Skulltakaz Warboss - "Hacksaw" Gnash Gitrippa

Gnash Gitrippa was an aspiring nob of the Skulltakaz warband making a name for himself as a dead 'ard fighter when he was badly mauled while hunting a massive Horned Squigmaw. Despite having his right arm ripped away by the sharp horns, Gnash was able to cleave the Squigmaw's head in two with his trusty choppa. Even with the traumatic injury, he somehow slogged back to camp, where he was forced to cash in all the teef from his kill to get a painboy to stitch him up before he bled out. However, he chose to keep the massive horns for himself rather than trade them for a crude bionic arm made of rusted scrap. He mounted the impressive horns on his helmet as a symbol of his toughness and for the good luck they would surely bring, coming from such a worthy adversary.

This meant he was forced to learn to fight one-handed and over the months he proved adept enough to survive in a kulture of combat, but was never successful enough to scrape together the teef required for expensive bionics. But with the mustering of the Skulltakaz as part of the mighty WAAAGH! led by Snagrod, the Arch-Arsonist of Charadon, his luck would change. 

In his first action during the invasion of Badlanding, he was part of his warboss' retinue that got into a good scrap with a unit of Imperial walkers. During the fighting, Gnash was charging one of the walkers when he slipped in a pool of blood from a dead guardsman. At just that instant, a plasma cannon blast that had been aimed squarely at his head before he fell missed him and instead vaporized his unsuspecting warboss! Picking himself up, he tapped his lucky horns and then leapt at the offending walker. He grabbed its chainsaw arm and directed it into the walker's own leg, severing it easily and toppling the walker. He was then able to rip open the hatch and get at the squishy pilot with his choppa. 

The loot from this conquest of so many walkers was impressive and Gnash Gitrippa immediately laid claim to the magnificent chainsaw that proved so deadly. Using his share of his now dead boss' teef (like a true Deathskull, he was not above looting any corpse, no matter how esteemed), he was able to get the chainsaw and its engine mounted as a massive oversized bionic limb. Thus armed, he was able to win the inevitable challenge for leadership of the Skulltakaz warband, earning the moniker Hacksaw in the process for the way he hacked off opponents' limbs with his saw. 

And as for the corpse that inadvertently saved his life with its pool of slippery blood, he claimed the skull, had it cleaned by a grot, and now wears it around his neck as another lucky talisman. With the boldness of one who believes he has Mork's own luck combined with the improvisation learned by a one-armed fighter (and of course his massive chainsaw arm!), "Hacksaw" Gnash Gitrippa had the makings of a truly deadly warboss who would cause havoc for the Imperial forces during the Rynn's World campaign. 

I tried a variety of photos using different exposure and lighting. 

This is an old metal Warboss from 3rd or 4th edition (the one with the attack squig jumping off his outstretched pointing hand). I wanted to give him a massive oversize power klaw that really looks like it could be strength 10 and take out heroes, vehicles, and monstrous creatures alike! The saw arm is almost too big, even for a boss, but in the end, I felt it was appropriately orky. It looks like he looted it from some sort of mid-size walker! For the other arm, I wanted him urging on his boyz in a pose appropriate for the leader of a large war band. It fits perfectly with the bellowing face. I think the arm came from the old resin Nobz warbiker kit from Forge World. It was a truly massive arm that easily fits this old metal warboss. Due to 20 years of scale creep, he seems a bit on the small side now. So enter the tactical rock, a simple way to add mass to any model, especially a centerpiece character. With the metal model and the big rock, the piece feels appropriately weighty for a big boss! I also decided to factor that into his background, making him only recently elevated to warboss so not that much bigger than his nobz.

I decided to paint him the old-fashioned way rather than using Contrast like the rest of the army. It is fun to paint a single model with blending and highlighting but I do not know if I could ever do another army that way; it's just too time consuming for me. So the colors do not match exactly with the rest of the army, but he is an Ork, not a space marine, so it doesn't matter. I am still thinking about doing some weathering because it looks odd for an ork to be so clean, but the rest of the army isn't weathered (in the interest of speed painting a horde). 

Not shown in the photos is his magnetized boss pole. I left it separate and magnetized for a couple of reasons: so it does not break during handling and transport (like Filgakk) and so I can customize it with trophies from actual games. I plan to decorate the boss pole and even the base with mementos of foes slain in our battles, since he seems to be a collector of trophies. Should be a fun experiment to add character and a sense of progress to the upcoming campaign. I started him off with an ork skull on his shoulder spike, because any good boss would know it helps to give the boyz a reminder of the consequences of disobeying da boss. And the war band believes skulls and bones are talismans of good luck - along with the color blue, of course. 

Overall, I am very pleased with him. I can always add some decals and weathering later. For now, I just need to get a small Deathskull army together relatively quickly. Job's a good 'un.