Space Ork Super-attack Onslaughter Dreadnought

I've been very slowly building up a small Rogue Trader era Space Ork force, you can see the first ten painted minis here.

I'm not really collecting them for any reason, other than the sheer joy of revisiting my younger days, and I've no real goals. But one thing I really wanted was one of the original Ork Dreadnoughts. There's something so impractical about the design that I find really appealing, I mean, how does it even walk? It must need to swing from side to side, making accurate shooting nearly impossible. Mind you, these are Orks (though the BS of the Dreadnaught is surprisingly high).

They do crop up occasionally on evilbay, but always at a much higher price than I can justify.  I've seen some that I swear must have been built around a Faberge egg, so I had accepted that there would be a Dreadnaught shaped hole in my Space Ork force.

A Lucky find

But when recently browsing the FLGS (the same one where I got the Space Marine bits shown here) I saw this on the rack 

This is the Dreadnaught with the expansion kit added. It comes with a Heavy Flamer and a Heavy Plasma Gun, because in those days, orks used the same weaponry as the Imperium. It is missing a few bits though, the Gretchin pilot, the banner pole, and most significantly, one of the weapon mount arms.

Dreadnought - Seeks arm

Still, I bought it, hoping to cobble something together for the missing arm.

Then next day I found this on eBay, and for a reasonable price too (£3.50 plus postage*).

Not one but two weapon mount arms, and a lascannon

Now I have a complete enough Dreadnaught to build and paint, and a spare Lascannon. I might even magnetise the weapons so that I can swap them out.

Now this wasn't as cheap as when originally released (£3.50 for the basic Dreadnaught and another £2.50 for the expansion pack), but I consider it a good purchase, and, perhaps, a little reward for clearing out so much stuff recently.

Painting it (eventually)

I need to strip the new arm and the lascannon, and, as I mentioned, I'll look at making the weapons swapable.  I may even extend this to the one Ork with Heavy Weapon, in his case, a Missile Launcher.  I'm not sure what colour scheme to go for though.  The original models, both in White Dwarf etc and, IIRC my own, tneded to wards bright reds an similar.  It might be nice, given the khaki on my ten Raiders, to go for a similar sort of colour, it being Armour after all.  If you've any suggestions, please leave a comment.

I don't seem to be doing much painting at the moment, various other things, both hobby and otherwise, are taking up my time, but I'd like to get this done fairly soon. There are a few more infantry I'll paint first though, as I have a vague plan for my Space Orks.

*I'm baffled by this. Individual arm mounts sell for upwards of £8, and I've seen Lascannon fetch over £10. It does all seem to be genuine stuff.

More Crimson Fists

When I painted the first squad of Crimson Fists I mentioned that I was hunting for the missile launcher in the 'loft of shame '. Well there's been no sign of any more marines up there, so I was pretty much resigned to never completing them. They are available on evilbay, but they command very high prices, far above what I can currently justify.  So it looked like this project was at a dead end.

Discovery

Recently I was browsing a box of second hand minis in my FLGS* and found the following;

Three more partial RTB01 marines, including a missile launcher and a flamer (originally glued on to the arm of the newer metal marine bottom right). I've got plenty of the bits needed to complete them, so now I can assemble enough Crimson Fists for The Battle at the Farm. But I'll strip them first.

Stripping Plastic Minis

If you read my posts on stripping, I'm using Dettol as its far kinder to plastic.  Unlike the earlier trials I'm leaving the minis in the Dettol for several days, before dunking in washing up liquid for a day or two longer, then after scrubbing clean (and it gets the paint off very nicely), in Isopropanol, to make sure that all the Dettol etc is gone. 

I have heard that methylated spirit is also a good solution, but I've yet to try it. For now I'll stick to what I know.

Not More Marines?

Given my previous post discussing selling off minis, it may seem ironic talking about getting more. Well I have a double defence. I'll be sorting through Warhammer 40K stuff soon, and that means getting rid of a lot of the more modern Space Marines. Also this post was actually started some while ago, so the purchase of the above was long before the current cull and they are all stripped and cleaned up ready for assembly and painting.

