Here at Cowabunga Journal we are happy to present the following army showcase, written by @PygmyHippo from Instagram. The following text and images are all by PygmyHippo.

Kor’s Raiders

I can’t think of a valid excuse for why I never had a painted Space Ork army. I certainly had enough time, since I began playing Warhammer 40k during the Rogue Trader days. And it wasn’t for lack of paint or models, because I had a surplus of the former, and a surfeit of the latter. What kept me from painting an Ork army? Maybe I just needed a little push to get me started. 

Joining a challenge

That push arrived in the form of a post I saw on Instagram. It was an ad for a 40k second edition painting challenge run at the Cowabunga Journal. It was the right motivation at the right time. Since I’m past middle age, nostalgia for childhood hobbies is running high. My free time has increased, my daughter is old enough to understand the rules of a tabletop wargame, she enjoys painting, and my shameful stockpile of miniatures had grown to the point of being unmanageable. I know that when I post my finished projects on Instagram (@pygmyhippo), my friends tend to enjoy the posts. I figured that publicly posting my painting progress would give me some positive reinforcement if there were successes, and some accountability for failing to deliver (public shame is a great motivator). My first Citadel miniatures I ever bought in the late 80s were a Space Marine dreadnought, boxed set of plastic marines (RTB01), Ork dreadnought, and an Ork command group blister pack. Why I never painted anything but that Ork dreadnought and command group over the past 30 years still puzzles me. I never stopped picking up interesting Ork models whenever they popped up, especially if they were bargains, but for some reason didn’t paint them.

I designed a back story for the force that connected the army to the Rogue Trader rulebook. I’ve run a 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons campaign for the past 7 years, and an orc named “Kor” featured prominently in some of the storylines, so I figured he’d be my protagonist. For the army background, Kor Sparktoof was a pyromaniacal big boss who took part in the “Rynn’s World” campaign, and had a falling out with the warboss over some point or other of professional philosophy. A ragtag bunch of renegades fit with my vision of Orks, and it complemented the collection I owned. I came up with a 1,500 points army primarily comprised of Rogue Trader-era models. The force was codex-legal, but the goal when developing the list was choosing models that looked cool, would be fun to paint, and were of a quantity that I could have a reasonable chance of finishing within the time constraints of the challenge.

I had some models in my collection that I hadn’t seen frequently on the internet, so I figured it was worth putting them in. In particular, I had 2 Ork battlewagons from Armorcast that were taking up a great deal of space, as well as a handful of dreadnoughts. I figured they would be the eye-catchers of the gaming table/display case. I also owned many Ork nobs in ‘eavy armour, so I added a max unit of those. After those troops were selected, the rest were added to fill things out: a few mobs of troops, a unit of infiltrators, a command group and a few specialists (mekboy and painboy) to ensure the army list was legal. I think the Blood Axe Kommandos are probably the only fully 2nd edition models I have in this army.

Painting the army

In designing a paint scheme, I wanted something that would be reproduceable without driving me crazy, and something that matched the era of the figs. I always thought that the Space Orks as presented on the cover of the “Space Ork Raiders” boxed set (RTB02), or in the pages of the “Battle Manual” (1992) were the right mix of danger and personality. Newer editions present them as either dimwits, OR (more commonly) as frothy-mouthed, bloodthirsty primitives. My view of Orks (i.e.: the correct view) is that they’re a rough-and-tumble, cunning, armed motorcycle gang in space. Any creature willing to fight – and capable of winning against – Space Marines, not only had to be tough, but they had to be smart. They couldn’t be that disorganized since they possessed the capability for interstellar travel, high tech weaponry, and technicians capable of maintaining them. Even their clothes, uniforms, armor, and weapons as sculpted made them look like Hells Angels bikers. I decided that the vehicles would use red as the main body color, and that most foot troops would try to match the earth tones and blue-grey from the Space Ork Raiders box art. They’d be part of the Blood Axe clan since so many of the models were wearing forage caps and fatigues. I settled upon hex bases as my final throwback to 1st edition, since as a teenager I had mounted my RTB01 marines on hex bases back when I got them.

