A blog dedicated to my Warhammer 40k Ork army, as well as my other endevours: Dark Angels, Tau, and Orcs & Goblins. Modeling, converting, gaming, tactics and more!
So 2011 is coming to a close, and 2012 is fast approaching. It's that time again to reflect where you've been and look at the road ahead.
First, I found my camera. It was on my kid's table. Out in the open. I'm going blind faster then I thought lol.
I've been working on the last of my black orcs. Mainly because they are super fast and easy to paint. I have one left to do, which I will be doing for a tutorial on youtube.
I just need to varnish and base 6 of them.
Also been working on the copter, with the interior painted and glossed, waiting for decals. Also doing some gap filling with GW Liquid GS.
The group build which I'm doing the jeep for is halfway over. Need to bust out the rest of that sometime. Painting it will be pretty easy, everything is olive drab lol. Some washing, some details, some weathering and done.
So that is an update on where I'm at. I'll be both posting here and making videos about 2011 and 2012 in the next couple of days.
somehow my one and only camera with a decent macro focus has gone missing from Christmas photo taking. So I can't show off my work that I've been doing.
Painted the interior of the helicopter. Almost done with my Black Orcs. But no pics for now, sorry. It's really starting to piss me off, I want to put up pics!
Been working a lot on my SMA group build M151A2. Photoetched stuff is both fun and hard.
Also picked up a super cheap helicopter model I've started as well.
I'm saving my KFF mek for January and the start of the 2012 painting challenge.
Plus I've been super slammed at work, and with the other tech going on vacation I expect it to only get worse. Good thing I have to work on my birthday..
Well not like anyone can really relax during the holiday season.
But I finished up both the last 2 Night Goblins and my Battlescape, which was done for the freebootaz challenge. Pics to come soon on that. Until then, check out my videos on miniwargaming.
http://www.miniwargaming.com/channel/sorienor
Well now I'm in a low point in painting, with noting pressing I need to do. There is a lot of stuff I could do, though. I have a lot of Orcs and Goblins to assemble, I have a handful of 40k projects to do, which I sorta started in on with weathering some of the battlewagon. But I'm not sure I want to do much right now.
As a last hurrah of wargamming before holidays and family really kick in, I got to play in two tournaments this weekend. That's 7 games of warhammer!
First was a 1500pt 40k tournament at Other World Games, which is someplace I've never been before. This was not that great of a showing, going 0-3 with my battlewagon spam. I attribute a lot of my failures to the terrain and not being able to use my lootas pretty much at all.
I still had good opponents though, and the location was pretty convenient to get to so I might get out there more often. The highlight of the day was finding an Orcs & Goblins spell card set on the rack for retail, so I grabbed it not having to spend $20 on ebay.
Then Sunday was a 1250pt 4-round fantasy tournament. Top prize was an actual sword! This was the end of the escalation league I've been in since September and would help decide the winner.
My Orcs had a great showing going 2-1-1. The first 2 games I totally tabled my opponent, first one was lizardmen and the second was demons.
The first game pretty much ended on turn one. He dispelled my vindictive glare at a salamader unit, thinking that bad moon wouldn't reach him if I got it off. Well I rolled 17" for the distance, devastating his main unit of skinks/kroxigors. It killed 17 of them the first time, then he failed the panic test and fled through it again, killing a few more. It did rally later but by then it was too late. My chariots killed off the skirmishers, shooting killed off the salamanders and by the time the kroxigors got to hit my big'uns it was too late.
Second game was called "master mage" where you got loremaster and added up to 3 ranks to your spellcasting. Combined with magic mushrooms my mage was simply unstoppable. I chose the way overpowered lore of life as did my opponent. I was able to pretty handily take him out in hand-to-hand once I got there, especially with T8 Orcs with a 4+ regen. Say it slowly..toughness eight orcs...
Third game against skaven. Never played skaven before. Didn't go well at first for either of us. First shot from the doom diver wrecked itself, and casting bad moon I blew up my wizard and the archers fled as a result. On his side he did 3 wounds to his own doom wheel after moving too far to do anything. A chariot impact hit finished off it's last wound. However my bad moon never went away, and all the scatter dice fell in my favor. Bad moon and the mangler took a unit of 50 slaves down to 3 models, both hitting it at least twice. The spiders finished off that unit with bows.
The best moment of that game was when I went to charge a unit of skaven. The slaves were dead, the other unit with grey seer was well out of position. So I tried to hit the other unit with my big'uns, a chariot and the spiders all at once. Well the chariot blew it self up on terrain and the spiders rode the river off the table..and the big'uns got slaughtered! Still ended in a tie however ..
