Converted Ork Battlewagon - Seriously Huge!

There's a monster living in my cupboard and it's really big and frightening. It might even be green one day. Unfortunately for Disney, there's no franchise opportunity here; it's actually just a converted Battlewagon that I've been working on for some time.

Growing up in the days of yore (also known as second and third edition) I always liked those huge converted Battlewagons that people used to build before there was an official kit. I do like the official one stylistically, but it wasn't enough of a monster for me. It just didn't have that crazy appeal that can only really be found with a pile of spares and a heap of plasticard. With that in mind I hatched a cunning plan and set to work on another monolithic project.

The original body started out as the official Battlewagon. I took the surprisingly small vehicle (this thing is supposed to be armour 14?) and mounted it on a set of Baneblade tracks. I then used various parts from a heap of old Gorkamorka Trukks (thank you eBay, I had like 10 of them for £20 - bought purely for spares) to begin filling in the gaps; slowly building up a colossal hull of crazed odds and ends.

Scale wise - it's longer than a Baneblade and taller than an Imperial Knight Cerastus. I think I have a problem! (Ok the real problem will be painting the thing!)

The converted Killkannon uses the standard Kannon from the kit combined with a Vindicator's Demolisher Cannon and a few reinforcing struts that I built.

Ask not for whom the Grot-Rokka rocks, he rocks for thee

The aft castle is actually the hard top of the original Battlewagon kit with plasticard added and some bits of roof from an old Warhammer scenery house thing. Illustrious Captain Bognobba started out life as an ammo runt. I cut the end off of the bullet that was in his mouth to make it look like a cigar and added an Ork captain's hat to him to create "the look".

 Just to prove that I put some work into the back too.

I added a custom deff-rolla under the chassis - I had to do something in there. I might actually add a whole row of them eventually!

For scale. I just noticed that the door has fallen off in this picture - it isn't glued for painting purposes.

If you're wondering, it's official name is the "Kruntankk" .... why? Well it was the name of my Big-Lugga in Gorkamorka (and it just sounds so damn funny!).

Rocket Unicycle! - Ork Big Gun Conversion

Ever wondered what it would be like if you mounted a battery of rockets on a unicycle? Well I have, and here's the conversion that answers that conundrum.

The crew form a sort of diorama I like to lay out behind it that makes it look like they're chasing the thing. The captain's hat is from an Imperial Guard tank crewman and yes that Squig does have a rocket in it's mouth.

They see me rollin', they hatin'
Patrollin' and tryna catch me ridin' dirty...

The best part? the whole thing was made from spare junk I had in my bitz box; in essence meaning it was free. Take that soaring GW prices (I do like the new kit, but at £28 for a single Mek Gun, the price is actually prohibitive for me - I mean that is the same price as an entire unit of 3 Killa Kanz!).

It matches the theme of the Grot Army quite well too, being quite tall and gangly looking!

Did I mention that I won a 500 point army painting competition with the Grot Army? As I found the pictures earlier today, I'm adding them to this post. It did help that the force is rather huge at 500 points! 

Some people have said that the "Big Gun" looks a little too phallic - what with the soaring rocket shaft and twin rocket-balls, but I say it isn't phallic enough! To that end, I've added some creamy-white snow. Just let your imagination run wild...

Grot Deffkopta Squadron

The title pretty much says it all, and what the title doesn't say the pictures do. These Deffkoptas were actually the first thing I built for my all Grot army. They were surprisingly thrifty too from e-bay as the original models come from the Black Reach box, which at the time about 2 years ago meant that the models were quite abundant.

Conversion wise I basically removed the Ork pilots and replaced them with grot ones. The orks didn't want to let go though (they're actually melded into the seats). I managed to re-sculpt the seats again after a lot of hacking away at the raw plastic. Using the plastic runtherd kit it wasn't too hard to convert the grots so they looked like they were actually piloting the things (thank god for those stikkbomb arms!).

They've done me fairly proud on the tabletop too - it's hard to argue with 3 twin-linked rokkits flying about the place for a fairly low points cost.


Definitely my favourite moment was when the unit was reduced to a single kopta. I managed to knock 1 hull point off of a chimera with the rocket and then charged. With hammer or wrath I had just enough strength to glance the rear armour. I rolled the dice and what do you know; a pair of 6s. The chimera was wrecked and it was just laugh out loud funny. I seem to remember the game ended with the Kopta in combat with an imperial guard platoon command squad. After about 3 turns they were still swinging ineffectually at each other!

Does anyone remember that old PS1 game RC Stunt Copter? I had a demo of it and the only thing I can really remember was how uncontrollable the thing was (for some reason I seem to remember having to rotate the analogue stick constantly to go up or something). I never could get through the window in that barn!


Is anyone else thinking it might make a great new box game for GW? -  RC Grot Copter. The aim is to race around a course collecting as many mushrooms as possible while not crashing. Also there are weapons ... and maybe a few robots.

Killa Kan Mob - Let the Blattering Commence!

In an all grot army (yes I have one of those) there was only one choice of weapon - the Grotzooka. I converted a full mob with the weapons and I can honestly say I've never regretted it for a second. There aren't many units that can shrug off 6 strength 6 blasts and keep coming. As the units of actual grots are so weak, I use these guys to fill the role of infantry on the battlefield. The good part is that the points cost of Ork vehicles is so low it is actually quite viable on the tabletop as far as army construction goes.

