If modeling is your thing

Ok, here's a collection of thoughts for you.

If modeling is your thing, but you don't have all the time to sink into playing full games of Warhammer 40k, or you're on a budget; then you would probably be interested in some of the Specialist Games. The Specialist Games produced by Games Workshop include Battlefleet Gothic, Bloodbowl, Mordheim, Necromunda, and Gorkamorka to name a few. The idea behind these is that you have a small warband (or fleet, in the case of BFG) which can be customized and can get more powerful or potentially weaker as play progresses. These games are designed with campaign play in mind, and work much like a Pencil & Paper RPG. Characters gain experience, level up, get new skills, and can possibly die permanently.

I've played BFG, Bloodbowl and Mordheim, and am starting to play Gorkamorka. While Mordheim had opportunity for customization and conversions, so far nothing has matched Gorkamorka for being able to model things the way you want. I will be starting out with a warband that consists of 6 Orks, with 3 bikes. The legs, arms and head will all be magnetized to allow me to switch out weapons, body parts and cybork pieces if they happen to have an interesting trip to the "Doc's Surjery."

An excellent resource for Gorkamorka information is the Unnamed Gorkamorka Site (or tUGS). It's loaded with homebrew rules, warbands and a collection of articles on modeling and places to purchase models.

Lootaz and Burnaz and Mekz, OH MY!

Alright, gitz, here's the latest update on BLAAAGH!!! Gobbstompa!

LOOTAZ AND BURNAZ!!!

This one had me sitting in my finkin' box for a while and I came to the conclusion that some sacrifices were going to have to be made. To be able to switch out between lootaz and burnaz, your boyz would not be able to have horned helmets. Also, the mek torso would have to have the shoulder spike trimmed off.

The process is similar to the regular boyz. Start by gluing together the deffgun to its harness and the tanks of the burna to the burna itself. This should leave you with a really big bit for the right arm, and then a much smaller stabilizing bit for the left arm.

Next, go ahead and drill your guide holes into the parts of the arms that connect to the shoulders and in the shoulders themselves. So far, this is pretty familiar.

Now, use the larger dremmel bit that we used on the Boyz to make the holes the size of the larger magnets.

Now go ahead and glue in those magnets. It helps if you make certain that the magnets are oriented the same way as your Boyz. This will allow you to run regular boyz as Lootaz/Burnaz so you can run all of them in larger games or Armageddon/Planetstrike games

Now, with the deffgun harness on the loota boy, glue the left hand's handle and the ammo magazine/power source behind the shoulder to the harness. While it is still setting, take the deffgun off of the loota. This is the trickiest part. The ork torsos are tapered a bit, so once the harness is on, it won't want to come off. I discovered that shaving the top of the torso's shoulders a bit, and a wee bit of the bottom part of the arm's shoulders helps the gun harness slide off easier. Don't be afraid to make the left arm a bit loose-fitting.

You now have a Loota Boy...

and a Burna Boy!

Now, for those rare occasions when you want to take a mek or two or three with your boyz, here's what you do.

Drill out the holes in the shoulders of the mek and his Kustom Mega-Blasta, the Big Shoota, and a Rokkit Launcha if you want one as an option.

Then glue in the magnets, you should be getting good at this part.

Now your mek can carry a Deffgun as a regular Loota Boy

Or a burna as a regular Burna Boy

Or a Big Shoota as a Mek (I gave him a Choppa from one of the boyz because GW doesn't give you left arms for the Big Shoota OR the Rokkit Launcha, in a move that makes me want to slap someone at GW)

or a mek with a Kustom Mega-Blasta

Now, for the mek tools...
Cut off the little attachy-nub on the Mek Tools backpack. Then drill a small hole for one of the smaller magnets used in giving regular boyz they're 'Eavy Armor. Drill out the hole in the mek's back big enough for one of the larger magnets. Then, you guessed it, glue them in.

This will allow you to put mek tools on his back for when he's a mek without interfering with the deffgun or burna tanks when he's not a mek.

You can also use this same technique on your Big Shoota Boyz and Rokkit Launcha Boyz, but I didn't simply because they came with all the stuff I needed to make them into individual orks except legs which I can get at BWBitz.com anyway.

Speaking of BWBitz.com, Lootaz/Burnaz only come with four deffgunz and four burnaz. Go to BWBitz.com and you can purchase individual bitz for that 5th deffgun and 5th burna.

Good luck, mag-freakz

Painting mobs to look consistant without looking uniform

Ok, here's a post with tips on how I paint to make my mobs look consistently inconsistent and identifiable.

Now, most people will play a specific clan of Orkz to have their entire army look cohesive. I, personally, am including units from all the clans (even some rebel grotz).

The way I do it is to pick four colors that best represent the clan of the unit (Since most of my WAAAGH! is Deffskullz, I'll use them as an example). For this clan, I chose blue, black, brown and khaki.

Now take your average mob of 30 boyz. With 3 boxes of boyz, you can make a mob of 30 boyz or 3 mobs of 12 boyz (for trukks). The way to identify the 30-boy mob is the straps around their legs (or wraps around their ankles).

