George's Bad Moonz, Month VI: Leader

 

Big Gobb could feel the power of the WAAARGH pulsating through the air. His big mob was ready.

His father had been a great war boss. Now Big Gobb was one too.

He loved the feeling. Loved it more than anything.

Well, almost anything.

What he loved even more was how flash it all looked. Yellow, red, green with blue and white checks. These really were the flashest gitz in the galaxy and Big Gobb felt huge pride that they were his flash gitz.

He opened his huge mouth and called the mob to attention. Nobz, Weirdboyz, boyz and tanks formed into a mass of yellow, red and green.

The mob hung on his every word.

Big Gobb pointed the way forward and yelled a battle cry at extraordinary volume. The mob joined in, chanting at the tops of their voices and advancing at terrifying speed.

Big Gobb took the opportunity to move steadily towards the rear, well away from the danger as bolter shells and missiles began to fly by.

His father had been a great war boss. But he had also died in battle, and Big Gobb had no intention of doing that.

 

 

Phew! I’ve dragged myself over the finish line.

The Wonderful Ramshackle Games produce a mini perfect for Big Gobb. I actually painted one last year, the only miniature I managed to finish before entering the Field of Bones! It felt like retribution to buy another one, and for him to be the finishing touch for my complete army.

It’s fair to say that May and June have not been good months for my hobbytime. A lethal combo of work and real life have drained any painting opportunities. Fortunately, I had foreseen this before the challenge started and painted enough from January-April to get me through.

I would have loved to have done more, and to have added some flourishes, but life has had other ideas!

However, I’m still proud as punch of this army.

In my first OWAC (OWAC VI), my goal was to finish. No fuss, no fine detail painting. Just finish. And I managed it. I then crashed out after Month I of OWAC VII.

This time, I wanted to stretch myself a bit more, finishing whilst using a few more techniques. With such a wonderful selection of models available for space orks, this has been a great opportunity to go wild! Finally gaining confidence with colour blending has been a real joy, and I’ve loved adding texture to all of those bold yellows and greens. It’s been great fun!

Anyway, I’ll save the Oscar speech for my wrap up post!

Month VI Points:

1 x Warboss: 90 Points

Big Gobb!

Big Gobb and his nobz!

Big Gobb's Big Mob!

George's Bad Moonz, Rank & File, Month 4

Big Gobb heard them before he saw them.

The deranged cackle, honking clown horn and buzzing chainsaw.

The rumbling shamanic ramblings.

The weirdboyz had arrived.

One a depraved clown. The other a long lost mystic. Together a formidable psychic force.

Big Gobb liked bright uniforms and luxury. He wasn’t too sure about psychic warfare, but he was a Bad Moon and Bad Moons always had weird boyz. He just hoped they didn’t explode while he was standing nearby.

Phew! That was close. Very close.

Look hard, and you’ll see that the paint on some of this month’s minis is still wet in the pictures. It was a photo finish, but I bloody did it!

And I had fun in the process! The weirdboyz are great models – a Hero Quest wizard I’ve had for more than 30 years and a one off from the amazing Warmonger Miniatures. They each have two minderz to keep an eye on them (four minderz in total).

I also added some more nobz to Big Gobb’s retinue. These are from Old School Miniatures and again, were loads of fun to paint. I didn’t have much time to get them done, but still thoroughly enjoyed it.

And finally I added a mekaniak, a classic Rogue Trader miniature. I experimented with a slightly different colour scheme, which I don’t love and won’t repeat. But hey, you’ve gotta try!

Onwards!

Points:

2 x Weirdboyz: 100 points

4 x minderz: 0 points

1 x Mekaniak: 15 points

3 X drill bosses: 60 points

Month 4 Total: 175 points

Clown weirdboy!

Shamanic weirdboy!

Nobz!

Mekaniak!

Big Gobb's Big Mob!

George's Bad Moonz - Introduction Post

Big Gobb was big. He was big and he had a big gobb. So big that when he shouted about his greatness, orcs listened. And he loved nothing more than shouting about his greatness.

His father had been a great military commander, leading an ever growing mob on a ceasless campaign of plunder and destruction. But since he had died and Big Gobb had taken over, the mob had shrunk and every campaign had ended in defeat and disaster.

In the doomed campaign of OWAC VII, Big Gobb had lead his mob into the Field Of Bones and few had escaped. Now he really, really needed success. Or at least to avoid another catastrophic defeat...

