted separately, I wasn't sure if glue alone would hold the biker in place, and as such I decided to pin the bike in place for some added strength. Well here's some pictures of the finished model!




I've also had some time tonight to build and prime one more bike. but since I don't have any other Nob bodies, I used the Painboy for the rider. I really should get myself a hobby saw some day, I had to cut the apron off of the Painboy to fit him in place sitting on the bike. Normally I would think that's easy, but when your using sprue clippers, a hobby knife, and modelling files to remove a chunk of pewter in a very awkward place, well that can be difficult and time consuming. Here's a picture of the primed model, just sitting on his base, but not glued in place yet.



Now I just wish I was faster with cleaning off my mold lines. It took me about two hours to build that Painboy biker, cleaning off all the moldlines, pinning the arms and head in place,(normally I don't pin heads, but this one wouldn't stay), cutting and fileing away that apron, and then finally assembling the model. My painting isn't much faster,as it took me between four and five hours to paint that first Biker. Well it is almost 6 AM local time, so I should probably go to bed now, but once I wake up tomorow, I will do some more work on my Bikers.

So I went out to my FLGS last night to get some more supplies. I picked up some more Bikes, and a box of Nobz. Since Ork Warbikes only come with one nob in the box, I had to buy a box of Nobz so I can make my riders. I also picked up a hobby saw so that it will be easier to cut off the Nob Legs to reposition them for riding the bikes.
I did some work on the bikes sporadically over the night, randomly taking breaks for TV shows, food, and some cleaning(It's nice and quiet doing cleaning at 3 AM when there's no one in your way). I ended up getting an other bike finished, and began the painting on Painboy Biker, but it's still not done, I'm only about a third of the way into the paintjob. Well here are some pictures of what I've accomplished up until now. And No the unfinished bikes are not glued to the bases yet, they are just sitting on them.

So here's the one I just finished building tonight. I actually can't wait to paint him, I'm really excited about painting the little Grot hanging off the back.




Next is a picture of the Painboy Bike that is in progress, followed by some group shots.







Hope you're enjoying it so far, I still have a long way to go. 57 days left to finish 18 more bikes.

Looking pretty good from what I can see. Good luck with the rest.

Looking great, the only thing is the bikes are a bit weedy for nob bikers

I think they look good. How are you doing the legs is it just glueing the nob bodies onto the standard biker legs? I understand you have a time limit but it would be nice to see the bikes converted up a bit too they might start to look a bit samey when there's 18 of them! The painboy must have been a real pain cutting in half. 5hrs painting a for a nob biker seems pretty quick to me.

Wazzdig i assume thats why he bought the chaos bikes

Consider me lurking this thread lol.

They look really nice! How do you do the legs so they fit onto the bikes or do they fit without any chopping and Green Stuffing? Keep it up and I am looking forward to seeing the whole lot complete and krumpin some 'Umees

Hello everyone and good Evening/ Night / Morning / Afternoon(depending on where in the world you are, BTW if you see Carmen Sandiego can you tell her I'm looking for her?) Before I answer your questions, I want to say thanks for the compliments and the lurking, it's much appreciated.

moonshine wrote:Looking great, the only thing is the bikes are a bit weedy for nob bikers

I'm sorry, but I havn't been keeping up on my British slang... I'm not sure what you mean by weedy...

Wazzdig Dagga wrote:I think they look good. How are you doing the legs is it just glueing the nob bodies onto the standard biker legs? I understand you have a time limit but it would be nice to see the bikes converted up a bit too they might start to look a bit samey when there's 18 of them! The painboy must have been a real pain cutting in half. 5hrs painting a for a nob biker seems pretty quick to me.

So far yes, I've used the standard biker legs, with the Nob body from the biker kit. For the Painboy, I kept his legs though, I just cut off his equipment, junk, you know the stuff hanging down between his legs. I know that sounds completely wrong,(do Orks even have stuf between thier legs...?) so here's a picture to proove it's not entirely perverted. I cut, and filed away what was inside of the red, and then the Painboy just sat nicely on the bike.

One squad I'm doing the standard bikes, but I will do a few small conversions on a few of them so they don't all look the same. The second squad I'll be doing conversions from Chaos and Space Marine bikes. I still have to figure out how I'll do my Warbosses though, I love the Forgeword model, but it's way too expensive!

a small waagh wrote:They look really nice! How do you do the legs so they fit onto the bikes or do they fit without any chopping and Green Stuffing? Keep it up and I am looking forward to seeing the whole lot complete and krumpin some 'Umees

When I get to the point where I'll be doing more legwork, I'll take some pictures and show you, I'll probably just do some slicing and repositioning.


Well I'm almost finished painting the Painboy, just have to do the horns on the bike, and finish his clothing/tools, and then give the model a wash, and attach it to his base. I would say glue, but I actually end up pinning them into the bases due to the fact that the base has been covered in slate and then painted overtop, I kind of doubt that the glue would hold it in without some structural support. Well here's some pictures to show my progress on him so far.





