Lord of the Waaagh!

The forest near them burst into uproar. Demoniac figures with faces of white and red and green rushed out howling...stark naked save for the paint and a belt was... One Eye.

With apologies to William Golding, but the Lord of the Flies quotation felt apt, as I've painted my first 5 savage orc boar boys. :)

One Eye's Wild Boyz! Oink!

That takes my army up to 1644 points without magic items, a doable 2K with.

Lords - 320
Morthang (Black Orc Warboss) on Wyvern - 320

Heroes - 349
Drogrot Gorkeye (Orc Shaman - lvl 2) - 100
Mord (Goblin Shaman - lvl 2) - 90
Big Toof (Savage Orc Big Boss) - 77
Leadbelly (Orc BSB) - 82

Core - 705
Skargutz Boyz (10 x Savage Orc Big Uns & command) - 145
Da Red Skullz (15 x Orc Boys & command) - 140
Da Stikkaz (20 x Goblin archers & command) - 110
Da Skuttlerz (10 x Spider Riders & command) - 160
Da Howlerz (10 x Wolf Riders & Command) - 150

Special - 370
Da Iron 'Eadz (5 Orc Boar Boyz & command) - 135
One Eye's Wild Boyz (5 Savage Orc Boar Boyz & command) - 135

The extra 10 Savage Orcs I have on the go will add another 110 points, which is a better total for points, pre-magic items. I've also always got the option of demoting a big boss should I need to (or playing sans-Lord on Wyvern, which would save a lot of points!). 

So that's that for now: should have an update on my Bretonnian Lord soon, just waiting on some custom transfers to arrive. More on that anon!

VBB

The Marienburg Stealers

As I sit here, sipping a homemade cappucino, I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself. While days spent lolling on the couch or playing on the PS3 for 8 hours straight are all well and good, there is an undeniable satisfaction in achieving something on holiday.

OK, all I achieved was to make my mind up and paint some models, but still. Baby steps.

So, my chum Andy Lawhammer's been making a top-ten of GW games (speaking of which +Andrew, where's number 4?...) and at number 5, he placed Blood Bowl. Cue much reminiscing, a brief encounter with Google, and he's bought a copy. And given how much I love the game, it's no surprise I  wanted in on the action.

But what team to pick? Initially I planned to buy my own copy of the game and convert the plastic humans to become a Bretonnian team (like this chap on Warseer), and indeed I may well do that in time (as if nothing else it'll give me an excuse to buy and paint some Knights. And I do like knights.)

But for now I plumped for those nefarious ratmen, the Skaven. Now, the GW Skaven Team are fine (you can see them here), but they're 30 quid, there's only 12 of them, and they're in metal. No thanks. Instead, I picked up a plastic box of clan rats from +Baz Morrison's shop and set to converting. They're all converted now, and I'll paint them up over the next week or two. Some I'm pleased with. Some, like the throwers, are not brilliant, but they're OK for now.

So, without further gilding the lily and with no more ado, I give you the first two players of the Marienburg Stealers.

Blitzer 1 - Krikt

Blitzer 2 - Vurk

On the whole, I'm quite pleased with them.

I picked more armoured heads/torsos, to fit the blitzer look, and I added a couple of spare savage orc "plumes" (hairsquigs?) to make them stand out from the linemen. A couple of other random orky bitz went on too, to give them shoulder pads (which the linemen will be lacking...).

They're not well painted, nor are they thoughtfully converted, but you know what? They'll do.

I haven't put numbers on yet, and I'll probably flock the bases eventually. The name, Marienburg Stealers, is obviously derived from Pittsburgh Steelers. I was going to do them in black, but it didn't look right and I have a lot of green paint. :)

Speaking of green, I also had time to finish off the first of my new Orc units for WFB (a bigger post on my Waaagh in a week or two): my sister in law +Gillian Bruce got me some Savage Orc Boar Boyz for my birthday (ta!) and here's the first of them: the standard bearer.

Oink!

I was relieved that my ability to speed-paint orcs hasn't diminished in the 6 months or so since I last had time to wield a brush. The boar I'm especially pleased with. The photo doesn't do them justice (I really do need to work on my photography, I know: an iPhone camera in a softly-lit living room is not a photogenic environment!).