Last game against Dark Elves. Two units of corsairs with lots of shooting. This was a brutal back and forth game. He put a unit of scouts in a building, and my spiders were close and charged them first turn, eventually taking them out! I actually got use their rule lol! His hydra breathed 20 goblins off the table but they held. It was looking pretty good, but I went for it all at the bottom of the last turn and grabbed defeat from the jaws of victory (or tie anyway). My wizard blew himself up casting, and I charged in just 7 corsairs with my last 7 biguns, lost 5 to stand and shoot, and then failed to kill them off, losing the whole unit of big'uns (and 302 points) in the process. I would have been better off doing nothing, but as they say go big or go home! In this case I went home...lol.
That last move dropped me from 3rd to 4th place overall. Considering I wasn't expecting to win a single game, I was extremely happy with the outcome. Of course I have to give most of the credit to generally favorable dice rather then my own tactical genius..
I was really hoping for best painted but fell just short there as well, getting 2nd in 2 of the 3 painting categories.
I also ended up 2nd overall in the league.
I now consider myself the Salieri of Warhammer fantasy...
My first new Ork model since the buggy last summer. I wanted a 2nd KFF mek but with a PK. I started a very long time ago with an AoBR nob body and was going to scratch build a KFF but nothing I came up with I liked. So I picked up a Finecast KFF mek and just used the KFF off it.
Busted out wire, watch parts and other stuff tonight to finish it up.
I've always hated metal minis. They are hard to work with, hard to clean the mold lines especially where files don't fit, hard to keep the paint on during years of play and finally very hard to convert.
Finecast has none of these issues. Especially the converting part. Sure, finecast has it's own issues, that's for sure. Mainly when it breaks on very fine details.
First it has to be said that the quality has really gone up. I picked up a finecast KFF mek this week only to have it nearly flawless, with 2 tiny bubbles in the whole thing (one of which I didn't even see at first). I am putting the kff itself on a Black Reach Nob to be my PK Mek (vs a burna on the other one) and finecast really makes the conversion so easy.
The last 2 finecast models were equally well made, those being a Dante and a Black Orc Boss.
Remember it does not matter when you buy the model, but when it was made. Later castings are vastly improved.
So much GW hate on Youtube lately. Maybe I'm just a fanboy and don't realize it, but I still love GW games, I still buy their stuff and still love going out and playing whenever possible.
Which brings me to skirmish games like Malifaux. Sorry, not interested. I like putting 100+ models I've painted on the table. Playing a game with 5 models and no customization has zero interest to me. At that point might as well just play fucking Monopoly.
Here are the pics from the second chariot. I added the chain. I tried to kill the shiny with paint, pigments and matte varnish with moderate success. Painting chain isn't fun.
Finished the 2nd chariot and the last 2 boys from the unit with two hand weapons. More and better pics to follow, but I wanted one more post in November..;)
Ugh it's been a whole week for a post? wow I'm slacking. Not just here either!
Lots have been going on, that's for sure. First I was approved into the miniwargaming partner program beta, and have already made a new video just for MWG. We'll see how that works out over time.
Wednesday was open play instead of a league night because of the holiday, so I got in a 2k game with my Orcs & Goblins. I wasn't too impressed with the Orc Shaman, maybe because I'm too use to magic mushrooms. Talk about an amazing ability!!! A couple of dice rolls went against me, resulting in a complete tabling of the Orcs vs my cousins tomb kings. Not much to say about the game, manglers and bad moon ripped stuff up, but failing a re-rolled LD8 stubborn test with my big'uns really turned the game against me.
I've had a few real-life things get in the way. Mostly thanksgiving of course, but also spent some time trying to fix my PVR/Bedroom tv and getting some stuff on ebay. Meh. It's ok I was kinda burned out on painting anyway.
What spare time I have had, I used on my Jeep project over at SMA. It's coming along nicely, and It's quite the change of pace from wargamming stuff.
So ya that's about it. I've been working on the last 2 guys for my big block of 2 hand weapon Orcs and on the second chariot. I hope to get both done before Sunday, I'll be painting during the Civil War..Go Ducks!
I needed a model to paint for the 40k radio forums challenge, and didn't have anything myself that was ready to go...other then the stormraven and no way I was going to get that done. So I bummed my cousin's Disciples of Caliban Master of the Ravenwing and painted it up for him. The only thing I didn't do is line highlights on the green, and that's because I wanted it to match the rest of his army. If he gets around to doing highlights on the rest of the models, I'll go back and do this. At least is has some nice shading.
