Welcome all to the first month of the 40k 2^nd Edition Challenge, Mark V – Wave 1!  I’ll let you all get right to the participants, it’s their show after all!

“‘Ere, da boss wants those Oomies gone” yelled the Bad Moon Nob approaching the Goff boys in their foxholes, pointing in the general direction of the well defended bunker the Imperial Guard Troops had been holdings out in for the last day or so. “Well why don’ him an’ ‘is richboyz getz on it? replied Nozgrond the Goff Nob. “Kuz ‘e sez ‘use lotz da biggest an’ ugliest Orkses ‘dat do da best ‘and-to’and fights and no uvver ladz is as ‘ard as da Goffs” came the reply. “Well ‘dats right – don’t ya worry ‘bout dat!” shouted Nozgrond before turning to warband “letz show um” he bellowed as they started chanting back “Ere we go! ere we go!” in unison and leaping from cover they charged out towards the imperial defenders. “‘ ‘e also fort ‘use lotz da bigg’est show offs ‘an dat makez ya so predictabul” muttered the Bad Moon nob as he ducked his head and headed back towards the banners of his Warboss, the sounds of the Goff charge striking home behind him.      

So here we go again! This time its one of the absolute iconic forces of 2nd Edition 40K for me with these Orks, and I hope I can do them justice as it feels like this years challenge is a thinly veiled call to Waaargh with the number of entrants also looking to paint up some Greenskins. 

My first slice has been focused on the real workhorses of Ork army ground troops. While the flashy stormboyz might go zooming all over (and sometimes off) the battlefield, and the Kommandos like to sneak around the table, its the Goff boys who time and again are seen marching up the middle of the table looking to take on all comers and do some serious damage..behind a screen of Gretchin of course as there is no point getting shot at before the proper fighting can start! 

So in total, Ive painted a couple of Nobz, 8 Skarboys and 8 Goff boys for a total of 18 figures this month. Now while I had initially arranged these into two groups, one for the Skarboys and one for everyone else in the pictures, this is unlikely to be the way they are fielded on the battlefield, for one important reason. Unlike the Ooomans and their strict unit doctrine, Orks are far more fast and loose with what classifies as a mob, allowing units up to 20 and as small as 5 boyz. In light of the victory points tables in Dark Millennium it can be worth trying to avoid having too many units just tipping over into the next bracket of VP’s being awarded for their destruction and therefore one smaller and one larger unit can make more sense than a couple of units both worth 101 points. Also, its worth pointing out that in the Battle bible, Skarboyz are listed as their own separate mob, but within the Ork Codex and Goff boy can be upgraded to a Skarboy for an extra 1pt to create mixed mobs of Goffs, all armed individually – another book keeping brain ache that we love 2nd edition for!  

 With that in mind, my force composition for this month is 

Gratza’s Mob 

Goff Nob with Powerfist  23 points 

5 Goff Boyz  60 points 

6 Goff Boyz upgraded to Skarboyz and 4 of those with Chainswords 86 points 

169 points  

Total for the slice  261 points 

Total models for the slice  18

As always, you can follow along with this and my various other Oldhammer projects over at my IG profile @ad80_herohammer 

Wachtmeister: These are clearly Goff boyz, look at those checks!  I’m always impressed by people who take the time to do checks, my eyes are going crossed just looking at them, never mind painting them!

Points this month: 254

Model Count this month: 10

Say something about this months entry:

First ever slice done! 9 Dire Avengers and 1 Exarch. I must say I feel pretty good about myself for completing this month, and I am quite pleased with the results. I decided that I would try to knock out the most difficult slice immediately so that the rest of the challenge would be a breeze. With 10 models total at 254 points, this slice will be the biggest one for me. Painting the Dire Avengers was a lot of fun and I am really happy with how colourful they are and how much they pop on the tabletop. I’m also stoked over how the Exarch turned out, as it’s probably one of my favourite models in the entire Eldar range.

Next month I think I’ll paint a squad of Howling Banshees, I hope to see all of you then!

9 Dire Avengers – 198

Exarch (Power Sword) – 56

Total: 254

Wachtmeister: Niklas has really captured the glory of 2^nd Edition with these Eldar.  I love the bright colors, and the highlighting.  The gems really pop too, I hope they don’t drive him too crazy by the end of the challenge!

Ork Warbikes in 2nd edition better be awesome, because I just killed myself painting a ton of them. However, I absolutely love how these look all painted up, and it isn’t solely that I’m relieved to have finally painted 14 warbikes (I really do not enjoy painting vehicles, and I realize that my army list for the challenge is essentially all vehicles). It’s just that, to me, nothing better captures the feel of Orks than a motorcycle gang riding Kettenkrads sporting twin-linked autocannons!

The models themselves were fiddly to assemble. I painted the riders separately, and then added them to the bikes at the end. Nothing about the models really lined up well, and required filing, puttying, and bending. There are only 3 sculpts of riders, so I added a tiny bit of variety in painting their tool bags, bed rolls, and neck kerchiefs in different color combos. Since these warbikes are all troop selection upgrades for Evil Sunz boyz, I painted all their backplates with little grinning sun motifs. After a dozen of them, I lost all interest in a freehand banner this month. Maybe further along in the challenge I’ll reconsider.

I was planning on painting the nob warbike for next month’s submission, but in the end I figured I should get all the warbikes done in one fell swoop. It was a real slog by the midpoint, but now that I have them all assembled for the picture, I’m thrilled. I hope I never see another unpainted warbike.

