scratchbuilt morkanaut FINALLY completed.

Hi folks. It seems like forever ago I started work on this chap. Idea was for him to be a morkanaut with the actual gw kit built as a gorkanaut. I started this one before I got the gw kit and then refined it later with parts from the actual kit. the Achilles heel of this project has been that I was never happy with the ideas I came up with for the legs. It's not until recently I acquired some stormraven spares that gave me what I needed to get the job done. Mostly built from stormraven, ork bomma, sm tank and an industrial kit. And here he is, slightly taller than his pal but sufficiently orky.

Hobby pledges - the half year weigh-in.

Well folks, I seem to remember making some pledges to complete certain hobby projects about 10 weeks back. Now it seems the time has come to name and shame my shortcomings, but also to highlight the success stories. It's been a busy few months outside the hobby working on a new rotation in a very hectic Medical Admissions unit and getting my NHS Portfolio up to scratch to progress to the next year of my training (which I'm happy to say I did), but there's always time to squeeze in a bit of hobby somewhere. I can happily say that while I did indeed fall short on a few things I delivered on most and even threw in a few wildcards to boot. Here's a rundown:

The Good:

Orks:

Got em done, and they worked out beautifully. Lots of fun conversions in there. Now just to add paint (!). Sadly, one project I really did want to get finished didn't and that's the custom Morkanaut, who will join the list for early next quarter.

Eldar:

Ok so I couldn't resist a little bit of Eldar love and so painted up the Wraithknight in base colours for a game and have started to basecoat some striking scorpion as well as adding the beautiful new Autarch model to my army and re-jigging my 3 Autarch models as a result.  

Heroes of Badab:

Objective very much secured. All these chaps got basecoated and have finished scenic bases in 32mm no less. Vehicles are aaaallmost there, won't take long to add the final layers to get them tabletop ready. But their tale doesn't end here - my plan for them is to have them fully painted by Christmas one squad at a time. First game coming up soon too with the new Codex.

Skitarii:

Well I managed to get my small but lovable Admech force assembled and sprayed (they even got a Magos buddy) up so they're now well on the way to becoming a proper army. Really keen to expand upon them, just waiting for some time, money and an Imperial armour book!

Tyranids:

I actually achieved more than I thought I would on these guys and have basecoated most of the models that were added save for a few. Between them and rebasing some older models onto 50mm there isn't really anything outstanding for this army at present which is great news.

Horus:

Assembled and primed, the arch-traitor is sitting there on a shelf taunting me. He and the Avatar next to him are top priority painting projects for the next quarter.

Odds and ends:

Well the stormtrooper squad and Templar Honour Guard are still sat in a box but the Deredeo dreadnought for the smurfs and Captain/standard for the Imperial Fists got mostly assembled.

The Bad:

Necrons:

Well, safe to say I didn't even make a start on these chaps. It became clear halfway through something would have to give and they were it. I decided instead to push them to the top of the list for the next quarter instead.

Blood Angels:

Low on the priority list but I had hoped to start upgrading them to 32mm bases - a can of Mournfang brown spray has already done the hard work, but the main barrier at the moment is getting them all basecoated in a couple of layers of mephiston red before doing that. It'll take a while but will be worth it in the end.

The Unexpected:

The past 10 weeks have thrown up some interesting surprises which have thrown my schedule off from time to time. Execution force not only gave me some worthy additions to my Chaos horde (not long now my pretties) but 4 amazing new Assassin models. It also inspired me to finally finish my original assassins, who are almost there.

The new Marine Codex brought with it new purchases also which I've been integrating over the past few weeks. If you saw the picture I posted a few weeks back (below) then you'll know I have more than a few Marine armies. While I haven't drastically altered any of my armies despite many of them being incompatible with the new Gladius, I did adjust a few numbers here and there and added in two of the new devastator kits and an assault squad. Overall, most of the armies needed a little something doing to them, be it base-coating a few models or magnetising here and there and so while this process is well underway, I anticipate it going on into next quarter also. It's always good fun and rewarding to see things come to fruition so I look forward to it. Dark Angels will be getting a third tactical squad to bring them up to demi-company strength. Another sore point is trying to gradually update everyone to 32mm bases, meaning rebasing the power armour in many marine armies and getting edge expanders for those on scenic bases.

