Orktober's End

I wasn't planning to have an Orky themed month, but it's sort of turned out that way. So what better way to end the month than by sending the Orks to Waaargh!

And given that Pete was fielding his Space Wolves it was sort of Halloween themed - wolves are Halloweeny, right?

I fielded almost all of my Orks in a 1400 point list for 5th edition 40k which has some glaring issues: namely, mobs that are too small and a distinct lack of anti-tank capability or anti-power armour weapons.

Warboss

Big-Mek with Shokk Attack Gun

Goffs (Nob, 15 Slugga & Choppa)

Bad Moons (Nob, 9 Shootas, 2 Big Shootas)

Evil Sunz (Nob, 9 Slugga & Choppa, Trukk)

Grotz (Runtherd, 24 Gretchen)

Nobs (2 Slugga & Choppa, 1 Power Klaw, 3 Kombi-Skorcha, Painboy, Trukk)

Deff Skulls Tankbustas (6 Rokkit Launchers)

Warbuggies (Skorcha, 2 Big Shootas)

Big Guns (2 Lobbas)

Killa Kan

Gobsmasha (Looted Wagon with Boomgun)

We were playing the annihilation mission (which wasn't great news for my easy to kill mobs) and I deployed first, putting my Mek in a good firing position and the Goffs clscreened by the Grotz, ready to get stuck in.

Pete turned up with a Space Wolf force ready to rumble (I may get details mixed up):

Wolf Priest

10 Blood Claws

10 Grey Hunters (with Wolf Banner)

9 Sky Claws

5 Wolf Guard

5 Scouts

3 Thunder Wolves

Venerable Dreadnought

Predator

Vindicator

He started by deploying his Wolf Priest with the Blow Claws and the Grey Hunters. He put all of them in cover and out of sight of my Shokk Attack Gun.

I clearly had him scared...

Ork Turn 1

There's not much to report other than my army arrived and rushed forwards, the Nobs' Trukk helping them to get up to support the Goffs, followed more sedately by the Bad Moons and Killa Kan.

One of my flanks was secured by the Buggies and Tankbustas, whilst the Gobsmasha and Evil Sunz patrolled the other.

Space Wolf Turn 1

The Sons of Russ arrived in force and proceeded to hide from most of my 'horde', heading down the flank guarded by the buggies.

My two big shootas and Skorcha were going to make all those power-armoured transhumans backed up by a tank pay for their cowardice.

Meanwhile, in the centre, the Blood Claws ploughed into the Grotz and, in an outcome that will surprise nobody, slaughtered all of them with no damage done in return.

One-nil to the Space Wolves, but they had fallen into my kunnin' trap.

Ork Turn 2

Waarrrgghhh!

Orks surged forwards and the Goffs and Nobz barrelled into the Blood Claws, cutting them and the Wolf Priest down, but losing lots of Orks in return before consolidating back into cover to await the inevitable countercharge if the Thunder Wolves.

Meanwhile the Buggies and Tankbustas managed to slay a smattering of Marines (certainly not enough), the Gobsmasha obliterated a single Thunder Wolf and the Shokk Attack Gun began it's long series of missing its target...the Vindicator.

I shall not be mentioning the Big Mek again.

However, at this point I was leading 2-1. Let's hold on to that thought.

Space Wolf Turn 2

The Space Wolf main force advanced on my flanking units of Buggies and opened fire.

Somehow these lightly armoured vehicles weathered the storm, but all three were shaken, stunned or immobilised and so hadn't given up their kill points...yet.

In the centre, my hopes of repelling the Thunder Wolves were dealt a somewhat fatal blow when the Vindicator managed to drop a shell on top of my Nobz unit, killing them all, along with the Warboss.

When the Thunder Wolves ploughed into Goffs, there just weren't enough bodies to hold them back and the Boyz were beaten, ran down and eaten.

Pete was now 4-2 up an I wouldn't be seeing the lead again any time soon.

Ork Turn 3

Everything that could opened fire on the Thunder Wolves who proceeded to pass an offensive amount of armour and cover saves.

The only achievement of the turn was a humble Lobba immobilising the Venerable Dreadnought.

Space Wolf Turn 3

Now, things got messy.

The Grey Hunters charged into the Tankbustas, wiping them out in close combat; the Sky Claws hacked at the Skorcha, leaving it immobilised and weaponless, and the Predator blew up my Wartrakk.

The jammy Thunder Wolves pounced on the Gobsmasha, and tore it open with a power fist.