The order in which I painted the models was planned in advance based upon what I felt I could accomplish each month for the 6-month challenge, and what would be a fun mix so I wouldn’t get bored or (even worse) lose hope. I decided to get all my vehicles done as soon as possible, since I’ve always found them to be models, I don’t enjoy painting. I also wanted to make sure that whatever I painted would look similar in painting style. I write down notes about color mixes I use while painting an army, but I still find that my application style changes as I go, so it was better to strike while the iron was hot. I used a salt technique to give the paint a chipped, weathered look. I use bristle brushes for my painting rather than an airbrush. The only reason I don’t use an airbrush is because I don’t own an airbrush. I might try one in the future, but if I ever paint more Orks I’ll probably stick to bristle brushes, to maintain a consistent look with what I’ve finished already. I decided to paint the ‘kommandos’ early since unmanned (un-orked) vehicles don’t look very interesting when photographed. So, I got them done to add a sense of scale to the vehicle photos.

For each battlewagon I built a banner from plastic sheet and brass wire. I knew early on that I wanted to name each vehicle, and I knew one of those names would be “Painkiller” (from the Judas Priest album of the same name) and one would be “Hellion” (from JP’s “Screaming for Vengeance” album), and in the end I used the covers from “Painkiller” and “Ram it Down.” The ideas for both banners arose organically from there, and up to that point were unplanned. My vision of Space Orks is that they’re the most metal dudes around: motorcycles mounted with guns, wearing chains and leather jackets, grenades hanging from their belts, and blasting ‘Freewheel Burning’ in the cockpits of their ships. Judas Priest was the only valid choice for Kor Sparktoof and his Raiders: it’s what I would’ve been listening to while painting in the 90s. The thing that I wish I HAD planned was not making the flags in a flying style, since that necessitated me painting each flag twice (both sides).

The next batch of models was the Ork nobs in ‘eavy armour. I was a little concerned about them because I knew I wanted them all to look a little different from one another, as if each one was trying to outdo their comrades in a show of wealth or toughness. At the same time, I needed them all to fit in somehow with a single army. I tried to limit the palette to 3 colors, and then use a variety of secondary colors for accents. Then, as I moved down the strata of Ork society, each level became less colorful than the one above: nobs would be very colorful, Snotlings would be the least colorful. I painted the hop-splat field guns on impulse since I saw them in my case of models, and I figured they’d add some variety. I approached that painting as I did with the other vehicles, and the crew was painted mostly in earth tones to represent their lowly status.

The characters in an Ork army are unique enough that they could be painted pretty much however I felt looked good at that moment, because I knew I would tie them all together with their back banners. I thought it would look good on the gaming table to have their back banners reflect the model’s game function. This would make it easier to keep track of things in a game, and it gave me some guidance as to what I ought to paint on each banner. I figured that a large icon was more interesting than a series of tiny Ork glyphs. I tied the ‘warphead’ and ‘minderz’ together with an electric blue.

When it came to my command group (warboss, standard bearer, Gretchin assistants) I knew that I’d have to do something special, particularly for those banners. I’d already put a great deal of work into the vehicles, and these banners needed to look more interesting since they represented the whole army. I asked my family what Judas Priest album cover to use since by that point I was pretty highly invested in the motif, and they chose “Defenders of the Faith” for the army standard, and I chose the cover of “Hero, Hero” for the warboss. I tried to paint a runtherd for the challenge just so I could be done with freehand banners once and for all, but I ran out of energy. I used a yellow and black tiger stripe pattern to tie the assistants to the warboss.

With the vehicles and characters out of the way I could get back to painting what I found to be the most relaxing: rank and file troopers. The charm of old Ork models (and Kev Adams sculpts in general) is the staggering variety. The variations from trooper to trooper keeps your interest up because you feel like you’re painting an army of unique miniatures.

I’m thrilled with what I managed to accomplish during the Cowabunga challenge. Honestly, I wouldn’t have been able to get back into painting an army without it. Many thanks to Dr. The Viking for making it all possible.

There are many models that I didn’t get a chance to paint which I’m now eager to get to in a future painting challenge: fast attack vehicles (warbuggies, wartracks, bikes, and scorchers), specialist units (Ogryns, mega-nobs), and hundreds more troopers. Kor Sparktoof’s band of Ork Raiders will one day be the terror of Imperial space!

@pygmyhippo

http://www.instagram.com/pygmyhippo