Rogue Trader battle : Ork Versus Squats

I managed to find an opponent for Rogue Trader at my local games club and had a skirmish this week with my Blood Axe Orks versus his Squats.

There'd been a miscommunication and I'd brought 500 points while he'd brought double that so there was a lot of Nob promotion and additional equipment brought to bear to bring my total closer but I still ended up 200 points under.

  I'd brought the warboss and his retinue riding in their rhino, a large squad of 10 boyz with bolters, a smaller squad with bolt pistols and a mek, runtherd and a shok attack gun with a couple of bases worth of Snotling ammunition.

  

I'm no stunty expert but he'd brought 3 (or 4?) squads of squats, a trike and a couple of heavy looking dudes in exo-armour.

  

  The foot troops slogged it up the table with minimal casualties on each side, while the heavy weapon squats nestled up in the building took pot shots at my rhino. The trike shot at my smaller squad while took casualties but eventually both squats riding it were shot with the bike careering off the battlefield.

  My rhino got bogged down in terrain so my warboss took the executive decision to disembark with he and his nobs dodging heavy weapon behind walls and craters.

  Meanwhile the shok attack offloaded its frenzied snots behind the middle squad and into a protracted combat with the middle squat squad. Another squad joined that combat and eventually got rid of the nuisances but they are a right pain with spore weapons!

  

The larger ork squad eventually engaged a  squat squad in combat and was eventually defeated. But after the middle of the battleground battle with the snots, the rhino proceeded to drive up and down over the squat almost obliterating them all. The remaining squats used their krak grenade on it, immobilising it and rendering it all but useless. 

  Meanwhile the remaining nobs (and humie advisor) legged it to the building and engaged in a prolonged combat with the heavy weapon squats. We called it a night at one point at which time there were only two nobz and the stationary rhino on my side and about 5 squats on the other.

  All in all good fun but the vehicle turning rules are very clunky!

  

Blood Axe Warband Update - Oddboyz and Snotlings

One unit I really wanted to include in the army was Snotlings. The thought of them being turned crazy by being hurtled through warp and throwing some smackdown on a space marine within his terminator armour was, and still is, quite funny.

  For this I need a Shokk Attack Gun and to have that I need a Mekboy while the little guys need a Runtherd to be allowed to be taken, it all coming together in a beautiful kind of way.

I acquired most of the snotlings from the talented Mr Rusty Painting. I painted the snotlings in brighter colours than the rest of my Ork force, as I didn't want them to be dwarfed simply because of their size and figured Warp transit does strange things to one's colouring.

One of the snotlings got so scared by his journey he couldn't control his bowels.

Keeping these guys in check is the Runtherd. 

I've decided each oddboy type will get its own signature colour and this one gets a brownish-yellow colour that reminiscent of an explorer's get up. This synchs with my vision of runtherdz as collectors and organisers of strange creatures rather than slave drivers.

Mekboyz get a blue uniform reminiscent of the jumpsuits car mechanics wear (which made sense in my head at least) This sculpt is woefully underestimated in my opinion - just looks at the detail of the gubbins on the gun - it has an egg timer, a tap and all sorts. As my fiancé pointed out it's really steampunk! 

The contraption looks like something the Doctor would assemble from odds and sods lying around in the Tardis. I imagine the Mekboy follows the same MO but probably doesn't know how the resulting machine works. It just does....

Until next time...

Blood Axe Warband Update - Completion and Vehicles

It's with great pleasure I can announce my Blood Axe Ork warband is complete in time for BOYL. And with a week to spare!

I'm quite proud as it's a bit of milestone for me as I have never created a force from scratch with a deadline, more just pottered around growing a force organically as I see fit.

Sometimes it's hard going painting units especially so if the troops are uninspiring and uniform - but not so with this one. You may have noticed around 70% of the figures have been sculpted by the Goblinmaster Kev Adams that being the reason did not have this problem at all. His humorous and 'humanisation' of Orks breathes a new life into painting making it effortless. These greenskins have a variety of moods. They are bored, bemused, smug,  mischievous - none of the universal violent rage you often see in Ork models.

If you'd like to see the Goblinmaster in action himself he will be sculpting faces by request for charity at BOYL this Saturday. Something surely not be missed! There's more detail about this on Orlygg's excellent blog here.

Over the next few days I'll be showcasing the different characters and units of the force but right now I need to confess I had a big helping hand from Mustafa Bekir of Pantheon of Chaos fame. The land raider at the back is the centre piece and if its design seems slightly unfamiliar it's because he scratch built it only using materials from the 100¥ shop!

