Yes, believe it or not, these rather weedy little fellows were originally sold as Orc Champions. From the old WHFB days when command group blisters included a Standard, Musician, Champion and a Leader. From the 1988 catalogue, who we have here are two of #13 Champion and #14 Champion. They were obviously sculpted by Kev Adams once he had started to hit his stride with the consistent Warhammer Orc style that pretty much continues to this day. The days of experimentation with really weird concepts were now over. Not counting what they did with squigs for everything in 2nd Edition 40k, at least…
RTB02 Space Ork Raiders Advertisement from Chapter Approved. Image from Stuff of Legends.
The interesting thing (possibly the only interesting thing) about these sculpts is that they share a “base” model with the troopers from the RTB02 Space Ork Raiders boxed set, which was the first ever Space Ork boxed set for 40k, also released in 1988.
I painted the duplicates of #13 with slightly different coloured gear, and different shields. I do intend to use several different styles to paint my orcs’ green skin over time, and a more coherent plan would have had me hold off painting one of them now to do later with a different shade of green, but frankly there are so many of these figures to do, that doing near-identical figures in pair or trios is simply much more efficient in getting me to actually start and finish the models. As in, I’m great at starting models, but not quite as good at finishing them off. The more complex something becomes, the longer it lingers on the desk – and regular readers will have seen how often I write about figures that got started months, years or even more than a decade ago before being finished. I don’t need to add to that particular pile more than I already do…
Now that they’re done, they’ll be dropped into the small but slowly-growing “unit” of old-school orcs that I have, and be used in KoW, AoS or whatever else I happen to be playing that needs some less-imposing orcs.
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
Bloody hell! I knew they used that same sculpt for a few of the RT Orks, but I never knew that it was used in WFB! They milked that poor son of a bitch for everything they could get!
The paintjobs are looking good. I feel your pain in getting minis painted…eventually 🙂
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That they did! I think it must have been easier with models like Orks and Orcs – their shared feral nature and near-identical sculpts, especially during the RT-introductory period lends itself easily to that sort of thing. I’m pretty sure there are a few other “shared heritage” models out there from the same period.
I’ll have to get started on some old Orks to alternate with painting my old Orcs…
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Nicely done. The green tone you have used somehow suits these fellows very well.
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Thanks Mike. The current green I’ve been using for my GW Orcs is a new(ish) recipe for me, but it’s working well – so I’ll keep using it for awhile I think.
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Cool! I thought they looked familiar, RTB02 was my first ever purchase 🙂
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Cheers Alex. I’m planning to dig out some old RTB02 models soon and get some paint on them. These guys are my warmup.
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Love these – really fun colors. Looking like they mean business!
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Thanks Mark. Clearly, it’s clubberin’ time!
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Btw, I took your advice on the Vallejo Metallics and have been using them on my Archive Star Duck platoon. Thanks, and hopefully they will be done soon (supposed to hit the 70s early next week so I can go outside to varnish!).
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Excellent. I look forward to seeing how they all came out. 🙂
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Im slowly catching up on your rapid recent output Azazel, nice stuff 🙂
Should the title of this post read “1988” rather than “1998”?
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Whoa! You’re right. I’ll go change that now – thanks for pointing it out!
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