Epicast Stompa revisited

While unpacking the workshop I rediscovered an old friend from 40K 2nd Edition... Its from Epicast back in the bad old days when GW licensed a few outside companies Like Epicast, and, later, Armorcast to produce stuff that occurred in the fluff but GW itself was not producing.  Eventually all of those licenses were withdrawn and consolidated back into what we now know as Forge World.

These early models came with rules in the form of Data Sheets so they could be played, with the consent of your opponent, without any new rule books being required.

Second edition was the high water mark of the cartoon style for 40k and my Orks were as cartoon-y as they come. These first couple of pictures are of the Stompa appear (with the addition of the beginnings of some lining that I started before remembering to snap a photo) as I played it for decades.  Bright primary colors and almost zero weathering, highlighting, or shading.  The roof tiles over the rear assualt doors were perhaps the only attempt at weathering.  

This was not entirely a sacrifice on the altar of speed.  The cartoon style really relied on mass color coding with a very small number of spot details as focal points... much like Anime does even now. I wanted to update this old can a bit so it didn"t look super incongruous with my current Orks but retained its 2 ed. roots.

Below is the result.

As you can see I chose not to start over from scratch and just continued on over the old paint.

I started with a lot of Brown Rust (Secret Weapon(SW)) to move the nearly monochrome green into a two color scheme, jazz up the freehand chevrons, and to make the iron jaws of the skull a bit more fearsome. This was all large brush stippling.

Following the Brown Rust I did a full model Drybrush with Silver (Vallejo(V)) followed by a full model wash with Armor Wash (SW) and then wiped away the excess wash with a paper towel.  

Orange Rust (SW) was stippled in the central areas of any Brown Rust areas, Phoenix Red (V) stippled over red areas. 

Brass Casing (SW) was used to touch up and shade gold areas and Engine Metal (SW) touched up and highlighted all metal areas. The battlecannon barrel mouth got some thin coats of Orange Heat (SW) fading into Purple Heat (SW) fading into the base green.  The entire model then was lined with Rust Shadow (SW) with extra effort directed at establishing a more detailed impression of a blade track for the chainsword.

The model has always been unsteady on its feet and prone to falling over so in a final omage to 2nd ed., and to play with my newly rediscovered static grass applicator, I  grabbed a big oval bass and loaded it up with 2mm static grass.  In 2nd. ed almost all the armies I encountered, including my own, were straight up flocked unlike the more significant efforts expended on modern bases.

Here is the completed model with some Ork Burna Boyz making their wicked way into the Undertown... gonna be a bad day for someone!

 Back to the desk!

Cheers

Joan of Arc 15mm Core Game, GW Forest Goblin Spider Riders, an Epicast Stomper Tune-up in progress and fun with static grass!

The Joan of Arc game is so ambitious!  Its a board game, a Tanletop Mini Game, its a Historical Game, its a Fantasy Game. It has an RPG and its almost an action RPG right out of the box... It even has aerial combat because.... Angels and Dragons... whew!  Its gonna be a fun ride!

From the core box: The Tarasque, The Unicorn, The Archangel Gabriel, 4 Angels, 2 Bullock Wagons.

As you can see you can go full on fantasy right out of the starter box... I think one of the scenarios is a werewolf hunt even... or you can stay with the historical scenarios. Its a great transitional game.

These were all sprayed a dark camo green primer (Rustoleum), damp-brushed with white craft paint and washed with Secret Weapon (SW) Washes.  The wagons then got a dry-brush of Sunny Flesh (Vallejo(V)) to make the wood pop.

Below is the tray ready for re-interment in the game box... In this Golden Era of Mega-Games I'm going to have to put some thought into how to condense the numerous expansions.

The angels got sky themed bases to go with the sky tiles in the aerial combat portion of the game.  Sky Blue (Warpaints) Stipple with white, wash with Blue (SW).  White robes are layered Graveyard Bone and Splintered Bone from the (Reaper) Bone Triad.   Gold is Brass Casings (SW) Flesh Wash (SW) dry-brush Silver (V).

