Vorrgash Starshokk turned to the Evil Sunz Nob and asked for what he felt was the fifteenth time “so where da dog are yer bikes?” The Nob seamed to give this question a fair amount of thought, turning back to his boyz almost for reassurance before giving the same answer he had provided the last fourteen times “In da workshop, ya git!”. “Well wot da zog use are ya den” screamed Vorrgah, finally losing his patience. “Da boss wanted summa you Evil Sunz to whizz around da enemies’ flank on ya motors an’ do sum damage before da ‘umies knew wot’s comin’. If ‘e wanted sum Orks to jus’ stand about an’ look shifty, ‘e wud’ve got sum Dethskullz to do it…or even some of does traitorous Blood Axes rather dan you lot!”  

At this the Evil Sunz started to take offence, while also appearing slightly abashed at not having their traditional mode of transport with them. “Ere we can do dat chargin’ about an’ brawlin’ stuff wiv da best of ‘em” the Nob retorted. “We’r  always gettin’ into fights wiv dose Stormboyz, an’ love a good scrap as much as da next Ork” he fired back. 

Shaking his head, Vorrgash looked down at the blank slate he had taken to carrying around for times like this. “Well, it says ‘ere on me big list o’ plans dat da boss gave me – if yer not on da bikes, ya can protect da heavy weapons at da back o’ da army.” He said this while gesturing at the motley collection of Gretchin who were in the process of setting up what looked like a catapult, a cannon on wheels and the worlds biggest firework. “So why didn’t ya jus’ say so? ” asked the Nob as he set off with his retinue of boyz. “Why’ve I got ta win dis zogging war all by meself?” wondered Vorrgash all to himself as he set off to the next group of Orks stood around waiting for the battle to commence. 

Here we are onto month 4 already! This month I had some old an new models in my collection to paint up. The Hot Splat gun (here as a Splatta Kannon) has been waiting for a decent paint job for the odd 30 years, while the Evil Sunz Mob and Pulsa Rockkit were more recent additions. Back at the start of this challenge I said I wanted to hit the enemy hard and fast. Most of this month makes up the hard part! The artillery able to lay down some serious disruption to the enemy battle lines early while the rest of the army gets into position, and a unit of Evil Sunz bikers on foot was too cool an opportunity to pass up with these new sculpts from Trollet Miniatures. 

So this month i have a total of 13 models broken down as follows, 

Evil Sunz boys mob,

Nob with power fist and plasma gun, 6 boyz with a chainsword…..         103 points 

Pulsa Rokkit  50 points 

Splatta Kannon 60 points 

Total points for the month                         213 points

As always, you can follow along with my various Middlehammer projects over on instagram,   @ad80_herohammer 

Wachtmeister: Once again Alex knocked it out of the park with his bright 2^nd Edition color scheme!  The stahlhelm wearing Ork throwing the middle finger is a newer model but he sums up the fun of 2^nd Edition perfectly!

All of this challenge I’ve been feeling like I’m riding the crest of a wave, I have had no issue staying well ahead of the deadlines and really enjoying the character of the paintjobs I’m achieving.  

Having gotten to about the fifth of May I took stock of my situation.  I had one figure to finish to reach my monthly goal and had already made a solid start on June.  Both of these chunks were slightly smaller than previous so I decided to have a go at finishing the whole lot in May.

I did make a tiny mistake in my list.  I only have 5 acolytes with bolt pistols, the other 5 are a lasgun squad.  Points aren’t affected and they are playable in 5 man units.

I’ve spent a good week on my 6 purestrains, trying to reach a result that I was happy with.  They are bright compared to the dull reds of the rest of the army but I think that’s appropriate given their importance.  

The big challenge was the icon bearer.  I made a greenstuff banner and tried a couple of colour schemes and designs ending up stealing one from the net.  Eventually I was really happy with how the banner turned out.

In the upcoming months I’ll still be submitting.  I have around 40 more brood brothers that I have been working on, more scum and villainy types rather than the uniform cultists I have been painting.  Also several more purestrains and the second coven limosine.  I hope I get it all done before August.

Chunk 4 

6 purestrain stealers 168

1 Neophyte Hybrid – flamer 19

187

Chunk 5 a mix of macrocosm and original.

10 acolyte hybrids 80

9 bolt pistols, flamer, power sword 33

1 Neophyte Hybrid, sword 11

1 Icon bearer, bolt pistol 47

171

Wachtmeister: Once again Adrian is rolling out blobs of infantry.  I really love the banner he put together, the fading on the icon looks terrific!  I can just picture the brood brother in the genestealer blog whispering “goooood puppies, don’t bit me, I’m your friend…..”