OWAC VII didn't go very well for me. I finished one model (Big Gobb himself) and was lying broken in the Field of Bones by month two.

This year I want to continue with Big Gobb's space orcs. I've simplified the army a bit and hope that will help. There is a galaxy of real life reasons that suggest I should stay well clear of an intensive painting challenge, but I'm going to try anyway!

I'm continuing with Bad Moonz. I love their garish colour schemes, and the large number of weird boyz!

Lore, lists and points come courtesy of the classic WAAARGH The Orcs and Freebooterz books, as well as vintage White Dwarf.

The boyz are largely made up of plastic models from the 1990 space ork box set. I scored this on ebay and it had nearly 60 miniatures (the original box had 36). Most had been brilliantly converted by a 10 year old and it broke my heart taking these creations apart, but I hope to do them justice.

I then have a smattering of original GW painboyz and mekaniaks. And an original nob in power armour, a gift from the wonderful Jaako, a fellow OWAC challanger. Additional minis come from Old School Miniatures.

Weirdboyz are mainly formed from Knighmare Miniatures, with a cheeky wizard from the Hero Quest expansion pack.

And then I have a crew of freebooterz. These are formed of Warmonger Miniatures (fantasy arm of Wargames Foundry) and Meridian Miniatures.

Armour comes courtesy of the ever brilliant Ramshackle Games.

I'm very excited to get painting and to see the other challengers' armies taking shape. It is an honour to take part in the Old World Army Challenge and I cant wait to get going!

 Big Gobb's Big Mob!

Points

-Warlord - 90 points

-warlords retinue: 

   5 x clanbosses - 175

       Power armour, 6 x 5 = 30

   Melaniak - 15

   Painboy - 15

   4 x weirdboyz - 200

-10 x big mob boyz - 100

  Heavy plasma gun - 75

  Power glove, 2 x 30 = 60

-5 x boys - 50

-6 x gretchin - 30

-10 x mad mob boyz - 50

-10x freebooterz - 100

-Rhino - 350

-Total: 1,340

George's Bad Moons: Leader

Big Gobb's father had built an empire, fuelled by blood thirsty conquest and the irresistible call of the WAAARGH! With every victory more households flocked to his banner until he commanded a mob so big that it was feared across the galaxy.

While his father was alive, Big Gobb had enjoyed basking in his glory. He would shout about his father's achievements as if they were his own . He bossed everyone around and lived a life of luxury,

But now his father was dead and gone, Big Gobb was finding it hard to re-create the glory days. He had taken over the big mob and driven it to a succession of defeats. And eventually the boyz began to drift away, seeking better fights with better bosses. Then nobz who had been loyal to Big Gobb's father left too. Eventually only a skeleton army remained, formed of those too loyal, too mad or too lazy to desert.

Big Gobb knew he needed something big to restore the family reputation and he had big plans: storm a squat stronghold. Kills all the dwarfs. Steal all their treasure. Once he'd pulled that one off, he could go back to his life of luxury and shouting.

Now he needed to muster a mob. A big mob. And to do that, he needed to look the part. Big Gobb called upon the finest ork tailors and instructed them to make a uniform befitting of a conquering general. Then he started to shout.

Phew! Well, I had big plans for January. I was aiming to have painted enough boyz to make up the big mob, and extras for later in the challenge. But then that old friend Life parked itself in front of the hobby desk and I barely managed an initial basecoat in the first three weeks.

I opted to press the panic button and went straight for painting my leader. Certainly not part of the plan, but at least it means I'm still in the challenge.

The model is a lovely sculpt from Ramshackle Games. He is the perfect Big Gobb - pointing, shouting and avoiding any of the hard work!

The paint job turned out OK, although I would have loved more time and to have painted with natural light (I struggle painting with artificial lights). But, hey, I'm still standing!

And I managed to paint my tribute miniature for Chris Howell. Chris is painting a chaos warrior army for this challenge - I've never collected or painted chaos, but did find this cheeky chappy amongst my childhood collection. He's a Chaos Sorcerer from Heartbreaker Miniatures, sculpted by Phil Lewis in the early 90s. 

And lastly a huge THANK YOU to Richard Bennett. Richard sent me two beautifully painted minis, with Big Gobb references! I was blown away when they arrived and they inspired me to keep painting. Thanks again!

 

Big Gobb!

Shouting!

More shouting!

My offering for Chris Howell: Chaos Sorcerer!

And the wonderful minis I received from Richard Bennett - even includes a Big Gobb reference!

