More Orks for Orktober

Less than a fortnight ago, I painted up the first 40k Space Orc and Space Goblin. You might have picked up on the fact that in about 28 years of gaming, I'd never had the slightest interest in playing with anything orky. But painting that pair of figures sparked something. I rooted around in my boxes and unearthed enough ork figures to make a small warband.

This looks like a suitable Inquisimunda or Shadow Wars starting gang to me!

Orks for Orktober

Sometimes someone comes up with a 'thing' and it sticks. I can't remember who first suggested painting orcs/orks during October (was it Erny?). I don't know who first called it Orctober/Orktober (Erny?). I don't know why Orktober continues to me an annual thing, where Slannuary isn't. I do know that about three years ago I did actually paint some greenskins in October for Orctober. I also confess (again), that I don't fully understand the attraction of all things orc/ork.

"Got any big gunz?"

This year however, with some Orktober action happening in various Facebook groups, I decided to use it as motivation to get some more figures painted from one of my 'collectible sets'. The set in question comprises the very first fourteen 40k figures released from back in March 1987. I actually have all of the figures and am slowly working my way through painting them.

The Power Plant

When a mate pops round to your house and drops off a selection of wargames terrain because "it might fit with your Helsreach buildings", it would be rude not to take them up on the offer. What was kindly donated to me a week or so ago was a selection of dusty old resin Kryomek domes (still produced by Scotia Grendel), and a funky little plaster building.

The House of Bergat - Painted Scratchbuild

In my last blogpost, I shared the unpainted pics of my scratchbuilt large house, intended to sit alongside my other Helsreach-esque buildings. I kept on referring to it as a palace during the build and subsequently, but it's clearly anything but. I suspect it's more likely to be the abode of a relatively wealthy merchant - hence it is now the House of Bergat.

A Man's House is His Castle - A Scratchbuild

Whilst I've put together a small selection of buildings styled after the Helsreach illustrations in Rogue Trader (like this or these), I've not made any larger centrepiece type structures in the style of this hillfort:

Carl Critchlow's fantastic Helsreach illustration.

I've been thinking about making a building in homage to the above illustration, but its quite a daunting prospect. Happily, I discovered some cheap household items in my local discount store, which I figured would be good basic shapes to make a practice build using some of the techniques I would employ on a hill fort.

A pair of plastic bathroom tidies (for your toothbrushes and so on). These were on the clearance shelf and cost less than £5.

Choose Your Own Adventurers #10: Rico "Snakey" Vitovitch, Pilot for Hire

Last time on the Choose Your Own Adventurers project, cheetor presented us with another golden-clad 1980s musikkie lookalike. My latest contribution is a rather concerned looking pilot (named Lorgar in the catalogue pages).

Notorious Personages, Flyboys and Fuel

A selection of a few things I've painted recently!

Mayor Snakehand 

The fabulous Curtis of Ramshackle Games was generous enough to sculpt, cast and distribute his own Mayor of Helsreach to attendees at BOYL last month. I chose to paint my copy as a rather sinister and self-important individual, fond of intimidating dark clothing!