These original RTB01 Space Marines are definite keepers for me, or at least, a tactical squad of them are. I may well sell off any surplus, though they are such fun to paint.

*Actually, one of three in Huddersfield, though it's my favourite.

Rogue Trader Ork Raiders

To go with the RTB01 Crimson Fists I'm painting up a small force of the original metal Space Orks.  I had loads of these back in the day, but sold them off when I dropped out of 40K.  I subsequently bought more of the then current plastic ranges when I ran school Warhammer clubs, hence a lot of the Orks I painted here and here.

Classic Sculpts

But there's something about the early orks, especially the Ork Raiders box RTB02, that I find missing in the more modern ones (I'm ignoring the first lot of plastic Orks, horrible).  A evilbay purchase of more modern random ork bits included one of the originals, some lucky extra purchases added to that one, and now I have close on enough for the Battle At The Farm from the original Warhammer 40 000 rulebook.

Some of these metal orks were test subjects for my paint stripping experiments starting here.

The full unit of ten

I was tempted to go full old school with these, even down to Goblin Green bases with sand texture, but I decided to use my current method of orc/ork painting, perhaps with a little more detail.  After all, I'm not painting a full army, just my small collection, and I can stop buying more off eBay any time I like, honest.

Painting

I used three different skin tones as normal.  Cloth, such as trousers were basecoated Vallejo Game Color Khaki and highlighed VGC Bonewhite.  The padded armour and belts, pouches etc was basecoated VGC Desert Yellow and highlighted VGC Khaki, and the foot wraps (is there a technical term for those?) were basecoated VGC Earth and highlighted with VGC Khaki.

The shoulder armour was painted as metal (VGC Gunmetal Metal, black wash, reset with Gunmetal)  Little details were picked out as seemed appropriate at the time.  Everything was then given a wash of 50:50 Army Painter Strongtone and Softtone.  I think there must have been some issue with the wash as once dry the result was a lot darker than I was expecting.  Still, it's on now, and I'm pretty happy with the result.

Orks after the wash

Extra Details

But I wanted to go a step further with these.  They are special to me after all - these Space Orc Raiders were the first WH40K minis I ever painted.

So I added some extra highlights to bring out the detail.  Drybrushing some of the highlight colours over the wash helped a lot, and counteracted the darker colour.  I also painted the shoulder pads to look like they were taken from fallen Crimson Fist Space Marines.  I stippled some Vallejo Model Color Dark Prussian Blue roughly on the pads.  Then a little highlighting with VGC Ultramarine.  I approximated the Crimson Fist Chapter symbol, though perhaps a little small compared to the real thing.  The scratches in the pads were painted in black, then a thin line of Chainmail Silver in the gouges.

Shoulder pads stolen from the Crimson Fists.  OK, realistically, probably taken from the fallen.

Adding a Sprig of Thyme Time

At this point I liked the result, but I felt there was something missing.  On my wife's advice I put them away for a couple of months, and recently brought them out, looked more critically at them, and decided they were quite good enough.  

So then it was a case of varnishing and basing to match the Space Marines.  I mixed up my varnishes, so they got a first coat of Satin varnish.  It's fine, but I don't know if this will affect the durability of the finish.  

I based the Crimson Fists using Geek Gaming's Patchy Plains Base Ready mix, but I've mislaid it (or more likely, I used it all up).  I mixed my own though, a combination of sieved sand, coarser gravel and some flock, and I'll use this on future Rogue Trader Orks.

Future Plans

So the first batch is done. Ten Ork Raiders. Eight are from the original RTB02 box, and I've added a couple of different poses to act as squad leaders. In the original battle, the Orks are fielded in squads of five, each led by a leader*. I've got more Space Orks to add to the collection, next up will be another ten, but including some special and heavy weapons, allowing me to field two squads of ten, each including a Heavy Bolter and a Flamer.  I'm looking for a couple of particular sculpts that would allow me to have each mini in a squad unique, but I'll make do with a few duplicates for now.

One squad of five

And another squad

* If you've read my post on card counters you can just make out the counter for the Ork squad leaders is clearly based on one of these models, so I've chosen him to lead a squad of five troopers.

