Kitbash: Ork Boy Upgrades and Such & Such

And now for another installment of Project Legs11. Kinda. OK, funny story. I kinda wanted to talk about the Armageddon Boyz first. Those are the new hotness, or at least the lukewarm hotness. A marked-down sausage roll, if you will? However, I kinda wanted my existing Boyz modernised too, which would be a faster way of getting a rules legal force. So I did them first. But, due to unfortunate circumstances my regular opponent had to cancel, and I had real life issues too. So I didn't get to play or indeed finish them during my week off. But I didn't want to fall behind on the blog,  this has gone from a tangent to it's own article. Lucky you, dear reader.

 

As it stands, I'd imagine a lot of people with pre-existing Ork armies are currently doing busywork to make their Boyz match the new datasheet. For me, this means adding a burna, big shoota, and ammo runt to each mob, while also putting the nob on a bigger base. You may also need to give the Nob a kombi-weapon of some kind, as these now replace the sluggas they used to carry. As I tended to give my nobs big choppas, this is less of an issue for me, but I'm still gonna have one guy as a "counts as". However, with Burnaboyz now gone, and the Nob unit being totally redesigned, I had a few existing burnas and runts ready to go.

The new boyz with big shootas are mainly salvaged from an abandoned killteam project, one based around dakka. They feature four varieties of big gun, one kitbashed, and one metal piece. Meanwhile, the new Ammo Runts were older grot plastics bodged together with assorted stowage. You don't really need much more than a gretchin, a big sack, a some bullets to make an ammo runt. These were then painted in my usual manner, although I did try to mix up the colour choices.  The nobs were carefully re-based by trimming the lip from their 32mm base, placing them atop a 40mm, and filling the gap. This proved be an imprecise method, one with the first base fighting back, and one nob just coming off. It worked alright I suppose, although this did highlight the difference in proportions between old and new style Orks.  It will do.

Up next: batch painting?

Plamo: The Big Mek Dakkarig (Armageddon Release)

 

And now for another installment of Project Legs11. Today, we focus on the only actually new thing in the Armageddon box: the Big Mek Dakkarig.

 

Ordinarily, I'd like to place a model such as this in its proper, or proppa, context, but the Dakka Rig is so new as to almost lack one. It's simply, and obviously, a gatling gun on legs. It's all about the Dakka, it's in the name. Perhaps it will gain said context with the 11th edition codex. I don’t know, I didn’t get the book until this model was done, and its only had rules in general for a matter of mere weeks. It seems to be positioned as a de-facto HQ choice for Dreadbash and Mek-centric armies, as it's the personal conveyance of a Mekboy. Other than putting a lot of bullets into something, it also carries rokkits, but unlike ever other Ork walker, it's mêlée functions are kinda minor. More importantly though, this is very much within my hyper-fixations, which is why I put off doing it until now.

As a build, this is very much in the same fixed pose style as everything else in the Armageddon box, if maybe less irritating due to the larger size. This still is a case where you're gonna need sub assemblies, some gap-filling as it turned out late in the process, most notably with the Mek whom needed painting separately. In three different parts because he's grabbing the controls with both hands. In all fairness though, that's as annoying as any of it got, because a rusty scrap robot is so massively within my comfort zone that it's like a soft cushion. I added a few extra panels, greeblies, and roughed it up, before doing all the major colours in a lazy afternoon.  I find that doing metals is so much more immediately gratifying than infantry, and this project was a gentle confirmation of that. Then came the Mek, and assorted details, before washing and basing. I had wanted to use to a transfer on the banner, but realised too late that I didn’t have a suitable one. So I freehanded a rather-bad “Kan” gylph. That’s the symbol for ork walkers that sometimes looks like a robot doing the robot. It looks more like a cheeky gremlin thing, but its fine.  A bit of whimsy. I also tried using old, dried-out mud paint to make new mud paint, which produced some nice textures. The whole thing came out quite well. And eventually, I got the codex.

As I now have the codex, and it has been collectively discussed to death, how do I feel about it? Well, I'm not fond of how this codex and indeed 11th in general have been communicated. Those data cards I got in the Armageddon box? Aged like milk. The Ork codex looked, if anything, over-tuned, but then news broke of Marines experiencing an even more extreme rebuild, loosing a bunch of units into the bargain. It follows that every faction will receive a similar revamp, but as this is being done via a codex cycle, not the index method, it's gonna take a while. As a result, game balance will be unstable for a long time, not least because marines are half the game. Furthermore, there is a trend for the initial codexs of an edition to be cautious and maybe a little awkward as the designers feel things out. So however impressive Orks look now, it may well be a different story next year. I acknowledge that there is a strong "First World Problems" feel to the above comments, but this is still a very rough transition from 10th, as it's not a clean break. More like unpicking stitches from a wound. It makes me disinclined to any deep analysis until things settle. And they took a bunch of units away too, and faffed with the Battlewagon again. That said, let's talk some positives. I do like the modularity of the detachment system. I mostly play at 1k, so having the vast majority be 1DP is good for me. I like how the designers seem to have gone out of their way to make most weapon options valid, a topic I've had a lot to say about in the past. I don't think they got it 100% right, but it's a lot harder to dislike big shootas now. The presentation is pretty solid, as is the rules language. So, generally a good first impression.

