Orky Bastion

[SotonShades]

Hello guys, girls and other deamons!

Today has been a tough day for me emotionally and to bring myself up a notch I decided to hack away at something that has been sitting in my bitz box and conversion brain for a while now. Even before 6th! Well, new rules has given me a perfect opportunity to add to my Orky horde with some Scenery. I mean more scenery... I all ready have an orkified woods, a load of barricades and an impressively large fortress gate with landing pad... But this one I will be able to add to an army list!

Errr, yeh. I'll stop rambling and give you some pics shall I?

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Hopefully it should be fairly obvious that this is still very much a WIP, but I'm fairly happy with how it is coming along. I got the Fantasy Castle tower in a luckydip/conversion competition/give-away a month or two ago (by some poor sould who thought he'd never use it!) and thought it might as well get some use. The cut out corner around the door was all ready missing when I got it, but I did have to neaten up the cut around the edges of the bricks. I've made a few other, fairly extensive modifications as well (which I will go in to more detail in a bit) but I also still plan on adding a few more armoured panels to cover up some of the gaps that have appeared along with a few just for decoration.


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I'm also planning on adding to/orkifying the crenellations a fair bit more, both with the armoured plates on the inner edges, and possibly with a few Orky banners, claiming the bastion for Gork, or possibly Mork, or the WAAAGH! or maybe even the Mek who looted it.

[Iyandagar]

Nice one... I bought a bastion when I bought the new rule book, I run Orks but also other factions so I have been mulling over how to make it suitable for whichever army I choose to roll. I will keep on mulling it over, but this is looking good!

[SotonShades]

To any sensible Ork (by their standards), a vital part of lootin' is adding Orky Glyphs to attract the attention, protection and/or blassing of Gork. Or possibly Mork. With that in mind, I decided to make the Fire Points a little more interesting than just armoured slits.


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While they aren't quite as evenly space as on the Imperial Bastion, they certainly do the job. Small hole(s) to see out of and a bigger one to stick guns out of. I also tried to be relatively unsubtle with the glyphs, each having a meaning as described in the Ork Codex.


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I also added this beasty, purely for decorative purposes. I've pencilled in a non-orky icon as well, that will eventually get painted on. Anyone who is particularly aware of 40k Lore will be able to tell you why this should be considered a particularly cruel jibe.

So what of it BoLSers? Who can name all the glyphs and icons correctly, and make sense of the mean jibe? I'll tell you once someone gets all of the correct answers in a single post!

[SotonShades]

Now it wouldn't be a Bastion without 4 emplaced Heavy Bolters. Well, I don't have that many spare (I kept using the for Leman Russes before you got a plastic one in the kit for the hull...) so I figured Orks would just use some form of Big Shootas. I tried to go for guns that looked like they could be a suitable calibre in every meaning of the word to be a match for the Imperial weaponry. Like any good Orky structure, it's a complete mismatched hodgepodge though!


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This is the one that is probably closest the the Imperial Bastion; essentially a flat panel with a gun that can swivel out from it, along with a slit so the firer can see what he's doing! Whilst it is a Lascannon barrel, I'd imagine Meks would be as likely to use the barrel for solid rounds as they would be to make some form of Zzap gun.


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I decided to add in this corner gun mostly because I got bored of cutting out the window sections after having done the other three sides. Having four guns equally spaced around the tower also didn't sound very Orky to me.

I'll probably be adding in some more detail on the back panel as it looks a little too bare at the moment. I haven't added any of the rivets to the bastion yet (if you look at a few of my other Orky conversions, you'll see just how much I llllloooooooove rivets (note a hint of sarcasm there... or there.)


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I also wanted to add in something that wasn't really an Imperial or Ork Weapon. and than I came to this Chaos Autocannon that has been sitting in my bitz box for about a decade! If I'm going to use it anywhere, this seemed like the most sensible place! I also added a balconetteand a recessed firing vestibule (though I doubt the Orks use such pretty terms) to give the gun somewhere to swing about. I have also carved a door and some panel lines into the plasticard (the back, sides, floor and ceiling!) to add further interest. Again, rivets will hopefully add a further layer of interest.


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I added in this little feller to the roof of the vestibule, in part to give it more structural rigidity, but also to give a bit more of in impression that this had once been an Imperial facility, though most likely on a Fuedal class world, erected in times gone by rather than a normal Imperial fortification.

