Ork Tread Bike WIP

While browsing the internet to try to better understand how motorcycles look and get conversion ideas for bikes with treads (to use some of the old 2nd edition bike frames I still have), I cam across this little gem. The Modern Mechanix cover looks like something straight out of Fallout. I have definitely found the inspiration for my next Ork warbike!

The tread from the old Wartrakk is a perfect fit.

The tread is so wide that I will need to fill a gap between the sides of the bike. Should be a challenge to make it look decent.

Obviously, I am not very far along. I just have a basic outline for what I want, but it should be fun to see where it goes from here. I don't have a master plan. I am just going to release my inner mek and start building. If it ends up a little wonky, no big deal. If it totally sucks, I will scrap it. But hopefully it becomes a unique bike for my army.

Ork Biker Update: Modeling Finished

I'm finished building the first of my current batch of Ork bikers. I really wanted a grot shooting the guns from the platform behind the rider, but I just couldn't find a decent pose. The problem with the guns being in the back is that inevitably, the driver and handlebars are in the line of fire! So I went with a forward-mounted dakka gun instead and then loaded up the rear platform with supplies and a banner pole.

I would have loved to have both hands on the  handlebars, but I couldn't find two arms that were symmetrical enough. So he got a nice pipe to crack 'eads in close combat.

I like the rifle wrapped in a fur and tied to the side. It gives this guy a lot of character, like a lone wander in an RPG.

My favorite part of the model is the huge front tire and the shocks on the forks.

The bigger handlebars allow him to ride in a relaxed position like he's cruising on a Harley.

The only bit from the new bike box is this front plate with the headlight and spikes. 

He took a lot longer than I ever planned to spend converting a single biker, but I just kept running into so many dead ends on things I wanted to do. It was slow, but I'm pretty happy with the final result, other than I added a platform to the back for the grot gunner and now it looks bigger than it should be since there is no gunner. Oh well, those things happen when you convert on the fly.

I can't wait to get paint on this bad boy! But first I am going to build a few more. Some will be pretty much stock out of the box and others will be more extensive conversions.

The Next Battlefield: The Ruins of Old Xhorik

We can finally play on a different battlefield rather than the same few hills every time! I ordered some ruins from a Polish guy who sells them through his Facebook page for a very reasonable cost.  Yay for globalization. There is decent amount of minor damage I need to fix and touch up, but overall the stuff looks really cool. It would take me months to make enough terrain for a whole battlefield like this so buying it will allow me to continue working on my Orks and add a few pieces of terrain.

These ruins will represent one of the old cities that was destroyed in the first Ork invasion and then abandoned after the climate changed.  It is now being reclaimed by the desert as sand has already completely covered the streets and most of the debris has decomposed or sunk into the desert.

WIP Ork Biker

I am starting my next project: Bad Ork Bike Boyz! I have four bikers and they've been fun and fairly effective. Plus, as an Evil Sunz warband, these guys should be a core component. So it is time to build them up to a proper-size gang.

I'm really happy with how this first one is turning out so far with the oversize front wheel, shocks and  big handle bars for cruising to the battlefield. The handlebars are a paper clip and took about an hour to shape (and they're still a bit kittywompus!) but I like the effect. It kind of reminds me more of a Harley.

Obviously there is a ton of work left to go, but wanted to share the progress so far.

For the guns, I am thinking about having a grot standing on the platform on the back firing a pivot-mounted gun. It seems tough to drive a motorcycle and fire the guns with one hand, while cracking skulls with the other.  I tried to figure out a way to model both hands holding the handlebars, but I couldn't find or model two that looked symmetrical. 

The grot platform gunner may be a bit too clunky for a bike, but I'll play around with it and see. I also like the idea of lots of gretchin riding on the bikes and vehicles of a Speed Freaks army.

One Year Update!

It has been one year since I returned to the hobby and started this blog. Without a doubt, this has been the most productive and enjoyable year of 40k since my brothers and I were in junior high and middle school.

Accomplished this year:

• Built a 6' x 4' gaming table in a frozen desert theme
• Built enough terrain for the table, including the communications tower
• 3 Shoota boyz
• Warboss
• Skorcha sled
• 10 'Ard boyz
• Painboy
• 2 Grotz 
• Nob with power klaw
• Trukk with extended bed
• Mega trukk
• 3 Meganobz
• 7 Tankbustas
• Played 7 games from between 550 and 1150 points, all with fully-painted Orks!
• Created battle reports for all the games

A rough, quick estimate off the top of my head comes to about 650+ pts of painted Orks plus the table and terrain. Definitely by far the most I have ever accomplished in one year, and the highest quality stuff I have ever made.

And the best part has been that my brothers have been back in the hobby and contribute using to this blog with me. Although Bill hasn't done much of anything on the painting side, we at least got in an enjoyable game at Christmas that he really should have won. Pete has been doing an excellent job on his chapter, cranking out more painted miniatures than ever before and painting them to the highest quality he has ever done. I'm really looking forward to playing some games with him with fully painted armies on both sides on fully painted terrain! That is something we only ever dreamed of when we were kids playing 2nd Edition.

I'm sure our pace of painting and gaming will have to slow down in the year ahead with each of us about to have a new baby, but with a gaming table done and the cores of our armies painted, all we need to do is slowly add things in order to play bigger games and have more variety.

