When Orks Fly

The Sky Waaagh has come. Masses of garish Ork jets descend upon the Imperium.
And it is so entertaining! The new plastic Ork warplanes are a joy to build and paint. Carzy Ork fun on the tabletop too, although the Ork 'evy bomber feels a bit under-powered/over-costed, but I will need a few more games to find out for sure.

The size differences between the three aircraft is impressive, much more pronounced than the Imperials. At least until the Lightning is (hopefully) released.

I will do an actual battle report next, with a little history of the 1st Edition for fun.

Orks Were Made To Fly and Win!

Wait, That's Not Right...

Imperial Eagles

Imperial Aeronauctia, 2019 2nd edition (which will now be known as IA19) was released a few months ago, and I have gotten around to painting the warplanes of the Grim Dark.

I'll do a proper review of the game and its history in a week or so, but today I'm just showing off my Imperial aircraft.

Manufactured in plastic and about 40% bigger than the older resin Forge World models, these new planes are great looking and fun to build with a good selection of ordnance to hang under the wings as well. Well mostly, the Marauder and Thunderbolt come with lots of extra weapons, which you will need because the Destroyer doesn't.

I made and painted scale model aircraft before 40K took over my hobby time, so this was a fun return to that. This is the finished camouflage on them, next I will do some washes, and squadron /ace markings.

I was on the fence for a while about painting the bases. I didn't want to mask off the dials, but after some fiddling with then I discovered how to take them apart without breaking them. So black spray paint and some details for all the bases! They look nice and make the arcs really clear.

Next: Orks in the Sky!

The Emperor Protects

Something, Something, Danger Zone!

Titans-giving Battle

This Thanksgiving we chose to have a different kind of 40K battle. The scenario is as such:

An Imperial Warlord Titan has been shooting it out with some Ork Gargants when a lucky hit disabled the Titan's plasma reactor requiring a restart. Ork troops, keen to seize the disabled God-Machine swarm in.

A Warhound is close at hand to provide support. A nearby Guard mechanized unit arrive just as the first wave of Orks do. A Blood Angel strike force is moments away, as are hordes of Orks. Can the Imperial forces defend the Warlord long enough for it to restart and swing the tide of battle back?

Every turn, randomly drawn Ork units arrived on random table edges. Blood Angels arrive on turn two. The Orks must keep a unit in contact with the Warlord for a turn to win. On turn four the Warlords starts to roll for restart. The Warlord can not move, and may only shoot its point defense weapons.

 It was a messy, chaotic fight! Ork arriving all around the stranded Titan, and the Imperials just barely managing to keep the Orks back. The Warhound fought in a manner befitting a God-Engine, wiping whole units and a Stompa in a single turn of shooting.

The Orks got close, but could not pull it off, the Blood Angles making an unassailable wall of red armor. It went five turns, but the Warlord woke back up and thundered away. Imperial win!

It was a very good battle, and with the two Titans on the field, looked amazing! Even if the Warlord was just a very nice piece of scenery for the most part.

The Emperor Protects

And He Provided a Really Nice Turkey as Well!

Figures On A Stick

It is Holiday Season again and time for Games Workshop to unveil its new cash-grab hobby product!

Except...I have liked the last couple of weird "tools".

So this time it is a Spray Stick, just what is says on the tin. A plastic stick for you to put miniatures on for spray painting ease. With rubber band to hold said figures in place. Seems suspect...

As it happens, I am building/painting a Skeleton Army for Age of Sigmar (and not really enjoying it. But I'll get in to this in a later post.) I have got to the priming stage.
I am going with the Contrast system, so I am spraying everything Wraithbone.
Going great so far.

Until I got to the Skeleton warriors on 25mm bases. The spray is too strong, (even at 12 inches away) so the the light figures just fly away instead of taking paint. Ugh.

I have to go to the tried and true double sided stick tape on a stick method. It works, but is really time consuming, and I have broken a few minis getting them off the super sticky tape.

