Road to Apocalypse: 7. Job's a Good 'Un.

Road to Apocalypse: 7. Job's a Good 'Un

👈 Part 6: Reflections of a Warboss

👉Part 8: Goff Aggression

After a few games of Apocalypse to hone the list a bit, I was feeling pretty good about where to focus my painting efforts. Yes, it would be great to get more of my dozens of boyz painted up, but it was all about clanking vehicles - Dredds, Dredds and more Dredds! I also knew I had to get Ghazghkull painted up, and the Mek Gunz had proven invaluable for their accurate (for Orks) shooting. Plus, I knew the Imperial list in the final battle was likely to be very flier-heavy, and there aren't many anti-air options available to the Orks. 

These are all just some quick snaps with the phone as I was finishing off these models. I'm going to get them in front of a proper camera with lights and things when I get a chance, and I think I might even do some step-by-step WIP posts on at least some of them - I have a load of pictures of the models during assembly and painting, so when I get a chance I'll do something with that. For now, here are the things I was getting prepared for the final couple of battles! 

The Final Army List

+++ Waaaagh! Da Goffs (Warhammer 40,000: Apocalypse) [150 PL] +++

++ Supreme Command Detachment (Orks) ++

+ HQ +

Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka, Prophet of Da Waaaagh! - Warboss of Warbosses: Kustom Klaw, Twin Big Shoota. WARMASTER. 

Ork Mek Boss Buzzgob - Big Mek: Kustom Force Field, Mek Arms, Nitnuckle and Lunk (Grot Oilers).

Gulskrag Thraka - Warboss: Boss Weapons. 

+ Elites +

Gulskrag's Tuffgitz - 6 x Ork Meganobz 

+ Lord of War +

Da Great Green Gitkilla - Stompa: 2 extra Supa Rokkits. 

++ Spearhead Detachment (Orks) ++

+ HQ +

Buzzmek Geargrinda - Big Mek: Kustom Force Field. Warlord.

+ Elites +

Old Man Lo-Ghaz - Nob with Waaagh! Banner 

+ Heavy Support +

Orktimus Prime - Deff Dread: 2x Kustom Mega-Blasta, 2x Dread Klaws

Gitslasha - Deff Dread: 2x Dread Saws, 2x Dread Klaws

Buzzmek's Ruzzbot - Morkanaut: Kustom Force Field

++ Spearhead Detachment (Orks) ++

+ HQ +

Deadeye Dregmek - Big Mek: Shokk Attakk Gun. Warlord.

+ Heavy Support +

Dregmek's Wagon - Gunwagon: Kannon.

Lifta-Droppas - Mek Gunz: 2x Traktor Kannons

Pulsa Rokkit - Mek Gunz: 1 x Bubble Chukka

Da Kannons - Mek Gunz: 2 x Smasha Guns

++ Battalion Detachment (Orks) ++

+ HQ +

Da Amayzin' Bozgit - Weirdboy. Warlord.

+ Troops +

Dagratz Ladz - 10 x Slugga Boyz.

Snikrot's Sneaky Slittas - 10 x Slugga Boyz

Snotty Grotz - 30 x Gretchin

   

Ghazghkull

The new Ghazghkull model is huge and brutal, just what he should be! I painted up the old one a couple of years ago (here), and will be using him as a Nob with Waaaagh! Banner in the upcoming games. I never bought the middle version in Mega Armour as I had my personal conversion to use - I always modelled him after what I thought Ghazghkull should look like on Armageddon, but generally run him as Gulskrag Thraka. Is he some relation to Ghazghkull like he claims, or just a fanboy? Doesn't really matter, he's still hard as nails and would headbutt you into next week for asking such stupid questions!!! 

Anyway, it felt really good to have the old version standing next to this new one, so I decided to get the middle one off eBay so that I can have different versions of Ghaz through the ages. I'm planning on using the middle one as a Boss Nob for some Meganobz (he's not going to replace my beloved Gulskrag conversion!). 