You can see that, from behind, these straps and wraps are very visible. You can also easily identify that this mob of trukk boyz are the ones with black pants (the other two pants colors are brown and khaki). The straps and wraps will match the bosspole of the Nob in color. Blue Bosspole goes with blue straps and wraps.

This method looks better than painting rings on the bases, or having all the boyz in one mob wearing helmets and another mob not wearing helmets. The boys look more random, more mob-like but are still very easy to identify and keep track of.

For the shirts, use a color that you didn't use for the pants. So black pants would get Blue, Brown and Khaki shirts. Brown pants get Blue, Black and Khaki shirts. Khaki pants get Blue, Brown and Black shirts.

This method can be transported to other clans as well.

Goffs - Black, White, Brown, Red
Badmoonz - Black, Yellow, Brown, Khaki
Evil Sunz - Red, Yellow, Black, Brown
Blood Axes - Red, Green, Black, Brown
Snakebites - Blue, Yellow, Brown, White

Honestly, you can choose whatever colors you like, but this method will allow you to keep them uniform throughout your army, giving it a sense of unity but still preventing your boyz from looking uniform (unless you're Blood Axes and want uniformity).

Good luck!

Magnetizing Runtherdz

And now, the second update of the day...

Runtherdz!!!

Now, these little oddboyz are a bit of a sleeper. When used properly, they can tie up a dreadnought for an entire game, or bring down anything from a Carnifex to a Wraith Lord to a Greater Daemon. The hard part is deciding whether to use the Grabba Stik or the Grot Prod.

I wanted both.

This is what initially lead me to purchase the 100 1/16" diameter disc magnets that I used for the 'Ard Boyz (I made 'Ard Boyz because I only needed 6 of the 100 magnets for the Runtherdz and had no idea what to do with the rest for the time being.)

So, I filed down the end of the Runtherd's staff, so the weapon of choice will fit loosely on top of it. I then took my pinvice drill and drilled a shallow hole into the end of the staff and the bottom of the weapon topper. I then took a 1/16" dremmel bit and widened the hole out so the tiny magnet would fit into it.

WARNING: This is a very precise procedure. The margin of error is about 1/36". At one point, I could see light shining through the plastic because I had gone so close to the outside of the bit. The rod and top are almost the perfect size so please, please, PLEASE don't get carried away in widening the hole.

Just place in a drop of glue and set the magnet like I did when placing them in the shoulders and arms of the boyz.



Now, do the same process with the toppers. I found that the hardest part was getting the magnet to sit flush in the hole, so I used a safety pin or a push pin to hold the magnet down until the glue dried. Just be careful to not pull away to soon, as the magnet will stick to the pin if it's made of steel.

Now I can have Grabba stiks...



OR Grot Prodz




(You'll also notice that I've started basing the models that I have. There are many tutorials on how to do that, so I won't go into that here.)

Magnetized 'Ard Boyz

Ok, I'm back with another Magnetizing tutorial;

'Ard Boyz.

Now, if you're like me, you've played with several beakie and Chaos beakie armies in the past, and if not, then you probably know someone who has. If you live under a rock and/or have no friends who play beakies or Chaos beakies that have spare shoulder pads, Battlewagon Bitz is a great source for these things.

The first thing to do is scrounge up 2 shoulder padz/ork 'eavy armor bitz for each boy. You'll notice mine are mostly beakie/Chaos beakie with one fish'ead pad in there (been wanting to get that bit out of my box for years) Some Fantasy Marauder shoulder pads are also nice.



Then you take a 1/16" disc magnet from Amazing Magnets (It's the first on the page). The 1/8" is circled in green (used on the arms and shoulders) and the 1/16" is circled in bloo.



You'll notice that it is quite a bit smaller and fiddly than the ones we used for the arms and shoulders. Be VERY careful with these. Matching polarities will make it shoot across your desk and onto the floor, best of luck to you once that happens.

Stick one of these to the outside of the shoulder of an arm. I found using a shoota arm works best, as it gives you the most material to hold on to when working with the fiddly bitz.



Then put a drop of super glue on the magnet itself. Be careful that you don't get any glue on the arm, or the magnet may get stuck to the arm permanently. (Sorry about the flash being so bright)



Once you have the glue droplet on the magnet, gently place a shoulder pad onto the arm. You do not need to press down or shift it around. Doing this will cause the magnet to shift and your head to begin aching.




After a little bit of time has gone by, the glue will set enough that it's hold on the magnet is stronger than the magnet in the arm, and you can take it off and let it dry.

When using ork 'eavy armor pads and plates, I find that some of them look and work better on top of the shoulders (clavicle area) rather than on the shoulders and arms. If you are going to do this, place the magnet on the top of the body.

WARNING: The magnet will sit at a polarity that is reversed from ones on the shoulders. If you have the south pole of the magnet facing out of the body, then the north pole of the shoulder magnet will face in, while the the north pole of the clavicle magnet will face up.



Then simply repeat the gluing steps with an ork 'eavy armor plate instead of the shoulder pad and you're golden.

