Loot all the things!

[FlamingDeth]

Decided to start an ork plog maybe. I am extremely slow and don't have much time to work on models, but this helped me focus on my DA last summer, so maybe it'll work for these boys!

Starting on a wraith lord. You don't see a lot of these looted and I've had a clear image in my brain of what I wanted to do, so figured I'd dive right in. The main challenge is that these things are super weedy for a dread, the torso is at best nob sized, so it needs some bulking up to make it proppa stompy. Not shown: torso is cut in half so I can make it bigger.

Still have to add some teef to the gob, detail out the optic sensor, and add an armor plate to the opposite side.

Edited June 30, 2017 by CardinalVirtue

[Sith’ari]

That's a great start mate! I don't think that I've ever seen a looted wraithlord before, so I'm definitely looking forward to seeing where this goes! B)

[FlamingDeth]

An update! Like I said, I'm slow. Did a little work on the head, but most of the progress is blocking in the expansion of the torso. I'm not entirely happy with it, but that thing starts off super tiny. I had to make sure that there was a compartment somewhere that you could concievably stuff a boy into, hence the "backpack" that it's got. There's going to be an engine underneath the pilot compartment, with exhaust pipes going up the left side, splitting apart so that they mirror the shoulder spines on the original model. Lots of detailing to go on the torso, but after that, on to the legs.

When looting things I try to keep in mind 1) how the orks got ahold of it to begin with and 2) what they would have to do to be able to use it. In this case in my brain I'm seeing a barrage of rokkits hitting this thing from the left side to take it out, so more of the repairs and "upgrades" are going to focus on that side. I also don't see the orks being able to figure out how to interface with the wraithbone, so there'll be pistons on all the limbs to move them manually, so I had to make sure there was a pilot in there somewhere.

Edited July 8, 2017 by CardinalVirtue

[Aothaine]

The thought process alone makes me love this! Can't wait to see it finished! Keep up the updates please!

[FlamingDeth]

Not dead! Got a chance to detail the torso a bit which hopefully illustrates what I was talking about with the exhaust pipes. Still need to add some greenstuff welds at a lot of joins between pieces of plastic but it doesn't require quite as much imagination now.

[toaae]

I can't wait to see the finished progress. Please, keep the WiP up!

[FlamingDeth]

Had opportunity to work on him a little, but not really happy with it. I think the concept there is fine but the execution is a little weedy, not nearly stompy enough, considering taking it off and starting the leg over, doing something blockier. I dunno.

[El_Dicko]

Looking really cool so far! Also liking how much thought you're putting into it.

[FlamingDeth]

Thanks! Anyways, I pulled off the leg since it just wasn't feeling proppa stompy enough and had a go at a less weedy one. I'm liking the new one way better.

I have to beef up the panzee leg next, and figure out what I'm doing exactly with the torso armor. My other dilemma is that I think I lost the head, and I have my doubts that anyone around here has a spare wraithlord head...

[Sith’ari]

That's one ded stompy leg dude - I love it!

[FlamingDeth]

As I ponder how to do the torso armor and investigate the mystery of the missing head, I decided to go ahead and work on a regular boy. Orks are great, but blackreach boyz are very static in repetition, and I've always hated the "look at my booty" stance that GW orks are always in, so something had to change.

Thus, an attempt to fix that. The idea was to try it in a way that required minimum cutting and sculpting work that could be knocked out in an assembly line, but that was a bust. Lessons learned: it's going to take putty regardless, hobby knife is way too slow, don't worry about preserving belt detail. If I had gone after it with a saw from the get go it would have been way easier, and there's plenty of gaps that need filling regardless.

Anyways, let me know what you think!

EDIT: last lesson, trousers are a terrible background for unpainted miniature pictures.

Edited August 9, 2017 by CardinalVirtue

[FlamingDeth]

No progress to speak of but I actually played the game! 55 PL game because that's more or less what I can find since I had just moved. My army consisted of a decade old warboss conversion, from right around when Black Reach came out...

So old that there's yellowing on the plasticcard! In retrospect a decent concept, but the arms drove me nuts at the very least.

Rest of the list...another warboss, stock snap fit black reach fella, just because that's what I could find to fill my second hq slot. Also two 30 boy mobz, two ten boy mobz in trukks, and...actually I think that's it. Any paint applied to anything in this army was not done by me, I haven't gotten that far, and since I could only find one trukk the other one was a busted up mkI rhino.

I was up against a primarily infantry guard plus an earthshaker emplacement. No conscripts because its not like either of us was optimizing things exactly. This was not destined to be a fast game just from the mode count. I'm not familiar enough with the current rules to say the exact mission, but there were four objectives, controlling one at the end of the game turn gave you a point, and was set to five turns. We deployed on long board edges.

Looked something like that. I didn't bother taking more pictures but probably should have. Objectives are hard to see but the were more or less about a foot in from all the edges.

Basically I charged the boys up the right side of the field and ate bullets. The trukk boyz went up the right flank to try to take out the earthshaker. The bosses were both in the misdst of the boyz because that seemed like a good place. I went second. First turn involved little movement on the part of the guard and much shooting, didn't kill many boyz but did nearly kill a trukk and minorly damages the other.

I ran the giant mobs as far as I could, got them parked on an objective. Disembarked the shoota boyz out of the nearly broken trukk and ran them up some ruins to an objective, where the would proceed to never inflict a single wound the entire game, but also not get wiped out and control the objective the whole time, they were great. I made more saves with them than I do when rolling for my Deathwing.