Well, with Fantasy right around the corner it will actually be quite nice to take a breather for a month or so and get on track with things. I'm pretty pleased with how I've done over the past 10 weeks as when time pressures from elsewhere squeeze your hobby time to lower priority I think it's important to set goals and targets to stop things from getting totally neglected. Plans for the rest of the year are, as well as keeping up with any exciting releases, to get those darn Necrons assembled and sprayed, give some love to my Luna Wolves and Imperial Guard (who will then effectively be the only 2 non-fully assembled armies) and start to build up a decent Mechanicus contingent. Great time to be in the hobby. That's all folks - I'm off for a much-needed 2 week holiday in the sun. Cheers.

Waaaagh Da Orks. Finally assembly stage commences

Greetings chaps. I'm finding I have a lot of diversity to hobby time lately and can pretty much deal with hobby targets in any order I choose. Thus it is the other day that I got the urge to push forward with the final phase of assembling the Ork army. This army is a double edged sword really in that there are some lovely conversions in there but the lack of painted models is a real issue - it's mostly a sea of black basecoat. One day I will get around to adding the reams of paint needed to them, but for now assembling the last of the horde will have to suffice.

So, the idea with the entire army is that each clan has about 1000 points to it and I can effectively match up two or three clans to form an army including some/all the units. Evil Sunz and Deathskulls, however, were missing troops options and so I decided 2x 10 trukk boys and a mob of 20 Deathskull boys would be about right. I bought some cheap WFB orcs that could be converted up alongside some leftovers I had from the other clans. Alongside the WFB orcs I acquired a couple of old Gorkamorka trukks to convert into buggies. There were 3 killa kans left over from a Stormclaw set as well as 10 Nobs who would become Snakebite Nobs and leaders for the above Boys mobs. Lastly, the Goff Gorkanaut and scratchbuilt Bad Moons Morkanaut needing finishing.I tell a lie, lastly there is an old Ork Fighta-Bomma coming in the post to give the army some much needed airpower.

I'm about halfway to finishing them now and once done, hopefully before the end of the month, I can draw a big, fat line under the Orks for the foreseeable future. It's always a fun army to convert and I think it's a shame I don't paint or play with them very often and so I'm resolving to give one of the clans some love this year and also to try and play with them more often. Cheers.

The killa kans and some of the Boys finished. Note the Kustom mega blasta

Morkanaut with minimal modifications (scuse the tomb blades)

Scrathbuilt Naut still needs a leg and finishing off

Two old trukks mid conversion

Pile o boyz still needing sorting.

Ork Mega armour conversions

Well, the Ork codex may have come and gone but the project is ongoing. Today I thought I'd post some pics of the remaining orky projects I'm working on. I've also got some converted flash gits that are done and some walkers that should be soon. For now, however, here are some converted meganob characters.

first big mek with KFF, klaw and KMB

next big mek with tellyport blaster, klaw and saw

warboss nazdreg of the bad moons. meganob body and head n arms from AOBR warboss leftovers. Plus various bits here and there.

finally, the scratchbuilt morkanaut nears completion.

Ork Waaagh assembled and a Morkanaut scratchbuild

My word it's been a long time since I've posted here. The other blog got the lions share of the attention and I've been away for almost a month. Orks hit just after I went away and so I knew I'd be coming back to a full force release. Well, yes, kind of. A fair few kits spread over a fair few weeks and a new format for codexes (on the inside anyway). I'll talk a bit more about these things on my other blog in a few days but for now let's talk about Orks.