[SotonShades]

For the last weapon I'd like to introduce you all to Toby. He doesn't have much of a life or make many friends...

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Orks get to see/destroy Imperial tech all the time. Surely it was only going to be a matter of time before some (relatively) bright Mek worked out Servitors? I also like the idea that the Mek who looted the Bastion kept getting annoyed that the boys he told to watch the door kept getting bored and wandering off, so he found an alternative, more permenant solution. Boy comes in with his legs missing? A perfect "volunteer". I also love the idea of the ServitORk shooting at the Mek everytime he tries to come and go!

As you can see, I also added a recessed vestibule for Toby to hide in, again carving some detail into the walls. This time you'll note there is no door... just some viewing slits. Poor Toby.


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I'm not quite sure why I gave him a lever. Maybe so he can lock the door or alert the inhabitents. Maybe to feed himself via the tubes sticking in to his back. Maybe it just lets him feel he has a little more control over his life and it actually does nothing (like the door close buttons on most lifts). Also, this pic was for showing you guys more of the wall details. Which are slightly out of focus... well done Shades.


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On the brightside for Toby, he does have a BIG shoota! With a glowy robotty bit on the end for added killyness. And a tiny little choppa in case the enemy manage to get too close... It's not much of a bright side but being a ServitORk, Toby will take what he can get. He can't walk off anywhere else after all!


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Might as well show you what Toby is actually protecting. I say protecting... we all know what Ork shooting is like. Nothing overly special; again I've carved some plate edges into the plasticard, as well as the door detail. I've also added some additional plates, some of which make up the door frame. Lastly I added a switch to open the door. Mostly because the panel looked to flat to be honest, but I like it.

[Denzark]

Looking good Soton just remember if you are going to a proper tight WYSIWYG tournament game you will need fire points to match the bastion model to stay safe. The correct number is ground floor 3 (door on thrid side) first floor 2 x 2. This as best as I can see from bastion kit and not including HB emplacments. I don't know if the bastion fireslits can be moved, so I just matched what I saw in the shop.

[Wolfshade]

The Glyph is "Orky" super imposed on the fist (probably a Crismson fist) showing that the orks own this from the Crimson fists, in an obvious reference to Rynn's World.

Great job :)

[SotonShades]

I was going to post these pics last night as well, but then the power (and thus the internet) cut out. Also it was past midnight and I was sleepy...

So, to the Battlements!

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So you've seen the added armour plating from the outside; here is the interior view. Ignore the pencil scribbles. They were simply so I didn't cut the plasticard inside the stone crenelations. Again, as with the weapon emplacements, I have carved the armour plates to look like it is made up of lots of separate panels. I even made it of two pieces of plasticard, though that was more because I was running out by the time I got round to doing this part of the model.


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Similarly I have made the firing step from lots of different shapes of plasticard. I used some I-beam section I had lying around to add extra hight, and left the ends mostly showing to show the simple construction Orks would use. I've also textures a few of these plates and I-beams, as well as roughing up the edges (can't imagine Burna Boys making clean, neat cuts; can you?)


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These pics also show why i need to add Orky armour panels to the inside of the crenalations... Not having a complete tower kit, I'm lacking the inner walls and had to make my own floor. The brick work is a patterned plasticard I actually bought for another converesion that never came to fruition. I've also added a rough and ready access hatch, adding a handle and hinges.


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I decides to not put a firing step in this corner. Not because I'd ran out of plasticard (although i have... shh) but because I wanted to add a detritus pile. I'll probably fill the corner in with milliput and cover it with shards of plasticard, stuff from my bits box and maybe even some small chunks of slate and sand. At the very least I will make sure that the white plasticard around the edges gets covered (the brick pattern card is very thing and won't really support any models by itself, so I had to give it a stronger roof first.)

I may also add more rubble/detritus around other parts of the battlements, maybe even on the firing steps too.


That's it for pics for now. Hopefully tomorrow I will get in to town early enough to pick up another couple of sheets of plasticard so I can crack on a bit more.

[SotonShades]

Cheers for the comments so far guys. Hope there are more to come! From other people too!

