Savage Orruks

[Brakkart]

So after watching several of the AoS City Raiders skirmish games in my local GW Store (warbands limited to 20 wounds total, no unit size limits, no summoners, no monsters and games are 4 player free for alls to grab loot tokens) I was feeling a bit left out as I had no fantasy force, so decided to do something about that. I've long loved the look of the Savage Orc model range so decided I'd put together a force of them. I was just going to make enough of a force to compete in the next City Raiders campaign but after looking at the Warscrolls I saw that there is a formation for them and decided to up my plans to build that force and thus give me some more options, as well as being able to play larger games.

The formation has 3 units of Savage Orruks, 1 unit of Boar Riders, 1 Shaman and 1 Big Boss. I went with Wurrzag for my Shaman as I love that model and the plastic Savage Orc Champion with the stone axe is an obvious choice for the big boss. for the Boar Riders I decided on hand weapons & shields, while the three units on foot will have spears & shields, bows & extra arrows and twin hand weapons. I'm a reasonable painter, but hardly a fast one so this force will take me some time, so with that in mind I decided that this would be my Armies on Parade entry for later this year. Which led me to wanting a nice centrepiece model for the army. It would have to be both orcish and primitive to fit with the rest of the force. Enter the Forgeworld Rogue Idol!



Alas they no longer make the model so ebay had to come to my rescue. Nor do they have a Warscroll for it, so in games it will simply count as a Giant. It is though in every way a suitably impressive centerpiece for my force. I got a 160mm round base from GW to put it on, gave the pieces their bath and scrub and set to work removing the mold lines and such first... of which there were MANY. It took hours to tidy the various pieces up to the point that I was happy with them



I used 3mm brass rod to pin the legs to the torso, with a 2 part epoxy resin glue to hold the parts together. Wasn't sure how strong a glue I'd need, so got one rated at 4000psi from Maplin's. It seems to do the job admirably though the stuff sure does stink! I owe a debt of thanks to my friend Michael Bradley for his help with this stage of assembly.

Next came attaching the head and arms, which proved considerably easier than the legs as they would not have to be carrying the weight of everything else. The joints were still pinned and glued in the same manner though. Once the glue was set, I went over it all with a coating of liquid green stuff as the dried glue had a slightly rubbery texture too it and looked too smooth to be rough stone. I also plugged the holes for the pins with a layer of green stuff.



The model was then undercoated with a spray of Chaos Black and then base coated with a lighter spraying of Mechanicus Standard Grey. These were done for me by my friend Adam Lovell as my own spray can painting skills aren't the best.



I then washed the model all over with a heavy wash of Nuln Oil and a wash of Agrax Earthshade in the recesses.



While all of that was drying I made a start on the large base. I painted an outline around where his feet would be glued direct to the base and left that clear, then set to work adding detail around it. I used several small resin bits from the Warhammer basing kit, small and medium stones from the same kit and also an Army Painter tub, fine and coarse sand and a good amount of Martian Ironearth and Stirland Mud paints. I wanted it to look like bits had fallen off the Idol as it moved/fought. I also needed to build up the base a bit under where it's right heel would sit to support it there as otherwise the figure would naturally lean backwards and rest on its trailing left fist. After test placing the Idol on the base I realised that I did not need to leave the right foot area blank as I had, so that bit was then covered over. The whole thing was then sprayed in Chaos Black.

[Brakkart]

It only took me a few hours to finish the base as once the base colours were down, the rest was just washing and dry brushing which took very little time. also with the different areas of the base and the size of it, it meant that I could paint it non stop by moving between the different areas as others dried. I painted the stone in the same colour scheme as that I'd use on the Idol itself to reinforce that these were rocks that had fallen off of it as it moved. The grass I painted darker than the moss which clings to the Idol as I wanted it to provide contrast. The grass was based with Caliban Green, washed with Biel Tan Green and then dry brushed all over with Warboss Green, before I drybrushed Skarsnik Green and Ekysian Green in patches to break up the uniformity of it a bit. The mud areas were based with Mournfang Brown, washed several times with Agrax Earthshade and then drybrushed with XV-88 and Karak Stone.



I kinda got into the zone whilst painting the Idol and forgot to take pics at each stage along the way. The rocks were painted first and done with successive dry brushes with Eshin Grey, Mechanicus Standard Grey, Codex Grey and Fortress Grey, each time with less paint on the brush than the previous shade. I then washed the recesses again with Agrax Earthshade before moving on to painting the moss. The moss was base coated in Death World Forest, then washed with Athonian Camoshade before being dry brushed with first Elysian Green and then Ogryn Camo. The skulls were based with Zandri Dust, washed with Agrax Earthshade and then dry brushed with Ushabti Bone. It was around this point that I remembered to take a couple more pics just after I'd made a start on the many glyphs that are carved into the rocks:



I was of mixed minds as to whether to paint the glyphs or to just leave them as carvings, but in the end I decided to paint them in bold block colours similar to cave paintings as that seemed to me what would constitue art amongst Savage Orruks as they exist at a neolithic level of development. To that end I kept the colours simple with only the boar head glyph and the Evil Sunz glyph being painted in more than one colour. I also painted similar glyphs in the same colour, so all the horned skull heads got painted blue for example. I mostly used 4 paints and a small layer brush to do this. The paints were: Altdorf Guard Blue, Mephiston Red, Ceramite White and my ancient (and still good) pot of Sunburst Yellow. A small amount of Troll Slayer Orange was used on the Evil Sunz glyph. The boar head was painted with Mournfang Brown washed with Agrax Earthshade, with the fleshy face part done in Dwarf Flesh.

