Proper Herd o' Runts

After months of slow progress, I've finally finished painting my entire converted Gretchin Herd.  This last little guy was pretty straightforward. His goggles turned out quite nice, as did the checks on his slugga.  I liked how the toothy pattern on my other grot's bandana turned out, so I decided to do a similar pattern for this one.  Since this model didn't end up with any red on him other than his goggles, I decided that I'd give him some big red teef on his bandana.  It doesn't stand out nearly as much as the white, but I think it turned out alright.

I don't think I have his head turned as far to his right as I did before I painted him, but his head kept falling off because there wasn't enough contact with his neck.  Even though it looks like he should be looking in the direction that his arm is pointing, the model is more designed for him to look forward.

And with that, the last of my grots is painted and ready for our next round of adventures in the Skid.  Here they are with the rest of the herd:

Technically, this is the most grots I can have in my mob at the moment with my eight orks.  Unfortunately, I also need to have enough vehicles to transport them, and I don't think I can quite get them all loaded.  Still, I've got them outfitted with a wide variety of weapons, so I can take any combination that I choose.

It's time to see how a mob does when it's super grot heavy...

More Gretchin for the Mob

Managed to get a couple more grots painted up.  This guy got the weirdest pair of goggles of the bunch, which turned out alright.  My glue job sticking him to the top of those gears didn't hold, so I had to reattach him.  Hopefully this time it holds, or I might regret not pinning him to his base.

I might end up counting those cables in his hand as a chain, since that's one weapon that nobody in my mob has been equipped with yet, but I'm not sure how effective it will be in the hands of a weedy little grot.

Speaking of guys who really should have been pinned to their bases, Wibz here was a bit trickier to attach to his little pile of scrap than I had anticipated.  That's what I get for sticking a model together with a big wad of yellow tack and then not checking the actual fitting before painting.

You can't really tell in either picture, but that little yellow wire sticking out of his box actually has some decent hazard stripes painted on it.  I'll have to see if I can actually get it to show up in a picture some time.

Anyway, getting close to completing the rest of the herd...

One Grot at a Time...

Things have been kind of busy around here, so there hasn't been much nerding for the last few months.  However, I did finally get a single grot painted.  Kludzh here is sporting a fancy rivet gun from the Mek Gun crew, as well as an improvised spiky klub from the Poxwalker sprue.  A very appropriate set of equipment for a grot that hangs around with a bunch of crazy Spannerz all day.

I actually tried to make his shirt a bit more blue than the other gretchin in the mob, though I'm not sure it really came out.  Still, I'm quite pleased with his overall aesthetic.  Those little gears hanging off his apron sure were a pain to get right, though.

Anyway, one extra grot probably isn't enough to get through the rest of our current campaign (unless I do absolutely horribly), so hopefully I can get to his buddies  over the next few weeks...

Mini-Campaign: Da Big Race

The final event of the Mini-Campaign, as usual, was Da Big Race.  Unfortunately for Marvolork, the Meks were still trying to stick the engine back inside the Skwagmobile after it's encounter with Grizwoad's big grabba, so the Dook of Skwag was forced to run two bikes as his entries - a first for da Big Race.  The two Gorker nobs ran their usual trukk and bike combo, while I tried my luck with my two trakks.  I also managed to scrape together enough teef to install shoutas in the back of my big trakk.  Because shoutas are awesome.

As soon as the race began, the bikes took an early lead over the other vehicles.  Although there was a bit of the usual chaos, the fact that the racers didn't have to swerve around the smoking wreckage of Marvolork's trakk on the way to the first curve meant that the start of the race went uncharacteristically smoothly.

Despite the lack of the usual catastrophic crashes, however, the bigger vehicles seemed to be unable to keep up with the Marvolork and Urzig's speedy bikers.

What no one realized is that while they were all having the Meks make their bikes fasta, I was the making my trakk fasta.  The Meks only squeezed another two inches of movement into my thrustas, but it was enough for Gabby to catch up to Marvolork's biker and start tailing him.