The squad leader from the Battle At The Farm counters

3ITC - Bultha's Farm - Walls and Texturing

Once I'd drawn the plans I cut the walls out of pink XPS using my Proxxon. I cut the edges to 45°, easy to do by setting the wire at the required angle.

Then I textured the outside of each piece first using a Green Stuff World textured roller. I find it benefits from deepening the mortar lines, to see where I'd gone (and so it shows up better on photos) I used a black biro. Once this was done I used a ball of kitchen foil to add a rough stone texture. Finally I used a pen top to push some of the stones in a bit. This more uneven surface gives a more natural look.

For the insides of the walls I wanted a rendered finish, but with some of the render missing, exposing the stonework beneath. I cut a thin irregular strip from the inside, the exposed surface was then textured with a pen to show the stonework.  I didn't even try to match the placement of stones on the outside; the walls are two stones wide with a gap in between.

I added a strip of XPS to the interior walls to support the upper floor.  I also added strips of cable tie to the inside of the door frames to give a more Sci Fi look.  I considered doing the same to the windows, but the ties I had looked too bulky.  If I find some thinner ones I may still do this.  I imagine the ridged texture represents some sort of field emitter, perhaps to keep out dust?  And yes, I am totally using this in my Tatooine builds.

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The doors themselves will be long gone of course.  For basing I used the thick plastic sheeting used for signs.  It's my first time with this stuff; so far it seems strong and is easy to cut and sand smooth.  I'll use it for the damaged upper floor as well, probably carving in some sort of texture.

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I wasn't sure about the floor and tried both card and balsa (floorboards) but neither looked quite right; too 'fantasy'.  Finally I cut a thin piece of XPS for the floor, cut out some damage and textured it with the foil ball.  This seems more what I was thinking of.  I'll add some rubble, but the model has to work as a gaming piece, so the floor has to be clear and level enough for minis to stand up in it.

Next I will give everything a coat of mod podge and black paint (I may add some greebles first) then it's on to painting.  I'm not adding the roof or the upper floor until the bulk of the painting is done, but I'll get them cut out and textured soon.

3ITC - Bultha's Farm - Mock-Up

Once I'd decided how the ruin would look, I decided I'd build a mock-up to play around with size and shape.  If you've seen some of my previous builds (the Tavern and the Dwarf huts) you'll know I like to do this to help with any tricky or experimental pieces.  Since the ruined farm is pretty much me making it up as I go, the mock-up was a must.
I cut the drinking chocolate container into half, so I have two pieces, one for a future project.  I used corrugated cardboard for the walls.  This is simply to allow me to experiment with shape and the height of the ruined walls, and to see how practical an area of upper floor would be, there was no attempt to make a practical model (the walls on the final model will be much thicker, for example).

I first tried walls of 100mm height.  I thought this might look a bit too tall for a farmhouse (as I imagine it), and I was right.

100mm high walls - too tall

So I cut them down to 50mm high; much better.  The proportions now seem about right to me.  This pretty much matches the radius of the container, so that works nicely for the upper floor.

50mm high walls - much better

Next I sketched in the shape of the ruined walls and cut them out once I was happy with them. Despite the description stating that the walls were all about 1.5m high I kept one corner at full height.  This gives a more interesting ruin and allows me to have a small section of upper floor to give a firing platform.

Six marines fit easily inside the ruin, the sixteen given for the battle should just about do it.

A better idea of how much space is in the building.

Note the pencilled in door

Using the upper floor for better lines of sight.  

I'm pleased with the look of the mock up.  I like the shape and proportions of the building, and the placement and size of windows and doors (one at each end, just shaded in on the mock up).  That gives me a pattern to cut the walls.  

I drew a plan to help me when I come to cutting the XPS.

Very faint plan

I'll make the walls out of 10 mm thick XPS.  I'll cut the roof to shape once the rest of the ruin is built.  I'm including a 5mm 'hip' on each side of the roof, though this will only be evident on one corner of the front, the rest is missing.  This gives a base for the edge of the roof, and I imagine there was some sort of guttering to collect water.

Next, cutting and texturing the XPS, and making the basic building.

