JUNE: Tom's Space Orks - Wildcard (176points)

June - Wildcard month!

Absolutely steamed through this month, and then completely ran out of puff in the last week. Having used all my 'safety net' models (except a few of the Snotling lads below), I knuckled down and painted hard, and now I don't want to paint another orky thing for a while 😅

Anyways...

Lil' snotling runty assistants:

I'm not one really for specifically going out and collecting, say a complete range of minis from the get go. However, nearing the end of the challenge, I had a look through the catalogues and saw that my gretchin range was nearly complete. I put a call out on one of those facebook trading pages, and lo, these snotling guys came up... How could I say no! (I am still rooting around for a few, but they are nigh on impossible to find).

Runt with net and mushroom (USA catalogue)

                            

Runt with pennant:

I thought he could wave a finishing flag for the speed freeks of the army...

(The official fluff on the little flags was that they were to represent markers for injured orks, so the Doks could find and fix them, ready for the next battle in a campaign)

Runt selling squigs v2  (USA catalogue)

I painted on a USA reference - Kool Aid, 2 teef a go.  Who doesn't want a go on the kool aid?

I kinda wish the spacing on "a go" didn't read like ago, but never mind - it's a Snotling anyways...

Runt with plans.

A rare thing, a runt with a plan... Does it make him more dangerous?

Gretchin assistant. Let's hope he doesn't trip...

Grot assistant carrying spanner. I loved painting this one - the sculpt is amazing!

And another, based off the same pose, carrying the fast more useful bolta this time!

Regular gretchin carrying ammo box and shotgun.

Painted with stripy trousers to fit in with the freebooters, although I've not added the blue stripes. Yet.

Gretchin assistant,

I'll pop him in with the regular grots

Gretchin trooper Gugluk reportin' fer dooty with some knock-off power armour. This little dude was a nightmare to find!

A grot loading his blunderbuss

Another grot - this one at least kinda looks like he knows what he's doing...

Gretchin with peg leg

Gretchin wielding blunderbuss

This double armed grot.

A pain to paint - super detailed trousers! Needless to say I bypassed most of that though...

This chainmail wearing grot:

A grot meaning bizniz with a sawn off shotgun and a blade. Not to mention some snazzy follicles!

Another burly grot with shotgun

Hop Splatt Field Gun

I always wanted the model for this, and this one was created by buying the separate pieces at different times, over the course of about a year.. The gretchin crew will probably mix in with the regular grots, as I'd like the gun to be towed by a wartrak.

Poor lil' mite... 

I think I could have been much more inventive on the colour scheme/detail for the field gun. But at the time, it was a case of grinding through and just popping EASY paint on a model to get back into the painting groove...

A regular ork toting a heavy flamer. hawt!

The striped cabling was inspired by Fillipo's wonderful Iron Warriors (painted here in the Old World Army Challenge). Gotta love a hazard stripe!

Another heavy weapon, this time a massive heavy bolta... A tricky one to place this bolta. Eventually I settled in placing it quite far forward on the shoulder, and pinned it in place.

An ork with a repurposed heavy bolta (I'm not quite sure where this weapon comes from, but I suspect it's squat tek. Stripy trousers to fit in with the freebooterz)

And this ork with a heavy plasma...

A freebooting boy. 

This lad is separate legs, separate torso. I have used the torso before, so I guess he now has a twin!

I also rebased by ork big boss into a bigger base as befitting his status...

And then made some v.quick banners. One for the runtherd and one for the Nob bike.

TONK!

This beastly lungbursta was created by Sam Nash (he can be found on facebook on the oldhammer groups). It's a multipart cast from a model he made using plasticard.

Initally I did not know what to do with it, so I took inspiration from his painted piece and block painted some colours on. 

The colours were first off painted flat all round, and then I used some heavy stippling over the top of the dry flat colour to create a gradient. Then I edge highlighted the ... edges.

I popped some flames on the front - why not!

And the TONK sat like that for a while...

And then motivations struck out of nowhere. I would graffiti the tonk up. First off, I saw that you can buy some cracking graffiti transfers suitable for 28mm, but I talked myself out of it - primarily because of the cost, and also because I wanted IMMEDIATE ACTION.

