Pretty Pictures: Vintage Vehicles

HGC was basically dead yesterday, so I took the time to get some photos of Waaagh! Gruntblasta on terrain. Unfortunately, I had forgotten that I had taken the figures out of the case I thought they were in and placed them in my display cabinet. So I only had the two vehicles and the six unbased boyz I had taken to paint that day. Anyway, here are some pics.

The mighty Gobsmasha lurks behind that most 2nd edition of terrain features: A rockspire surrounded by grass.

It lurks also behind my thumb...

At last, the mysteries of the rear end of the Gobsmasha are revealed!

And the rockspire has a convenient gap in just the right place for the cannon - it's as if I planned it!

The mek, who has not forgiven me for sawing his legs off, although he does admit the Gobsmasha does make a fair substitute for legs, and it ded shooty to boot.

The Gobsmasha finally has the chance to pose in dramatic fashion with the Braincrusha!

From more than one direction to boot!

A number of very old boys, lead by a Meganob.

A boy of great age.

The most ancient of Boyz.

A nob of the Mega persuassion.

A skorcha of great antiquity.

A boy, who, through no fault of his own, has become vintage.

A very old boy.

A selection of aged boys pose to give scale to the Gobsmasha.

Pudding Wrestler's Perfidious Projects: Waaagh! Gruntblasta and Retro Gobsmasha

For some time now I have been working of and on on a Gobsmasha for the retro Waaagh! Gruntblasta. Mostly off. I had planned to turn it into a Modelling For Hippos ishoo, but I seem to have lost the step by step photos of the first half of the project. Sigh.

Anyway, I've been painting up more of Waaagh! Gruntblasta in the last week or so because I wanted to display it at GeekFest, what with the theme being retro and all. This got me excited about the Gobsmasha again, and I ended up finishing it today. It's based on plans which GW published in an ancient White Dwarf (which you can find easily online - both as an image and also a copy of the full article on Scribd I think). Turn out the Hoodling owns the right White Dwarf too, but I only found out about that recently.

The Gruntblasta JUST before finishing -I forgot to add some rivets on the sides so I thought it was finished and got excited and photographed it. The Mekboy in the hatch has had his legs brutally sawn off so he fits. The scale reference chap will turn up in later pictures and be explained there.

Here's the Gobsmasha with the Braincrusha. The Braincrusha is a battlewagon under 8th ed rules - I think the Gobsmasha will have to be used as a Looted Wagon, but I have not seen the rules for them yet.

Scale reference cat demonstrates the exact size of the project.

I've also been painting up quite a few vintage Orks (as mentioned above). Some of these are super old - I picked up 15 from Little Wars last year which have 1987 and 1988 dates on their tabs. I rummaged around on Stuff of Legends a bit and found them listed as part of RT02 - the second boxed set released for Rogue Trader as 40K was known at the time.

The four orks on the right are the 1987-88 type. The guy on the left with the big axe is from a bit later.

This guy was actually part of my original 2nd edition Ork army back in the day. I've had him since I was 13 or 14, when he was the second in command of my Blood Axe army. I sold the figure who was in command, so he's been promoted. Until I finish painting the Warboss on Supa Cyboar, when he'll be demoted again.

Apparently, vintage orks object to being in focuse. Who knew.

This guy's jaw is a bit confusing. I get the metal bit along the bottom, but there's an odd bit on the side before the highe of the jaw which I don't understand.

According the Stuff of Legends, this chap's name is Buzzy Buzzax because back in the day, every individual model had a name. Some of them were really bad - all the Squats were named after weapons makers and the Slaan where nothing but vile puns.

This is how Waaagh! Gruntblasta looked just before GeekFest - I also painted up some orks with heavy weapons and a Mekboy, but they didn't get individual photos.

While rummaging in the vintage ork box, I found this. It was painted in the 90s by Scatterlaser's brother. He will be preserved for all time just as he is.

Ah, the Psychadelork. I think I might actually paint up a mate for him using modern painting techniques.

Following GeekFest I finished stripping the paint off more of the very old RT02 Orks and painted up six of them. I'm pretty fond of the flamer model - I have two of them. I'm planning to get another bacth of six done soon, which, along with the three I painted earlier will give me a 15 man squad. Which means Waaagh! Gruntblasts will be just about a legal army in 8th edition (if a small and rather odd one).

Well, there you go. I ma currently working on a mek with shokk attack gun (I've got two...) the super cyboar and a normal mekboy, plus I can undercoat the Gobsmasha and start in on that now.

I'll try to get some prettier pics on the weekend and I might even have a shot at making some matching terrain.

Youtube for Oldhammering Hippos: The Rogue Trader Braincrusha

I decided that I needed a centre piece model for Waaagh Gruntblasta. This is the result.

This will be followed shortly by an MFH on building a Gobsmasha based on the plans published in an ancient White Dwarf I found (around issue 120 I think). And no, not the one built from a Battlewagon kit - that is cool but I only have one vintage battlewagon so I don't fancy converting it.

Youtube for Hippos part the second.

Esteemed reader; I pray you will also become an esteemed viewer.
Yes, I have posted some further video on Youtube!

First up; the long planned video showing all of the Wartrakk components and demonstrating alternate configurations.

Also, a preview of the next ishoo of TFH:

And finally...