Finished 6th with a record of 2-1-1. Nothing I could have done in the 2nd game would have turned the tide I think, and I needed some luck in the 3rd game (aka another turn) to turn that from a tie to a win.
Overall I'm very happy with how the army plays. This list really requires more time investment to figure out some of the finer details. Ghazzy is simply a beast, just killing everything he touches. I'm going to stick with the Kan wall for the next few weeks, as I am still learning that list as well.
I was worried about not being able to reach anything when Ghazzy comes on. That really does not seem like much of a problem, considering you have a 18" possible charge range from all edges of the board. If everything the opponent has isn't in range, that means they sit in a box in the middle in loota and shooa range. Speed? I thought the lack of speed would be an issue. Speed isn't really needed when you cover half the table in models to start with..
Guardian Cup time! Tomorrow is a 1750pt, 4-round tournament called The Guardian Cup, held at Guardian Games in Portland. I was really undecided on what to play, right up to the last second. I could either play Orks and try to win, or play Blood Angels and try for best painted.
I decided to go with Orks. Even then I couldn't decide what to play! I went back and forth between a paired-down version of my normal list, or something a bit different. In the end I decided 4 nob bikers wasn't good enough, so I went with a completely new approach..
HQ: Ghazzy
HQ: Mek, Cybork, KFF
Troop: 20 Sluggas, nob w/PK&BP
Troop: 30 Shootas, 3x rokkit, nob w/PK&BP
Troop: 30 Shootas, 3x rokkit, nob w/PK&BP
Troop: 15 Grots + Runtherd
Elite: 13 Lootas
Elite: 13 Lootas
Elite: 14 Kommandos, 1x Burna + Snikrot
Heavy: 3x Lobbas, 3x ammo runts
Yep, I'm going to try the Ghazzy + snikrot thing. Untested. In a tournament lol.
I was thinking just a normal warboss, which would have meant more boys, but fearless is just too good to pass up. I keep thinking about what I could see, and simply put Ghazzy should completely wreck face as long as he actually makes it on the table. The only army I might not put him in reserve is against DE..they don't tend to sit on the table edge too much.
We'll see what happens. What I'm really worried about is not having enough cash on hand to make sure I have enough food/water for the day..it's going to be a LONG day. Such is life. Maybe I'll take some MT:G cards in to get a few bucks. :)
So I got a chance to really read the new codex, and unlike a lot of previous releases, I'm confused.
Nothing in the codex seems completely cut and dry. Unlike Venoms or DCA's, which are obviously amazing just by looking at them, very little in the necron codex screams "gotta have". However just hovering below the surface I feel like there are combos in there that will break out and really produce an army of high caliber. I keep digging, but can't quite put my finger on it.
As far as Orks go, it looks good. There is nothing in there that ignores cover, very little shooting that is ID for nob bikers, and of course entropic strike does nothing to Ork boys (unlike poor GK terminators).
The downside is the same as before..all that glancing has a good chance to stop Ork transports due to the open-topped. But that is nothing new, only the Necrons have more of it.
Two of the big combos in there is the constant night fight and making everything dangerous terrain. The first is no biggie for mostly assault armies, but will shut down lootas for the most part. The latter won't hurt battlewagon spam, but could potentially kill a lot of boys. Smart play is required there.
Video soon on the subject. Ya I know I keep promising GK and DE talks too, but I have Orcs to paint..:)
..to be able to paint a boy after the contest in June. I got this stuff down now, so it does not take very long .
Going to be working on a few more boys and a 40k project in the next week or so.
The cap to the fantasy escalation league is a 1250pt tournament. That is what I'm aiming for, both painting and gaming. The list I'm planning on as of right now:
Lord: Night Goblin Great Shaman, Talisman of preservation
Hero: Orc Big Boss, shield, Gambler's armor, Ironcurse Icon
Hero: Black Orc Boss, BSB
Core: 28 boys, extra hand weapon, big 'uns, full command, Lichebone pennant
Core: 10 Spider Riders, bows, musician
Core: 30 Night Goblins, bows, musician
The icon and pennant gives the big block of boys a 6+ ward against warmachine and magic, which should allow a few more models to make it into combat. I wanted to take a dispell scroll but just couldn't work it in, unless I drop 10 night goblins. I like it. I was sold on Black Orcs but the big'uns are just as good for 3/4 the points.
Finished the BSB! What I need to do is figure out what to put on my banners. I need to come up with a symbol for my icy orcs. I'm thinking Gork and Mork split by an icicle. Not sure if I'm up to that though.
Continuing to expand and plan with the Orcs and Goblins.