 

Other than the guns, I've converted upwards - adding towers to the back of every Kan. Not only does this provide extra height and make them look more interesting, but it really reinforces the rickety ramshackle look of the force (and is also an excuse to add more grots to everything - are you seeing a theme here?)

The Dread-Mob in all its glory (backed up by the Deff Dread)

They've become an absolute staple of the army; plodding forward and blasting away. The actual units of Grots themselves are completely useless though, so I tend to use them to grab objectives while the rest of the force roams around killing.

The World's Biggest Deff Dread - Scale Comparison

I've posted about my Deff Dread before, but with just pictures of the beast itself it seemed to be lacking perspective. I had the camera out the other day and thought it would be quite amusing to take some pictures with other units for scale.

As you can see a standard Dreadnought makes it about half way up his mighty thigh, while even the proud Contemptor is only waist high - with the full model being about 3 times it's height. I'm using a Chaos Chosen and an old Escher ganger to show human and marine scales next to it too. All in all it makes for a hell of a centrepiece for the army (well until I finish that colossal Battle-Wagon that is...)

Hmmmm .... and now to paint the thing. I think I'm gonna need a bigger brush! (Vindicator for scale).

If you missed my other posts on the Deff Dread, you can find them here:

Part 1

Part 2

Stay tuned for more on that Battlewagon in the future too.



Converted Mega Armoured Nobz - Budget Wargaming

I wanted some Mega-Nobz for my all grot army, but I didn't want to spend a lot of money. Luckily at the time it wasn't long since the release of the Sanctus Reach box set, so I had a lot of Ork sprues lying around the place. I suppose Mega-Grots would be the correct term for these guys.


It turns out with a bit of elbow grease and some spare parts it is easy to make some fairly convincing Mega-Nobz using the regular Nobz box. The best part is that you get so many of them - I built a unit of 4 to accompany Makari into battle (see earlier post - Waaagh Makari if you're unsure what that means). I still need to up armour the legs to make them look a bit more mechanical and fill a few gaps, but I'm happy with the way they look so far. One day I'll have to paint them too .... and don't even get me started on the Battlewagon they ride around in!

The trick to building these guys was to glue the body and legs together and then add a thick piece of Plastic/card across the top of their shoulders (those big white blocks you can see in the pictures. I then added the arms and put on double-layered shoulder pads to make the torsos really big. After that it's really just armouring the rest of them up with spare parts and getting some power generator type things on their backs. Scale wise they're actually quite a bit bigger than Space Marine Terminators, so everything worked out well.


I'd honestly recommend building Mega-Nobz like this to any Ork player with decent conversion skills as the GW ones are a bit of a rip-off! It does help if you've built some Killa Kanz recently too as the spares from them came in very handy on these guys - plenty of armour plates and glyphs. The only real difference would be how you put the arms together as mine are basically Power Klaw parts mashed into spare gun bits for a mechanical look, but I'm sure you'd figure something out.

Replacing Orks in an all Grot army

When I first started my all Grot army I knew that there would be one place in the force where the inclusion of Orks would be unavoidable; Runtherdz. I needed to create a model that would have the weapons of a slaver, and would be an obvious proxy. In the end I created "Cybork Riders" using a selection of spare parts (like most of the army, converting with green skins is a free form pleasure!). For this model one of the legs and a large portion of the body is actually a burna, combined with a burna boy head that I got from the bitz box at my local hobby store. I also used a few spare stikk bombs as the make great robotic looking parts.

I really like the tall gangly look - if only it didn't make them so vulnerable in games!

WAAAGH Makari!

The 2nd edition legend returns and this time there will be blood!

When I first started working on my all grot army for 40k I had a epiphany of sorts. The army needed a leader, someone with pedigree and class. There could only be one contender - the only gretchin special character to ever exist - Makari. Back in 2nd edition he was Ghazghkull's banner bearer and his only power of note was a 2+ invulnerable save attributed to the favour of the gods, or perhaps just dumb luck. When the new model for Ghazkull was released Makari disappeared from the game and the background and into oblivion - except for a short piece of text that said that Ghazghkull sat on him and subsequently fed him to a squiggoth.

Makari in 2nd edition.

Clearly this wouldn't really be enough to kill the legendary Makari. In my version of the history he escaped death by fleeing in an old suit of Ghazghkull's Mega Armour. Through blind luck he rebuilt himself as more machine than greenskin and then began to lead a colossal Waaggh of grots against their oppressive Ork masters. Also he had become quite clearly insane after his transformation!

With these fanciful ideas in mind I bought the first model for my grots - an old metal 2nd edition Makari. I then did some fairly heavy conversion work to mash him into a suit of Ghazghkull's armour. For sheer comedy value he also had to be outrageously big, so I added more armaments to the already bulging suit of armour and finally a scenic base to make him even taller!

After a few coats of paint the mighty Mekka Makari was finally finished and ready to bring the a 

gaming world to it's knees.

That's one big Grot!

Da Lucky Stikk makes a comeback. This time with Makari's personal heraldry.