Ork Expansion

As much as I was so, so tempted to go with the bikers, I thought I’d best ease myself back in with something that I thought was a bit more straightforward.

After discounting the bikes there was only really one option to go for; the ruddy great Stompa!

But…

I some sort of fit of madness I thought that, for some reason, I’d give myself even more of a challenge and take on the Grots too.  Given that I’m working from home, I thought these might be a good option as if I find myself with a couple of spare minutes I can add a colour to a mini or two and chip away at them that way.

This may prove to be a terrible decision but if in a reasonable timeframe I manage to add the biggest mini and units of the smallest mini in the range to the army I think they’ll be good additions.

This is another relatively straightforward option and a complete build and paint project.  I’ve included this as one of the options as I received this as a birthday or Christmas present from a friend and feel a bit bad that it hasn’t yet made it out of the box.

I’m sure that this was given to me knowing of my love of Orks on bikes.  This would fit in well with the other bikers, if they ever get done, but would also be an option of scratching that biker itch without having to go mad and completing loads of minis.

Another thing that I’ve always dreamed of adding to the army is a shed load of Grots.  A decent number of grots would really bulk out the army and make it look a lot more imposing.

When I was digging these out I sorted them into types to see if I was missing any…

That missing dude is really annoying me.  I did manage to find another random Grot which will at least boost the numbers.

Evidently I did a mionor conversion on one of those Squigs which meant that he’s no longer being held back.

There are a load of minis to paint in this option but given that they’re small and basic troops I could probably churn through them at a reasonable pace.  They’re also more or less ready to go once the bases are textured and the minis primed.

For as long as I can remember I’ve wanted a huge chunk of bikers in my army.  This desire has only ever been made stronger by the Nob Bikers available from Forge World.

In years gone by I was lucky enough to have semi regular trips to GW HQ in Nottingham with a friend of mine for various events, I sometimes took these opportunities to pick up Forge World bits so obviosly had to pick up some bikers.

This would be a big old project.

The normal bikers have survived the years pretty well with only a couple of bits becoming unattached.  I belive that all of the bikers are currently removable from their bike for ease of painting but from a brief investigation some of them seem a bit wedged.

The thing that’s always put me off assembling the Nobs is the assembly; I belive that they’re a combination of the usual bikes and resin pieces but the bikes need hacking and cutting up which is a scary prospect.  I’ve assembled some Forge World stuff in the past (the painted section of my army includes a unit of Grot Tanks) but I’ll admit, I am nervous of tackling Forge World minis compared to the bog standard GW ones.

This is a simple one.  I picked up a few of the new Ork bits when they were released.  I couldn’t afford many of the vehicles but had to get this one: the painted portion of my army contains 3 Dakkajets so this would fit in perfectly.

I have visions of the Dakkajets screaming overhead and this guy frantically but unsuccessfully trying to race after them.

I do enjoy assembling minis, as evidenced by the amount of projects that are assembled but have no paint on them…

Still the big daddy of the Ork range.  I picked this up when they first came out (original Apocolypes expansion), build it in sub assemblies and it’s sat on a shelf gathering dust ever since.

I watched Midwinter Minis video on assembling and painting one of these recently and one of the take aways was just how much of a turd these are to assemble, thankfully I’ve already completed most of that and seem to have erased that experience from my memory.

Does the project system default images to landscape?  A number of these where the other way round but are now on their side.

You’ll note that a couple of bits are black; I had a bit of primer left in gthe airbrush and rather than waste it I thought I’d prime something else I grabbed the nearest thing to hand.

I think adding a Stompa to the army would be pretty cool and it’s a big lump too get out of the pile.  Given that it’s one mini and already mostly assembled I’d hope I can get it done relatively quickly.  On the other hand I have nowhere to display the finished article and the aforementioned video featured a lot of bits refusing to stick and randomly falling off so I’m not looking forward to grappling with that!

So, this looks like the perfect opportunity to work on the backlog.  I’ve just finished my Marvel Crisis Protocol miniatures and felt like working on something different for a bit.  I’ve decided that I’ll work on the massive pile of unfinished Orks that I have kicking around.

I started an Ork army a number of years ago and have a decent sized force painted but I have far more that is in various states of incompletion.  A little before lockdown hit I thought it would be a good idea to grab some projects from my dad’s house and relocate them to mine so that I’d have plenty to be getting on with.  I picked up a number of Ork bits and need to decide what to make a start on; I’m going to narrow this down to a number of sub projects and decide from there.

A few points to note are as follows:-

• As noted above, this is intended to fit with my existing army and so I’ll be attempting to do a similar style and quality.  I haven’t added to the army in a number of years so this might be a challenge and I’ll be going for a relatively rapid result rather than attempting high quality (which I would fail at!);
• My existing army isn’t a particular clan of orks; they follow a uniform-ish style but do not fit with any of the clans within the GW fluff (that I’m aware of, if they do it’s entirely by accident);
• I haven’t played 40K in years and I think it’s unlikely that I will do at any point in the near future so any consideration as to what I add, the number I add and the loadout of units will not be based on how effective they are, points cost or any other measure; all that matters is what I have, how cool I think they are and whether I fancy painting them;
• I haven’t added any pictures of the existing army on purpose.  Partly this is so as you all don’t know exactly what to expect and partly (mainly) because they’ve been sat on a shelving unit for a number of years and need dusting!  Once I’ve finished some bits I’ll likely post some pictures so that you can see how well (or badly) the new stuff blends in.

Over the next few posts I’ll detail the potential sub projects I’ve narrowed my selection down to with a bit of an explanation of my thought process before deciding what I’ll work on.  If I find myself really enjoying the process and making good progress I might get through a few bits but, conversely, if I start losing the will to live I’ll likely stop at one item!