 Being easily distracted by shiny things... I was unable to simply put the static grass applicator back into its box and decided to fix a long standing problem... namely my ancient 40K second edition Epicast Stompa!  Its never stood well on its own and is heavy enough to take out models it happen to fall on...doh! So I thought I'll just slap a base on it and its "problem solved!" ... 

...then I noticed that the old second edition paint-job looked really, really, dated so... doing something I very rarely do... I decided to do a bit of an update.  These are the pictures of its original state except for some black lining I started to do before remembering to snap a photo.  I'm going to preserve some elements of the original and bring it up to date without starting from scratch.  Well, that's the plan anyway!

The completed Forest Goblin Spider Riders. Ready for an Oldhammer rumble!

Speaking of a rumble I literally hate this new Blogger interface!  Its more primitive than its predecessor and seems specifically designed to be rigid and unwieldy.  For example I'd like to put this sentence at the bottom of the page... but I can't do that without actually removing the picture below... fabulous improvement... This update would normally have taken be about 15 minutes to compose on the fly but I've been at this now for three hours and still can't get the words and the pictures to go where I want them.

MADE
  OF

 FAIL  

Ork Mortars from Bitspudlo

 A while back I went looking to fill a gap in my Ork Lobbas.  I have three of the Forgeworld models magnetized to swap out between field carriages and the weapon mounts of the Gargantuan Squiggoth and I wanted another three in case I decided to use the Squiggoth and the field artillery... or just didn't feel like digging out the Squiggoth to swipe the guns for a game... anyway... I was surprised to be unable to locate them on either the Forgeworld or GW sites.

 I play a lot of legacy models and play in different editions of the game so I went looking for a replacement model and, after some sticker shock on Ebay, discovered Hexy Shop.  They carry a variety of third party conversion bits and a few complete models.  I located the Lobba replacement with a company out of Poland called Bitspudlo.  At $13.23 a pop I thought I'd give them a go.

The resin is good quality cleanly cast with sharp detail, a dry, and very paintable, surface but is a little on the brittle side and there were a few bubbles in the road wheels.  No major flaws and they fit the theme of the GW Orks with glyphs and a cobbled together appearance.

I painted them up in a state of very poor repair using the Secret Weapon rust line augmented with the GW Technicals; Ryza Rust, Tyhphus Corrosion, and Necron Compound.

All my basing supplies are packed so I'll have to base these on the other side of the house move. 







Packing up the house is going quickly now and my Ork models are all stowed so I grabbed, an about to be packed, Tinkerbell from the Twisted Game to use for scale. 

We're out house hunting so no updates for a couple of weeks... and then... I might... maybe... get one more out before everything is too packed up to continue working.

Cheers!

Oi Ladz! Dat's me leg!

 Finally wrapping these guys up!  This was a project interrupted often due to a move of house from Germany to Romania... and I just got word that next year I'm headed to Alaska...  Yeee HAW!  I'm getting whiplash here!

 Anyway here are those fun loving Orks from Kromlech!  The Dok making certain that those lazy Grots keep him in a good supply of "spares" which the little monsters are quite happy to cop from fellow greenskins that might still be "using" them.. such is the life of an Ork physician!

The resin was hard but a little brittle giving good detail but don't drop them!



On the Kings of War front... Bevie can add this Dwarf Drill to her ever growing Throng!  The mini is cast in metal and has the rough-hewn look of the Mantic dwarfs.  The drill is purchasable with Mantic points so can be had as a side effect of building the army.

 As Warmachines go this is a tiny Model.  Based 25x50... same as cav.  But that does make it a bit more handy in maneuver as it scurries about the battle looking for a flank or rear aspect to harry.

Grind 'em up!

 Then comes some odds and ends to finish up a set of terrain and accessories from Tabletop Art.  These are resin and are really top quality.  Good detail and hardness but not brittle and takes paint well.  These will add great atmosphere to the Tabletop World buildings... once I get those unpacked... probably in Alaska! 

