Let the Orkiness Begin! Waaagh Shadowklan!

So I've got my worklist all made up and ready to actually start working...something I'm working very hard to avoid doing. Such mighty distractions...coaching football, getting beat by my son at Madden 13, having to google how to get thru stupid puzzles in Arkham City, eating, sleeping, going to work where I avoid working...it's a lot of work!

But, I'm less than a month out, so time to really buckle down and get things going!

So the list I'm more or less set on goes something like this:

Warboss - Bike, Cybork, Klaw, Squig, Skorcha
Aegis Defensive Line
10 Lootas
10 Lootas
10 Lootas
8 Nob Bikers - Painboy, Cybork, 4 PK, 4 Skorcha, Waaagh! Banner
29 Shoota Boyz - Nob with Klaw
29 Shoota Boyz - Nob with Klaw
29 Shoota Boyz - Nob with Klaw
11 Gretchin + Runtherd
10 Gretchin + Runtherd
Deffkopta -  Buzzsaw
Deffkopta - Buzzsaw

I've got a lot of work to do to get this ready, the most important is getting my Boyz all WYSIWYG!

See, like most of us I have a million Choppa boyz from Black Reach. Great models, but Choppa boyz are really not that great. I've always preferred Shoota boyz, and in friendly games I just tell folks, "They're all Shoota Boyz." So now I'm here with about 90 Boyz in the list, and only about 70 of them are Shootas.

What I'm hoping to do, and hoping there are no TO issues, is hack off the Choppa arms, and stick a second Slugga on each. This seems to be a great compromise, they get more dakka from their second little gun, there's no confusion about Choppas, and everyone's happy. I'm hoping I have enough bitz for this, otherwise I'm planning on just dispersing a handful of Choppa/Slugga boyz in the mix, and call it Orky Diversity!

Yes, I know, I could just go out and buy 3 more boxes of Boyz, but I really don't want to blow another $100 on Orks...I've got SO MANY of them it's really hard to justify even to myself, let alone to my significant other. Sorry, honey, no food for the kids this week, I need more Orks, despite having over 200 of them already!




The whole Waaagh! in it's semi-painted glory!

 I own an Aegis Line, but would very much prefer using the Orky Barricades. They are the exact same length, fewer pieces, but don't provide any more configuration options than the regular...in fact fewer. The Orky Barricade is also quite a bit shorter, but since I have no vehicles that shouldn't matter.

As you can see most of the army is painted. I've got about 20 Lootas and 20 Boyz, along with a dozen Grots that need the whole thing. My 5-year-old daughter is very excited to help me paint them, and she's very capable at putting on base coats...she's more precise and accurate than I am!




Old models add some flavor!

 I've added some Power Klaws and Kombi-Skorchas in to the Nob Biker unit, those added on bits will need some paint.

The bases, as you can see, are just painted. I need to do them all up desert-style, adding some scrub grass here and there.




I love the buzzsaws! Death from Above!


The Deffkoptas need to be modified to have Twin-linked Big Shootas, I plan on leaving the Rockets there and just sticking a couple of big shootas on the sides or underneath.

But the biggest most ambitious part of this is actually making it so my old back can live through three days of gaming 150 Orks...movement trays!

See, I'm really anal about spreading my boys out. I typically take forever deploying and moving because I want every single boy to be right at that 2" mark...then you can take your frag missiles and shove them up your exhaust pipe! If done properly, Blasts only hit one guy, Large Blasts and Flamers only 3-4. Yeah, they can still hurt, but it's better than losing the bulk of the unit to three stupid guys with flamers!

So, I figure for each unit I'll get 4 pieces of 12" by 6" thin sheet metal. I'll base it with some Vallejo Pumice stuff, paint it to match the bases, then stick a strong magnet in the bottom of each base. I figure I can configure these things to fit around (or slide under) terrain, getting the boyz spread out and moved easily without driving my opponent bat-shit crazy. I'll be on the way to Lowe's the first evening there's no football practice (Thursday?) and seeing if I can create some really sharp edges on these things so I can bleed all over my opponent...if he runs off to the hospital to be tested for blood-borne pathogens, do I win?

And finally, one last thing I want to do, is have a decent display board. It pains me that I have to make something in order to score well at a tournament...but points are points. I plan on a spray-on texture over a simple square foamcore base, painted to be deserty-colors, with a nice deserty mountainous spirey thing at the back middle to set the koptas and bikers on...I know what I mean, pictures will be coming soon!

Wish me luck! :)