I like Orks!

 Orks are cool. I tried to start an Ork army about eight times over the years, but I could never get on with the models for the Boyz. But the new models have changed that. So here are some Orks!

Enter the Kingmaker

 

What can possibly make a civil war between three factions of the most untrustworthy race in the entire world any worse?

An arms dealer, maybe. 

Read a bit about this shifty character.

A saga begins

 

The forces of Chaos took a colossal beating at the end of the dark years - even greater than that which the Empire suffered. The tribes of the north find that the world has changed, bringing new problems... and new chances for glory. That is, assuming that there isn't someone even meaner and more brutal than them on the horizon...

Gather round the fire for the saga.

Fear them

The Dark Eldar (don't make me call them that new name) are the alien race I love the most in the 40k universe. It wasn't always so, and deservedly: when I worked at GW in 2005-06, weeks would pass without us selling any Dark Eldar models. I distinctly remember that there was one blister pack of wyches with assault weapons that was sitting on the peg the day I started there, and the day I finished. but in 2010, they were reborn with an almost complete refit both of lore and models. They are undoubtedly the most horrible thing in 40k (including Chaos!) and they represent the perfection of what GW has tried endless to replicate since: the uneasy mixture of science fiction, mysticism and faerie tale weirdness. 

If I said 'quasi-undead space vampire elves' you'd assume that I was talking about a bad Shudder import. But somehow, it works. As cruel and vile and twisted as they are, there's something... kind of sympathetic about the mounds of shit which they have to plough through every moment of their benighted existence. There's something bizarrely almost admirable about the frantic desire of these wretched, evil creatures to stay alive. Given that the alternative is to have their souls eaten by a dark god who pretty much embodies sadism and is almost wholly their creation, you can't entirely blame them. From devouring the suffering of their victims to restore their withering souls to frantic and ever more perverse surgery to rebuilding their own bodies in oubliettes of horror and pain, the Dark Eldar are ultimate survivors. 

The only problem is that for years I couldn't bloody paint them. I kept trying various lacquered metl paintjobs, but they all looked pants. In the end, it occurred to me that I should stick to what I'm good at: miserably industrial and metallic. They look like Moorcock and Clive Barker had a collision anyway, so I decided on dark silver and gold. The light blue bases and red grass were a way to throw a bit of contrast in it. 

I love Scourges. They're one of the most 'Dark Eldar' things. Both from the perspective that in such a vicious society only messages carried by hand can be trusted and because... well... they voluntarily got a haemonculus to hollow their bones with massive drills and suture wings to their backs without any anaesthetic whilst they presumably feed on their own agony! Because you know... they were bored.

Speaking of Dark Eldar who do weird things because they're bored... Wracks. It's one thing to be a freakish flayed Frankensteinian surgeon creature with a cheese grater grafted to your face. It's another to have ended up in that state because you thought it was a good idea having seen the results beforehand. It's the truly frightening thing about the Dark Eldar: the bizarre debasements they inflict on themselves as much as others. 

Their big brethren, the Grosteques, are pretty unnerving too. I'm not keen on the model, so I made mine from Vampire Counts Vargheists and spare Talos bits:

On the other end of the spectrum, Incubi are cool just because they look slick and martial. I really enjoyed painting their helms. 

My final offering for today is a Lhamaean. Again, I'm not too keen on the official model. It's not a bad model, it just doesn't seem to quite fit the aesthetic of the Dark Eldar. So I did a head and hand swap on a Dark Elf Sorceress. Simple!

I have to be in the right mood for Dark Eldar. Although they share some of the visceral horror of my Nurgle stuff, the mood is very different. Nurgle is all about grime and corruption and decay. With Dark Eldar, it's about perversity and invasive cosmetics, about life at its most desperate and demented. 

I might go and paint some cats or something now. 

Kharn the Betrayer

Kharn the Betrayer is one of those 40k characters who has done well from age. When we were first introduced to him in the early 90s, he was a butcher, pure and simple. A psychopath battering his way through anyone who got in his way with neither thought nor remorse. With the Horus Heresy novels begnning in 2006, we started to see a bit more depth to 12th Legion's most infamous son. Kharn was, bizarrely, the most restrained and controlled of the World Eaters. Indeed, he dogged attempted to instil some leadership and discipline into the savage legion, standing in for his largely disinterested gene-father. In the end, one can only assume that his endless attempts to keep the World Eaters together ultimately drove him too far and turned him into the maniac we know and... love?

I love most of the model, so I decided to paint him. There was only one problem: I really dislike his head with its silly rabbit ears and gawking features. I wanted him to look dangerous, threatening and vaguely gladitorial. So I replaced the head with a Maximus helm and a plume. The original head is interal to the body so this involved a bit of sawing and planing down.

I've never liked the idea that the World Eaters painted their armour a cartoonish red after the Horus Heresy. For a start, it seems like an odd thing for a gang of neurally sabotaged lunatics to do. For another, it seems like a strange choice for a legion whose main aim in life is to constantly whack people in the face with massive chainsaws. Having red on their armour wouldn't seem to be something they'd need to make additional effort for. Bot mostly, I just don't like it. So I painted Kharn with the pre-Heresy colour-scheme. This would help show the stains.