Another month in the bag, and I can almost see the finish line now! For this month I painted a unit of Striking Scorpions. After some rough starts and experiments I settled for a very bright green colour scheme, using some flourescent paints I very rarely use. Once I nailed that down, painted was fairly straightforward. I’m not sure if I’m 100% happy with the results (I’m still pretty bad at edge highlighting), but they certainly pop on the table.

Hopefully I can finish off this challenge next month, and maybe even have time to add a bonus entry? One can dream.

5 Striking Scorpions – 130 pts

Wachtmeister: Those Striking Scorpions aren’t sneaking up on anyone with that green armor and their red swords!  I love both colors, they really pop.  I also like how the figures don’t disappear into the base even though it is also a bright green.  This is not an easy feat! 

Episode IV A New Hope

Fallen Khorne Bezerkers. I love the 3rd edition plastic Bezerkers kit. It’s got a great selection of parts, for my purposes of something old and gothic and Dark Angelish it’s perfect. The main challenge this month was I hadn’t assembled the squad and I needed to remove all the Khorne icons and stuff from all the parts, including the helmets. In addition I got a bit frustrating with the arms that come with the kit, they’re all so un -dynamic! When you look at all the cover box assemblies they look very robotic. So I also did a fair amount of cutting and repositioning of the arms. I also added a few other bits and bobs including some ravenwing shoulder pads from newer kits. In the end I got the look I was after.

Next stage was painting them up. When I was assembling them, I kept thinking how the shoulder pad sculls resembled the scull in the Star Phantoms icon. If you read up about the Badab war and the Star Phantoms it states that they maybe of Dark Angel descent and if you read up about the old legion, there is a formation called the Dreadwing which has the Star Phantoms sculls-in-hourglass icon. So that sorted in my head that they were, a Dreadwing Despoiler squad. So I tried to add more white panels to these guys, I shaded them cream-sepia so they fit in with the general army colour scheme.

Next month – Terminator (3 or more!!) Judgment day… 

196

Khorne Bezerkers (5×35), Plasma Pistols (1×5), Chain Axe/Sword (4×2). Power Fist (10)

Wachtmeister: Vectis did another terrific job of melding figures together to create a cohesive force.  I love the nod to the Star Phantoms and the Dreadwing.  These guys are really bringing an OG Dark Angels vibe with them every month!

For the third slice I went with the second basic squad of seven sisters, this time equipped with bolters, a heavy bolter, a meltagun and a veteran sister with bolt pistol and power sword (turns out sisters cannot have chainswords!) for a total of 217 points. With this loadout, squad Mendoza will be tasked with holding positions and giving cover fire to their allies.

The models follow the same lines of the first squad, with the same minor additions to customize them a bit. On the other hand, the colour scheme is a bit different: the armour is a bit whiter, the robes less orange, the decorations more golden and the purity seals are incubi darkness instead of red, making them less blanchitsu but better fitting with the red robes.

There is no bonus this month because I spent half of my painting time in a small fleet for Dystopian Wars. I hope to have at least some bonuses for both last slices, but only time will tell.

Wachtmeister: This is another terrific entry from Viden.  I love the basing he is doing.  I almost always have clean feet and boots on my minis no matter what terrain they are standing on.  His method is terrific and really makes the minis look part of the scene. 

Greetings fellow pig racers! How’s the bacon sandwich crop coming along? Ill-tempered and bionically enhanced I presume? Splendid! Let’s check on how my orks are coming along.

In five years of taking part in this challenge, I don’t think I’ve ever been so close to having to use a mulligan. There’s been lots of boring life things keeping me away from the painting desk, but I am very pleased to present these Snakebite nobz and standard bearer all mounted on cyboars! Truly a dream unit for me and one that you very rarely see either on the battlefield or painted and so I decided it was time. The leadership penalty for riding boars is slightly mitigated by upgrading these fellas to nobz and by having a bonus standard bearer with them. The addition of heavy armour (represented with some Rogue Trader armour plates) also gives them a surprisingly durable 2+ save!

Speaking of the Battle Standard Bearer, I am well chuffed with this conversion 😀 I managed to mount an old Rogue Trader biker nobz seat onto the boar (which could of course handle this on it’s titanium spine) and then a forest goblin standard bearer sat on top waving the big flag while the ork concentrates on keeping them running to where they are needed the most! 

Slice 4:

5 Snakebite nobz on cyboars with eavy armour and containing two power swords, two power axes and one power fist (221pts)

Bonus model:

1 Ork Battle Standard Bearer: Cyboar, eavy armour, power sword and bolt pistol (87pts)

Total: 308pts

Wachtmeister: If you are wondering where all the Ork Boarboyz are on the second hand market you’ll probably notice they are here in this, the 5^th 40k 2^nd Edition Challenge!  Martin has done his usual excellent job on these boyz.  I particularly like the big red power claw on the boss! I’ve been called a lot of things, but pig-rider is a new one….

That’s a wrap for Wave 1, tune in Friday for Wave 2

-Wachtmeister