The construction of it is magnificent and really catches the sense that it has been kept running by being patched up after being stolen from an Imperial force. The painting complements it's battered design perfectly.

I'd already base coated my own Rhino when this had arrived in the post from Japan. Once I saw this paint job I just had to try and replicate it! After applying Mustafa's recipe this was the result.

I think the two vehicles have a good consistency in style now. I even tried to paint the blood axe symbol and vehicle numbering by freehand to link them together.

Until the next instalment....

Blood Axe Ork warbike

Another edition to my little blood axe warband.

I'd picked this model up in a job lot in Oz with hundreds of other already (badly painted) mostly plastic miniatures. I decided not to strip this one as it was already painted close to the colours I had intended but this did mean many hours of removing mould lines on a painted miniature! I might think differently next time...

It's a second edition 40K ork plastic warbike, one of the few minis in this warband who I think wasn't sculpted by Goblinmaster, Kev Adams.

He's a bit smaller compared to many of the other minis but I like that he is bit overweight with his burgeoning pot belly. I need to add a flag to the pole on the back of the bike but first I need to make sure I get most of the rest of the warband done.

Blood Axe Orks Big Mob

  Sorry that I've been away for away too long ...

  Pesky real life got in the way in the form of buying a house. While I have been painting the setup at the new place in only slowly getting less chaotic and so hindering me from blogging about them or actually finding them!

  Anyway to make up for this here is a whole unit I've painted which is part of a Blood Axe Ork Army I'm preparing.

Here's pics of the unit split out:

And now altogether:

The army list is being drawn up using the rules from 'Ere We Go which is a supplement to Rogue Trader, the very ever first incarnation of what would become to be known as Warhammer 40K.

Each Ork Clan gets it's own list (a clan has it's own cultural identity) and the untrustworthy, human mimicking Blood Axes can employ humans and Ogryns in their number which attracted me due to the variety this allows me.

The army is being prepared for a Rogue Trader 'tournament' at Bring Your Own Lead in August (from the 5th to the 7th) which is probably the biggest 'Oldhammer' event in the UK. Like minded individuals play the games and field the figures of Games Workshop's golden past - it's not to be missed if you can get there.

http://bringoutyourlead.co.uk/

Mini Oldhammer Day

Yesterday there was a get together to be had and it was goooood. I've been in contact with Captain Crooks from the Oldhammer forum and he invited Count von Bruno also and we got together for a day of Gorkamorka, Heroquest and 2nd edition 40K goodness.

Gorkamorka was a blast. We went in with three gangs with a simple 'grab the scrap scenario'. My guys were all bikers with grots. It was made all the more entertaining by poor Von Bruno's driving - he charged his vehicle at the Captain's only to lose control at the lost moment, leaving his back end exposed to the Captain's flamers. There is a real atmosphere of chaotic fun to the game and I would definitely play again - my grot ended up driving the bike after its driver fell off and landed in the dirt...

Okay - next game we played was Heroquest (and this time I have pictures).

The mechanics were simple, ALL the miniatures were painted and the company was great (couple of extra participants for this one). Probably the most fun I had all day. Above is my friend's elf in a standoff with a little goblin - I can just imagine the Sergio Leone music as the camera flits between their eyes.

  My attention deficit disorder barbarian recklessly opening yet ANOTHER door..

And lastly a badly lit pic of the undead picking on the Count's dwarf while a goblin blocks the rest of the party from saving him...

Last up the Count and I had a small game of 2nd ed 40K - his Squats and Space Wolves versus my Chaos. I like the old lists - Chaos was not specific to marines with a smattering of demons and you could field beastmen (not that I had any..).

  

The troops march to war...

Trench warfare...

Needless to say I was trounced. My missile launcher did little to dent his space wolves and their returning bolter fire was ruthless leaving one man of the squad cowering behind a building. On the other hand the cultist's fight was rendered ineffectual by the squats' flame thrower as well as the commander's grenade throwing skills - it promptly went off in his own hand taking out a couple of members of his own squad, breaking their morale!

Yep I have done a little bit of painting since my last post. All this Oldhammer influence has induced me to go back to my Chaotic Warhammer fantasy 3rd edition roots. Much browsing of eBay has brought back nostalgia for the chaos thugs. And much to my surprise there were female ones. Well only two, but I am sure other ranges can fill out a jazzy Slaaneshy female chaos thug warband. 

  Here be the first..

Yep lets say the colour combo might hurt the eyes but this Slaanesh after all - this is what she/he/it would approve of!

  'Til next time...