Wishlist for the year ahead:

• Build a bigger table or a second smaller table that can be combined with the current one.  I want to have a lot of room for both armies to maneuver so they aren't packed together. I think a minimum of 8' x 5' would be good. It will also let us play bigger games and even bring in super heavies eventually.
• Finish my half-done units of bikes and buggies by adding more of each. Bikes are next. 
• Add another transport so I have one for the 'Ard Boyz, Meganobz and Tankbustas. I'd like to find the rules for some Forge a World transports like Gun Wagons  or Mek Junkas. 
• Get more terrain so there is some variety between games. Since I don't have time at the moment, I ordered some terrain for a reasonable price from a Polish guy that he's mailing to me! Globalization! Let's hope it looks decent when it gets here. 
• Create more story for the campaign and introduce some special rules and scenarios to tie the games together. Up until now, it has been fun enough just to play. But with our armies pretty static from game to game (until we paint more), we need some various scenarios to keep the games more variable. 
• Eventually, paint up some Imperial Guard with Pete to add another faction, give us painting variety, and add more flavor to the campaign. 

It has been a really fun year and I'm looking forward to more great hobby time with my brothers. We don't get many chances to get together, but in the meantime, I have all the great hobby sites like Dakka and Warseer to keep me engaged and motivated. 

And lastly, thanks to everyone who has read and commented on this blog over the past year.  The encouragement definitely helps keep me going. 

Tankbustas of the World Wrecka tribe

Here is the entire mob of seven. They are very diverse, but I hope the color scheme ties them together sufficiently to pass as a single unit. You can click the pictures to make them bigger.

This photo is with the flash on so everything looks a bit bright.

No flash for a more accurate representation of the colors.

These mean gitz have joined up with my Blitzdreg Boyz and they are ready to do some big game hunting!

Tankbusta 7: Boom

The last of my first batch of seven tankbustas is Boom, the demolition expert. He is the youngest of the mob and also has a touch of mek blood, which makes him excellent at improvising devastating explosives from salvaged and looted materials. He loves nothing better than building tankbusta bombz for his mates and exploding the biggest targets he can find. Unfortunately, he probably has a very short life expectancy, but there is no other way he would rather go out than in the midst of a giant tank erupting.

I was going for a pose of an all-out throw while running since that thing looks damn heavy.

I always use shoulder pads to cover ugly gaps where I attach arms to a bare torso since you don't have the natural break point of the shirt-to-skin contact. I also try to add straps so it doesn't look like the shoulder pads are just floating on the arms. I think these (made from thin plastic strips) turned out pretty well!

In case you are wondering about the realism of that giant bundle of stikkbombz, it is based on the Geballte Ladung ("baled charge") used by the Germans in WWII as an improvised anti-tank charge. It consisted of six stick grenades bound around a center one and I just tried to replicate it. I found it while googling how stick grenades work and instantly knew I had to make one for my tankbustas! I think that thing could take out a tank if you hit it in the right place.

I like that the face has pins hanging from his teeth and horns from all the stikkbombz he is chucking!

And that is it for my tankbustas. I will start working on their bases while I plan out my next project. With the baby coming, I'm sure my pace will slow down quite a bit for a while. But I had a ton of fun making these tankbustas and I am happy with the amount of flavor and individuality the mob ended up with. I hope when I paint the bases that they will look OK (cohesive enough) together to call them a single unit. I don't know if seven is effective in game terms, but it is a start. As fun as they were to model, I will probably add some more eventually.

Tankbusta 6: Beast

The Orks of the World Wrecka tribe believe that the environment in which a spore implants and germinates will affect the physiology and attitude of the Ork that grows from it. The most prized and respected location for a spore to develop is under a heap of dung from a ferocious wild beast. And all of the Orks of the tribe believe that must be what happened to the spore that Beast sprouted from.

Besides being large and mean, even for an Ork, Beast has some of the largest teeth and one of the strongest bites in the tribe. As Orks prize large, heavy teeth much more highly than small, runty ones, Beast has been able to afford one of the best rokkit launchas in the tribe. It is made from salvaged Imperial parts and is highly reliable and accurate, at least compared to the average Ork weapon. He has also been able to acquire a large batch of rokkits so he can fire continuously and cause the most destruction of any of his mates, something he greatly prides himself on.

Beast is typically found at the forefront of his mob, displaying his intimidating collection of massive teeth on his belts and his face tattoos, while bellowing out his mighty roar and unleashing a non-stop torrent of rokkits.

Beast is known for being one of the loudest, fiercest and richest Orks in the tribe. 

He carries the most spare ammo of anyone in the mob because he can afford to never stop firing.

I love the bellowing faces from the Savage Orc kit. 

He traded a few teef for the face tattoos to show how dangerous he is. 

The Savage Orc head looks borderline too big on a regular Ork body, but it works. I also had to do my first real sculpting out of green stuff for him. Up until now, I have mostly just filled gaps. The Savage Orc models have the neck and tongue on the body and the heads have open mouths so I had to sculpt him a tongue. I think it turned out good enough.

Tankbusta 5: Rip

This one looks a little less feral than most of the others. I wanted a few that looked like they had rokkit launchas capable of a bit longer range than the spear-throwers.

This seems like the type of helmet you would wear if you were going to be blowing up vehicles at point-blank range.

A nice fur to help stay camouflaged in the hills. And you can see the red button that means "boom"! 

The running pose came from chopping up and re-positioning Stormboy legs. I love the underslung rokkit launcha!

The hook is visceral and could be useful for climbing or helping to pry open hatches on vehicles to get to the good stuff. 

Five tankbustas done; two left to paint. I've been keeping a pretty good pace. At this rate, I should have the whole mob finished and based in another couple of weeks.

Tankbusta 4: Bones

One more savage tankbusta joins the growing mob: Bones. He is so fierce, he goes into battle almost naked with only a bit of scaly animal hide and some lucky bones to protect him.

He uses a hunting spear with the addition of a little warhead to help pierce the steel hide on those metal squigs.

Ork ass! 

There's nothing like a good, solid lead pipe for crackin' skulls!