Now you can turn your mob of boyz into Shoota Boyz, Slugga Boyz, Shoota 'Ard Boyz or Slugga 'Ard Boyz, 4 options for the price of 1, with the added bonus of having your mob look a little different every time.




WARNING: The 1/16" magnets will hold the shoulder pads to the arms. However being smaller magnets and having the plastic of the arm between them and the magnets connecting the arm to the shoulder, the magnetic hold of the shoulder pads will be weaker than that of the arms to the shoulder. You can pick the model up by the shoulders still, but don't squeeze too hard or it will shoot out like a wet bar of soap.

Magnetizing Boyz

(This is a repost from my blog on da WAAAGH.com)

Well, it's finally happened. For the holidays, I received a box of boyz and two boxes of grotz. The grotz are all assembled, as are the runtherdz for the most part. But, when I was thinking about what to do with the boyz, I started thinking of Da WAAAGH and everything that's been said on it with regards to tactics. I'm a firm believer in getting as much out of a box of GW minis as I can so I took count of the models that can be made. With the addition of two legs (which you can purchase from Battlewagon Bitz) you can get 10 regular boyz, 1 big shoota boy and one rokkit launcha boy along with one nob. This puts me on my way to a Tank Busta mob, as well. So I got this far in putting them together.


When I came to a point where many people ask themselves an important question, "should I go shoota boyz or slugga boyz?" I answered that question long ago with "Why not both?" So here's what I did.

Materials Required:
Pin Vice Drill
Dremmel Tool
0.125" diameter x 0.03125" depth rare earth magnets (from here)
Super Glue
Patience


First step was to take my pin vice drill and drill a hole directly in the center of both of the shoulders. It doesn't need to be deep, it's only to act as a guide for the bigger bit.



Then, I take the rounded bit from my dremmel tool and went in about 0.03125'' deep (about half way up the round part of the bit, if not a little more).




After that's rounded out, I take the cylindrical bit (I do apologize for not knowing the actual names of these things) and drilled straight into it, squaring off the curved bowl-shape so it's a cylindrical hole. Again, you can go a little deeper than 0.03125'' on this one.



Now, after blowing/filing the little grindy plastic bitz from the hole, we get into the fun stuff. Test to make sure your fiddly rare earth magnet will fit in the hole. And when I say fiddly, I mean fiddly.




It has to fit flush with the body, but it's ok if it sinks in a little bit. The magnet is strong enough to hold. Once you get it in flush, take it out and put just a tiny little drop of super glue and then put the magnet back in.



Important note: However you do your magnetic polarities, make sure you are consistent. You cannot expect the final project to work if some of your boyz shoulders are North and North, some are South and South and some are North and South polarities. The way I got around this was by keeping my magnets in a stack. I then inserted the top magnet in the stack into the shoulder hole and slid the stack to the side. This is the easiest way to break the hold of a magnet. It also leaves the top magnet in the hold for easy testing. When you are satisfied that it is flush, put the top of the magnet stack back against the magnet and pull directly away from the shoulder. This will pull the magnet out after one or two tries.

Ok, now that you have your shoulders properly magnetized, it's time for the harder part. Da Armz. Essentially the process is the same. First step again is to drill some guide holes in the center of the shoulders. I'd recommend starting with the shootaz because those are the ones that have to match up with each other in order to actually hold the gun.



Important note: The shoulders are quite thin compared to the body you just drilled and magnetized. While you had room for error in the drilling depth on your bodies, you do not have that on your arms. I, myself, have drilled through two shoulders all the way. I'm just glad I have bitz to cover the holes. Some green stuff putty should also work, too.

Once you've drilled the guide hole, shave out the shoulder some with the roundy bit.



And then the cylindrical bit.


Due to the thin nature of the shoulders, you may need to go back a few times to get the depth a bit right. Remember, you can always drill more, but you can't drill less. Don't be afraid to revisit the shoulders more than once if you find it isn't deep enough.

Then you test the magnets to see if they are flush. Once they are, glue them in.




Important note: While I tested the fit of the holes in the arms the same way I did with the shoulders, when putting the magnets into the arms, I did so individually with my fingers. The reason was that if I had done them in the same process as the shoulders, I'd have been putting opposing poles toward each other and it would have ruined the project. I did put one of my body magnets in backwards, but that was easy to fix, by drilling next to it and prying it out with a safety pin. You can't do that with the arms. So please, please, please don't mix up the polarities. Like crossing the streams, it could be bad.

Now, once you have the magnets tested and glued in, repeat the whole process for all your shoota arms and slugga/choppa arms. The result is having 10 shoota boyz




or 10 slugga boyz.



This process is also helpful if you plan on playing any Gorkamorka (which I might start up this summer) or if you're going to be making Kommandoz and want to dual-wield sluggaz or choppaz.

Now, with the Nob, I went ahead and glued on the Slugga arm, because he'll always have that, but I drilled out his raised shoulder and fitted a magnet into it as well.




This gives me maximum freedom for having a Power Klaw




Or a choppa.




More to come with next paycheck.