Heretic 30k

I have previously always regarded WH40k Orks as something I preferred to ignore in the setting – in a Grim Dark setting of Gothic Warp Horror, they always seem more than a bit goofy for my taste.

Don’t get me wrong, while I don’t play 40k much anymore I’m not completely without a sense of fun. Back in the day when I did play regularly, I used to fight against Orks frequently and I loved playing against them as they do tend to attract players with a fun, casual and devil may care mindset to gaming rather than a desire to turn the game into a chess match.

In contrast, I find with my hobbying these days that painting something in a certain style can become very appealing to my hobby obsessive brain. Since I really enjoyed adapting DanaHowl Guide to Painting Orks for use on my Atlantis Miniatures Troll and so I resolved to do another small project using the colour scheme.

Enter the new Ork Boyz models. They do seem to be a bit of an oddity when compared with the new era GW kits. The sculpts are really great and much less goofy/derpy than the old Oak Boyz models which I really appreciate. However, they are very close to being monopose/push fit which is really odd given that Orks tend to be a horde style force – sure with plastics you can easily do some kit bashing and chopping to swap a few bits around and add some variety, but I still find it an odd decision. Equally odd is the fact that this doesn’t replace the existing old Boyz kit which looks like it is still available. I might be reading too much into this, but perhaps a clue is to be found in the new Killteam Chaos Space Marine release – it is essentially the latest Chaos Space Marine boxset, but with an extra sprue added for more variety. Maybe something similar will be done with this new Ork set at some point and then they will discontinue the old Ork set then?

Either way, I really enjoyed painting these sufficiently, that I then immediately picked up the old Runtherd/Grotz set so that I would have more than enough Orks to play as a Stargrave Crew. No plans on going Crazy and making a big horde Ork army for 40k play, but some of the new releases do look like they will be fun to pick-up. I may yet end up joining in on Orktober painting challenges this year! The new Ork Commando looks like a great kit and I do enjoy playing the new Killteam too.

Painting these has also shown me that for most of my painting, Contrast paints are simply hands down the best route for me to go. I can get the same or better quality painting done than I managed to do with layering in around 1/2-1/3 of the time.