Models and Points:

Warboss with Plasma Gun on Nobz Bike – 91

Evil Sunz Boyz Mob on Warbikes (7) – 329

Evil Sunz Boyz Mob on Warbikes (6) – 282

Totals:

14 models (28 equivalent)

702 points

More photos of my miniatures can be found on Instagram @pygmyhippo and on my blog https://giantpygmy.com

Wachtmeister: PygmyHippo set a high bar for himself, just like he always does!  That is a mob of ork boyz I would not want to run into.  They really do capture the wild look you would expect of Ork Bikerz.  I love the blue on the bosses powerfist!  If you are a fan of that particular model you haven’t seen the last of it in this challenge, Martin Tain Taylor’s version is further down!

I got off to a great start on this army.  No, I didn’t do chunk one, I was in such a rush that I dove headlong into chunk two.  My magus and my first unit of brood bros totalling 222 points.

These were fun, more fun than I’ve had painting in a fair while.  I love the feel of this army.  Someone on a painting discord the other day asked me why I like genestealers but wasn’t so hot on tyranids and I responded: 

“They are a dark underground religious cult running around with bunches of people in robes and the hidden high priests running around in civilian street cars – which suddenly sprout 4 armed death creatures on an unsuspecting populace.”

I’m going with an overall ‘red’ theme to this army – stealers excepted – which I started with 3 test figures 6 months ago. The brood bros are overall red and brown / ochre but with the purple and blue of the stealer influence also present.

The magus essentially followed the same paint scheme as the previous magus I painted. Red and gold robes and just slightly inhuman looking flesh.

Because I was so far ahead I also worked on some other little things I had laying around, a unit of beastmen with lasguns (I’ll just call them more brood bros for the moment) and my first coven limo. For some reason in painting it red rather than it’s original black the vehicle somehow looks smaller – but I still really like how it has turned out.

The beastmen I’ve painted pretty generically but with red shoulder pads so that they shouldn’t be too out of place whether in this army, a chaos army or an imperial guard army.

Magus, brood bros, beastmen and unarmed limosine: 222+60+20+40=342

Wachtmeister: That is a lot of cult members!  Adrian did a great job getting a unified scheme across his army, they are going to look real sharp pilling out of that sweet limo!

Hey all!

Month one, done and under the belt. This slice was the one I was most nervous for. Forty models during the shortest month of the year! Game on.

Fortunately – or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it – we had a flu hit the family this month. The silver lining was, between the five sick kids and wife, I ended up having a few extra unscheduled painting evenings as I skipped work to keep a handle on the home situation. Forty termagants is a lot! Fortunately the models take well to contrast paints and batch painting. The basic recipe was to prime the models white, do an initial tan opaque carapace layer followed by the green skin, contrast both with brown and green shade respectively, followed by magos purple interiors and a nice, vibrant turquoise for the weapons. A simple black touch up worked for the eyes and claws and we called them done. Nothing too crazy, but, with the model count working out to almost two a day, there is only so much detail that can be worked in! I am very happy with the scheme and the swarm is eye-catching on the tabletop.

Next month, I get to treat myself with two Screamer-Killers. The two models weigh more than the forty termagants combined! Time to do some pinning and break out the milliput.

See you all in March!

Slice 01 – 40 Termagants, 246 points.

– TJM

Wachtmeister: Wow.  40 models in the shortest month of the challenge is super impressive!  Even more impressive is how cool they look.   At the time of this writing I only have the basecoat on my single model of the month, I’m going to need to get my life together and quick! 

Hi folks,

This month I worked on completing a Carnifex that I started during the previous challenge. It was originally meant to be a bonus model during the month I painted my first Carnifex, but I ran out of time and never got back to it. The paint scheme is identical to the first, but the pose is very different; this one looks like it is giving out free hugs! Having a pair of Carnifices in the army provides me with some solid support for my Hive Tyrant and back-line gunbeasts. 

I am going through some health struggles at the moment, so having something a little easier to complete was much appreciated this month. It does leave me with some concerns for the following months, but I guess that’s why they call it a “challenge”. It is great to be painting 2nd Ed. models again with everyone and I’ll try my best to make it to the end.

Wachtmeister: This is my favorite Carnifex Games Workshop ever made.  The 10^th edition Screamer Killer is in second place, but only because it is obviously emulating the 2^nd edition version. M4cr0Dutch’s take on it is awesome; I never get tired of seeing this color scheme!

Greetings fellow cunnin’ gitz! Got your finest purple suit on and your glowing power axe for all that sneaking around ruined ‘oomie buildingz ??? Excellent! Let’s have a look at what got painted this month – WAAARGH!

February being the short month that it is always meant things were going to be a squeeze, so while my Warboss on Cyboar and the Kommandos were completed, the only other greenskin that got finished was the Blood Axe Kommando Kaptain with a shiny new power sword. 

However, I was lucky enough to have a friend print me up this amazing ruined monastery from the good folks at Grimdark Terrain and WOW, I have to say they really nailed the classic piece of Games Workshop Studio Terrain! I made up some texture paint and gave it my traditional planet Oedo red desert scheme. Can’t wait to play some games on it 😀

Anyway, thanks again for supporting this wonderful challenge and hope you keep reading \m/

-Tain

Slice 1:

5 Blood Axe Kommandos with power axes (100pts)

Warboss on cyboar with eavy armour, plasma pistol, spike arm and power fist (106pts)

Bonus:

Blood Axe Kommando Kaptain with power sword (41pts)

Classic ruined monastery terrain (from Grimdark Terrain)

Total: 247pts

Wachtmeister: I love Martin’s take on this Ork Warboss, he is the low tech version of PygmyHippo’s from above.  His Blood Axe Commandos are dead sneaky in that sharp camouflage, especially with the bits of purple running through.  Looks like our Ork painters are battling it out for best backgrounds, all three of them in Wave One knocked it out of the park!  Martin even painted his terrain for this month!