Pretty Pictures: Waaagh Snaggatoof at Orkness showcase

Yesterday I had a game fall through at HGC, so I took the opportunity to set up the Orkness terrain and get some good photos of Waaagh Snaggatoof on it. It occured to me that I rarely have all of the army and terrain out at the same time, and in fact the army spends a lot of time packed away meaning that I usually just take photos of the latest additions when they're done, rather than getting shots of everything. So here's how Waaagh Snaggatoof stands right now. There are a few things which have taken a bit of damage which needs repairing, and a few others which I thought I had finished but hadn't. Also, I forgot to take the Morkanaut with me, so it is conspicuous in it's absence.

The first four meganobs stride forth to defend the Hotel Grunthos. I really need to get round to making more - I had grand plans for a unit of ten...

I've scaled the plan back a bit to six since Morkanauts and Gorkanauts can carry three meganobs each. Of course, I need to build a gorkanaut to take advantage of this...

I have a bewildering array of plastic nobs, both the multipart boxed set and Black Reach versions, plus some vintage metal versions. I should also add more to my nobs mob... If nothing else, painting a unit would be a big change of pace from scratch building a Stompa.

I've also got quite a few space Black Reach deffkoptas, so I should work on expanding the Winged Huzzorks.

I've recently discovered the joy of running max-size units of killa kans. Of course, since the first three kans were one of the earlier parts of the army painted they don't quite fit with the newer ones which were painted after I'd ironed out all the wrinkles in painting all that yellow.

The two on the left here are both early models - note the lack of rust. My system for painting rust is a more recent evolution of the paint scheme.

When I pulled them out of the case, I found a few weapons and icon poles had come lose.

 

My Mega Armoured HQ choices - Warboss on Mekky-Throne (counts as Mega Armour) and Big Mek (almost Killa Kan size)

The Big Mek is also an early part of the army - I may need to revisit him and add a few details and finishing touches which have evolved since he was painted.

Deff Koptas. If I had known how many Deff Koptas I would end up with across a few bags of assorted Orks at CanCon 2018's second hand stall, I might not have gone with this design. On the other hand, I got no bikes at all, so the plan of turning Deff Koptas into bikes seems to be working.

These guys are about the halfway mark of the army - there are a few paint tricks which developed later, but it's mostly all in place at this point.

And here are the buses I posted a Modelling For Hippos ishoo on - this is the first time painted pics have appeared on the blog (I think)

The dramatic chap in the middle is Francois; the only rank and file ork in the army with a name. He's converted from one of the two-piece arrer boyz in the 6th Ed WFB starter box. I have lots of them...

This is clearly the greatest of the choppas on the nob sprue. I usually run my boyz with a klaw nob, but for the photos this looks so much cooler.

I have sourced some fine metal mesh which I plan to install over the large areas of glass - which will also be gloss varnished before I install the mesh.

Heres' the other bus.

I know that 40K orks don't really have a use for unit banners, but I felt like doing some free-hand work, so. they just sort of ended up with a banner.

My lobba battery with Grot Bots take up position behind the good ship Orka. I have one more lobba built, and I've also got some partially built zzap guns and kannons - I will finish them some time.

I realise Mek Big Guns are probably a better option, but I didn't feel like making anything so involved at the time, so the simpler Big Guns were chosen. I've made them a lot bigger than the old metal versions.

The Grot Tanks were the very first thing painted for the army. As such, they show a very early version of my yellow paint technique. They also have a lot of chipping and weathering (which I'm not really happy with). For the moment,I am arguing that my other vehicles all have immaculate paint free from chipping because, as Bad Moons, Waaagh Snaggatoof can afford enough Grot slaves to re-paint them between battles. The Grots never have time to repaint their own vehicles because the ork vehicles keep them so busy.

This is the kommand tank.

This is the first grot tank I built, and the first to appear on TFH in it's unpainted form.

The first grotzooka variant - more of an assault gun than a tank really.

This one always reminds me of a WW2 German Panther - it's something to do with the shape of the turret.

The buggies were the first thing I built for the army, although not the first things painted. They look rather bright compared to the other vehicles - I have started to add more shade on later machines.

Having Orkness set up gave me plenty of opportunities to get really dramatic angles.

Dramatic wheel is dramatic.

The wheel on the front buggy had broken - once it was dry I got all three together for a group shot.

It too, is not immune to being dramatic.

Having all the orks out finally gave me a chance to photograph the stompa with some scale reference. Note that the lads in front of it are nobs, not boys, so they are a bit larger. The nobs were on top of the case, the boys at the bottom and I couldn't be bothered digging...

The Stompa is taller even that the Hotel Grunthos, the tallest Ork building I have. It's also taller than the blimp in the background (which is technically a terrain piece but is on the right height base for 40K flyers) which leads me to imagine flyers accidentally ramming into it...

 And there you have it! I didn't photograph the Megatrak Scrapjet because, despite what I remembered, it's not actually finished. It's finished enough to photograph, but I had taken the tyres off while I painted it, and didn't bring them. I also left the Morkanaut at home, so no pics of that either (although I did post extensive photos of both painted and unpainted versions in the past). There should be an update on the Stompa fairly soon - I have gotten the close combat weapon done and am about to embark on the rest of the arm for that side.