Next week I should finish up the Mantis Warrior unit from Raging Heroes and the Legacy Servitors from GW.  I've had good progress on them this week and am ready to start looking for the in line!

Oh... and I just got word that my Forward Base pledge from Atenocities Workshop is shipping!  I'm really excited to see that so... an unboxing of that *might* also creep into the queue...

A WiP kinda Day... Orks and Elves... ish... and some Legacy Imperial Guard.

 Now that we're moved in and, more or less, unpacked... I've gotten back to painting.  I grabbed the stuff that I was messing around with at the hotel and discovered it needed a lot of repair.. I'd painted them without the aid of my magnifying lenses and, when I got a proper look at them it was apparent how degraded my eyesight has become... so...  Loads of touch-ups and some complete re-imaginings are called for.. onward!

First up is this very characterful Ork Dok from the guys at Kromlech.  He took bit of fitting and the resin was a bit brittle around the tools but he's moving along.  

 I love the grot medical assistants that accompany the Ork Dok!  This one I imagine has been tasked to procure some "spares" from among the dead and wounded Orks for use back at the DoK Shop... a scary little wretch if I  ever saw one! There are two others in the work pile so its a whole field trauma team.  I'm playing around with blood spatter to get back in the swing after my long break and am getting way too much entertainment out of the process!

 Some Legacy Imperial Guard Sanctioned Psykers... They look a lot like clones to me so we'll be fielding them as the "Brothers Frank" these are salvage works and the colors will be changing, except for the purple cloaks, skin, and the red weapon details.  As a clone group I'm still chewing over making them identically uniformed but with distinguishing tattoos (ala Clone Wars) or having a uniform detail variation to distinguish them... hmmm...

 Along the same lines... these legacy servitors are also a salvage job and the color scheme is subject to revision... The skin is the area that I've been working and some browns but the rest is still TBD.

A sample of the Raging Heroes Mantis Warriors in progress.  These were the models most afflicted by my poor eyesight and are taking a lot of work to get back to a good place.  The upside is that the chitin areas are getting some depth.. also the heads on  these are now strongly reminding me of Asari from Mass Effect so the next batch of them might be blue!

... and ... finally... a look at the full batch of stuff on the desk at the moment.  A lot more Mantis Warriors, a Mantic Dwarf Drill, a Legacy Tech Marine salvage, and a Legacy Hero Quest Ogre Salvage...  That pile should knock the rust back a bit...

Mantis Warriors and Ork Dok & Grots WiP

We've been living in a hotel room for the past month which has played Havoc with my Hobby time!  I've got a few bits of work done but have mostly been consumed with the moving process.

Anyway I did manage to build and prep some of the new Mantis Warriors from Raging Heroes TGG 2, a Dwarf Drill from Mantic's Kings of War bonus points program, and an Ork Dok with some Grot assistants from Kromlech via Bits of War.  All are still very much WiP.

The Mantis Warriors are brilliant sculpts with fixed leg poses and ball joint shoulders.  There are, as is typical with RH kits, a fair amount of spare bits... in this case mostly claw arms in different poses, or heft. 

 I'm using the basing scheme I used with The Blood Rain and painting these in sort of an earth elemental style with the idea that I might use them as alternative Wracks for Dark Eldar, as Wood Elf Dryads, as part of a Forces of Nature collection for Kings of War, or Daemonettes.

I've based these Vallejo Foundation White and then base coated Vallejo Dark Flesh. In the test model I've followed that with an application of Secret Weapon Green Wash to hair and clothing bits then washed the whole thing with P3 Flesh Wash... which is a purplish flesh and seems to sit well with these colors.

The Kromlech Orks are hilarious sculpts and easily large enough to stand with GW Orks. they cleaned up well and take paint quite well but are a bit on the brittle side, as resin goes, so there was some breakage, particularly among the tools, that I'll have to patch up.

