Author Archives: Alex

More Wolf Time Orks

01 Monday Oct 2018

Posted by in OldHammer, Wolf Time

≈ 22 Comments

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Greetings Terrans, I have another unit of ‘Ork Warriors’ finished for the Wolf Time campaign, (35 down, 67ish to go). This is another ‘Bolters and Bolt Pistols’ Warrior skwad, and will defend Gov’ner Kulo in the final scenario of the Wolf Time campaign. As with all the squads so far, I wanted a clear spot colour to help with tabletop identification… I’ve already used purple, blue, green, yellow, red and orange… I’m reserving white for the final Ork Warriors unit, grey for the two ‘teknishun skwads’, keeping black for the power-armoured guards, and brown for all ‘Scumbos’… Basically, I’m running low on options here, so this skwad gets a slightly unusual choice of spot colour:

Now, I know that this is a pretty unconventional choice, but pink is lovely with the green skin tone, and I really like it! I imagine that the skwad adopted it because it’s the same colour as humie skin, so it’s bound to be terrifying to the enemy :-)

Also, this unit is notable for the inclusion of LE1 – the original and firstest ever GW Space Orc! He’s the chap in the middle with the bigger base, and is the leader of this skwad. I really like the aesthetics of this mini – he has a more simian, hunched appearance than his successors, and this really helps to make this Ork look a lot more alien and bestial than later RT Ork minis. I believe that Bob Naismith sculpted this chap, before Kev Adams took on the range and cemented the more cartoony look that we all know and (mostly) love – a look that arguably still defines the range to this day. However, I really, really like the aesthetic of LE1 – in fact, I prefer it to Kev’s interpretation, (*gasp!!*), and I can’t help but wonder what would’ve happened if Naismith had been kept working on the range…

 

In other news, the excellent Mark of Heresyofus fame came to visit me over the weekend for a few games of Stylites, and to show me the development of a new (and very clever) board system that he’s been working on! Keep an eye out for a proper post on the subject from me later in the week, with loads of cool photos & info from the weekend, but here’s a little teaser for you in the meantime :-)

Have a good one folks!

Wolf Time Orks

24 Monday Sep 2018

Posted by in OldHammer, Wolf Time

≈ 27 Comments

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Greetings Terrans, how goes it? It has been a busy couple of weeks, with lots of building, sculpting, and general hobby ‘admin’, but not much in the way of finished stuff to share! That said, I do have another unit of ‘Ork Warriors’ finished for the Wolf Time campaign, (30 down, 72ish to go). As with the ‘Red Skwad’, these guys are all armed with Bolters and Bolt Pistols, and will lurk in Gov’ner Kulo’s inner sanctum (fnaar fnaar). This time, I’ve gone with a rather fetching orange as the squad spot colour:

 

These guys were slightly slow to get finished, mostly because I had a ‘small’ terrain project jump the painting queue last week. That project hit a bump & won’t be ready to show until next week, but here’s a teaser for you:

Hmmm!!! Mysterious, no?

 

I’ve also been prepping the next round of Orks to paint, which necessitated some more Greenstuff shenanigans. Here’s a sample WIP of some Ork Teknishuns wot all needed Greenstuff swords & pistols to go with their Plasma Guns (of course…):

Ok, so I know some of these are actually flamers, but fuck you internet – I’m calling them Plasma ‘because Orks’ :-)

 

Speaking of ‘pain-in-the-arse’ non-existent minis, I’ve also been thinking about the remaining Orks that I need to sort out – all of which have few or no ‘official’ models… You’d think that Skumbos (sword & pistol), and Ork Guards (Bolter, Chainsword & Power Armour), would be plentiful and easy to source, but they are not. I’ve already moaned about the complete lack of power armoured bolter/chainsword combos in a previous post, but you’d think that at least the Skumbos would be plentiful enough, right? Er… no. There are about 5 ‘official’ Rogue Trader RT02/4402 pistol & sword minis of the right age… and I need 25… *sigh*

My current plan is to use fantasy Orcs of the correct vintage, but, of course, they’ll all need converting to some extent. With that in mind, I’ve been playing around with press-moulding bits so I can produce the correct weapon options for these sods… I have had very little success so far, but I will persevere… You can say what you like about this sanity of tackling this project with such strict self-imposed restrictions, but it is definitely developing my hobby skills!

Until next time people – have a great week :-)

Green-skinz & Green-stuff!

10 Monday Sep 2018

Posted by in Scuplting, Wolf Time

≈ 32 Comments

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Greetings Terrans! I hope all is well with you and that life is being kind. I have quite an exciting post for you today – I have another skwad of Orks completed & ready for Wolf Time, and I’ve also been pushing some Greenstuff around in a pretty major way! First up the painting – this time I’ve tackled one of three Ork Warrior units that are needed for the campaign – the list shows them as armed with Bolt Guns, Bolt Pistols and Combat Accessory (these all have a small pistol tucked away somewhere on their person):

I’m happier with these guys than with the first few skwads – I forgot to take a green glaze with me on holidays so didn’t use it on the first batch of Ork skin, but I tested it on these guys and am much happier with the resulting tone… I’ll have to remember to go back and glaze the others! Also, I cheated a bit on this unit – the leader (Thrug Bullneck no less!) was already painted on hols, but I re-did his trousers & shirt to tie him in with ‘Red Skwad’ a bit better, (and I also glazed the flesh).

 

I also had a look ahead to some more units that are needed for the scenario – the Ork Guard Units. These Guards are a bloody pain in the arse… They are meant to have Power Armour, Bolt Guns & Chainswords – all fine and good, except I can’t find a single OldHammer mini that matches this equipment loadout! All the Power Armoured Nobs of that time have Power Gloves, and all the sculpts would be really tricky to weapon-swap on in a convincing way… I could go for some newer Ork minis, but I really don’t want to deviate from the era too much. It’s a pickle, and one that I’ve been mulling over for several weeks now!

Anyhoo, yesterday morning, I had a brainwave – I thought I’d try and attack the problem from the other angle and try and sculpt power armour on a correctly armed Ork, (funnily enough, Thrug again)… I mean, how hard can that be, right? Well, turns out that it is bloody hard – several hours of fun later, and I got to this stage:

Hmmm… I am both pleased and frustrated at the same time – pleased that the basic shape is there, and happy that it clearly reads as “Hey fuckers, look at me! I’m that mythical non-existent Power Armoured Ork with Bolter and a Chainsword that Rick Priestley wrote into the Wolf Time campaign!”, but I’m also frustrated that it is so rough. Of course, it isn’t finished yet, but I’m in totally new territory here – I’m not sure how much I can refine it, whether it should be more refined now, how to add stuff, etc. I’m basically learning as I go, and have no idea were to pitch my expectations – the uncertainty is somewhat uncomfortable. Also, I’m thinking of the bigger picture – I need 19 of these buggers! 19 re-sculpts will take me bloody ages, and I run the risk of them all looking like kneeded dog shite at the end of the process… on the other hand, my sculpting will have improved hugely, and they might end up looking absolutely awesome… Decisions, decisions!

Well, I guess the thing to do is go balls-out to finish this guy to the best of my ability & then make a decision. I have some clay shaping tools on order (recommended by Jon – thanks dude!), plus some brownstuff (recommended by Jesper – thanks dude!!), and a cable rolling tool, so at least I’ll have the right gear to take this ‘eksperiment’ to the next level. I also ordered some mould making material, so at least I can make my own ‘period’ chainswords, and maybe even try and mould whole figures! Exciting times dudes and dudettes – it all feels deliciously old-school :-)

Anyway, that’s it for today – catch you homies all on the flip-side!