A few months ago – back at the end of May to be precise, Wudugast posted up some shots of his 40k Ork army for Army April, and ruminated about potentially completing another 25 boyz this year for a total of 100. Seeing this, I saw a chance to help motivate both him – and rather importantly – myself to get 25 Orks painted each and offered to do it as a mutual challenge. Since then, Wudugast has completed and shown another 10 Boyz, as well as a Mek and his Grot, while I on the other hand have completed ….nothing to date. So with Orktober being a thing, as well as regular old October pointing out how close the end of the year is, I found it time to remove my fist from my backside and get some Orks bloody well finished!
Luckily I had at least gotten some models started. 20 old-school, Rogue Trader Orks, to be precise. The ones I’ve got here are some trooper models from the very first Space Ork boxed set (and the second 40k box set ever) RTB02 Space Ork Raiders. I’m not sure if I have a full set of the boxed set due to the many repeated sculpts (13 troopers), though I do have all of the individual models. Being that I’m going old-school with these models, I thought a nods both to the original boxes and the Rogue Trader book was in order, as well as later narratives found in the various wars for Armageddon with some of the scavenged gear being worn.
As with my other Orks, I’ve retained the variety of desert camo clothing being worn, in the pseudo-Blood Axe way I’m putting this force together. Mismatched camo, of couse, as it represents whatever they’ve managed to scavenge off the battlefields and trade from others. Most likely from enterprising Grots rather than directly from da humies.
These Orks were completed in three batches, and if I’d been posting regularly over the last couple of weeks, they’d have most likely have been in three seperate posts as I completed them. As it happens, they all fit into the one post perfectly, as they’re all models from the same boxed set. There are a few more on the way, but they sit still-unfinished on the paint desk as I type this shortly before posting this up, so they’ll likely be along in the next week – along with a few more that aren’t from the RTB02 box for variety. With these eight though, I’m at least started on my Ork Challenge Pledge. At almost the end of October. Only 17 more to go…
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
Ooooh, like them! Very nice! Like the shoulder pads! 🙂
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Thanks John. Linking them to the OG Fists and their subsequent relatives. The question is: do I rebase all my other Fist-successors?
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Funny how I’ve had the basing differences recently with newer figures! I’m not going to rebase though – old and new bases are different, but both still presentable!
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I don’t mean for size in this case – I actually mean for unity of appearance – as in desert bases for all my Crimson/Imperial Fists and their Successors (including Black Templars) so they can be run as one (Crusade-style) army.
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Great job of balancing the old-school vibe with newer elements. As John said, the looted shoulder pads are awesome!
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Cheers, Alexis – and now there’s one more I found a touch later just being finished and yet another one to paint… and the heavy bolter and heroes have gone missing! 😡
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Wow what a trip down memory lane with this post ! Really like the direction you’ve gone with them and the looted camo gear, absolutely excellent, or what John said ! LOL
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Thanks Dave – often even when old models aren’t objectively a bar on the newer ones for sculpt pose or even quality, a modern paintjob can really elevate them from how so many of them were painted back in the day!
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I love that you base your Orks in the desert as the color combinations really work nicely. You also create as nice of desert bases as I’ve seen. As others have said, these old sculpts are fantastic and full of character. I’m sure if you keep chipping away at these, you’ll have all 20 done in no time 🙂
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Thanks Kuribo. I settled on desert bases when I started my first try at painting my Orks, back in 2005. I did completely change up my style of those days from brown-painted sand using the GW texture/crackle paints, though!
I based mine off this tutorial, but added in the other “Agrellan” texture paint for more variation.
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Orks and the desert go well together and I think the Bitz Box gave me that epiphany! Thanks for sharing the link too! I’m not very experienced with using the crackle paints and had mixed results when I did use them in the past. They’re not quite as handy in LOTR (outside of the Haradrim which I don’t own) as they are in Warhammer or AoS but I’ll have to see if I can come up with a project in the future to try my hand at it again 🙂
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My own thoughts of Orks and the Desert probably goes back to Gorka Morka. The whole Mad Max Orks thing as well. Following from that link was my introduction to using those paints, so I can’t recommend it highly enough. If you’re at all interested, just follow the tute above and you’ll be set! You can always paint the stuff much darker and use for a dried out riverbed, or just some cracked, non-desert earth in general.
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How are you liking the larger base size?
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I personally like them. I’m not going to go and rebase all of my older Fantasy Orcs, but as something to put my newly-painted Orks on, I’m all for it. They’re a bit more roomy for these, the smallest models out of all the Ork ranges, but on the more upright RT-era models they look and “feel” better to me. On the plastics and beyond, no comparison.
Of course, I don’t play competitively, so for those players there may be a utility for keeping them on 25mm bases to potentially fit more models into close combat in some instances.
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Looking good mate – you know I’m a sucker for an old-school ork. Two months still to go – we can do this! 🙂
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A few more finished now, awaiting photos and posting. I’ll see if I can manage another one or two before the end of the month so as to avoid 1-figure posts like today’s Poxwalker…
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Good work. I love these sculpts so much. It could be the nostalgia but some others from the era have dated badly and these still look rather fresh. Thanks for sharing them.
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Thanks AB. If I’m to be truly truthful, I’d say that these ones were never top shelf models and so the bar on them aging was already pretty low. I do love ’em, though – but not as much as the more interesting poses and models from the day!
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Old school and very cool.
Cheers,
Pete.
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Cheers Pete! You’re a poet!
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My childhood ! Love them !
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Mine too! Now just to finish a nice little force of them and their opponents and I’ll be quite happy!
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Very cool – love the pads.
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Cheers Mark. I doubt the Space Marines share your opinion, though!
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Looking good mate and thanks for putting the tutorial up as my interest was peaked in regards to the crackle paint by Dave (IMP) in one of his recent post and seeing yours has given me a few ideas ,so cheers mate and thanks !
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Thanks Pat. It’s always gratifying to hear about when something I’ve done sparks something by someone else. Now I’m keen to see what comes of it.
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Nice work! I really like these weird old ork models 🙂
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Cheers Warburton. I think a lot of it is the retro nostalgia when you see a horde of these hunched-over clones. 😉
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Thumbs up from me mate – lovely job!
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Cheers – thanks Alex!
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