Space Ork Raiders!!

Thrugg Bullneck and his Space Ork Raiders

I said I would never do it. I said " I don't need those, I have these ones already" Well... turns out i'm a liar. I did it... I succumbed to the call of monopose lead space orks from the 80's. And so, without further ado, I present Thrugg Bullneck and gang.

I honestly had no intentions of ever collecting any of this generation of space ork models. I have been hard at work collecting the metal/plastic clan specific orks that carried over into second edition and wasn't really interested in these guys. That being said, I really enjoyed painting these guys up and now I have to have them all.

Now, I know you're asking yourself "What made you decide to collect these?" well... i'll tell you.... my friends are a bunch of enablers, that's why. The blame for this sits squarely on the shoulders of Ardyer from the Oldhammer Forum. He asked me to run a Battle At The Farm game at this years US Oldhammer Day.

This is how that conversation went:

Ardyer:"YO DAWG! WHAT IT BE??? WHHUUUT WHUT!!!"

Bulldog: "Nuthin B, just chillin"

(This is really how we speak to each other in America)

Ardyer: "Yo, you need to run Battle At The Farm this year, cuz. That is straight FIRE"

Bulldog: "Word"

And that's pretty much how that little talk went.

Now, in his defense i'm pretty sure he was counting on me using the Space Orks I already have and pit them against the Crimson Fists I already have... because who in their right mind would go off and collect a bunch of out of production Ork models for no good reason... I mean really... who does that?

So, I ended up buying a bunch and I have to say I was really happy with them. For the most part they are really fun and easy to paint and they have a really neat aesthetic that got left behind once the Ork books got released and the Ork clans became a major part of the Ork aesthetic. Honestly, even when I was a kid I was always impressed by the black and white pictures of this generation of Ork models in the back of White Dwarf issues, but it was always one of those "one day, when i'm done with all this other stuff I want". I guess running this scenario was a pretty good catalyst for e.

I stuck with a militaristic color pallet for these guys as I didn't really want to evoke any specific clan, although I think they do look a little bit "Blood-Axe-ish". I also tried to stay away from checks. I considered painting the skin in a more subdued green, but I stuck with goblin green since its my go-to color. I'm happy with the end result. I think the browns/greys/greens work really well on these guys.

The specialists in this range are also really fun to paint because they've got all kinds of neat details tucked away. The flamer ork has a distinctly Wermacht-esque jacket on... I just had to paint his pants dunklegelb with a green-grey jacket. Again, you can really see a really distinct militaristic/scavenger aesthetic in some of these models. I painted the goggles on one trooper with a white frame and black lenses as an homage to Rey's goggles from Force Awakens (which are actually Stormtrooper goggles) There I go again... mixing Star Wars with my Rogue Trader.

I'm actually only missing one trooper to complete the set that would have come in the "Space Ork Raiders" box, and I will be picking that guy up in a few days from my good buddy AirborneGrove when we meet up at Historicon. I'm really looking forward to putting these guys on the table soon.

We have a few meet-ups coming up in the next three weeks, which just so happen to coincide with m vacation... so you can expect a flood of blogging activity in the coming weeks.