Just as Gabby finally got a spot of luck, the bikers' luck seemed to run out.  A series of thrusta malfunctions and spin outs befell the lead racers, sending nearly all of them careening into the corner of the racetrack.  As we headed into the straightaway, a single biker lead the pack with Gabby on his tail.

Since most of the excitement usually happened on the first half of the racetrack, we decided we needed to spice up the final turn a bit.  We did that by placing a few gun emplacements with 'eavy shootas on the cliffs overlooking the last half of the track.  Fortunately for Marvolork's lone biker, the shootas weren't able to hit him.

As Marvolork's biker began to pull out in front, the rest of the pack started to catch up to Gabby.

This time around, we had not one, but two large bombs near the finish line.  Fortunately for the biker, he was able to avoid the blast as the first one went off and carefully make his way between the crater and the nearby sand dune as Toast fired wildly in his direction with his shoota.  Sadly, Gabby wasn't able to get close enough for Toast to use his beloved skorcha.

And so Marvolork's biker won the race, scoring the first race victory for Da Dook's Blastas.

Gabby and Toast took home second place for Grizwoad and his Chop Squad, despite Urzig's attempts to stop them.

Finally, Spike and Grizwoad managed to take third, but not before plucking Chad's gunner right out of his trukk using their trusty big grabba.

And thus ended our epic, full-day campaign.  The plan was for it to be a one-off, but now that Marvolork has scored his first big race win, it looks like we might continue this campaign so Marvolork can use his prize - a rare set of Mega Armor.  That also means we might be starting off the next session with a rescue mission so that Chad can get his gunner back (or at least try).  That also means I need to start building a fort so we can have a proper rescue scenario.  Lots to do.

Now it's time to get back to painting grots...

Mini-Campaign: Nob uv da Kop

The next round of the campaign was the Nob uv da Kop scenario.  It consists of a tall mesa loaded with scrap, but only accessible to troops on foot.  There were also various hazards in the surrounding desert, such as cacti and a couple of deadly unexploded bombs.

Between games, I had picked up Slash, my dapper runtherd and as many runts as my two vehicles could hold.  Despite my big score in the previous game, I didn't have the teef to give them all weapons, so they were mostly there to grab scrap while Da Boyz tried to keep the other three mobs busy.

Also, since Spike had been taken out during the chase, Grubmitz, my spanner, had officially taken over the driver's spot on my big trakk.  This wasn't a great setup, since Spike's a terrible fighter, but he also couldn't take back his post in a challenge...because Spike's a terrible fighter.  As such, he was relegated to the back of the bus with the grots for this round.

While I drove toward the Kop with my cars loaded with grots, the other mobs had filled out their mobs with options that had a bit more firepower.  Marvolork and Chad each had a pack of bikers flanking their main vehicles, while Urzig, in typical Urzig fashion, had loaded up with boyz.  Although I had superior numbers, I didn't think I had a chance at taking out one of the other mobs head on, let alone surviving against all three.  As such, my plan was to rush to the Kop, grab as much scrap as I could, and hopefully get out alive.

Since Marvolork's mob was the closest and the most maneuverable, I threw everything at him, detonating a bomb in an attempt to blow up one of his bikers.  Fortunately for me, he decided not to bother with me and turned to go behind the Kop where I couldn't shoot him anymore.

On the other side of the Kop, Chad's bikers had rushed down to harass Urzig's boyz while the rest of his mob rushed to the Kop, where Marvolork was already at the top.

With Marvolork already on the mesa and his big trakk shooting at them from below, Chad's boys had a fairly difficult time scaling the cliffs.  Hoping to take some of the pressure off of his climbers, Chad brought his trukk in to challenge Marvolork's trakk.  A challenge that Marvolork accepted...

...in proper Orky fashion.