3ITC - Bultha's Farm - Planning

The 3ITC isn't going well.  Real life has interfered, in both positive and negative ways.  But I am determined to make a start, and I've gone for the ruined farmstead from The Battle At The Farm from the original Rogue Trader Warhammer 40 000 rulebook.

The (horribly unbalanced) scenario has fifteen marines plus the chapter master holed up in a ruined farmstead.  The map names a nearby hill as 'Bultha's Rise', so I'm calling the farmstead Bultha's Farm.

There's not a lot to go on in the book, in fact, in the spirit of keeping it accessible, the photos use the ruin from Bloodbath at Orc's Drift.  I'd like my version to look a little more Sci Fi though.

The map of the battle site

A suggested table layout

The text reads "The farm lies in ruins following the initial assault some days earlier. The main building has survived only as a shell of broken walls about 1.5 metres high, it is built of stone. Outhouses and cattle pens exist only as low stone walls."

Not much to go on, but that gives me plenty of room for my own interpretation.  There's no real guide to the size of the building.  The very nicely detailed map lacks a scale, the text suggests the table is 6ft x 4ft, but that makes the scenario even more difficult for the Orks, marching across a lot of open terrain towards 16 Space Marines in cover.  The photograph suggests that the table size is smaller, that ruin is no more than about 4 inches on its longest side, making the whole compound somewhere close to 12 inches across.  so I'm going to have to interpret (make it up as I go along).

I'll stick to a rectangular shape, but as a nod to the Orc's Drift ruin I'll have a small section of roof remaining, possibly even with sufficient of the first floor to provide a firing platform. Most of the walls will be lower, around 30mm, with a couple of doorways and maybe sills where there were once windows.

I wanted a different roof to the sort I usually build, and decided that a curved section might look good, rather like the 20mm Tatooine building I did here.  I wanted to use some of the plastic trunking you see on building sites, the ribbed section looks great.  However, I couldn't source any, so I'm using a drinking chocolate container for the roof.  Although I'll be hacking it up to make the ruined roof, I'll be keeping the footprint of the building the same as the tin.  I may someday make a non ruined version.

The walls will be XPS pink foam, textured to represent the stone walls.  I'll pile some rubble around the walls, but not too much, I want to be able to place minis in it.

If time permits I'll also make some matching walls.  I have some old 'Platformer' terrain with some nice looking bits that I think would look good on the top of stone walls, though most of the walls will be partially ruined.

So those are my plans, and I've just got a post in about them before the May deadline.  Next month I'd better start building, beginning with a card mock-up.

More Crimson Fists

The first Crimson Fist Space Marine that I painted here was by way of a test mini. Now I've got enough done for a squad of five plus Pedro Cantor, the Crimson Fist Chapter Master.

I used pretty much the same method as before, but I did add some extra shading with a mix of black and blue ink, slightly watered down, and carefully run into the shadows.  I also added some extra metallic detailing on the backpack, mostly to add a bit of colour interest. 

I've also applied transfers from an old sheet I found. I rarely use transfers, and have poor experience of them on Space Marines shoulder pads. Following YouTube suggestions I invested in some Microset and Microsol, recommended to get the best out of water slide transfers. 

Well, that helped, but after several coats of Microsol the transfers were a bit 'battle-scared'.  I wanted the symbol to be on a yellow background in any case, so out with the fine brushes and I ended up painting over the transfers.  Whilst not a great result, it'll do.  I suspect that if I ever get around to painting later versions of Space Marines with their larger shoulder pads, the transfers will go on better. 

Once done, the whole lot was sealed when I matt varnished the minis.

I chose yellow for the eyes rather than green, and added weapon glyphs on the shoulder pads too.  Back in the day, Marines had a smaller symbol below the chapter symbol to show what weapon they were equipped with (just in case you couldn't see).  This is a nice idea, but the symbols in the Rogue Trader book don't cover all options, egregiously they don't even cover the options available in the RTB01 box.  I did simplify things a bit, it's supposed to be a circle with a vertical line, I made do with just a dot.

I also added a bit of 'graffiti'.  The original illustrations of Space Marines show them with insignia, kill markings and mottos painted on their armour, so I went with a couple of examples.