Shadespyre's January Post - Rank and File I - 3rd Edition Wood Elves(and friends?)

OWAC VII - Rank and File Month (I) - And So It Begins (Again)

January

Having started the month with a near-breakdown and developing a hatred of the colour green, I just knuckled down and started painting random colours onto random bits of a random Wood Elf until I didn't hate it too much.

This has pretty much been my methodology for every army so far, and I don't know why it continues to surprise me? Perhaps because every time I am going to have learned from my previous experiences and "do better"?

Old dog, new tricks, and all that.

Anyhoo, Wood Elves have been painted. Here are the ones that I have "finished" this month:

A first unit of Oreon's Elf Archers, this one including Prince Oreon himself and a standard bearer. It's sufficiently difficult to get hold of the command group miniatures for some of these old Regiments of Renown that I'm splitting one set between two units. Those of us with simlarly long memories will recall that these were sold as sets of (I think) seven identical troopers and *one* command model - the number of people who bought all four sets must have been limited, because the musician and champion rarely appear for sale (but you will see them in my second unit, you lucky lot!)

Hopefully it is obvious that the bases are unfinished, as is the standard. In my usual manner, I will return to these once the feel of the army is more established for me. I'm also making a "snagging list" of other things to come back to - that standard bearer's sword needs a resculpt and a repaint, for starters!

And to join them, here's a first unit of Skarloc's Wood Elf Archers, including the man (elf) himself. Though actually, the standard bearer and musician here are *not* the ones from the Regiment set. I decided to establish a clear difference between my two units by separating them into hooded and bareheaded miniatures, and that meant separating the official command figures from Skarloc and finding some hooded ones instead.

A possible flag on that pole is another thing for the snagging list.

You'll notice that I've carried through the same colours from the Oreon's unit, though with a wider range of sculpts in this RoR it leads to a less uniform look. Speaking of which, to avoid my Wood Elves looking *too* much like a regular army, I'm panting units with different sets of colours, which I'm nominally calling "Spring, Summer and Autumn" in a very unoriginal manner. This colour set is "Summer", though it came out a tad darker than I originally planned. But proper forests are pretty dark, so I guess that's okay.

I've also made a few changes from the way these minis are often painted (and not just from "really well" to "adequately"!) Specifically, I've changed a lot of potentially metal elements (fancy girdles and bracers) to sculpted leather, and quite a lot of potentially exposed skin to tight fitting cloth colours. The former because I prefer my Wood Elves with less metal, the second because I hate painting skin tones. Obviously my Elves have a carefully guarded grove of Lycra trees...

Army List Additions:

Scores for January:         628  points   32 models

15 x Archers                (Light Armour, Great Weapons, Standard)                240 points

1 x Hero (Level 5)       (Light Armour, Great Weapon, Longbow)                 55 points

15 x Lord's Bowmen    (Light Armour, Standard, Musician)                          238 points

1 x Hero (Level             (Light Armour, Greatsword, Longbow)                      95 points                

Running Total:          628  points  32  models

Hidden Reserves:

I've had no time to paint anything here yet, but top marks to Jaeckal for spotting that Hidden Reserve #1 is a trio of treemen. I'll keep them under wraps for now, maybe they will emerge painted next month?

OWAC VII Secret Santa Special Gift Model:

When I got my assigned "victim", I rushed off to look at his intro post and was immediately struck by an idea, which I was so enthusiastic about that the mini was almost done before anything for my own army was!

Da Big Gobb Publik Relayshuns Team

Cos sumtimes yooz iz juss too bizzy ta dooz ya own yellin'

These two Orky types have been sent over to George Prince, to help his Bad Moon Ork Warlord Da Big Gobb conquer his Space Dwarf enemies. The Ork Runtherd has a couple of simple conversions - hollowing out the end of his loudhailer, adding the crescent moon (or is it Pac Man?!) to his back plate and adding the extended barrel to his shoota so I had a nice surface to add some checks to. The urge to paint my own Orks is now very strong!

Next Time

Probably some more of the same in a different colour scheme.

George's Bad Moons - introduction post

 Big Gobb was an ork warlord with one major skill: talking, or shouting, about how great he was.

The son of a hugely successful Bad Moon Warlord, Big Gobb had inherited a large and proud mob with a reputation for brutal conquest that strethced across the galaxies.

Big Gob was certainly big. And he was certainly good at talking about his father's triumphs. But he was lacking any success of his own to back it up.