Unfortunately for Chad, a head-on collision with Marvolork wasn't the only thing he had to worry about.  His bikers were quickly being overtaken by Urzig's mobsters.  Marvolork's bikers joined in the fray to keep the pressure on Urzig, but the heavily-armed Gorkers were barely slowed down.  Now both Chad and Marvolork's bikers were in trouble, with Urzig himself "boarding" one of Marvolork's bikes and beating its rider to death.

As Urzig proceeded to pummel everyone who stood between him and the scrap-rich hill, Grizwoad and his mob burst onto the Kop in full force, taking Marvolork and his slaver, Shylokk by surprise.  Grizwoad and Slash charged their two counterparts, while everyone else in the mob grabbed the nearest piece of scrap and made a dash for the waiting getaway cars.  Within two turns, half the mesa had been picked clean.

Unfortunately, with Chad and later Marvolork both bottling out, my cunning band of Morkers were suddenly targeted by all of Urzig's firepower.  Grizwoad took a round from Urzig's 'eavy shoota and went down, falling off the mesa and landing face-down in the sand.  Gabby's little trakk took a beating as well, and was shot to pieces before it had a chance to make it off the table.  This left only Deezo, my big trakk for the rest of the mob to pile into with their loot.  They sped off, leaving Grizwoad and Slash to fend for themselves and ceding victory of the scenario (and half the scrap) to Urzig.

Fortunately, no one died after this round and another decent haul of scrap meant that I had enough teef to arm my grots, mount a skorcha on Lil' Skorchy (finally), and mount my brand new big grabba on Deezo.

The next round saw me facing off against Marvolork.  We ended up using the Kop again, as it's such a nice terrain piece, though all the large terrain left very little space for bulky vehicles to maneuver in.

Right out of the gate, Marvolork's bikers rushed forward to contest the scrap while he sent a few footers up the Kop to get the few pieces up there.  Toast and Gabby managed to give one of the bikers a face full of skorcha (which he somehow survived), while the rest of the mob drove toward the sand dune.

Marvolork's third biker managed to survive a hail of grot bullets and headed off to flank Gabby and Toast, leaving the two big trakks to battle it out on the dunes.

Marvolork's bikers continued to run circles around Lil' Skorchy, shrugging off Toast's attempts to incinerate them.  I decided it was time to deploy the grots and start getting the scrap loaded into the vehicles in case things went south.

Meanwhile, the two big trakks charged at each other across the dunes.  Just as it looked like Marvolork might try another head-on ram, Grizwoad reached out with his big grabba and deftly ripped the engine out of the Skwagmobile, leaving it immobilized.

With the primary threat now neutralized, the gang turned their attention to the bikers, who were now in serious trouble.

In a last-ditch effort to score some scrap, Pukk, the driver of the wrecked Squagmobile jumped out of his vehicle and charged Zhak, my grot, who was on scrap duty.  Not ones to leave even a lowly grot behind, Grizwoad, Spike, and Slash leapt from the trakk to defend the little grot.  And with that, the skirmish was over.  Marvolork's boyz managed to grab a few pieces of scrap from the top of da Kop, but the rest fell into Grizwoad's hands.

Next up, the final round of the event...the ever-popular Big Race!

Mini-Campaign: Squig Hunt

Perhaps not unexpectedly, our mini-campaign last fall ended up being a larger affair than we had originally envisioned.  Our one-day rumble in the desert might be turning into another year-long quest to see who's da meanest mob of Orks on Gorkamorka.  Not that I'm complaining.  The main goal of the "mini" campaign was to test out the tweaks we've been making in our house rules to try and make them more balanced and ensure that different strategies are still competitive.  So far the results have been quite positive.

The only downside, is that I have a ton of pictures to sort through, so in the interest of actually getting them posted, I'm going to tackle the first session of the campaign in thirds.

