Tankbusta Nob: Da Sarge

A couple of years (I can't believe how the time flies) after working up one of my favorite units I have ever done, my techno-savage tankbustas, I have finally built and painted their nob.

Known as "Da Sarge", he is one of Filgakk Skullsplitta's most veteran and grizzled nobz. He was recently put in charge of the World Wrecka tankbustas to give them a leader with detailed knowledge of Imperial vehicles... and most importantly to keep them in line and ensure their loyalty to da boss. Da Sarge started life as a Blood Axe and even fought as part of an ork mercenary company for desperate Imperial commanders on the Eastern Fringe. Fighting alongside Imperial vehicles gave him a deep understanding of their strengths and weaknesses that make him a very efficient tankbusta now. And it is where he picked up the extremely strange habit (to orks) of smoking cigars. Now, older even than Filgakk himself, Da Sarge commands a lot of respect from da boyz and acts as a "big boss" commanding a number of nearby lesser nobz and their units when the warboss is leading the main charge.

His boss pole is covered in trophies from destroyed tanks and their crew. His face is lined and creased, his skin tone brownish with age. And he is never seen without his trademark "seegar".

WIP Ork Characters: Tankbusta Nob and Weirdboy

After the last six or seven months working on the beginnings of a Horus Heresy White Scars army, I am back to working on my first true love: Orks. I finally made a nob for my tankbustas and then I cobbled together a weirdboy so I could add some psychic mayhem to our games.

A Base For the Biker Nob

It's been a little slow on the hobby front lately, but I did manage to build a custom base for my massive warbiker nob. It is a 40mmn base cut in half and glued to both sides of a long rectangular base. In hindsight, it looks a little odd to have round and square elements on the same base. But overall, this base fits well and helps him fit it better with a mob that is all based. My old 2nd edition bikers are on square bases and my new bikers are on round bases so maybe he will be the keystone that ties the mob together.

Warbiker Nob: Oggo One-Eye

Ol' Oggo One-Eye is a biker boss with power klaw. He lost half his face, an eye, an ear, and a few teeth from a bolter shot to the side of the head, but even with that, he still never wrecked his beloved trike!

After he lost his eye, he put a matching gouge on the eye of his banner pole. But being an Ork, he gouged the side that matched his injury while he was looking at the banner, rather than the same side of the face. But just try to tell him that! It always looks right when he looks at it.

Being a an older, veteran nob, his skin is a browner, mossier shade than the boyz.

He's got a massive trike with Ben-Hur style scythed wheels. 

With his trusty power klaw, Oggo is a wrecking machine up close. You can also see some of his gang badges on his jacket.

A suitable leader for a rowdy band of warbikers!

This was my first real full Forge World model and I have to say, they are a lot harder to clean-up and assemble properly than the normal GW plastics. They are beautiful models, but they take some work and figuring out. I made some small mistakes and had to make some modifications to this kit, as well as having a hell of a time getting the rider in there after attaching the guns and ammo cases. Definitely a learning curve.

As usual, the big photos have made me notice two areas that didn't get quite fully finished so I will make a few touch-ups. (For one, you can see some unpainted green stuff in his right armpit in the last photo where I could not get his arm to fit flush with the body!)

More Warbiker WIP

Not much of an update, but with my slow schedule I will be posting any little bit of progress I make just to keep this blog alive!

Here is the biker boss nob's body with power klaw and the rider of the tread bike (arms to be painted separately and added later). The Forge World nob biker kit comes with awesome bikes and nobs, but the only weapons are a choppa and slugga. So I used a klaw from the plastic nob box set, but the arm is a little small compared to the resin biker boss and the pose had the claw right at his side, which doesn't work too well with handlebars in the way. So I went for a more dynamic pose of holding the arm up and back, ready to strike while zooming past on the bike. This also had the benefit of making the arm longer and more similar to the resin arm holding the handlebar on the other side.

I tried to fill the gap with some green stuff, but it looks pretty rough. If I can't fix it up to look more like a muscle, then I might try to cheat and cover it up a bit with a chain running from the shoulder pad under the arm pit.

In other news, I finally applied paint to an Ork for the first time since Ava was born! I didn't make much progress, but I at least put the first touch of color on the warbiker with the pipe in his hand. It will be a slow process, but I'm happy to be painting again.

Warbiker Nob WIP

I finally had a little time to myself and so I started working on a nob for my warbikers. Here is the bike mostly done. It is one of the Forge World nob bikes. The only thing to be added to the bike is a big spiked guard on the front wheel (just waiting to add it later for ease of painting).

I am converting the rider to have a power klaw, but I'll be painting him in pieces and then assembling it because of how crowded everything is.

The big trike with wheel scythes - total Ben-Hur / Bugs Bunny chariot racing style!

Here is the nob biker I am using. He looks pretty brutal with iron plates riveted to his face! Ork Band-Aids!

I just undercoated these items along with my other biker (the one with the visor helmet carrying the lead pipe). I'm looking forward to painting something besides touching up that terrain, which is boring and down in the basement, so not very accessible.

The tread bike still needs a little work to configure the driver and handlebars. The driver is going to have to be leaning down low over the handlebars in order for the arms to reach and I am going to struggle to get his head to be looking forward instead of down. It is going to take some more work, but that is the challenge and fun of conversions: lots of little things that don't quite fit or don't quite work the way you pictured in your head.

Grodzag Skartoof

Grodzag is one of Filgakk's most ferocious nobz, usually entrusted to lead one of the larger mobz of boyz into the thickest fighting. Known among the warband for his ability to find the best fighting and the most dangerous foes, there is never a shortage of boyz who want to follow Grodzag into battle.  

Red face paint makes 'im go fasta'! I am pretty happy with how the skull banner pole paint job turned out. It should be sufficiently intimidating to keep the boyz in line.

I used  the same skin technique I tried on my Painboy. It takes a little time, but I like the results. My plan is to use it on characters and keep the boyz with just the simple drybrush.

The big rock adds even more to his height. His presence will dominate his mob of boyz.

Dakka dakka!

"Right, ladz! Let's stomp some 'umies!"