Yes! The first update on the progress of the mighty and mightily vintage Waaagh Gruntblasta!

Since the last update, I have aquired some more vintage orks from another friend who has long since left the hobby - they're all from 2nd edition so they will fit in nicely. Handily, they include Kommandoes and Stormboyz, which will be stripped and combined with my own contributions to give more reasonable ten man units.

Mad Juzzy The Flutist's Bounty

Okay, so my year just keeps getting orkier...
Yesterday my esteemed flute-riddled opponent rang me up to say he'd decided he was never going to finish painting his orks, that the idea of painting filled him with no joy, and that his time would be better spent in board gaming with his tiny offspring. Not wishing to see his Orkz go to waste, he said he would give them to me. A few hours later, this lot arrived.

It's not all Orkz. His paints are in there too, as well as a small Basilean army for Kings of War and a small collection of Reaper Bones figures painted by his 8 and 4 year old children. I'll give those back - I don't think they were meant to be in there. Also there's some sort of giant Matrix exo-suit action figure.

Anyway, I went through it and found a few things. Three trukks, a bunch of part painted boyz, most of a stompa, his MaxMini Green Alliance ww2 style orks, and a whole 1st edition army.

Yes.

Really.

I didn't even know he had one - I knew he'd found a 1st ed plastic battlewagon somewhere, but I did not know about the rest of it.

I'm still sorting things out, but I have reached a vital conclussion. I no longer have an ork army. I have three.

Regular readers will know Waaagh! Snaggatoof, the army I have been working on since 8th ed came out. Mad Juzzy's modern plastic stuff will be integrated into this army.

Waaagh! Gruntblasta will be made from the 1st ed stuff from Mad Juzzy, bolstered with some of my own second edition stuff.

Still in their individual zip-lock bags, behold Waaagh! Gruntblasta! There are some things in here I always wanted back when I was playing 2nd ed, some things I have never seen before, and some things which are goofy as heck. It's 1st ed. after all...

Meganobz! They used to be sorta tiny... A few things in this army are on square bases - until 3rd ed the only round bases were the 25mm ones, and the 1st ed. rules didn't care about shape so you saw round, square and even hex bases used.

The rather silly looking old buggy (this was still current when I started 2nd ed, but the current plastic kit came out soon after. One day, GW will release a new one...), a Wartrakk (these were out of production when I was playing, so I never knew what they even looked like back in the day) and warbikes, one of which is in parts. All of these are much smaller than their modern counterparts - they would happily fit on a 40mm round base, although the buggy might just need a 50mm.

Ah, the old Snakebite warlord on cyboar. I desperately wanted this model when I was thirteen... The rest of the army is not overtly snakebite, and cyboars have long since dropped out of existance in the rules, so I'll use him as a warlord on bike.

Another thing I had never seen before - these are multipart 1st edition plastic ork boyz. It's funny, but those boring single pose plastics from 2nd ed were a step backwards, and the excitement generated by 3rd ed with it multi-pose plastics must've seemed odd to older players. These guys are all assembled, some are painted, and a lot are missing arms, but there are plenty of spares. IN fact, 2nd ed metal orks used the same arms and weapons, so I have some spare. There are about 30 of these guys.

All up, the box also contained:

• 1st ed. Dreadnaught
• A kannon
• A bag full of snots - I have not counted them.
• 5 grots
• A shokk attack gun
• A painboy
• A weird boy
• 4 orkz with heavy weapons - lootas or flashgits in modern terms
• 5 Blood bowl gobbos

I ran this through Battlescribe, and got about 1000 points. I will be bolstering this with some of my own stuff from back in the day.

Stormboyz! Ah, the old dayz when Stormboyz were young Orkz who rebelled against Orky norms by becoming very disciplined and polite. And wearing jetpacks,

Bloodaxe Commandoes - Orkz understood the letter 'c' in 2nd ed. My army was a Bloodaxe army, so I also had some blood axed characters like the chap on the left. He was not my general - I think I sold him.

This is my conversion for Kaptain Badrukk. It's a freebooter figure which has had a scratch built power klaw added among other things. 

Mad Juzzy backed the MaxMini Green Alliance kickstarter, and as a result eventually recieved a box full of interesting resin from Poland. These are ww2 US army style orkz, and very cool, but they do not fit the look of my Waaagh! Snaggatoof, so I've decided the logical thing is to paint them up in their own style and make a Bloodaxe army. I will not be painting them in US army olive drab. Bloodaxes know about camoflage, and they understand the shapes used, but they don't get why the stoopid oomies use boring colours. I'm currently thinking of going heavily into blue or purple. I'll have to think about it - I'm not intending to paint these guys for a while.

The contents of the box.

This is a Meganob I think - I wasn't paying too much attention to the kickstarter. Anyway, he'll give you an idea of the quality of these pieces, which is excellent. Everything else is in numerous pieces and I can't really be bothered to blutac anything together. Go check out MaxMini's website.

This is the big thing in the collection - an awesome Vaught F4U Corsair style dakka jet.

 Well, that lot should keep me busy for some time to come. I will also be molding and casting some of my scratch built war trakks soon, along with some bits for making more grot tanks.
And running NAZORK at Coal Creek on Easter Sunday and again at Little Wars.
Anyway, I'm all excited about painting Waaagh! Gruntblasta, so I must away!
So long hippo fans!