Once again, we decided to start the campaign off with a cooperative game to hopefully get everyone that first important win to up their Nob's leadership and open up more options in Mektown.  This time, however, instead of trying to round up a bunch of mangy squigs, we set our sights higher.  Our four mobs embarked upon Da Hunt fer da Great White Squig.

This scenario used the Rollin' Road rules.  In addition to our normal weapons, each of our mobsters was armed with harpoons.  The basic idea is to drive up as close as you dare to the giant squig and try to get as many harpoons in him as you can, then slam on the breaks.  If you can slow him down and drag him off the trailing edge of the table, you win.  If he escapes off the leading edge, you lose.

Easy, right?

Unfortunately, my big trakk that was carrying most of my mob spun out on the first turn and ended up facing backward.  As the other mobs were closing in on the White Squig, Spike was trying his best just to stay on the table.

As I tried my best to make a giant U-turn, the other trukks converged on the squig.  While the squig itself was pretty dangerous, we found out that the bigger danger was simply trying to drive so many vehicles in tight formation.

On the far side of the table, Gabby was catching  up to the rest of the pack in his little wartrakk.  Unfortunately, he didn't have any passengers to throw harpoons, so there was little he could do except to fire wildly at the squig's legs and hope that a lucky shot might put a slug through its thick hide.

As the Great White Squig neared the edge of the table, the other three mobs desperately tried to get enough harpoons stuck in it to slow it down. As the bikes and trucks swerved around each other, Marvolork's big trakk slammed on its breaks.  Sadly, it wasn't enough to stop the squig, which continued forward, snapping the tow lines and sending the trakk spinning.  Marvolork was thrown high into the air, landing with soft thud in the desert sand.

In a surprising turn of luck, Marvolork happened to land right next to Gabby's vehicle.  The Dook of Skwag pulled himself on to the flame-less flamecar and ordered his fellow Morker to "Follow dat Squig!"

Gabby was so excited to be back in the game that he switched on the thrustas and shot forward like a flash...

...right into a cactus.

Gabby and the car managed to get through the cactus unscathed and continued to charge excitedly toward the squig.  Unfortunately, Marvolork got a face full of poisonous spines and was once more knocked out of his vehicle and left face down in the desert.

Meanwhile, on the far side of the board, Grizwoad and the rest of the gang manage to finally get the trakk going in the right direction, just in time to see the White Squig escaping into the distance.

So the first round is a loss for everyone involved.  As with the previous campaign, I go into the second round firmly in last place.  The second round pits me against Urzig, who despite coming in second to Chad and his boyz last campaign, managed to soundly thrash his opponent in nearly every encounter.  Fortunately, there are more scenarios in the rotation this time around and since I have the lower mob rating, it ends up falling to me to pick the scenario.  I choose "Da Chase," another rollin' road scenario that as a Morker, would hopefully give me a slight edge, even with my lower mob rating.  I also had two vehicles to Urzig's one, so even in a worst case scenario, he would have to choose which of my vehicles to beat the crap out of.

Naturally, I tried to maximize my advantage by deploying my two trakks far apart.  My opponent countered by placing a bunch of barriers on the far side of the only sand dune on the table, taking away the only advantage that my trakks had over his trukk, which was faster.  Fortunately for me, a bad roll on the thrusta busta table sent him spinning, allowing both my vehicles to escape, fully loaded with scrap.

So unlike last campaign, where an early loss tended to put you permanently behind the other players, underdogs really do have a chance of winning a big upset.  There's also scenarios that favor both Morkers and Gorkers, so when the underdog gets to choose the scenario, it's actually pretty helpful.

This big haul gave me plenty of teef to spend back in Mektown, as well as a victory to bump up Grizwoad's leadership.  This time, however, I wasn't going for a small gang with super-fancy cars.  In fact, I was going in the opposite direction.

I was getting me some grots.