I had an old Space Marine casualty from Forge World in my bits box. Clearly he had been waiting for this moment. I wanted to paint him as a Space Wolf, to annoy two players in our game, but he just didn't look like one so I did him as a Crimson Fist (at least Mark will know what's coming to his Marines!). I did the cloak in yellow just so it showed up as a nice contrast - perhaps if we had some Imperial Fists players in the group then that would have been even better, but I think it looks good anyway.

I added a load of skulls to Ghazghkull's armour, including replacing the small one on top with a massive Carnifex skull. Can never have enough skulls in Warhammer.    

   

Big Meks

Of course, with so many walkers in the list, I was going to need a couple more Big Meks to maintain them and drive them on to stomp the enemy! I also had a feeling that loading as many Kustom Force Fields into my list as possible would be worthwhile... I bought Big Mek Buzzgob from Forgeworld a long time ago, and now seemed like a good time to get him painted up. He is a big, bad Goff Mek after all! I made sure to paint up his Grot oilers as well, as that would give him a sweet re-roll to fix the Stompa during the game.

Walkers

The first Deff Dredd here is Gitslasha - four close combat arms, no shooting required. I had a good time positioning this model when I assembled it years ago, looking like a properly crazed Ork is piloting it. I never knew how to paint it, though, until recently when I got inspired to paint it as an homage to the old 2nd edition Ork Dreadnought - black body, red arms, some white details. I kept it really simple and am really pleased with the result. It gave me a real good chance to play with Contrast paints over a metallic undercoat - one of the great finds was that Darkoath Flesh on top of silver spray gives a great brassy colour for the engines and pistons, with great shading and no messing about!   

The next one is Orktimus Prime. I saw a couple of pics online of a Dreadknight conversion someone else had done and decided to have a go myself. Again, I didn't know how to paint it for years, then I realised he should really be painted like the Autobot leader. Again, Contrast paints over metallic undercoat worked really well.

Finally, the Ruzzbot, or Morkanaut. I wanted to build a Ruzzbot when the Gorkanaut kit came out - I got a Gorkanaut kit and figured I could use the spares on my own Ruzzbot, and end up with a Gorkanaut and a Morkanaut by only buying the one kit. I scoured eBay for cheap Leman Russ tanks, but ended up finding a partially-built Ruzzbot, for far less money than buying the raw tank - bonus! So I tinkered with that basic chassis, added a load of rivets and the weapons systems, and ended up with something that I think looks great. My idea for painting it was to keep a sort of battleship grey colour, which I imagine was the regimental colours of the original tank - the Mek never bothered repainting it while he was looting the Russ. I used a lot of drybrushing over a grey undercoat before painting the details, and am really pleased with the result. Plus, he could easily accompany my Blood Axes or Goffs, he doesn't lean heavily either way.   

 

Artillery

I have had a couple of kannons for a long time - one proper model and one being a real early scratch build that I put together. Big Gunz themselves aren't technically viable any more, but I had also been scratch building some Mek Gunz out of scrap recently. So, I rebased and repainted the Big Gunz, deciding to run them as Smasha Guns (basically the same thing as Kannons and the same PL cost, just better in every single way). I've got a scratch-built Pulsa Rokkit to use as a Bubble Chukka, then the other two guns would be Traktor Kannons. It's a pretty good artillery base, led by an old school Big Mek with Shokk Attakk Gun. I'm really pleased with how all of these came out, and I've got a couple more in the works for the future.   

Of course, I couldn't forget the krew for the gunz, so I did some properly quick speed painting on some grots. These are a mixture of old metal grot krew and oilers, a selection of Big Gun krew that I converted from goblin and Gorkamorka kits years ago, and some newer ammo runts. It's a proper hodge podge, which I think looks great, so very pleased with it. I have some more krew to paint up so that each gun can have the 'proper' six-grot krew, but for the moment this smaller number would be fine. 

👉Part 8: Goff Aggression