If you are lucky, you can re-use the same piece of tape for two spay lots. Then put down new tape.

The very nice thing about using the stick, is you can get excellent coverage of the figures, as long as you don't place them too close to each other.
Carefully prying them off can be a challenge. I broke the Horn Player's ankles in the above shot.
Who knew Skeletons were so fragile?

Enter the GW Spray Stick! I was doubtful, but it is pretty inexpensive ($18), so I gave it a shot...and it works great! The rubber bands can be moved to accommodate different sized bases, from 25mm up to 65mm.

The pistol grip makes it stable and very easy to control, and gives it the correct insane sci-fi nerd hobby tool look.

I'm curious to how long the rubber bands will hold up spray paint. The Stick does come with a bag of 50, so that should do for a bit. The bases do wind up unpainted on about half their surface if you do just one pass.

I think this lovely piece of plastic is a huge improvement over the "double stick tape" system. Because it is so quick, easy, and provides much better spray coverage, I will be using it a lot!

Recommended.

Go Throw Some Paint

Use a Stick With a Pistol Grip!

Blitz Boyz

Finishing off my Orktober are the updates and expansions that were made to the core of my Ork army, the Blitz Boyz. I had to add the Warboss on the Deffkilla Wartrike as a HQ choice and cool model.

Next was the six Warbikers from Speed Freeks. They were painted to match to existing bikerz. I restructured the Bikerz to three squads of six, to give them move flexibility.

I spent some time on my pair of Battlewagons, bringing them in line with the new Codex. With a little work, this one got made one into a Bonebreaka.

The other stayed a Battlewagon, but got some Kustom work on the rammin' end. I wanted to give it a Deffroller as well, but didn't want it to look like a Bonebreaka.

I think some extra spikes and huge tusks will work as a "counts-as" deffroller.

There were some other significant upgrades as well. I re-based all the Nobz onto 32mm bases, and added a few new ones. There were only a couple of problems along the way...

They look so much better on the larger bases, and the stability increase is nice too.

So once again my Ork Ladz are complete ready to rumble! Win or lose (and it is lose quite often) they are just a lot of fun to play.

We Wuz Made To Fight and Win!

Although 'Winning' is Very Subjective...

Speed Freeks

In the midst of my Ork Update, I had to finally get around to painting the goodies that came with the Speed Freeks box set. And what nice models they are!

The pair of vehicles, Kustom Boosta-Blasta and Shokkjump Dragsta are wonderfully detailed and were a lot of fun to build and paint. I felt that it would be a waste to paint them my standard Goff black, so I went with the traditional red for Kult of Speed aficionados. The bright colors really help the details stand out.

The set also came with six Warbikers.  I used them to expand my Blitz Mob, as we will see in tomorrow's Ork redo finale.

Red Wunz Go Fasta

Somethings Are Just Always True

Always Dread

Ork updates grind on! Today it's my new formed Deff Dred Wreckin' Krew. To be fair I had two of the newer plastic ones for some time, but I added a bit of detail to them, and gave them a new member to make a full size detachment.

Just for fun and Orkiness, each one is a specialist of sorts.

Tuska, is sort-of the defacto Boss, and has twin Rokkit launchers and Klaws.

Roasta, the new guy, likes to burn things. Twin Skorchas and Klaws.

And crowd favorite, Big Hugga, is all about the power hugz. With Saws and Klaws.

I have had some impressive successes with the Dread Krew, but even when they are (rightfully) targeted early and dropped before they get to kill anything they are still doing their job by diverting firepower form the rest of the Ladz.

Orks Always Win

Just Sometimes they Don't Have More V.P.

Morkananut Refit

The Ork refit rolls on. Now it's time for a version-change for my Gorkanaut.
I'm just going to say it: The Gorkanaut is a poor choice compared to the Morkanaut.
It's mostly down to the Kustom Force Field, but that is huge. I also prefer a main weapon that can hurt other vehicles.