@ Iyandagar; Cheers very much. Hope this provides some further inspiration. As for using the Bastion for multiple forces, just because it has been bought in your list doesn't have to mean that your army erected it... Maybe just have it delapidated, bereft of Imperial iconography (not sure how much is sculpter on or how much is added on as separate bits) with sheet metal holding it up and keeping it secure? I'm sure most armies would be more than happy to take advantage of fortifications all ready on the battlefield. Lets face it, unlike transpoirt vehicles, your opponant can occupy your bastions in the game anyway. Paying 75 Points (plus one of the upgrades) to potentially give you oppoanant more guns is a risky stratergy!

@ Denzark; Cheers again. I probably wouldn't take a Bastion to a tournament anyway, but if I did, I certainly would be cautious about taking this. As you say, it doesn't exactly conform to the GW model. Then again, the rules in the rulebook don't give a specific number of access/fire points like they do for other GW models, only stating that they are "as per model". So mine does fall withiin those rules, especially as the numbers are the same, if not the positions. It is very specific about having 4 Heavy Bolters though... I have had WYSIWYG points at tournaments with my Orks when they have been less accurate than this though. I guess to some extent it comes down to the TO and how they feel.

@ Wolfshade; You have attempted to interpret one glyph, what about the other three? And I'm not saying you are right or wrong ;) Cheers for the compliments though.



Any more comments, criticsm and/or glyph guesses?

[Wolfshade]

@ Wolfshade; You have attempted to interpret one glyph, what about the other three? And I'm not saying you are right or wrong ;) Cheers for the compliments though.

Any more comments, criticsm and/or glyph guesses?

Skull is the end of battle, with a grim underneath shows a ruthless battle / ruthless killing
Mek is clever or technology, technology would work best especially with the grim showing dangerous technology, like a missile miss-firing and wiping out a fortress monastery
Rukk is attack/charge showing the invasion after the miss-fire that lead to the victory

Better?

[SotonShades]

Yeh you're right Wolfy. Shame no one else even tried to guess though :( Oh well.

Small update today. Managed to get some plasticard yesterday, so finished off the battlements. Also started adding whitestuff to make the debris pile and to shore up the corners a little. Unfortunately I got called away to an emergency (apparently that is what inflating the airbed for my dad counts as in our house anyway) so I didn't get to finish thw white stuffing. Also I now have a white rock... When life give you lemons and all that.

So, pictures?


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As you can tell, I did pretty much the same thing for these three sides as I did for the first. I did add in more overlapping panels, some alternate crenalations, extra murder holes etc. for most of the sides I used 2 pieces of plasticard to make it easier to fit, especially on the sides with the drop from the firing step. You can also see where I put the debris pile. I added a couple of bits from the small resin basing tubs you get with GWs urban basing kit so some more interest, as well as a few off-cuts of plasticard jutting out at dangerous angles. I'll add the slate once it is all dry so I can glue it on. My hands were too sticky with the white stuff to really add them earlier.


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To do the corners, I rolled up a fat sausage of white stuff, and pressed it roughly flat with my thumbs. I then smoothed it with my soft sculpting tools and cut the edges straight so it would look like armour plates. You can't really see in the picture, but the plate actually has reasonably well definied edges (which is one of the reasons why I used white stuff rather than green stuff). Hopefully it will look slightly more like steel plate once I have added some rivets to it too. I also pressed smaller sausages into the thinner cracks and joins, smoothed them to match the surrounding brick work texture and carved in the gaps between the bricks. There are still a couple of small holes which I didn't spot earlier, but I'll get to them when I am working on the other three corners!

That will do me for tonight. Still quite a bit of work to do, but it's getting there slowly. Nice change to be working on this rathere than normale infantry/vehicle models. As always, comments and crticsm is alway welcome.

Shades (and Toby the ServitOrk.)

[Deadlift]

Very very cool :D

[KrewL RaiN]

I love the creativity you poured into the piece. I wonder how bloody insane Toby gets if there's nothing to shoot!

[Tynskel]

You should write a rule that if he has nothing to shoot that he shoots at orks!

by the way, awesome terrain project.
This is possibly one of the better ideas that GW has come up with for 40k–incorporating terrain into army design.

[SotonShades]

I imagine he goes more insane when he has things to shoot, but has run out of ammunition because the bastion has been poorly maintained :P

Cheers for the kind words guys :)

[Wolfshade]

Yeh you're right Wolfy

Of course I am right :)

But it is looking really cool and a nice use of a warhammer fortress. :)