After some failed campaigns his mob had begun to drift apart. Households who had been close allies to his father went elsewhere and Big Gobb had the uncomfortable feeling that even his closest nobz were grumbling about him.

It was time for him to pull off something big. Something fitting of his heritage. He was going to conquer a squat stronghold. Kill all the dwarfs. Steal their treasure. And then shout about it. Shout about it across the universe until his legacy was assured.

Now all he needed was a warband...

When I first fell in love with 40k as a kid, I was pretty dismissive about orks. As a colletor or squats and imperial guard, I thought they were the enemy and to be avoided at all costs. In more recent years, I realised that they are actually huge fun to paint with enormous potential for fluff writing - win!

So I decided to paint up a warband to fight it out with my squat army from OWAC VI.

I do love bright colours, so I'm going for Bad Moons. I also like the fact that the Bad Moons have so many oddboyz - more bright colours!

Working from the Freebooterz and Waaargh The Orks books, I'm planning an army full of weird colour and character. Models are assembled from original 80s/90s GW miniatures, Ramshackle games, CP Models, Knightmare Miniatures and Wargames Foundry.

As with the previous challenge, I have plenty of real life things going on that make this mad idea. But let's do it anyway!

Planned army list:

Warlord: 90 points

Warlord's retinue: 290 points (5 x nobz @ 125 points, each, 1 x painboy @ 15 points, 1 x shokk attack gun @ 50 points, 2 x weird boyz @ 100 points)

Big mob: 130 points (10 x boyz, 1 x rocket launcher)

Boyz mobs: 100 points (2 x mobz @ 50 points each)

Gretchin mob: 50 points

Wild mob: 40 points

Mad mob: 50 points

Battlewagon: 50 points

Tinboy: 75 points

Freebooterz: 75 points

Mekaniak: 15 points

Weirdboy: 50 points

Painboy: 15 points

The first gathering of the warband. Still awaiting stripping, prep and priming. 

And a few last minutes purchases!

"And It Was All Yellow..." – Jon's Bad Moons (236 points)

Leader Month!

Warboss with 'eavy armour, power fist and plasma pistol: 86

5 Nobz with 'eavy armour and power axes, 2 plasma guns: 150 points

Running Total: 850 points of 1000

A generally slumpy month this month, busy at work and no desire to blog. I didn't even reply to any comments on my last post yet, appalling form on my part. I could make excuses but the truth is I've just had the Big Sads for a few weeks and it's been difficult to stir my stumps and find the gumption for anything more taxing than Crusader Kings 2 and solitary drinking. These figures have been in the queue for ten days just waiting for their base rims and some camera work!

 

That said: I've finally nailed the colour balance, the more modern inks I've cycled in are doing the work, and the Warboss in particular was a delight to work on.

Look at 'im. What a lad! Not my absolute favourite Bad Moon Warboss ever (the one-piece job with the round Marine-style shoulderpads and proper kustom weapon takes that crown) but a solid figure, chunky and compact. The beakie helmet under the boot is a nice touch.

 

I'm not saying I'm going to throw out all my plastic models ever and start frothing about the merits of lead vs tin in pewter, but let's say I finally understand where the "all metal all the time" types are coming from, and I'm looking forward to painting a collection where the only plastic involved is in the slottabases. 

I was pretty restrained with the kit on the Warboss. I don't think it's in keeping with the spirit of the OWAC to count extra points for Spike Arms or Master-crafted Plasma Pistols or squint and pretend he's in mega-armour even if those are the sort of upgrades I'd consider taking in an actual battle. The only upgrade card I'm going to be counting for the challenge is the heavy flamer on the Land Raider and that's because it's already been stuck on by a previous owner.

White hair and blue jeans on the Nobz Mob. As the oldest and wealthiest of the tribe, the boomer Orks if you will, that just made sense. They have a certain "Tony Blair's lockdown mullet" energy to them.

In accordance with tradition there's a mix of weapons on these, some ranged and some melee. I always liked the power axe in second edition, with its lightweight one handed profile for swinging at boyz and heftier double handed chop for smashing up toyz, so they've all got one of those. A couple of plasma guns so they can do something if they have to take cover for a turn, and... I've just spotted a plasma gun that's fallen off. Minge biscuits. I shall replace that during next month's sprint on the Goff mob, I swear. I've knocked the points for it off this month but I'm still going strong, and that's all the Bad Moons themselves done. Home stretch is nice familiar stuff: big tanks and black armour. I'll be there in no time.