This time I built the base of the first Doom Diver Ski Jump. Pretty basic stuff, just traced out a frame on paper, cut the wood to fit and glued together. Had to wet and clamp down the balsa ramp. The goblin turned out perfect. Had to reposition and pin a foot, pin the rocket and fix some missing rope. The skis are just plasticard with green stuff straps. Made a ski pole out of brass rod and plasticard.
Just detail left. Need to add rivets to all the joints in the wood. Some rocks or something on the base, then finally need to come up with crew for it. I might have to break down and buy a goblin regiment so I have enough models for everything I need to do.
I post this in the form of a question because let's face the facts: ork vehicles are not very good. The trukk isn't cheap enough any more (it was fine at 35pts vs a 50pt Rhino) but needs to be cheaper now that other transports are cheaper. Not to mention just how fragile it is. The battlewagon is just over priced as well, despite the AV14 front. If it had more stock wargear for the 90pts, then sure but having a naked box for that price is hard to justify. The only vehicles that are any good are Kans.
Which is why I've been playing without vehicles for a long time.
In fact, I've only played 4 games with Ork vehicles in a year. In fact this battle report was the last time I even played Kans:
The other 3 games were at a tournament, that, to be honest, does not usually have the highest level of players. I figured I would have fun with triple battlewagons and took 2nd, losing by 1 point.
But I figured my painted Jet Battlewagon deserved some table time.
I forgot my list so I had to right it out at game time. Usually I ran one unit of 12 Lootas but somehow came up points short so I added 3 lootas and split them up. Not sure if I like this configuration. With 1 big unit, they can only hit 1 target but can take a whole lot more shooting.
In the tournament the meganobz didn't do anything. Usually if their ride gets popped, they end up pinned and thus sitting ducks. This game however they actually did something, killing a razorback and the dudes inside. Not bad. Of course a missed melta shot sure helped.
I know Adepticon 2nd place was battlewagon spam. Still not convinced of the viability of this army style. It seems to me the basic strategy of this list is not rolling under a 4 for a turn...
Made some progress on the battlewagon. Over the hairspray I sprayed on Vallejo model color Red, followed by highlights of bloody red and light red. With all the various panels and areas sprayed, I have about 4 hours of airbrush work in at this stage.
Really not as much left as it would seem. A few more details like the dashboard and pole on the turret, then lots of paint chipping (but not as much as say the buggy or flakkatrukk) and some other weathering.
But it's pretty low priority now. Need to work on O&G, either paint or assembly but I would like to make some good progress on that army.
Also picked up another project (wtf is wrong with me) joining a group build at the SMA forums. Picked up this great little kit for $11.
I have until February to finish it, so I'm thinking about picking up some photo etched brass for it.
Ya I started on my battlewagon for the Freeboota challenge. The driver is done, and I've done the base coat, rust and hairspray on the model. I have a tourney on Saturday so I'll be just getting it to the minimum for gold..which pretty much I already am.
I am going to be airbrushing red on the whole thing, then highlighting individual panels with lighter colors. I won't be pulling off a lot of paint for the rust, but I did the whole model anyway. The only thing that will be really rusty is the deffrolla.
So not a lot of Orc progress this week because of this project. Hopefully I'll have the chance to make a new Grot painting video in HD this time using the rigger model. Depends on how tired I am Saturday night.
First I got my prize from the SMA spring contest, my buggy got 3rd in it's category! But I need to buy an adapter to fit the Badger brush on my airhose. bummer. I was going to use it on my battlewagon this weekend. Oh well.
Next built my first polar bear chariot. Went so much faster then I thought. only took a couple hours. It's getting primer soon.
I just don't have many 40k projects left, literally like 5 models to do plus redoing my stormboyz. It feels weird. But I do have tones of O&G left to build much less paint.
Making good progress on my spider riders. Need to varnish, then get out the snow and ice. I really wanted all 10 done by now, but hobby time is greatly reduced with school starting, since I have to get up so early to get the kids out the door.
I've been playing in an escalation league for Fantasy, so I've been playing a lot. Starting at small games, I got 3 in last week! Once thing I can say, is that WHFB has a lot more rules in general then 40k, it's not that it's more complex per se, but it just has more rules lol.
Next week is 850pts, and a special rule were you have a "master mage" which you pick a caster that has loremaster and other special rules. I still only have 1 caster, so he gets to be it!
My list for the week:
General: Orc Big Boss, Shield, Great weapon
Hero: Night Goblin Shaman, Level 2, Talisman of protection
Core: 19 Night Goblins, Bows, musician
Core: 29 Boys, extra hand weapon, full command
Core: 10 Goblin Spider Riders
Special: Troll
Special: 14 Black Orcs, full command