Pedro Cantor with one third of his remaining chapter

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Cantor with the infamous 'Cantor Crush' power fist

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Once again, a fun project.  The faffing around with the transfers meant it took a lot longer than I wanted though, but at least I'll know what to do next time.  I may add some extra details; in particular, I'd like something fancy on Cantor's right shoulder pad.  The rulebook has a nice looking veteran mark, perhaps that would do?  I did try a wreath around the fist symbol, but it looked awful, so I painted over it.

BTW, I have a new phone, so the photos show truer colours, compare the marines above with the post of the original one.  I'm still learning how to get the best out of it, but it should improve the quality of the pictures. 

Rogue Trader Crimson Fists

And now for something completely different.

Me, painting Space Marines.  Whatever next?

For reasons I don't fully understand, I have started putting together the forces to play Battle At The Farm from the original Rogue Trader Warhammer 40 000 rulebook.  I still have a lot of the original plastic Space Marines from the RTB01 box, many of them very badly painted. A dunk in Dettol stripped the paint off, and I was ready to paint.

As in the original (hideously unbalanced) scenario, the Marines are going to be the Crimson Fists.  It's certainly a chapter worth collecting, as there are only a handful left.  The battle requires fifteen ordinary marines, including one with a missile launcher, and the Chapter Master, Pedro Cantor, equipped with two bolt pistols and a power fist.  All doable from the original box set of plastics (though I believe a special Pedro Cantor model was made, he is the Chapter Master after all).  If I ever actually play the game I might reduce this to ten marines, in two squads of five, with Cantor to lead them.  I'll begin with a test mini  to see if I can do any better than I did nearly 35 years ago.

I've watched many YouTube videos showing different painting methods.  All agree that the blue needs to be darker than Ultramarines.  There is even a GW paint colour especially for the Crimson Fists, Kantor Blue, but I'm using Vallejo Model Color Prussian Dark Blue as a close enough match.

The mini was primed black (Vallejo Surface Primer, brushed on).  Once cured, I drybrushed the mini in white, paying especial attention to the upper portions, to give a zenithal effect.  

Zenithal highlights, honest (not a statue used by many pigeons)

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Then I gave the armour a heavy drybrush of VMC Prussian Dark Blue.  With the zenithal highlights this gave a good effect, but I want the armour to have more definition, so next I used Vallejo Game Color Ultramarine to edge highlight the armour.  The original style of armour is more smooth flowing; there are some sharp edges, but far fewer than on more recent Marine armour types.

Then it's on to the details.  The left hand was painted in VGC Gory Red and highlighted with VGC Bloody Red.  The boltgun was painted in VGC Gunmetal Metal, given a black wash and then an edge highlight with VGC Chainmail.  A mix of black wash and VGC Gunmetal Metal was used for the pipework on the front of the armour (not easy to see with the gun held in front, but it's there), details on the backpack and the belt. The eye lenses were VGC Livery Green.  I tried painting the studs on the left shoulder pad in VGC Glacier Blue, but it looked scrappy, so I repainted them in black and then dotted in the studs with the Glacier Blue, which was better, but the model itself isn't great with the studs; I can see why later armour models lost this feature.

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Once painted, I gloss varnished the marine, prior to trying to paint the various insignia.  I then painted the right shoulder pad again and decided to resort to a sheet of Space Marine decals I found.  I'm waiting for some Microsol/set to do the job properly.  I think I'll widen the red stripe on the helmet a bit too.

The final varnish was a thin coat of satin.  Basing was using Geek Gaming's Patchy Plains Base Ready mix and I added a tuft for interest.

My phone camera has given the mini a brighter look than in real life (I tried to correct it on one of the photos).  Also the edge highlighting has been partly lost, mostly in the drybrushing stage.  The zenithal highlights work better with inks, but they have had some effect, and I'll continue to do this step with the rest of the marines, probably more so.  I'll also exaggerate the edge highlights on future models.

This has been fun, mostly from a nostalgia point of view.  If I'm being honest, this is the only marine I've ever painted to completion.  Using the above method I can paint more and I'll be happy with the results.  Now all I need is some micro sol and micro set to make a good job of the transfers, and find whatever box my RTB01 missile launchers are in.

I will do another post about the Orks.