I didn't partcularly care for my Ork army if I'm honest. Half of it is leftover from my earlier hobby days (2nd ed) before I got back into 40k and the other half is made up of a couple of battleforces, a couple of black reach sets and the odd release subsequently. Not being able to decide on a particular clan, I went for a mixture representing a warband formed from all different clans. Sadly, this left me with a very fragmented army, not knowing which models were in which clan and with some models in need of updating badly with conversion work due to the age gap. If I'm honest I had kind of given up interest in it for these reasons. So, I decreed that on my return from holiday I would make a spreadsheet, sort out some lists and get hobbying, and over the course of a weekend I did exactly that!

Before I go any further you may have noticed from the title that I went a step further than sorting out the army and started scratchbuilding a Deathskulls Morkanaut from a host of spare parts. The body is just about finished and I hope to add limbs soon. Very pleased with it as it looks distinct from the GW one. The ramp is also quite cool as with the spiked girders either side and effigy above, when it opens it looks like a tusked mouth - WAAAGH! After the pics I'll go on to talk about the individual army factions.

GOFFS - basically a large ardboyz mob accompanied by a warboss and his nobs in a battlewagon. Note the Mk2 dread and the custom waaagh banner.

BAD MOONZ - almost exclusively 2nd ed models, the shoota boyz mob were adapted from old metals and had new arms added. It makes them look a bit ape-ish but then they are Orks! Metal meganobz, a couple of weirdboyz counting as a ML2 psyker, some burnas (who need a Gorkanut to ride in). The ancient dread looks a bit small and stumpy (the same size as a killa kan) but I still love it. The Battlewagon has survived the years in immaculate condition and now has some missile launchers and a Zzap gun to bring it into the 21st century.

BLOOD AXES - more 2nd ed love, these guys are basically loads of the 2nd ed goffs and grots, which all look fairly well regimented and equipped which actually suits blood axes pretty well. They've also got themselves a nice shiny plane to fly around in. Custom big mek with KFF plus some old/new mixed Kommandos and Stormboyz are also included - note the old pulsa rokkit on the nob. Oh, and Kans.

Also, I was an idiot and photographed the Snakebite Nob and Runtherdz with the Blood axes; here are the actual ones:

DEATHSKULLS - these chappies have the Morkanaut, some Lootas n burnas, a looted wagon, some scratchbuilt tankbustas and an original Shokk attack gun which again I tried to update a bit. 

EVIL SUNZ - basically all the fast vehicles fall under these guys. The Trukks haven't any riders yet but I'd like to get some shoota boyz for them. One Trukk is extensively modified as I don't like any two Ork vehicles to look the same. Likewise, both the warbuggy and classic trukk have been converted into rokkit buggies. Two deffkoptas have been modifed to carry a bigbom and buzzsaw, while all the bikers have been made to look as unique as possible despite only 1/4 of the being the newer kit. Lil Bil takes pride of place as he is an original 2nd ed biker and about half the size of the current models!

SNAKEBITES - A boys mob, Grot mob, converted AoBR Warboss and some big guns make up these chaps. Most of the boyz have topknots and all of the kannons are unique.

RENEGADES - so my stompa is called Da Barun and he is commanded by a rogue badmek and the other renegades are 5 Gitz who were originally going to be bad moonz but will now be freebooters. THey're not finished as I'd like to get a box of the new gitz first to mix and match.

So, where to go from here? I intend on getting some stormclaw stuff and so will bolster the Orks from that - more Kans for the Blood axes, some Snakebite nobs and grots plus a Warboss to lead the Blood Axes. I'd like to grab some of the new kits before the end of the year - a Gorkanaut for the Bad Moons, 3 meganobs to make some characters from and, of course, some flash gits to finally finish that unit. (which I'd love to convert a Dark Eldar raider to fly around in, Yargh) Oh, and those Evil sunz Boyz. That already is quite the list but would round the army out nicely I think. In the meantime that's one more assembly project down and one shedload of Orks to paint! Cheers.