After playing a pair of games using my Gorkanaut as a Morkanaut. I was sold on the Morkanaut and it was time to stop living a lie and do the surgery!

Fortunately I had kept the unused parts and was able to easily add the Kustom Force Field, and swap out the Skorcha for a Kustom-Blasta. Trading the Deffstorm shooty gun for the Kustom Mega-Blaster turned out to be zoggin' impossible.

Fine. I'll make my own. I have enough cool looking Kustom parts from other Orky kits, so after an evening of formulatin' I took the parts from four different kits and made this:

It painted up nicely and I attached directly to the shoulder mount.

I dare say I like it better than the version that comes with the kit. More dangerous science-fiction  looking.

Big Toys For Big Meks

Just a Bit More Dangerous For The Target

Orks in The Sky

I am in middle of re-doing my Orks to bring them in line with 8th edition, and it's been pretty enjoyable. This week, the Ork Air Force reborn!

I had a pair of Bomma when they first came out a couple(many) years ago. But as with most models that get used and moved around, bad things happen. Dust, breakages, poorly applied decals fall off, the works. The Wazbom Blastjet was released and I picked one up, mostly because I really like the new "H" tail. It sat on the shelf for a few years, but it's time has finally come around at last.

I built it like a "normal" Ork bomma, with lots of gunz, rockets, and bombs.

My two older Fighter/bommerz got cleaned up, repaired, and got new decals put on correctly (using the Micro-Set System). I should have taken a few shot of them for the "before" pics, it was pretty bad.

Now all three are ready to provide some close air support for the Goff Hordes.

Look! Up In The Sky

Able to Kill Guardsmen in a Single Pass!

This Old Warhound

My dear old Warhound is 11 years old. It still sits proudly in my display case, but next to my Warlord Titan, it looks...a bit dated. Painting during my real-world Tactical Color phase, it suffers from a downright boring paint job. No contrast, small unit markings, just not nearly enough Warhammer to it.

Not to mention it needed dusting. At which point the right weapon-arm fell off. That was that. Time for a do-over! I made the easy choice of staying with Legio Gryphonicus to match my Warlord.

Stripping the paint off was out of the question. Old resin would make that endeavor far too risky. So I carefully popped some of the parts off to facilitate painting, thinned down some Grey and put on a few very light coats, which covered well and didn't get thick.

I hated painting yellow. Even more than white. But not any more! Averland Sunset is a great paint and color. I prefer the minimalist, older War Griffons paint scheme. Yellow on the head and weapon mounts.

Some bold unit markings, detail work on the weapons, and a wash, presto makeover!
I had some decals left over from my Warlord, and they add a nice finished touch to the beast.

Overall I am very pleased with Lupus Magnus's rebirth. Now to find something to fight...

Cry Havoc, and Let Slip the Hound of War!

Or Something Like That.

A Bit More Cinematic

Almost everyone loves big explosions that don't happen to them in real life. Movies, literature, and tabletop games are full of notable examples. Warhammer 40K, 8th, has solid rules for vehicles (and some giant beasties) to go big when they exit the field due to enemy action. It's fun and cinematic, and it almost never happens.

A Six has to be rolled for this occur, and the Dice Gods are usually off having tea with Crom and ignore your pleas for a huge parting explosion to fell those damn Orks who just killed your favorite tank with a power klaw.

The game we played yesterday, Orks vs Chaos Knights, there was a real lack of anything exploding big. Inspiration thus struck and we now have the Michael Bay 'Splosion Rule!

It is a house rule to be sure, it does ramp up the randomness and chaos on the field, so if that is not your thing please ignore it. But it does deliver more satisfying big booms.

THE RULE:
If you fail to roll a Six on the Vehicle Explodes check, you MAY re-roll the die. Every time you re-roll you lose 1" off of the blast distance. If you wind up with a distance of Zero or negative, no explosion for you.

It is a fun addition if you feel like things just aren't blowing up enough. Clearly intended only for friendly games. Try the rules and let me know your thoughts on this.

Go Blow Up Some Stuff