Reinforcements for Da Waaaagh

Hello again!  Sadly due to the interference of my old nemesis Real Life, I failed to get a post up following my promises of a couple of weeks ago.  I am also still without a proper camera so I apologise for the iPhone photos being inflicted upon you all.

Despite all that, today's opportunity was not to be missed as the postman arrived with this:

So what's in the box?  Well by way of explanation I have been having a Classic Second Edition Ork & Gretchin army painted for me by PaintedFigs.com.  I don't want to turn this into an advert but suffice it to say I have had very good experiences with them, this is the 3rd batch of my army they have produced and I'm happy to recommend them to others.

Second Edition 40K is where the hobby started for me and I have always loved the colourful paint schemes that were contained in the 'Eavy Metal pages of the rulebooks and boxes.  I now know that this was a few years after the management buyout and have heard people refer to this as GW's Red Period but regardless its something I have always loved.

With that being said I always wanted an Ork army, but not the weird Green Gorillas that 3rd Edition Plastics brought us, I wanted the characterful and colourful chaps from 2nd Edition.  So with that being said I did what any reasonable person would do and hit eBay.  A few months of buying bits and pieces here and there soon gave me a sizeable collection of Orks and Gretchin (they are NOT Grotz/Grots that's just silly).

The paint schemes here will hopefully be familiar to many of you (unless the photos ruin it so completely), as they are all copies or heavily inspired by things that were in the GW Studio collection and appeared in Codex Orks, or the 2nd Edition Rulebooks. 

So without further ado, actual miniature content!

This is the group shot of what was in the box.  PaintedFigs do different quality levels so the metals have all received more attention than the plastics.

Da Boss himself, Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka before being turned into some ridiculous Ork/Forklift hybrid.  I never owned this model when I was young as I was too busy collecting Space Marines and he was too expensive at £5.00 in metal - how times change.

I paid £1.99 on eBay for him a few months back and was amazed when I got him just how heavy and solid a piece he is.  The level of detail on him is incredible, down to the stick grenades on his belt.  I really do love the single piece casts GW used to put out.  Makari gets in on the action because you can't have one without the other can you?

The mighty Shokk Attack Gun is up next, copied largely from the centre pages of Codex Orks.  This is another model I didn;t have in my younger days and was amazed at the size of it when I bought it.  For something cast in metal 20 years ago it really goes together rather well.  Obviously you will note a substituted arm so minus points to me for that.  It seems a shame to me that eBay is awash with the classic metal Orks of the early 1990s but the plastic arms to go with them seem to be in rather shorter supply.  I provided a Space Marine Powerfist of a similar vintage and I think it goes rather well.

The metal Gretchin.  I don't know who sculpted these guys (for some reason the catalogue pages in the Codex doesn't say)  but thank you!  These guys have been some of my favourite miniatures since I got into the hobby and I am so pleased to have all of them painted up in the classic Studio Scheme.

By the time I was in a position to buy these in the 1990s they were gone from Mail Order, replaced with the Gorkamorka "Grots" that spilled over into the 40K line afterward.  They seem surprisingly expensive on eBay and it took me quite awhile to get hold of a decent set.

Eat monoposed autogun death!  The mighty plastic Gretchin, famed for arriving in large numbers in your 2nd Edition Big Box Game and being loved by few.  Between the big box and the "£5 Boxset" (as they were known among my friends) of the time I had loads of these.

When I started looking for classic Orks and Gretchin I was amazed how cheaply you could buy these guys - are they really that hated?  A quick browse on eBay will generally find some business sellers hawking a squad of 10 for £7-£10 but if you look around for the listings of people clearing out their shed/wardrobe/garage and just want it gone you can land 40-60 of these guys for the same price or less, frequently with some Plastic Goffs on the side.

This is the 3rd mob of 20 that has been produced for my Army / Gretchin Legion, using different colour schemes to differentiate them.  For some reason the Studio pictures used a lot of different schemes which has worked out nicely for my project.  If anyone has a good quality scan of the contents pic for the boxset I'd love a copy to refer to.


So what does everyone think?  I appreciate the photos are terrible and have butchered the colour on a lot of these.  I'll aim to get the first two waves of the Army out of storage and get some better photos up to share with you all.

If there are any other collectors out there with a love of the same time period please drop me a line in the comments / PM / on the forum, I'd love to hear thoughts from owners of some of the other great collections (Chico and Count Von Bruno I'm looking at you).



PS.  If anyone has the single piece Blood Axe boss to trade / sell at a reasonable cost I would especially like to hear from you!

A bit of Rogue Trader in Visions!

So, like many of you I'm not a regular purchaser of Warhammer: Visions, but I did pick up the latest issue on a whim in WH Smiths yesterday. 

This won't be a long post about White Dwarf / Visions or the current state of Games Workshop, I do have my own views on all of these but I'll save those for another day.

As I was contentedly flicking through the impressive photography in the magazine I came to a section showing a selection of Golden Demon entries (I assume these are last years but it isn't stated), and I came across a "Classic Ork" by Chris Blair. 

A very impressive piece of paintwork in my opinion, even if it is in a more modern "technical" style than the 90s 'Eavy Metal style I like.  Nice to see an old sculpt getting some time in the publications too.

Interestingly the opposite page shows a single Epic Scale Terminator entered in the Open competition - more acknowledgement of something not in publication.  We can hope eh?

(Please pardon the iPhone photos I'm using thus far, I hope to get myself a new camera shortly which should increase the quality)

Corporate Branding and some random thoughts

Welcome back!  So for anyone who saw the original version of this page you will notice I now have a snazzy new banner image paying tribute to 40K's 2nd Edition logo.  Full credit and eternal gratitude for this goes to Jay-C of the Promotion Wars community who put this together as a favour to me.  Cheers Jay!

So, onto some actual content - I hope to have a post that actually contains some miniatures up this weekend;  this will be drawing upon either my vintage Blood Angels or my ongoing 2nd Edition Orks project - does anyone have any preference?  Let me know in the comments please.

A hint at things to come: