Camping with Bugs

Two items today: Necromunda Milliasaurs and some dog tents from Renedra.

I picked up the set of dog tents from the Renedra stand at Salute along with another item.

Although I already have three feral, teepee type tents painted up I wanted to have models that represented tents that might feasibly be moved around easily, either on a models back or on the saddle (animal or vehicle).  Although the models dont take up a lot of space, they are cute little gaming props that help to create atmosphere.

The Mutie faction in Gorkamorka doesnt use forts, being more nomadic in their behaviour.  The original (stupidly named) “Digganob” supplement for (the equally stupidly named) Gorkamorka came with a set of small cardboard tents to represent the Mutie encampment, but they were lost or squished in some house move or another over the years.  These cute little plastics will be a durable and very serviceable replacement.

Painting the tents was fast.  I didnt want to spend much time on them so I painted the pegs metallic (that suits the Gorkamorka setting better than wooden pegs and stopped the models from being 100% shades of brown) and then washed the entirety of the models with GW Gryphonne Sepia, twice.  I then washed them again with GW Devlan Mud and finally painted some black ink into the door flap edges.  Very quick but perfectly ok for what the models are.

The Milliasaurs are creepy crawlies from the GW Necromunda setting.  Like my Ripper Jacks and Giant Rats, they were originally supplied as servants of Necromunda Wyrd Beastmasters, who could use them to do their amoral bidding.

I gave the Milliasaurs a quick drybrush followed by a coat of Tamiya Clear Red on the chitin areas.  It gave a nice cockroach sort of look I think.  I did a tiny bit of detailing on the teeth and spines too.

They are creepy looking figures.  The guy rearing up would stand at about 150cm in real life, which would be a pretty appalling thing to find at the door of anyones tent I reckon.

Zombie of the Week #76: Young

Young

Mr Young is a Studio Miniatures zombie, who appears to have come to a sticky end while sliding down a banister.

Undignified

Another unpleasant looking (but in a good way) patient miniature from Studio.  The angle of the head and the mangled and torn right arm, knee and genital areas make this guy a pretty classic looking modern zombie.

Da Bigdogz – Gorkamorka Mob #4: Vintage Cybork, Yoofs & a Boy

A Yoof, an Armoured Boy/Cybork and another Yoof

The Yoofs and Shoota boy are pretty standard Bigdogz fare at this stage, but the middle guy above is a curiosity.

I bought the figure in the late eighties and half painted it to match the first group of orks that I painted, shown here, but I never finished it.  Over two decades later the Bigdogz project gave me a second chance with it.

I didnt do anything spectacular with the figure, I painted him in a similar fashion to the metal areas on the rest of the figures and vehicles.  I was tempted to add tusks, to tie the figure in better with the newer models but I didnt bother.  I slightly regret that now as I think that the figure would fit in better with the rest if I had.  Hardly worth losing sleep over though.

Yoof with Six Shoota and Shoota Boy

The Shoota boy is another weapon swap with the simple Assault on Black Reach ork models, like the enthusiastic guy in the second photo here, which is why he is shooting that massive gun one handed.  Fair play to him.

Giant Rat Swarm

These guys were assembled primarily for Necromunda games back in 1998, but I didnt get around to painting them until 2009.  I finally went back to them to add just a little bit of detail and take some photos this year.

As all Electric Six fans living in the current pre-apocalyptic era know, only robots, cockroaches (and probably Lidl) will survive the upcoming Armageddon.   Before you ask, zombies dont count as “surviving”.

My own in depth research has also revealed that there is a good possibility that mutant, dog-sized rodents will live on in the undercities and eventually spill in huge swarms onto the irradiated plains above.  Probably.

In Necromunda the tribal native human “Ratskin” faction (which I will eventually get around to painting) survive in harmony with their destroyed environment.  Part of this involves their nomadic lifestyle, with the Ratskin braves following the migrating swarms through the ruined industrial landscape.

Hi-freakin-larious in other words and way too good a gaming opportunity to miss.  Cue the theme from “Rawhide”.

Denim clad Foundry punk Nancy objects to being used to demonstrate scale...

I put together the swarm from the rather cool mutant rats from Necromunda, a load of eighties giant rats from GW, a few of the plastic giant rats that were first seen in Warhammer Quest and a handful of the titchy rats that sat on the Heroquest furniture making a total of 31.

The best figures are easily the Necromunda guys visible in the first photo, although a couple of the larger metal Warhammer guys are cool too.

I have yet to get around to playing my “Rathide” cattle rustling scenario in the depth that I would like.  I did run a prototype Rathide game of “Mutants and Death Ray Guns” testing the idea with MT back in 2009 though.

More post apocalyptic rat related miniatures are available at Megaminis HERE (post apoc ratmen) and at Black Cat Bases HERE (mounted post apoc ratmen).  Those guys are on my (gigantic) shopping list…

Zombie of the Week #75: Cole

Cole

Cole is a Mantic ghoul with a GW ghoul head.

There is nothing wrong with the Mantic ghoul heads, but as I had a couple of the GW heads available I decided to try one for variety.  The GW head is more distorted, the jaw a little distended, a bit like the rubbish special effects in “I Am Legend”.  Except that I reckon that Cole looks better than the terrible SFX in that film.

A pretty intense guy by the look of things.  Cole looks like he means business.  ”Business” as in ripping people limb from limb and devouring them.

Da Bigdogz – Gorkamorka Mob #3: Motive Cyborks

Deluxe Kickin Legs and Traks

“Ladz, we can rebuild ‘im.  We ‘ave da tek.  We ‘ave da kapability ta build da world’s nastiest bionik ork.  Steev Austin will be dat ork. Betta, than ‘e was before.  Betta, stronga, fasta” etc. Ahem.

Kustom Thrusta Boosta & plain ol' Bionik legs

Throughout the development of the 40K universe, orks have always been partial to physical augmentation, or “bioniks”.  This is a feature of Gorkamorka too, with mobsters going under the Doks knife (and hammer, and blowtorch etc) in between games.

The resulting augmentations are somewhat randomly assigned and as such it is pretty difficult to have suitable models available for every eventuality.  I decided to cover for many of the options as feasible by magnetising a pair of ork torsos and a set of six bionik legs from Kromlech.  As a result the torsos in these shots repeat.

Gyro Stabilised Monowheel & Telescopic Legs

The Kromlech parts are resin, but seriously they are probably the nicest resin parts that I have ever seen.  They are beautifully crisply cast and fantastic designs.

I had originally planned to make the bionik arm parts myself but when these “legs” arrived I changed my mind and ordered the Kromlech arms too.  If you ever the slightest desire to paint bionik orks then you owe it to yourself to buy those parts: they are exquisite.

The orks with the magnetised arms will appear at a later date.

Da Bigdogz – Gorkamorka Mob #2: Frankenork, Boyz & Yoof

Continuing coverage of my Gorkamorka project, here are some more ork boyz.

The guy on the right in the shot above is quite amusing to me.  For some variety in painting I decided to make a Frankensteins Monster ork.   This was in no small part inspired by the Frankenork Scenario available at tUGs.  The monster in the scenario is an unarmed pacifist but I armed my ork abomination anyway (he will simply choose not to use the weapons should we get around to playing the scenario, just in case that damages your suspension of disbelief or something).

The body and arms of the figure are from an old Heroquest ogre that I traded with SOS just under a decade ago.  I added a slugga and the goofy meks head.  I also added a couple of screws from a spectacle repair kit to the right shoulder, to increase the reference.

The look isnt perfect, but its fun all the same.

Above left is a ridiculously enthusiastic ork boy, while the guy on the right is an ork “yoof” (juvenile).  The yoofs body is from the original GoMo plastic boyz set, which is more slight than the orks that have been doing the rounds this century.  The heads supplied with the GoMo plastics are very dated looking now though, so I added a more modern head.

The new head does possibly look a little large in comparison with the body, but its well within acceptable limits for me.

Zombie of the Week #74: Stuart

Stuart

Another of the cool Necromunda plague zombie figures.  I have always liked these figures, despite the fact that they tend to wield weapons.

A quick paint job from over a decade ago.  Stuart has seen a lot of action and has probably been involved in 90% of the zombie figure games that I have played, which is quite a bit.

Post Apocalyptic Vehicles

Some post apocalyptic wheels today.  As two of these sat around with just a black spray coat on them for the last year or so, I got a kick out of getting them finished last weekend

Whilst painted to be suitable for use by any of my PA figures, these resin models from Ramshackle Games are primarily going to be used as the vehicles for my “Bigdogz” ork mob in the post-apocalyptic Gorkamorka setting.

The vehicles were each painted in straightforward single colour schemes.  Largely this was to minimise confusion in game terms by aiding easy  identification.

I was tempted to add some more rusty areas but I as I wanted the vehicles to look battered but serviceable, rather than disintegrating, I held back a bit.

As I wanted to use the vehicles for non-ork-centric games as well as GoMo, I avoided too much obviously ork styling, even going so far as to add some more traditional sci-fi trappings like bar-code licence plates.  I like the implication that while these vehicles are obviously pretty rugged and heavily abused, that they exist in an environment that still has some more advanced tech, somewhere.

The weapons mounted on the vehicles are interchangeable mini turrets, attached by magnets.  I made them from various gun parts that I had access to.  Each weapon is mounted on a plastic disc which is glued to a washer.  The washer then sticks to countersunk magnets on the vehicles.  Simple but effective and convenient.

No. 7 above is a cute design I think.  It looks rugged and reliable.  Nothing fancy but able to take a pounding.  If I were stuck in a mehcanised post apocalyptic wasteland I think that of the three vehicles here, this is the one that I would choose as most likely to extend my lifespan.  The enclosed cab would help with radstorms, mutie marauders, ripperjack swarms and the like.

No 4 is a peculiar beast.  Its a fun looking vehicle I think, but I think that I need to add “something” to the paint job:  it is lacking a focal point.  Its perfectly adequate for use as it is but there is something missing and I cant put my finger on what that missing thing is.

No 3 is my favourite of the three.  Not as reliable as No 7, but streets ahead in terms of cool.  Of these three vehicles, this is definitely the road warriors choice I reckon.

Da Bigdogz – Gorkamorka Mob #1: A Nob, a Yoof & two Boyz

My main project in production (rather than in the research and resource acquirement phase) is a mob of orks primarily intended for use in Gorkamorka.  

Gorkamorka is a Mad Max-esque post-apocalyptic bumper-car fest where everyone is an ork and therefore largely immune to incoming bullets.  The plan is that this premise will provide much hilarity.  Heres hoping

To that end I have bought some orks and added them to the other ork figures that I already had in storage.  They are currently all in various states of WIP but the end results will look a lot like like the Bigdogz shown here.

A Nob and a Yoof

I spent some time working out a colour scheme and painting plan for these guys that would be both effective and easy to reproduce quickly.  Details of that process can be found here and here.

Suffice to say that a look that was reminiscent of Mad Max II was at the forefront of the process.

Wez

These figures dont match the evil freak savages in Mad Max II exactly of course, with green skin being a dead giveaway for starters.  I did want to get the overall dark leather look punctuated by very few brighter colours (often red) though.

I think that I achieved it with these guys.  Crucially, I am able to churn these guys out at this standard at a prodigious rate (for me at least).  That should mean that I will have every ork miniature that I own painted within a month or two.  Not having a bag of half finished “spares” lying around after this project would be a kick all of its own.

Yoof and Mobster (Boy)

Some more Bigdogz will be coming up soon.