I've been experimenting with an ultrasonic cleaner on these new models with mixed results.  Hopefully that will improve as I get more practice using it.  Basically it does a great job on metal but resin is still hit and miss.  The Kromlech stuff came out clean on the first bath but the RH models took about four baths with some good scrubbing in between.

Santa Ork and a Street Level View of Greystone Village

 Orks were one of my two original 40k armies... a dubious honor also shared by the Harlequins. I'm such a Xenos fanboy!  At any rate... I had a Santa Ork character, actually a Madboy with a Santa hat/suit and a 'sleigh'... really the original plastic GW Battlewagon... dolled up with some christmas type decorations and some sacks full of toys

.





Santa Ork!  "He comes to TAKE DA TOYZ!  AHA!"

Although that venerable figure, sans the sleigh... which I gave to a friend and fellow Ork Warlord when I left for Japan in the mid 90's, remains in my collection it has been returned to the Madboy unit as a new Santa Ork emerges!

  This guy is from ArmorCast and is an old skool hunk o freakin metal... the detail took a bit to sort out but is full of character and will make a great commander for a new sleigh.... I'm still settling on what model the new sleigh will be based on but there is a lot of unbuilt plastic and resin in the "Projekt Ork" boxes... more on that later!
















Today is also an experiment in video... a street level flyby of the Greystone Village.   I blame Greggles for that and you can too! :)




In spite of my one true talent... technology destruction... I managed to get a video on the page.. woot!  Of course I completely failed at any sort of editing but... a challenge for another day!  Thanks for the push Greg!  More videos in future.

There is a lot on the table at the moment. 

Raging Heroes Jailbird Snipers and a Secret Weapon Rapid Assault Vehicle

 The first of the second wave Jailbird troops is the three model 'monoblock' sniper unit.

Some of the stances are quite wide which made for a challenge in basing.  It was fun though and worked out pretty well.

Sniper 1 had the widest stance and is really a bit too wide for a 25mm round... digging around though I came up with a basing strategy I liked.



Lookout!

 I used more subdued colors for the sniper team... (other than hair!) as they have obviously made some attempt at camouflage in the sculpt itself.  The regular troopers will likely be a bit less concerned with the whole 'concealment thang'

 Sniper three also had a very marked stance that I interpreted as 'kinda sitting' so a box was dug up to act as a stabilizing seat!  Making the resin bases work for ya!  I believe these first two bases are Secret Weapon.

 The models in full camo get up were just a bit drab... colorwise... compared to the personalities in wave one so they got some brightly colored hair to help them fit in.

 Sniper two is on the move and has a less extreme stance.  I fitted her on a GW basing kit round.

 The reflective glasses are also just to help these not look like little brown blobs at the three foot range... points of color to focus things a bit.

 I have second section of these in process because... SNIPERS!  I'll have to vary the basing a bit but not by a lot.

 These were worked up using Secret Weapon washes over Flames of War base coats.

 Here are the snipers deploying from the (WiP)  Secret Weapon Rapid Assault Vehicle.  It appears to have firing ports so will have a small unit (4) (like a sniper section+1) transport capacity in addition to its role as primary armored combatant in Jailbird service.

 The sniper poses really work round the vehicle!

 .... and.... I promised Greg that I'd do a size comparison for the Secret Weapon Kit...

... before I discovered that I haven't actually unpacked any comparable vehicles since the big move 6 months ago... and.... I'm probably moving again in less than six months so.... I'm probably not going to unpack anything more at the moment!  Ooops!  Sorry Greg... I thought I had some proper chimeras and rhinos to compare them with.

 What I did manage to find.... a Nurgle-fied Land Raider Crusader from the Contagion Salvage Project I did last year.... although the rhinos from that same project  are apparently still packed in a different box... and a Forgeworld Grot Mega-Tank (or "GROTZILLA" as we refer to it) that was painted up in a couple of hours for "Geekfest" a few years ago.

Because OF COURSE everyon knows the dimensions of GROTZILLA!

Seriously though... I promise to dig up some relevant vehicles for ya ... soon!