More Gubbinz

I probably should have stayed focused on getting the rest of my grots painted up in time for the campaign, but as is oft the case, I got distracted by another shiny idea and ended up spending a few days making gubbinz instead.  In addition to my lovely spikes and shoutas, Deezo now has a set of boarding planks and a big grabba.

The boarding planks were my first adventure into the realm of magnetization.  I had originally intended building magnetized gubbinz when I was first assembling my trakk, but unfortunately I wasn't even able to get a weapon, let alone a full set of gubbinz completed in time for the start of our first campaign.  I've still got a long way to go (plus two other vehicles that could use some love), but my trakk is growing into quite the monster.

Oh, I also gave myself the option to swap out the big grabba for a wrecka ball, just in case...

Anyway, since this was all being done after the whole trakk was assembled and painted, I had to go about it a bit differently than I had envisioned in the beginning.  Since the planks were detachable, I didn't trust the normal hinges, which weren't very deep.  I ended up putting a pin in each side, which didn't quite line up with the center of the hinge.  There was a lot of friction and sheering stress when you rotated it at first, but it seemed to eventually bend or warp itself into shape so that both planks rotate quite freely now.

There wasn't enough room between the truck bed and the tracks to slide the planks in between them (to say nothing of installing magnets), so I made some small platforms to extend the bed out over the tracks.  I wanted them to be as sturdy as possible, so I also gave each platform two long planks with some pins that would be glued to the bed.  Even with just a dry fitting, it held the platforms on pretty tight, so I'm pretty sure that they're not going anywhere.

Next up was the big grabba.  I was quite fond of Cygnus' use of the Battlewagon grabba on his big trakk, but I didn't want to just copy him outright.  I decided to base my grabba off a big mek power klaw, which had a nice robotic look to it, but was much too small to grab an ork.  The obvious solution to this problem was to bulk it up with a ton of plasticard and sprue.

While I'm pretty pleased with the end result, it was far from a smooth conversion.  Due to poor planning and a few holes that I drilled less than straight, this claw is pinned in somewhere between seven and nine different places.  There are five pins in the "wrist" portion alone.

Fortuately, the arm portion was much more straightforward.  Most of it is made from a Killa Kan arm, with a bit of shoota added on to give it some length.  The arm, shoota, and claw were all connected by a single long pin that ran down the middle of all three, so at least I know I don't screw these things up all the time.

Considering how long the big grabba is and how far forward its center of gravity is, I didn't trust the thin copper wire that I used to make the interchangeable weapon for my slaver, so I got some thin brass pipe to connect both my grabba and the wrecka ball to the vehicle.  The tube it slides into was build onto one of the boarding plank platforms.  The wrecka ball didn't have many changes made to it, other than adding a lot more spiky bits to the ball itself.

The finished gubbinz looked pretty good attached to the trakk.  The platforms for the boarding plank now make my trakk super wide (which can be a big deal in Gorkamorka), but not any wider than it is with all of its spikes attached, so I can live with it.

The big grabba looks surprisingly good painted up, considering what a hodgepodge of sprue and plasticard it actually is.  The mechanical bits that I used to cover up the huge chunks of sprue that made the wrist are a pair of vox casters that I happened to have lying around.  I thought I'd try my hand again at hazard stripes, and I'm fairly pleased by the results.  Ties it in nicely to Grizwoad's choppa.

 I also made a little control panel to control the hydraulics.

The wrecka ball also turned out quite nice, though it probably won't get a ton of play because of how much fun big grabbas are.  Maybe I need to add a mount to the back of my little flamecar...

So if my big trakk wasn't over-the-top enough before, it's certainly a lot more ridiculous now.  Proper Orky.  Although now that I'm to this point, I can't help thinking that it could really use a reinforced ram...maybe a mine layer too...

Sadly, finishing up the gubbinz took up the whole week before the start of the new campaign, so only half of my runts got painted in time to play.  I've also gotten terribly behind in my blogging, so I need to get caught up on all the events of our mini-campaign.  Until next time...