Meanwhile, the Scouts finally showed up, shoving a melta-bomb up the exhaust pipe of the Evil Sunz Trukk, killing all but four of them.

The Space Wolves were now leading 7-2 and was running out of things to throw at them.

Ork & Space Marine Turn 4

The writing was on the wall. Although the Killa Kan managed to finish off the Thunder Wolves at last, I had nothing left to give.

The Sky Claws pounced on the Lobbas and the Bad Moons were only saved from annihilation by tactical removal of casualties.

We called the game with the score at something like 9-3 to the Space Wolves.

***

So, I lost. However, I was pretty certain that this would be the case and the game was really good in firming up a few things that I need to address:

1) my mobs need to be bigger to be able to stand their ground;

2) I probably need to put theTankbustas in one of the Trukks to get them closer quicker;

3) more power klaws.

More importantly, it was apparent that there's something about losing with Orks that feels different. Narratively, they're just enjoying the scrap, and so you do the same.

If you get into the Ork mentality, you can't actually lose.

That's what I'll be telling myself, anyway.

Road Trip

A couple of weekends ago, Matt and I took the somewhat regular trip down the A1 to Newark and the Partizan wargames show (or was it The Other Partizan; I'm never sure which is which).

Neither of us was looking out for anything in particular, just browsing to see if anything took our fancy, especially if it was a bargain.

We'd barely got through the door before we were both handing over our hard earned cash.

The thing is with the Partizan shows, is that they've taken to putting bring and buy stalls in a covered area outside of the main door, which means that we were immediately caught up in bargain city.

Matt grabbed some extra Gorkamorka Orks to beef up his mob and I scooped up some very reasonably priced movement trays for my Sharp Practice British.

Matt then pointed me in the direction of an old-style Ork Warbuggy and Warbike which proved impossible to resist given that the price was very reasonable.

I've wanted one of these Ork Warbuggies ever since they came out (they are part of the Gorkamorka range) as I really like the Noddy-car aesthetic (I'm wishing I'd done it in yellow and red now).

I was delighted to find that despite already being assembled, everything was present with the only slight issues being a bend in the flag pole (fixed with hot water) and part of the hinge on the gun being broken (but this turned out to be a benefit as I'll discuss later).

In terms of painting, I went for my usual Agrax Earthshade heavy approach followed by a bit of weathering via sponge.

The only part of any real interest is the bit of freehanding I did on the front. It's the same design I did on a shoulder pad a couple of weeks ago, but I think it came out well.

The biker was also complete and unassembled, with the rider still on sprue. Genuinely I think the seller could have got much more for it on eBay, but I'm grateful they didn't.

I still had a single Gorkamorka body and a second edition arm knocking about and decided to use these to add a little variation.

The bikes of this period all had the same rider and I figured that the next one I get my hands on (as I still need at least one more for a unit) might be already assembled and leave me no choice.

 
The only other detail of note about these two vehicles is that I've put them together in a way that allows the crew to be removed.

This was in part facilitated by the broken hinge on the buggy's gun, meaning that the connection point is not to tight to prevent easy removal.

What this means is that these two vehicles are now much better for use in Gorkamorka than my existing Wartrakk and Warbike where the crew are glued in place.

I now just st need to work out what I'm going to do about flags

The rest of Partizan didn't see us spending very much money, but we did get to have a good look around at the display games.

I'm often a bit envious of what people are able to put together but I try to keep in mind that these are clubs working together and clearly people with much more storage space than me.

It's also interesting to see periods, settings and scales which I've never played, and probably never will play.

However, all the excellent terrain on display does motivate me to get back to my Venice board for Carnevale.

Perhaps my favourite display was depicting the confrontation between Aslan's army and the forces of the White Witch in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

A whole range of fantastical beasts had been sourced from a variety of sources to field the two armies in what was clearly a labour of love.

Very much up my street.

Although Too Fat Lardies weren't actually in attendance at the show (they usually are) a demo game of Sharp Practice allowed me to bend Matt's ear about it enough that when we got back from the show he took advantage of the discount on their website (due to then not being at the show) and bought the rules.

I consider that a win.

All in all, it was a really successful day.

Acquired: 82

Painted: 178

Lead Mountain: 659

The Neverborn

There is a special place in my heart for those times when I manage to squeeze extra value out of Games Workshop.

And so, when I built a Daemon Prince for my Tzeentch Daemon army, I kept the spare parts, which made up almost a whole upper body, in the hope that I'd be able to locate some suitable legs at some time in the future.

Fast forward to now...and that time has arrived.

