For anyone not around at the time or otherwise not aware, the Warhammer 40,000 of Rogue Trader days was fucking nuts. One of the many, many weird ideas of the time were the Jokaero. Essentially super-smart space Orangutans who were the creators of the much-sought-after “digital weapons” available to some heroes of various types. Or Jokaero Digital Weapons, as they were then known. The “digital” this was in reference to wasn’t zeroes and ones, but our digits – fingers. Basically, we were talking ring-lasers.
Finger-Bang, Rogue Trader style…
While the Games Workshop of the last couple of years has done a good job of recognising and bringing back old, neglected parts of the lore, like Deathwatch, Genestealer Cults, Tzaangor and so forth, the Jokaero were brought back(?), well, into the game with an actual model back in 2011 with the 5th edition Grey Knights Codex. I know they’d gotten a mention with the earlier Necrons Codex, making it 15 years before being mentioned again after RT, and 24 years before getting their first model. Will 8th Edition give us a second Jokaero model? Only time will tell, but I can’t see them investing in plastic tooling for something like this unless it’s included on a sprue alongside a plastic Inquisitor or some such.
I gave him pinkish flesh for his hands and feet, mostly because I forgot to check out reference photos of either actual Orangutangs or GW’s model before painting that part of the figure. Ah well, still looks good! I pretty much copied the official GW scheme for the electronics. I went over the white/grey of the accessories with a pearlescent paint, giving it a nice, subtle, shimmery effect that can be seen in hand and not at all in photographs.
Something pretty cool is that the upcoming indices for 40k 8th edition are going to feature rules for all of their currently-produced/available models, which includes this guy. This means there’s a decent chance that this model will actually hit my table at some stage in the near future. Who’d’a thunk it?
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
I was tempted to buy a unit of thirteen of them and get the Witchhunter Inquisitor. The plan was to paint the Witchhunter with a yellow hat and paint of of the Jokero in a different shade and call it Furious George and his friend Inquisitor with the Yellow Hat leading the army of 12 angry monkeys.
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That’s just… wrong on so many levels. But also awesome. You should definitely do it!
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Under the new 8th rules that would be even more amusing with each one being able to do d6 wounds to a model.
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Those Angry Monkeys are the Carnifex-killer squad… (and more besides!)
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I really can’t image that the race name was chosen/assigned seriously! In any case, the figure looks very good. He’d fit into my Gamma World game nicely. Is it a standard 28mm figure – or is that a 40/50mm base?
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…and the GW page answered my question, saying its a 25mm base.
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I’ve got no idea of the thoughts behind the name. But at least it kinda works for an alien race, and at least it wasn’t a fuckstupid thing like Gav Thorpe’s “The Eldar word for humans is Mon-Keigh.” (hur hur hur).
Yeah, the figure is in a standard 25mm base. He’s quite a bit shorter than a human-sized figure, as befits his orange-coloured cousins.
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I know I’m a hypocrite but when this model was released alongside the Grey Knights a few years ago I heaped scorn on it – what were they thinking putting high-tech orangutans in 40k?! Then I realised they’d been part of the background in the Rogue Trader days and suddenly I loved them. Sometimes I wonder if early-40k is comfortable up on the pedestal I put it on…
Anyway, nice work on work him, he looks both alien and ape-like (an ab-ape if you will). Oh and I just got the chance of a quick look in Index Imperium 2, can confirm he’s in there alongside the other Inquisitorial agents.
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Excellent. I’ve been making do with net.leaks of the books for the time being while my 8th ed purchases (very slowly) make their way towards me from various places on the globe, and I much prefer a proper book to a PDF for most purposes.
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Lovely job mate – I used to love the old Jockstrap Digi-weapons back in the day – great to see this chap painted up and ready to Oook!
Btw, my apologies on not commenting on all of your posts these last 3 weeks – been on the road, so had a ton to catch up on! Needless to say that they were all fab 🙂
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Cheers Alex. I think I’ve gotten past (most, or at least much) of the backlog hump, so daily posts might still happen here and there, but not for weeks on end anymore.
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Well, it’s all good mate, so we’ll take it as it comes 😉
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Love the colors on this ape, though every time I read about GW stuff (rules wise) it makes me leery! Maybe someday if I have a great tutor, but 40k seems to be a TV series that I’ve missed the first 30 seasons of – then again that describes Dr. Who for me as well! But,kudos to you and your brushwork! But Finger bang? Wasn’t that a South Park episode, ah I digress!
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That is indeed a South Park reference, Mark. I’m still waiting on my legit 8th Edition stuff, but from all reports it may well be the best jumping-on point the game has ever had for new players in terms of the rules. Of course, there’s 30 years of mixed-quality lore and background, but that’s the sort of thing that you can take, leave or dive into at your leisure.
I’d imagine that you could run the Space Ducks force using the Imperial Guard rules, and fit them into the background as a hitherto-undiscovered Alien race, or even as an autonomous race that is part of the Tau collective, so you’ve probably already got a(t least one) force ready to go!
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