Ride the Pig...bash some skulls...

 I was really pleased with the boar's face. This time, I highlighted it all the same: skin, tusks, et al. Gorthor Brown, Tallarn Sand, Ushabti Bone, touch of White Scar on the tips of the tusks. Then I applied an Agrax Earthshade wash, but only to  the skin, not the tusks, and the effect is great.

Yeah, I'm wielding this huge banner like a sword, what of it?

It worked so well, I did the same thing on the rider's leather/wood/bone bits. It's not quite as effective there, but it's so very, very quick I'm going to stick with it.

So there you go. A productive day, by the standards of school holidays, any way.

That'll do, pig. That'll do.

Oink!

Unit of Boar Boyz...done.

Iron 'Eadz - Orc Boar Boy Cavalry

Still suffering from excessively bright flash (only sometimes, though - most frustrating), but then I am just using my phone camera because I'm lazy. Nonetheless - here are my Orc Boar Boyz, the Iron 'Eadz. I'm quite pleased with them - again, if I look too closely, I see poorly highlighted musculature etc. But together, they look quite effective. 

Here's a side view, similarly overexposed, of the standard bearer. The use of an iron head as an icon is a lucky coincidence! (and born out of me not wanting to freehand a design on a banner)

Orc Boar Boy Standard Bearer

So, lets look at the points total:

Previous Total: 325 points

Boar Boyz: 135 points

5 x Boar Boyz: (80)

Shields (10)

Spears (10)

Boss, Musician & Standard (35)

TOTAL: 460

Waaagh - 500 points

Which means, add in a magic item or two, or turn one of the Orc units to Big 'Uns, and I'm playing a 500 point game, hopefully Sunday afternoon, with the Lawhammers.

Now, while I'm very pleased with the progress I've made (I've been pushing myself during the school holidays, as from next week I'll have a lot less free time) the army is a little bit...brown. It's most notable in the Boar Boyz: brown boars, brown leather, rusty metal...

It's no bad thing - the limited palette will make them look cohesive, and I always prefer naturalistic to day-glo, cartoony, but it is still a bit dull. The splashes of red do really stand out though. So I'm going to do my Spider Riders next, and I think I'll do the spiders themselves a very dark red colour. That ought to brighten everything up, but maintain the Waaaghsthetics. ;)

Iron 'Eadz

Well, a swifter update than I had imagined, as I've painted the first of my Boar Boyz. Behold!

Iron 'Ead: Boar Boy Boss

 The boars I've painted quickly: wetbrush brown over black, brown wash, then drybrush brown, sand, bone, then white. A little painted on wash over any patches that are too heavily drybrushed.

Then it's detail time: pick out flesh in green, green wash, highlight dark green, then light green (NB: I'm hand highlighting, not drybrushing, as there's not much flesh on show). Then paint metal leadbelcher, leather bits brown. Brown wash over those, then drybrush metal, then paint highlight leather and wood up to sand.

Ta da!

I'm quite pleased with the effect.

As I mentioned last time, I'm envisaging this as something of a rag-tag army of scavengers and remnants. Rather than some great Waaagh massing in the Bad Lands, this is a reconstituted Waaagh reassembling from the detritus of previous conflicts. Hence, Savage Orcs relying on a Goblin Shaman.

I always wanted my Boar Boyz to have shields and spears for that extra cavalry oomph. When I was assembling them, I elected to use all the helmeted heads (much as I avoided them for the Gobbos). It struck me that this made them look like Orc-knights, which amused me, so I tried to get them posed like that too.

And thus, the Iron 'Eadz were born.

Officer: Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes!
Soldier: Their eyes are red, sir!

I see this unit of Boar Boyz as consciously aping the heavy knights of the Empire, the Elves, and Bretonnia. I ensured my musician has a spear on his back, and when I increase the size of the unit, I'm going to stick with the metal, helmets, shields, spears look. They look pretty ferocious. And I thought, for the Boss, having him with the most enclosing helmet, and giving his boar the same look, was a must.

So one down, the other 4 boars are drybrushed up, and just need the fiddly bits done. Goal is to get them done by the end of next weekend, at which point I'll be pushing 500 points painted.