The extra parts have come mainly from the Tyranid Hive Tyrant kit, which had almost an entire lower body going spare.

Smashing these two piles of spares together, whilst muttering eldritch prayers to the dark gods had allowed me to summon up a second Daemon Prince for my army, taking up one of the two unused heavy slots in the army.

Unlike my previous Prince, this one has a much more 40k vibe thanks to the power armour, meaning it won't be pulling double duty in other games any time soon. Also, it's lack of wings will see it mainly used as a line breaker unit.

When it came to joining the Daemon parts with the Tyranid parts, they scaled together really well. The major issues were the groin area and the back of the model.

The gap in the groin was easily covered with a chainmail loincloth from the Daemon kit, whilst I found that the best answer to the torso issue was to use one of the spare head carapaces from the Trygon kit I built earlier this year.

I did experiment with trying to attach the Chaos vent things, but they would have displaced how the shoulder pauldrons sat.

Obviously, when trying to shove two different kits together, there are some rough bits, and primarily these appeared down the side of the back carapace, where significant gaps had been left.

However, one of the big advantages of kitbashing Chaos creatures in 40k is the fact that pretty much anything goes. It's the warp, innit?

Extra arms? Why not, let's use these Pink Horror arms. Space in the armpit? Let's shove these Tyranid adrenal sacks in there as some kind of buboes.

The final gap was covered by a sheathed dagger from the Lord of Change kit, and the Daemon had been spawned.

I've leaned into the colours I've used previously in the army, meaning that he's loosely wearing the colours of the Thousand Sons Chaos Space Marines.

Chaos Space Marines can have Daemon Princes too. Does this mean I've just started another army?

Anyway, a terrifying Daemon has stepped of af the aether, formed of nothing but the echoes of what has come before.

And it didn't cost me a penny!

Acquired: 82

Painted: 176

Lead Mountain: 661

Angels & Demons

As I'm sure I've mentioned before, my happy place in this hobby is getting use out of miniatures in unforseen ways, and this week my attention fell onto a handful of old Wargames Factory models who have been unwillingly drafted into two different holy wars.

The models in question are four plastic Numidian infantry that I had still lying around from way back when I was putting together a Carthaginian army for Warhammer Ancient Battles.

These very simple miniatures had already proved somewhat versatile in that they had provided me with two units of Numidian skirmishers and bulked out my unit of Iberian light infantry.

I'm not sure why I'd left four of them unused, but I was struck with 'divine' inspiration of how to use one of them whilst I was rushing in my bits box recently.

I stumbled on a spare arm from when I built my Pink Horrors for 40k which had feathers sprouting out of it and I was reminded of the Cherubim in Carnevale.

These are altar boys who are forced to undergo a horrific and painful transformation into divine seraphim by the Vatican faction.

As my Vatican force is already mainly kitbashed, I set out trying my own hand at some heavenly transformation.

The process involved little more than attaching a Pink Horror arm to the Numidian body and replacing the hand with the end of a Screamer's tail. A few other feathers were attached here and there and his foot was removed to echo one of the official models. The process was finished off with a head from Crooked Dice and the morning star from a Heroquest Orc to stop him flying away.

All in all, I'm quite pleased with the job I've done. He's a bit bulky and muscular for an altar boy, but that's easily explained away as part of the awful transformation.

He does look weird, but that's the point.

Whilst is was in the process of heavenly transformation, I decided to do something similar for a denizen of the Bad Place.

Specifically I wanted to make a Wretched for my unfinished Court of the Seven Headed Serpent warband for Trench Crusade.

The Wretched are poor unfortunate mortals who have fallen into the clutches of the legions of Hell and suffer psychological and physical agony as they are driven into battle.

For this conversion I used the head of a Chainrasp from Age of Sigmar that I had left from a unit I had given to my nephew. Finding and positioning an arm to fit with the hand in the stocks was the trickiest part of this process, but I figured that dowsing the wrist in blood effect technical paint would hide any awkwardness.

A liberal dollop of blood on his skeletal visage is meant to sell the idea that his face has been flayed off, which I'm not sure I like as an idea that has come out of my head.

The only thing I don't really like about this miniature is that I forgot to clean the mould lines off before it was too late.

I still have two more bodies to use and I could easily just do a second version of each of these conversions, but I'm tempted to do something different with them.

A Rashaar Slave for Carnevale is an easy choice apart from the fact that they are pretty much useless in game and I already have four of them.

I'm a little tempted to have a go at making some Caesar's Legion for Fallout Wasteland Warfare, but just having two of them wouldn't really be that useful.