Next were the two small colonies of muschrooms that cling to the back of the creatures left shoulder and right thigh. I base coated those in Karak Stone and washed them with Agrax Earthshade before giving the edges a fine drybrush of Screaming Skull. That just left the shields embedded in the mossy covering to do. I kept them simple, with the rims done with a base of either Warplock Bronze or Leadbelcher and a layer of Hashut Copper or Chainmail over it. The shield icons were painted with either Ceramite White or Balthasar Gold.

All I had to do then was glue the Icon to its base with thick superglue and once that had dried, I superglued a few grass tufts onto the base and a couple recesses on the monsters torso too.

[duffbeer]

Such a cool model, really like the moss growing on the idol as well. Looking forward to seeing the rest of the savage Orruks.

[Brakkart]

One last pic of the Rogue Idol, this one to give a sense of scale to the beast. This is him sat in the display cabinet of my local Games Workshop store next to Skarbrand.



Before I started work on the Idol I had begun on a unit of the Orruks and also the Big Boss too, batch painting them. I also made a start on Wurrzag but stopped after just a few bits of him, as he's covered in detail and I realised that he'd need more attention than the others would. The Boss though I painted as one of the lads as he's pretty similar really to the troops,. just a bit bigger and wearing even less. I didn't take stage by stage pics of these figures as I did them (I will for future units) so the only pics I have of them is them almost done, with just basing and war paint left to do on them really.



I apologise for the quality of the pics, photography is not something I'm terribly good at.

I decided that all my Savage Orruks would be wearing red lizardskin garments on the assumption they had killed and skinned a Carnosaur or Magmadroth and everyone had gotten new clothing out of it. Even for savages I wanted some sense of common identity to the various units to provide a cohesive look to the army as a whole. With that in mind all the orcs were painted the same way, with the flesh based with Waaagh! Flesh then washed with Biel-Tan Green and drybrushed first with Warboss Green and then more lightly with Skarsnik Green. The bones (which they are covered with) were done with a base of Zandri Dust, then washed with Agrax Earthshade and drybrushed with Ushabti Bone. Leather straps were painted with XV-88 and then washed lightly with Agrax Earthshade. The red lizardskin garments were painted with Mephiston Red, then washed with Nuln Oil and highlighted with Troll Slayer Orange. The skin backs of the garments were painted with Karak Stone and washed with Agrax Earthshade. All the stone weapons and jewellery were based with Eshin Grey, then drybrushed with Mechanicus Standard Grey, Codex Grey and Fortress Grey, using less paint on the brush each time. The couple tiny bits of metal I just painted with Hashut Copper.

Since orcs grow teeth rather quickly it made no sense to me to paint them as being rotten or yellowing, so I went with just painting them with Screaming Skull over a black base coat. The tongues and eyes were both done with Mephiston Red.

The finished Big Boss:



The finished Big Stabba:



The finished Savage Orruk's with spears & shields:



And the force thus far:

[Brakkart]

After finishing the Orruk's on foot I fancied a change and so my next unit that I've started work on is the Boar Riders. I decided on equipping these with hand weapons and shields with a standard and musician. I might well buy a second box of them at some point to take the unit up to 10 strong, but 5 will do for now. I assembled them on oval bases that were coated with a mixture of fine and coarse sand and small rocks and then everything was spray undercoated with Chaos Black. I'd just started painting one of the boars when I remembered to take this photo.



The boars will be painted first and as all of them is due to be washed in Agrax Earthshade, I decided to paint in all the base colours first and then just wash the lot in one go. With that in mind the boars fur was base coated in Dryad Bark and their mohawks in Mechanicus Standard Grey and both areas were then given a drybrush of Codex Grey. The tusks were painted in Zandri Dust and the fleshy part of their heads in Dwarf Flesh. I have a lot of old paints that are still good. I also gave the bases a base coat of Caliban Green and a wash of Biel-Tan Green.



I also decided to build something out of various bits I had left over from the Orruk kits and a fantasy accessory sprue I've had for years that I think might have come from a Mordheim box. So from a spare Big Stabba and Standard I made a Totem Pole. I stuck some shields on it, made coins out of green stuff, bullion bars from leftover sprue and added a chest and a couple swords from the fantasy sprue and heaped them around the pole as the tribes offerings to Gork & Mork. It has no effect in games at all, but it'll look good on the Armies on Parade board I reckon.

[Brakkart]

So I finished the unit of boar riders, took photos of them and have forgotten where I've saved them. I'll find them soon enough I'm sure and will add them on here when I do. In the meantime, I have finished a second character model for the army in the colourful form of Da Great Green Prophet himself: Wurrzag! Really fun model to paint this, great pose and so many details to pick out on him. Took a long time to paint him up but I'm happy with the final result. I put him on a 40mm base and stood on the rock that comes with Lugft Huron to raise him up a bit and also so the squiggly beast wouldn't be sat on his toes as he's doing his dance routine!



I have 30 more Savage Orruks to assemble and paint now, 12 will have Bows and Extra Arrows, a couple will be added to the existing spears/shields unit to take that unit up to 12 and the rest will be a big mob armed with twin hand weapons. I've also started on a second shaman, the classic one with the giant's thigh bone staff, which I've done a minor conversion on to replace the metal blade of his sword with a flint blade.

Really happy that there are now official rules for my Rogue Idol of Gorkamorka and that those rules are very good.

[Kirsten]

looking good, very colourful