Kitbash: Deathskull Ork Trukk (Warhammer 40k)

 

As I write this, Warhammer 40k 10th edition is an unspecified, but short, time in the future. The free rules are up, the preorders go this weekend, with the army lists being drip-fed into the community. And people I know want to play it. And so I have unavoidably been drawn back in. I have Orks to paint. Or in this case, repaint. My army spans many editions, and many relapses, so I have stuff I can modernise. My official Trukks where one such example. These were done in red as hadn't chosen a clan, it wasn't a rules thing at the time, and we're a touch beaten up. So into the dettol they went. Today, I briefly talk about the first to be resurrected.

 

My initial plan was to simply do them in blue, and replace the rokkits with a big shoota. I actually made these so long ago, that you could have rokkits launchas on them, thus giving the Trukks a borderline useful thing to do. I.e. harass tanks, if they managed to deliver their Boyz somewhere. The default, and recently only, gun for a Trukk is the Big Shoota, a cucumber sandwich of a thing. Typically, its hard to get those in in sufficient density to make a difference, so bar something unexpected, I fully expect this weapon to be “present” rather than “desired”.

 

Anyways, enough talk of games mechanics in a kitbashing article. Breaking down the first trukk however required some mental adjustment. I’d forgotten that GW had gotten creative with the design of the vehicle and its crew. As these kits go, there’s a pleasing amount of gubbins like a distinct engine block and drive shaft, but I can’t think for the life of me why they opted against a steering wheel and whatever is going on with the gunner’s pose. This is also something I dislike about the “orktober buggies” too; the crew are too distinctive for something you want multiples of. However, it seems past me was a light touch with the glue, and had painted in sub assemblies, so breaking this down was simple. As a result, I decided to replace the gunner with a Grot Turret I'd built for another project, adding new panels in the manner of my many-many scratchbuilds. I also painted it in pretty much the same way as my orky Gaslands cars, the techniques scaling up very well. Remembering how to paint Ork skin & teeth was more of an issue, especially with paint residue being a thing.

 

End result? Pretty good. I’m happy with it.