I'll just have to see what inspiration strikes me.

Acquired: 81

Painted: 175

Lead Mountain: 661

Old Boyz

I am probably at my happiest in this hobby when I am finding ways to use miniatures beyond their original intention.

I enjoy kitbashing, printing and converting, especially when it means I can use something I already own rather than buying something new and shiny.

That's why the blog is called Cheaphammer and why I'm always surprised that I took so long to realised that 40k Orks are my spiritual home.

Recent forays into Gorkamorka moved my brain into an Orky space and so when I completed the somewhat rigidly specific Napoleonic British, it was only natural that the freewheeling spirit of Orks would call to me.

Also, it's Orktober.

However, the only unpainted Orks I owned were a handful of monopose (sort of, they have different weapons) Heroquest Orcs.

Not to be deterred I set about trying to make them look 40k enough by adding pouches and armour plates. I also swapped a morning star for the head of a power axe I had lying around, and I used a single Orks slugga from the bits box, although this did required a bit of arm repositioning.

With me only having a single slugga, guns were a slight issue and I couldn't really just give them all holsters like the one with the axe.

However, I still had half a dozen plastic Goliath arms from the original Necromunda plastics. Although horribly proportioned for the models they were intended for, the hands were suitably sized for Orks.

A few hand swaps later, a few blades added to belts and hands and I had five new/old boyz.

I painted them up as Goffs to help bulk out my existing unit (10 Orks is never enough) and painted them in the same style.

They only bit of this process of note was realising that Goff checks looked weird on a space marine should pad, and so I freehanded an Ork glyph, which I'm quite proud of (again, Orks are quite forgiving in this area).

All in all, I love them. They are a bit goofy and static, but they'll blend into the horde without too much fuss.

Importantly, they cost me nothing and they make this old boy smile.

Acquired: 78

Painted: 173

Lead Mountain: 660

Over the Line

Regular readers of this blog (both of them) will be aware that I sometimes lack a degree of resilience when it comes to finshing off projects.

Well not this time!

When I turned my attention to painting some British Napoleonic infantry this summer, I knew that despite my initial surprise at how much I enjoyed painting the redcoats, I ran the risk of losing impetus, change my focus and ending up still working on them in five years time.

After all, this is what happened when I started my US Napoleonic force a decade ago.

And so I opted to work in batches, specifically in units for the Sharp Practice War of 1812, which meant two blocks of six light infantry and two blocks of ten line infantry.

It was the blocks of ten that slowed me down. I've always struggled with batch painting more than half a dozen models at the same time. I get bored and frustrated with the fact that each colour takes so long.

However, this time I've managed to stick it out to.the end, getting all 32 infantry and their two NCOs finished in one big chunk.

On the subject of officers, the force is led by this rather splendid looking chap, who I picked up in a pack of two from Warlord Games some years ago.

The other mounted officer has already been recruited by the Americans and leads their scouting force.

I quite like the idea that this more ornately outfitted chap is a puffed-up militia officer who has spent time and money designing his own uniform.

And here's my full force, ready for action, complete with a warband of Native American allies to harass the flanks and put the fear of God into the invading Americans.

With two forces for Sharp Practice now painted, I can finally get around to playing a game, which I might do solo first to get my head around the rules.

In other news, I painted this short man to join my US artillery crew, which was a man short.

When I bought him from amongst a pile of loose single models at a show, I thought it was a boy with a bucket, but on closer inspection I discovered a beard that indicated that this is in fact a 20mm figure.

With a little scraping, I gave him a shave and he's back to being what I intended, a drummer boy whose been co-opted into the artillery.

Technically, this means that I've finished the British force first, despite starting the Americans eleven years ago.

Right, that's enough for now. I have some rules to read.

Acquired: 76

Painted: 168

Lead Mountain: 663

Sea of Green

Despite having painted up an entire Warriors of Nurgle army made up of very old miniatures in the last year and a half, I haven't actually played a game of Warhammer: The Old World in just over two years.

I've also never used a Chaos army in any iteration of Warhammer Fantasy Battles.

I'd like these facts to be borne in mind in what follows.

Pete and I arranged to play a 1500 point game of Warhammer: The Old World last weekend and I saw this as an opportunity to finally get my 'new' army on the table.

Pete has also been building an army of Orcs and Goblins and was keen to give them a try.