A quick google on graffiti and graffiti tags yielded a great piece about 28mm wargaming graffiti by a guy called Robert Jones: link - and you can see the influence in that straight copy of the word MEK on the top of the side panel below. The other half of that piece is representing Sam (g)Nash...

I then needed more inspirations, so I added some things from computer gaming and ork lyfe: 

Bullet Bill - the bestest of Orkness distilled into a bullet. Brilliant.

Arrows - for that go fasta vibe

Waaargh Orks - book reference

Mork - kinda a White Dwarf vibe

Mushroom 1UP - never saying no to a 1UP! Also fungus.

Fasta - does what it says on the tin. Probably, a little bit, my favourite piece.

Squig Rule - was supposed to say Squig Rulez, but I ran out of space. The Squig is a copy from a google search on 'graffiti squid'

On Fire - another copy of a tag I saw on line. Who doesn't like fire? Orks love it.

Ork iz best - naturally! Another straight up rob from the google images.

Furst - coz who wants to be last?

Cheques and bad moon lid - I struggled to think what to paint here on the main hatch. I initially went for a Worms style Holy Hand Grenade, and then a cherrybomb, then a grenade, but settled on the cheques and the simple bad moon in cream to pull it out from the background yellow.

All looking good, so I applied a coat of lacquer and then did some weathering. I did try using some oils (many thanks to Liam - insta link, for the push to try it), but really quickly I just reverted back to acrylics (Vallejo Smoke, mixed with GSW fluro orange and a bit of black)...

All complete, so I give it a coat of matt varnish to kill the shine...

oh noes

Actual nightmare! 

I must've been whhhaaaaaayyy too eager and sprayed too much varnish on (or maybe it was too humid), which resulted in this devastating frosting 👇. 

There is a tiny bit along the side panel with the mushroom too. 

Anyway, I tried rubbing it with white spirit in the hope the varnish would be removed - no effect. Then I tried nail polish remover, which was incredible (a little bit too incredible as I did rub a bit right back to the bare bones). 

Then I painted on some gloss varnish, as I read that that helps, and then re-applied the matt spray (thinly this time!). Then back in to correct the rubbed off part.

Anyhow, here's the finished tank pics - there's a lot of them I'm afraid, but I am super pleased with it!

You can see it's a bit muted and hazy👇, but it's soooo much better than what it was. I'm very fortunate that it was just the back panel....

                            

I think if I were to paint this again, I would probably paint some graffiti underpaint for the tags, so the background for them isn't just the TONK hull colour.

This month also saw a personal milestone where I took da boyz out to battle! This was my very first game of 40k. We played the most recent rules, with 2nd ed minis. A massive shout out and thanks go to Dave (grinningloon on Instagram) who patiently took me through the game. He was using his wonderfully painted and converted Goffs to beat up my boys. Highlights included:

Warlord showdown

Gretchin attacking his warlord after he'd defeated mine

Gretchin wounding a mega armoured Nob in hand to hand 

His dread causing my buggy to explode in hand to hand

My Mek missing everything he aimed or swung at.

Good times, although there are A LOT of rules. For EVERY mini...

Again, all thanks to Dave for making everything flow smoothly!

My set up (my group shot pics will come next month in the Round Up post)

Dave's set up

Surprize! The Goff dread relishs scaring da grotz

The two ork warlords pose  for a pic

The courageous grots try to avenge their boss, but to no avail

The imposing Goff army, plus a few bitz!

Intro: link

January: leader  - link

February: R&F  - link

March: R&F  - link

April: R&F  - link

May: R&F  - link (as a heads up, I forgot to add a link section like this one at the end of this May month)

JUNE: WILDCARD and CHALLENGE END

12... 4 x runts

70... 14 x gretchin

FREE... 1 x hop splat field gun

FREE... 2 x crew

22... 1 x ork w/heavy bolta

FREE... 1 x ork w/flamer

22... 1 x ork w/heavy bolta

38... ork w/heavy plasma

12... 1 x freebooter

FREE... 1 x TONK

Total: 176

Next blog post is the wrap up post with some glorious army shots! Hopefully, see you then :)

Tom // frogbug100