PS Perhaps by the time I've finished this list I'll be able to get a camera, so that I don't have to use my phone, and learn how to take a decent photo of a mini without having to buy a photo tent.

when i said weedy I meant they look to small for nobz to riding around on. I think bikes this size are the best for nobz http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Orks/ORK-NOB-WARBIKES.html

Awesome project Thaanos, the deadline would probably kill me but you seem to have things well under control, great start those bikers look really cool. Looking forward to seeing your progress, good luck in the competition too! (subscribed)

moonshine wrote:when i said weedy I meant they look to small for nobz to riding around on. I think bikes this size are the best for nobz http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Orks/ORK-NOB-WARBIKES.html

Ah okay. I agree with that, I much prefer the Forgeworld bikes, but I am somewhat on a budget here, like most people I really can't afford this Hobby, but I do it nonetheless. If I were to order the Nob Bikes from Forgeworld for this entire list, that would end up costing me three or four weeks pay, with shipping costs, and potential import taxes as well, so unfortunately that is not an option right now(Perhaps in a few years).

Boyz "R" Us wrote:Awesome project Thaanos, the deadline would probably kill me but you seem to have things well under control, great start those bikers look really cool. Looking forward to seeing your progress, good luck in the competition too! (subscribed)

Thanks a lot, well the deadline does feel a little restricting, but I hope it will get me out of this rut of putting a layer of paint on a model, then not touching it for a week lol.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I finally finished the Painboy Biker today. and I realized two things over the weekend, not only do I not like painting the Painboy model, but Dawn of War II is somewhat addicting. I bought the game about a week ago, and didn't install it until this weekend, at which point it took over my painting time... But I didn't completely forget my painting, and here is the finished Painboy Biker.





And here is a shot of the two bikes I have completed thus far.

Looks very good so far! Much better paintjobs than I could ever produce!

I only have one suggestion, though it is a bit pedantic. I would suggest removing one of the arms on the painboy (my thought is the non-cybork one) and replacing it with an arm holding a handlebar. Just because the pose looks a bit wierd with him going 'wheeeeeee! No Hands!' and then if you want to keep the rules lawyers happy and make sure he's WYSIWYG attach the 'urty syringe onto the bike somewhere, like in a holdster by his side or something.

But your painting is very good, good luck on your project!

They're looking great, the painboy is a great conversion,I can't wait to see what you will do with those chaos bikes . I did'nt notice the canadian flag so I forgot about shipping costs. Good luck with you're tounament.

Okay, So unfortunately I don't know if I'll be able to finish this list by the Deadline. I've been somewhat pre-occupied with other thing's, and haven't had too much time for modelling the past few weeks. As such I don't have any new progress to show yet, but I hope to have some time to work on this over the next few days. When I get some more progess, I will make sure to post pictures.

Well it's been a very long time since I've had an update. I had a bunch of other non-hobby related things take over my life for a bit, and with what time I did have which I could have used to build, I got distracted with other things like DOWII, reading some of the HH novels, Playing Games(in a 40K league right now, and now into the playoffs) and watching TV shows completely unrelated to Warhammer.

Unfortunatly this stopped me from completing the Call to Arms in time, but I still want to build a unit of Nob Bikers.

Well now I seem to have my motivation back, so I am doing some work on them again! I have some more stuff in the works right now, and will be taking more pictures to show how my little conversions are going. Thats all for now, and I shall keep you updated as I finish more stuff!

These nob bikers are looking familiar haha I did something similiar.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/168255-Nob%20Bikers.html

I used 1 powerklaw from the warbiker kit, 1 from a boy kit and the painboy i kitbashed from a lot of cybork parts. It's a cool and simple conversion

However, I hope you break the 3 nob biker roof, in a recent game i lost 3 with an attached warboss on bike to one salvo from a manticore :(, not good.

Well as mentioned earlier, here is some stuff that I worked on today.

I'm not sure how many of you reading this know what is in the Warbikers Kit, but there is only one arm for a Nob that is holding the handle bars. that can be a bit of a problem though when you're converting normal Nobz for Warbikes. But don't worry, I has a plan! As you can see in the picture's below, I just used an arm for a Choppa, and sliced off the axehead. I then cut off part of the handlebar from the right side of the bike, and drilled a small hole in both the Choppa shaft, and bike handlebar, so that I could just pin it in place.




If you look at the Nob Body above, you may or may not notice that it is one of the hollow Nobs from the Ork Nobz Kit. What surprised me about it, is that the legs on four out of five were positioned perfectly for the warbikes. There were three basic body poses, and two of them fit well without the need for any modification. There was one Nob who's legs are not spread wide enough to ride this wonderful machine of war. I happen to like those numbers, it will make it a little easier to give the Bikes Nob riders.


Next I decided that this Nob would have a WAAAGH!!! Banner. For this, I used a Space Marine Banner, and an Ork Bosspole.
Before I took pictures of this part, I drilled some holes, and roughed up the sides of the Space Marine Banner, so that it looked worn out. I cut the decoration of the top of each, and then pinned the Banner into the bosspole, this way I could still attach it into the backhole of the Nob. I then reattached the top part of the Bosspole onto the top of the Banner, just to make it a little more Orky.
Before any of you ask if I'm going to write anything on it when it's painted, the answer is a big fat WAAAGH!!!




I guess this should be the time of the post where I show you the bike assembled with it's rider. So here you go!