My army consisted of pretty much everything I've painted, all with the Mark of Nurgle:

Winged Daemon Prince

Chaos Sorcerer Lord

9 Chaos Warriors

25 Chaos Marauders

3 Chaos Ogres

1 Chaos Chariot

1 Warpfire Dragon

Pete's army seemed to consist of a billion greenskins. More precisely I think it was:

Black Orc Warlord

Orc Shaman

14 Black Orcs

20 Orcs (two hand weapons)

20 Orcs (spears)

20 Goblins (spears)

20 Goblins (short bows)

2 Orc Chariots

3 Stone Trolls

Giant

The scenario we rolled up forced deployment in the centre (so no refused flank shenanigans) and pretty much guaranteed we would largely just smack into each other and see what happens.

Orc Turn 1

The Orcs opened up with a predictable surge forward and the Shaman summoned the Foot of Gork to come slamming down. Fortunately, only the big toe grazed my lines and a single wound was done to both the Chaos Warriors and my Chariot.

Nurgle Turn 1

Given that I had nothing to shoot the incoming horde with (before anybody mentions it, the game was half over before I realised the Warpfire Dragon is technically a stone thrower), I surged forward in return, trying to guess the distance I needed to ensure the Orcs were unlikely to teach my lines.

In what proved to be a terrible idea, I dispatched my Daemon Prince over to my left flank to contend with the Goblins and Chariots - essentially taking him out of the game.

Meanwhile the Dragon lurked on my right flank, ready to pounce.

Orc Turn 2

Charges were made and, fortunately for me, most of them were failed. Only the Giant made it into contact and proceeded to make heavy weather of the Chaos Warriors, which proved surprisingly resilient and also began to chip away at the Giant's wounds.

Nurgle Turn 2

With the Orcs very close, my heavy hitters sprang into action. The Chariot and Dragon slammed into the Orcs with two hand weapons and drove them back, narrowly missing out on breaking the unit and turning the flank.

The Giant and Warriors of Nurgle continued to trade blows, with the Warriors managing to win combat thanks to some truly terrible dice from Pete.

Orc Turn 3

More charges were declared and again failed as the Black Orcs missed out on getting to grips with the Marauders. However, the Chariots were now in position to wreak havoc on the next turn as they had evaded my Daemon Prince (who you can just about see dicking about with Goblins in the background).

However, the Stone Trolls did make contact with the Chaos Ogres, narrowly winning the fight. The Ogres failed the subsequent break test and were run down.

If only there had been a general nearby.

Nurgle Turn 3

Realising that they were probably doomed, the Marauders charged into the Black Orcs as it was their best option of survival, whilst the Warpfire Dragon moved to threaten the rear.

It was at this point that I found out about it's breath weapon and it managed to clip the back of the Black Orcs, killing a couple of them.

with the Giant having been reduced to a single wound on the previous turn, I was hopeful that the two remaining Warriors and the Sorcerer could finish him off.

The Sorcerer, seeking to hasten this outcome, managed to miscast a spell, which proceeded to kill both Warriors and not hurt the Giant, which wasn't wholly under the template because it's huge.

Predictably, the lone Sorcerer was squished with a headbutt whilst the Marauders were driven back by the Black Orcs.

The only bright spot in this fluster-cuck of a turn was that the Marauders were driven so far back that only one of Chariots would be able to come screaming into their flank.

Orc Turn 4

Waarrrgghhh! Chop! Chop! Splat!

Things turned out for the Marauders pretty much as you'd expect, apart from the fact that they rolled insane courage on their break test and held their ground.

However, in other news, my Chariot finally lost combat, broke and was run down by the three...count 'em, three remaining Orcs.

Nurgle Turn 4

All that was left for me to do was charge my Warpfire Dragon into a losing fight in the vain hope of breaking the general and creating a wave of panic that caused the whole army to flee...assuming that's a thing that can still happen.

Anyway, it didn't work.

***

We called it there as I'd been comprehensivly battered.

It had been a really fun game where I'd learned a few important lessons about my new army:

1. Don't send my general off on a wild goose chase.

2. Paint up a few more Warriors of Chaos and Chaos Ogres to given them some backbone.

3. Remember that the Warpfire Dragon is also a stone thrower.

4. Don't leave the Chariot unsupported.

5. Don't rely on the Marauders to kill stuff.

6. Remember that Gaze of the Gods is a thing.

I am going to scour my lead pile to see what I can do to bulk out some units, perhaps splitting the Marauders into two speedbump units.

However, I did enjoy a game with an army that was so direct and resilient, it's a very different feeling to my Undead, Wood Elves and Bretonnians, and it was definitely nice to finally play a game with these miniatures.

Anyway, happy October!