Long story short, the boyz get shot to pieces running up field, but the trukk boyz silence the artilery and then get stuck in before being killed. The bosses and most of the foot mobz get killed too, but about a dozen boyz make it into combat and occupy the gunlines for a couple turns. Most importantly though rushing up everything kept the guard on the back of the board. I ended the game with eleven victory points vs his three, despite having four of my left on the board at the end.

Even with poor army design pure numbers work if you play objectives! Yay!

[Machine God]

Oi Xenos!

 

Did you find the head?

[FlamingDeth]

I did actually, just yesterday! It had somehow migrated into a box of my daughters toys, found it while unpacking more stuff. I wonder how it could have possibly gotten there, certainly couldn't have involved tiny people getting into things they aren't supposed to...but then, she has been favoring the color blue lately.

[FlamingDeth]

I'm not dead! Most of my hobby time recently has been spent painting illithids for the DM of my D&D game. That might have been a bad plan since now we might end up facing a swarm of illithids. But I did take time to paint up a test model, same fella from earlier! What I was going for was something like this...

But what I ended up with was more like this...

Not quite as good, and especially the hands ended up looking kind of skeletor-y. I have some revisions in mind to make it smoother, but it's a thing I did and it's an ork so I'm posting it.

[Aothaine]

This! This is why I love Ork players! Conversion madness galore! Amazing work! Don't sweat the paint job. When you field 300 of those your opponent is going to drop what he ate for lunch as you give em a good fight! ^_^

[FlamingDeth]

While I’m hoping he’ll blend into a crowd of other, better painted orks, 300 sounds like a bit much! I only have one KFC bucket full of orks.

[FlamingDeth]

Well, I mostly finished a big shoota repose and basing! More vertical, changes out the supporting arm to give it a bit more depth, and he must be heroic because he’s bracing one foot on something.

Alright, progress! Now at this rate of one boy every 6 weeks, I should have a fully reposed army ready for painting in...let me do the math...

...um...

...17.3 years. Let me rethink this a little bit maybe. A fella over at the waaagh had a bit easier way to go about it and while it didn’t necessarily repose then quite as much it’s way less finicky and time consuming. I may give it a shot.

Also, while unpacking some boxes I unearthed a conversion about as old as the boss posted earlier!

Trukk! It’s stood up ok over time, I think that if we’re to do it again I’d recess the trukk engine into the rhino chassis a bit. Honestly even with building a partial cowling it would be pretty fast and easy to do so I might do it anyways, but I’ll still have to wait until I have a few more orks before I spend the time doing it.

[Aothaine]

Dang! Even the old stuff looks amazing. I really need to get into Orks and start practicing conversions.

[FlamingDeth]

Nothing to it but to do it! Like I said before, my personal ork design philosophy is to take the base model, decide how the orks took it down, and then how they would fix it from there. Other people could work it differently, maybe the orks just found a defunct rhino factory and made some "improvements". Who knows. All you need to start is basically any vehicle model and some plastic card, though it doesn't hurt to have a generous bitz box. Post pictures when you have something, I think I saw a thread from you in here somewhere!

[Kaldoth]

That looted Rhino looks top notch.  I've been trying to string together ideas for my Blood Axes.  Because of the way the Index works right now, I was going to go with the all too common massed boyz list, but frankly, I can't be arsed to build or paint that many boyz so I went back to my original idea of an Mechanized Krumpany.  That Rhino conversion is exactly what I want to do :D Cheers for posting it so I could see what direction I need to move towards.  Now finish that Wraithguard! :P  You could always just have an Ork sticking his head out of the top like a hatch and use the torso as the cockpit, kind of like one of those Grey Knight walker things.

[FlamingDeth]

Faster, easier method of reposing the boyz is paying off, they’re not my best conversion work ever, but for something I can churn out on an assembly line it’ll work. Basically cut a wedge out at the waist, turn the wedge around and glue back together, vertical cuts at the hips, rotate around, repose whatever arm was part of the main body on the snap fit boyz. Proof of concept, one minimum sized mob.

All together! Here’s a closer pic of the ones that have some modicum of paint on them.

I haven’t added highlights on the two newer guys yet, and debating whether it’s worth it. It’s extra time that can be spent painting more guys and honestly avoids the super stark contrasts on the first guy. Dunno.

Also, as an added bonus, some company for them in the form of boyz my four year old helped paint. Only the flashiest of gitz.

[Canadian_F_H]

For looted vehicles, I'm having a strong inclination towards non gw kits... the orks butchery of their mekboys should make up for the nongwness of ore realistic kits...

 

I might bash some ww2 halftraks for some ork trucks... dangit... you people keep giving me more ideas than I have time for...

[FlamingDeth]

I have no problem with looted non-GW kits because they tell us that we’re just seeing the most common patterns of Leman Russ Tanks and then proceed to never show us any other variations. I think intellectually we all know that worth a million worlds in the Imperium we’d see all kinds of crazy vehicles, even before we get to all the xenos out there. Heck, I’m sure orks have alien stuff we’ve never seen before too, since I doubt that in the 41st millennium that the Imperium has a monopoly on genocide.

[FlamingDeth]

I worked a bit more on the looted wraithlord! Wraithdread! Defflord! Something. Mostly just beefed up the weedy panzee leg with some extra armor and a piston at the knee, cannibalized a kan foot so I could stop fiddling with it, and assembled what I had so far. Sorry about the awful pic, I’ll get more once the glue sets and I can move it around.

Still sorting out the front armor but the panzee leg and the scratch digigrade leg flows decently enough now that it’s assembled, which was a worry. I’ll probably also do something with the panzee foot later. The new big worry is about sturdiness, I may give it a loincloth or something to hide a rod in for support. Maybe make one of the arms grabbing something. Dunno yet.