The model has an incredible sense of motion, and I though that I should stain him to reflect this. I used Vallejo Russian Spash Mud to give the impression that he's running at full speed, and then flicked speckles of Blood for the blood God across the model, especially to the front and right-hand side. Look at the arc Gorechild is describing: whatever enemy Kharn has just ripped down, a spray of blood is going to fall counter-clockwise across him. 

The only non-blood red I used was on the plume, and I counter-pointed this with the green of the plasma pistol. Overall I'm quite happy with him. 

Altdorf

 Of such days are legends told. The men of the Empire have come home.

Read on. 

The Imperishable

Settra does not serve. Settra rules. The question is, where does he rule at this point?

Find out what the Tomb Kings have been up to.

Bretonnia: Chivalry Reborn

Did any kingdom suffer the destruction of the dark years like Bretonnia? The new King Jerrod must find out if he has the skill to rebuild and govern an overrun nation with a hugely depleted force.

More importantly, he must face the reality that upheaval may have changed the people of Bretonnia in ways he did not foresee...

Read Chivalry Reborn.

The trees STILL have an attitude problem

I've always had this feeling that trees should look like... well... trees. In most cases, I prefer some nicely based Gaugemaster trees. However, for reasons I honestly don't quite recall I have a couple of Citadel Woods in my bitz box. I decided that it was time to make an evil wood. I was inspired by two pieces of lore from the old Realm of Chaos tomes - if you haven't got these, try to get hold of a copy. They're the most Chaosy thing that ever Chaosed. Anyhow, the passages in question are the descriptions of the 'Tree of Damned Shades' and the unwholesome forest around 'The Marcher Fortress'. I decided to make some nasty trees that can either be used as spooky terrain or as Feculent Gnarlmaws.

The two trees I started working on were pretty different. One was almost intact whereas the other had been rudely sawn off halfway as part of my Coeddil conversion. This meant that one of them would be traditionally... uh... treeish, whilst the other might take a bit more thought. 

With the more complete one, the first thing I had to do was to put some visibly and identifiable Nurgle bits on it. I find that if you add a couple of very recognizable bits to a piece, it chases the mood of the model to fit the theme. In this case, I used symbol Nurgle glyphs, some of the rotten heads from the Plaguebearers sprue, some bells and a Plaguebearer head. I also added a spare Kharibdyss head for extra creep value. You'll notice that some of the ends of branches have been replaced with bits from the Rotigus staff but the Great Unclean One sprue. 

I had a special idea for the other one, give its shape. I added a Nurgle glyph to one side, but the main event here was the addition of a Maggoth mouth to the end to give it the feel of a carnivorous plant crossed with an angry dune worm. 

Finally, I added some more ghoulish bits. The larger tree has a zombie hand groping from the end of a branch, and I glued Woodland Scenics lichen onto both to be the flesh vines. 

The trees are mounted onto 3mm MDF bases to give them an extra bit of bulk. And there we have it. More evil trees for a display or game board!

More manky death goats

The Blood Bowl Pestigor looks like a fish.

This really saddens me. I think I know what they were going for, but it doesn't work for me.What does work for me are Pestigor, as readers may recall. Seeing as GW and I seemingly differ on what the galaxy's most unhealthy murder-goats should look like, I decided it was time to makesome new ones.

Both of these beautiful specimens are based around the bodies of Plaguebearers. They have the right bloated and sickly appearance whilst being more or less the right size and shape. First of all, I clipped the legs off and plained down the stumps.

Next, I cut the legs off of some spare Gors (my WFB Beastmen army has about 400 Gors, a fact I still can't actually explain and find faintly embarrassing, the point being that I can spare a few bodies). The legs had to be pinned onto the sides of the Plaguebearer bodies because the join will be both too difficult and too fragile otherwise. I then filled in the gaps with my usual PVA/tissue solution followed by green stuff.

The arms were easy to sort out. In one case I literally just lifted some Plaguebearer arms and repositioned the sword-arm. With the other one, I used a spare Gor arm. The burst pustule wossnames were just drilled in with a fine drill bit.

The heads are Gor heads, but they mainly looked like massive angry goats rather than creepy diseased creatures. So I filed off those big glowering eyebrows and replaced them with the eyepieces from the Marauder Horseman champion's horse. Getting these off the original component is NOT easy: you have to cut the eyepiece away with damaging it or taking too much of the horse's head. There's a nasty cut on my thumb to attest that it's a bit of a slog!

It's also worth noting that the Plaguebearer models have massive great necks. I needed to prune them back, pinned the head to the necks and then fill the gaps.

Once I'd painted them, there were some issues even with the filling, specifically around the leg joins. So I decided to hide the problem by bulking out the fur with black static grass. 

Sorry about the Gor arse. But it had to be done.

Anyway, that's another two added to the horde!