Part Quattro Bajeena...
The warrior elite of the Ork race, Nobs are either found leading mobs of their minions, or in dedicated squads of asskickers. This makes them the rough equivalent of Sargent-types in other factions, although the mechanical execution is a bit different. Nobz don't actually improve the leadership or morale if the squad they lead, rather they are large and in charge. Physically bigger, generally better stats, and wielding a big axe or power klaw. It's a bit less special these days, but Nobz had W2 on their profile, which had them encroaching on the old HQ slot in terms of raw talent. Even in 10th, the presence of a Nob is often an active ingredient in a mobs melee potential. As the name implies, they tend to be dicks. When it comes to Tankbustas, things go a bit askew. Tankbustas we're originally about using Tankbusta Boms, guess what they did, up close. Having a Nob in that situation was beneficial, but over the editions the unit instead became mainly a shooty one, with unfettered access to rokkits, and Tankbusta Boms basically vanished. Factor in the "exactly what's in the box" unit design of 10th, and we have a melee-centric leader with no melee options and the stock ranged weapon of the unit. Yay. Maybe he and the Tankhamma lad should swap weapons? You could just put a rokkit on a big choppa. Not that the Tankhamma lad by himself makes much sense when the rest of the mob is shooty. An entire mob with them? That would be hysterical, lethal, and brief. One by itself? No.
As the somewhat testy tone of the above paragraph might imply, I was feeling a touch uncertain about this one. I had previously used up a lot of nob bits in another project, and I wasn't keen to buy more or cannibalise something. This left me with two broad options; A) cut up a set of big choppa arms, changing the pose so it's less axe-like, and adding a boomy bit, or B) going one-handed for the rokkit launcher, and then figure out something for the off-hand to do. I went for A, and the entire process proved to less of a ball-ache than I feared. The trick is to pick ork arms with gloves or obvious cuffs, and cut at that border. You then take a really small drill bit to drill holes into either side of the stump, and glue a little bit of paper clip into one bit. This gives you a supporting armature, and as long as you are careful with the glue, you should be able to test fit things before finalising the whole pose. I will admit to not being 100% happy with the pose and the length of handle, which gave me a few second thoughts. But, I had limited bits, and I wanted this to be "extra", so I stuck with it, attempted to position the head to better match the arms, and opted to mull over how best to detail it. However, as the tricky bit was now done, the Tankhamma lad was now looking a lot less challenging. I quickly found two choppa arms that roughly matched, snipped off the axe heads, and rotated each so both handles could be joined toether. Some slight bodging later, and that was done, merged with a few choice bits to speed the process along.
Due to an unexpected turn of events, it was a few days before I got around to the matters of detailing and sculpting, but that also went smoothly. I took the same approach as the boyz I did last week, adding a mixture of straps, plates, and handles to things. This turned out sufficiently well for me to decide in favour of a break. These two need some additional finishing and tweaking, but I think I’m best off putting them aside until the painting stage. i.e. a minimum of 3 weeks away. Things have gone better than expected, but I don’t want to speedrun this. Having fresh eyes, after making some squigs, is probably a good idea..
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