So backtrack a few months. Rumours about the new Necron codex are beginning to materialise, and I am not feeling inspired by them. It seems likely that, given what happened to my Tyranid army at the release of their latest codex, my Necrorks would probably be sitting things out for the forseeable future.
Rumours also placed the codex release date at approximately the right time for Stouthammer, which is my big yearly 40k event.
So I thought it was about time to get a new army in place.
An idea (or atleast, a pun and an observation on one of the newer and more maligned plastic kits) had gestated for a while by this point, and as GW announced their grand plan to close off the great warpstorms access to our shores, I took advantage of the final days to buy the last of my GW boxes.
Fast forward to Friday evening, through a hurried trip up to Brisbane for a fortnight, Housesitting for a friend, and some other stuff that doesnt really bear talking about, and I am finally putting the finishing touches of the army in place for the tourney.

Anyway, tourney is done and dusted, and while I'm a bit disappointed with my paint score, it was a good fun event and I had some nice memorable games. Having spent most of yesterday asleep, I whipped out A camera this morning to take some shots of the army.
My photography skills arent the best to begin with, and in all the bustle moving things between houses over the last few weeks, I have misplaced my usual camera (with its nice super-macro setting) so the photos are smaller/less detailed than i'd prefer and do not really show up the highlighting on the skin in particular. The army is quite a dark one (which was a very intentional choice to cause certain elements to pop out more) which unfortunately makes it hard to appreciate in tournament lighting. Clearly I need to try painting a brightly coloured army next time if i want to get the judges onside more!

Anyways, here is the blurb I placed before my army list, followed by some pictures of the army.

M41.Y993: Soma System. Planet: Lee-Alpha. The Plains Of Moghur Deeshu

The City burnt. In the distance, Forward Kommander Grue Bad-Fang lowered his viewfinder and gazed across the sandy bluff. Despite disappointing readings, 'Da Itch' behind his skull told him that somewhere out there in the haze and smoke their prey lurked. 'Umies with da red hats. He'd sent out a handful of lads earlier to look, but so far no reports had made it back.
Behind him, Da Boyz, the '160th* Specalist Ork Assault Regiment (Airborne)' had broken off into small clusters, gambling, fighting, or both. They were restless, itching for a fight. He didnt blame them.
"Boss -" Skargut, his radio operator called out over the whine of the idling turbines, "Report from da city. Someone shot down one of the ladz. He says it wasnt da 'umies after all."
Zog it. He was gonna get them one of these days. Maybe not today, but someday. For now though, the Boyz wanted a scrap, and whoever it was out there was gonna get a great big stomping.
He chomped down on his cigar, motioned crudely with his power klaw to the tracker who was idly picking his nails with a large knife and yelled over the din.
"Ok Boyz, get your gear together, we're moving out!"

(*Best not to dwell on What had happened to the previous 159. This last batch hadn't exploded in over a week, which the Meks took as a good sign.)


And now the pictures.
First, the objective. the "Black Ork Down" himself


And then what the enemies of the army see when first they peer over their trenches *Cue ride of the valkyries*



And onto a few more shots of various bits

The Koptas


And some shots of the Battlewagons themselves





And pouring out of the three wagons comes


(not all of them, just a few of my favourites)


Unfortunately the photography also doesnt really do any favours to the basing (which have submerged skulls and rocks and tufts of dying grass on them, much of which isnt noticable here. I really must get some better photos of them one day)

But where, I shall pretend to hear you ask, is Kommander Badfang himself? (No, its not the guy peering out from Sierra One-Thirty-Seven, although that was originally the plan< when the list was nastier and had KFFs in it.)

Here he is! And he's got friends!


And in some more detail



(And a shot so you can see the guns a little more clearly)



And last of all, the big army shot

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~Every Tool Is A Weapon, If You Hold It Right~

very nice indeed - did you field them as orks or blood angels?

orks
list was a
warboss with klaw squig armour cybork body boss pole and a combi-rokkit (the grenlauncher)
kommando squad with 2 burnas and snikrot
3 squads, each of 20 boyz with sluggas, 1 big shoota, and a nob with boss pole and power klaw
3 squadrons of 3 deffkoptas, all with big bombs, 2 squadrons with rokkits, 1 with big shootas
and 3 battle wagons, each with deffrollas, stikkbombs, armour, grot riggers, red paint 2 big shootas and 2 rokkits

it did ok, not great. one player i smashed totally (not a satisfying game) one i got smashed (equally so) and 3 i drew (the draws where good games though)
people are scared by 3 battlewagons with deffrollas, but being as massive and tall as they are, they're near impossible to hide, have to move through terrain basically all the time, and when you can get to their side or rear arc, their armour drops significantly (plus, being open topped, they tend to blow up when penetrated or even glanced the wrong way. i had one die to boltgun fire!)
if they'd had the two KFF meks like the original list, i think they would have won more games, but even then, probably not all of them

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~Every Tool Is A Weapon, If You Hold It Right~

Very imaginative army- nice work.

I like the conversion of the Storm Raven cockpits to look like the Kommando NVGs.

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SG

Ghost's Paint Blog, where everything goes that isn't something else.

Heavy on GW washes?

yeah, most of the clothing (and all the metals except the shell casings and the gun panels) involved either badab black or devlan mud to help mute the colours down (two devlan muds in the case of the berets) i also used ogryn flesh as a mid-point of the ork skin (orkhide, catachan, ogryn, catachan+tiniest smidge of knarloc)
i also used a combination of devlan and baal as the basis for the headlights on the vehicles

GW washes are great stuff, pretty much the best product they've made in years

but compared to the "2 days to paint the whole army and washes over everything" method that my necrorks used (and got an 100% painting score at one point) i do feel that my month and a half's effort was not entirely justified by the 63.3 i scored for this one :/

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~Every Tool Is A Weapon, If You Hold It Right~

Interesting ...

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Legion 4 "Cry Havoc, and let slip the Dogs of War !" ... "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

Breathtaking work
how nice an Ork army can look
if using IG stuff

excellent, a great idea - now i am thinking about an epic version!

very cool