Up next: Probably some Boyz.

Plamo: Primaris Intercessors (the Armageddon ones)

And now for another installment of Project Legs11. Here, I’m trying some beakies.

It is a self-evident truth that everyone involved in 40k, will have, at some point, painted a space marine. It's just a thing that happens, like playing Ryu in the latest Street Fighter game or buying white sliced bread. I'm not gonna say I have hard numbers, but when half the game, a majority of starter sets, and the entire Horus Heresy setting prominently feature marines, it's a thing that happens. Invariably, these form the basis of somebody's first army, and/or sold on to bulk out someone-else's force, and/or sold on to start the cycle anew. And just as invariably, those marines are the basic troops choice of the time, in this case, Intercessors. AKA the unpopular and "boring ones". Marine players always seem to have a bit of resentment towards their rank and file. I suspect part of it is, is that basic marines aren't great at killing other marines, which is most of the game. Although that may be changing soon. Or everyone just runs to the cool stuff that kills other stuff best. Good thing these are a modeling project first.

As I said way back when I started Project Legs11, I was concerned about pacing and burn out. At time of writing I had been working on the Armageddon box for about a month, and had done some of the more interesting Ork stuff, but the impending Ork releases gave me pause. I had time off for TFN, so marines instead. And just the Intercessors so I get a handle on the Crimson Fists colour scheme. I had some problems though with assembly. One leg somehow vanished, another had a breakage, so I opted for a squad of five rather than ten. Lest I loose my temper and undermine any therapeutic value in this. This largely proved to be a good call, at least until I managed to glue one to the table. And then the “big real life issue” hit and my  motivation basically evaporated, my progress becoming slow and irregular. So, as a mental health maintenance exercise, this was something of a washout. I'm not a fan of how these went together, and I'm not really looking forward to the Boyz.

 

Anyway, I eventually got over that. I'd done some research, and Crimson Fists looked to be a fairly no-fuss colour scheme, that might work with my preferred trench brown undercoat. I opted to overbrush Kantor Blue on the model, it's like dry brushing but less selective, before going in to pick out specifics like the undersuit and gun. The backpacks were kept separate until after the overbrush to simplify matters. Once the big colours were done, and some the fiddly bits, a Nuln Oil wash was applied, followed by a light drybrush of Macragge Blue, and basing. This worked well enough, I suppose. As a colour scheme test. In so far as getting a table-ready standard. When marines consist mainly as one block colour, as they do here, the main difficulties become getting that colour right, and the fiddly bits. I’m not totally happy with the blue, but its fine as first attempt. But the fiddly bits were just kind of annoying. That’s why I skipped transfers and squad markings at this stage, as in addition to the transfers being a limited resource, I didn’t want the hassle. My style is, perhaps, a bit sloppy for marines. That said, if I wanted hassle-free models in one block colour, I’d have probably chosen something from the Silver Drybrush Brigade. The point was to mix things up, after all, I can get better. I’ll hopefully come back to these at some point.

I wrapped this in mid-August, shortly after my decision to pause the blog. In between that and publication, the hype cycle for the new Ork Codex finally began, long after that leak. And then much of it leaked before the preorder. By the time this goes up, the codex will have been out for 24 hours, I got mine at closing time last night, and we’ll all have a solid idea of what’s happened, but its clear the Orks have been reworked from top to bottom. As have the marines. The implications of all this will be massive. I'll decline to comment more deeply than that just now, as I'm not able to match the news cycle, and I don't want to just parrot the opinions of other people. And I got sick of rewriting this bit. Commentary will follow once I've actually read it, but I do like what they've done with the Kans...

 

 

That said, about the modelling side. The Boyz unit got a lot more complicated, but thanks to that earlier leak I'd got a lot of the necessary gubbins together to update existing units, and expand the newer Armageddon Boyz. There is a grand kitbash tradition to draw on here. Big Shootas are pretty easy to do; if you don't have a whole Ork with one lying around, you just put a barrel extension on a regular Shoota. Rokkits are doable if you have a tube and/or suitable bead for the warhead. Think bazooka or panzer faust. For the Ammo Runts you need a grot and a sack or box of some kind. Burnas are a touch trickier, but if you have a humie flamer, some wire and an oilcan you are probably OK. Or you can just use Burnaboyz now they’ve been sadly removed. I will. What ultimately defied my bitzbox, and possibly everyone, was the Boss Nob. And indeed the dedicated Nob unit. Through a deeply curious oversight and/or suspicious marketing choice, these don't carry sluggas anymore. Only the assorted kombi-weapons and kustom shootas which had been unpopular in 10th ed because they blocked out all of the melee options. In terms of boss nobs, this would be an easy errata, or a modest inconvenience for what I already field. I tend to use boss nobs with two-handed big choppas, and that’s still a legal option. But Nobz Mobz got a complete rewrite, and so a complete rebuild there is obviously needed. I’ll do the boyz first.

 

 

Up next: The Dakka Rig, the codex, and probably some boyz.