Colonel Schaeffer’s Last Chancers – “Fingers” and “Scope”

Colonel Schaeffer's Last Chancers - "Fingers" and "Scope"

It’s been quite a while since I’ve completed any of the Last Chancers, and so I took the opportunity this month to get this pair of models finished and off the desk after having been there for a loong time. One of the two continues the historical aspect of this group of models. “Fingers” here, who appears to from the “Bushmen of Serica” regiment is inspired in my opinion by Australian WWII troops. Lore-wise, “Fingers is an expert forager and petty thief who can get a hold of just about anything for a price.” I guess this is because to an unfortunately large number of people in the UK and US, Australians are all petty criminals who ride Kangaroos to work and dodge man-sized spiders and drop bears on the trip. Much like all Americans wear cowboy hats and walk around with an AR-15 and all Brits wear monocles and walk around with a cup of tea, and all Frenchmen wear those stripey shirts, a beret, a necklace of garlic while halding a baguette, and all Scots are kilt-wearing drunkards… 👀

Colonel Schaeffer's Last Chancers - "Fingers" and "Scope"

Anywho, the second model, “Scope” is a trained sniper and expert marksman. “His crime was going AWOL, for reasons unknown, but it is suspected to be related to the assassination of Chief Arbitrator Abraxtes.” So basically, he’s a sniper who snipes and maybe he sniped someone a bit important. Basically a Tabula Rasa/blank slate. Since he’s a sniper, I gave him a nice camo pattern loosely based on Flecktarn.

Colonel Schaeffer's Last Chancers - "Fingers" and "Scope"

And that’s that for this pair. As a collection of models, Fingers has some rockets in his backpack so he would have originally functioned as a loader model for Rocket Girl, though when these models were released that woul dhave had no actual in-game effects as Heavy Weapon teams were composed of two distinct models, one of which was the gunner with the big gun and the other funcitonally just being a rifleman in the squad. Not sure how that works these days with the multibased weapon teams. I haven’t played 40k for quite some time and Imperial Guard for even longer.

Hopefully it won’t take another 14 months before I get the next pair of these painted! There’s just Rocket Girl, Ox and the Colonel left – so a chance I could get them done before the end of 2023!

WAAAAGH! Pt.26: Assault on Black Reach Ork Nobz

Assault on Black Reach Ork Nobz, Blood Axe Nobz

So it’s been.. uh.. a couple of years, apparently, since I’ve finished any of my Orks – and yeah – it’s been way too bloody long! So today we have a band of five Ork Nobz from the AoBR boxed set – the starter for Warhammer 40k 5th edition. I’ve got at least a couple of these kicking around somewhere still in various states and like a lot of people I also picked up a number of cheap models off of the eBay back in the day – so here’s the first of mine. These five are actually the final bunch of the 25 Orks I pledged to paint alongside Wudugast back in …2019, only to burn out and stumble just before the finish line…

Assault on Black Reach Ork Nobz, Blood Axe Nobz Assault on Black Reach Ork Nobz, Blood Axe Nobz Assault on Black Reach Ork Nobz, Blood Axe Nobz

After painting quite a lot of far simpler models over the past several months – including a few from WHFB, a return to 40k models really blew me away (and not necessarily in a good way) with how detailed and in fact over-detailed they are. Kind of at odds with models designed for a horde army, really. So many individual rivets and bullets and straps and buckles and laces and.. all of which my mild OCD requires that I paint. And then to cap if off, my army’s theme being something I think of as Blood Axes crossed with Rogue Trader-era boyz – so camouflage clothing all ’round!

Assault on Black Reach Ork Nobz, Blood Axe Nobz

Assault on Black Reach Ork Nobz, Blood Axe Nobz Assault on Black Reach Ork Nobz, Blood Axe Nobz Assault on Black Reach Ork Nobz, Blood Axe Nobz

I mean, I did have a lot more fun painting these compared to most of the recent Drizzt models, it’s just that they also felt like they would never end given how busy they are. Even now as I’m writing this after having just put the final pre-varnish touches on these models, I spotted three extra things I need to touch on. While these Orkses weren’t the most fun I’ve had painting, and they’re pretty 2.5-D models from a starter set, I still think they’re going to be “fond of” models once I’ve had them finally out of my tray for a few days…

Assault on Black Reach Ork Nobz, Blood Axe Nobz Assault on Black Reach Ork Nobz, Blood Axe Nobz Assault on Black Reach Ork Nobz, Blood Axe Nobz Assault on Black Reach Ork Nobz, Blood Axe Nobz

This set of models and getting them done was inspired in part by wanting to “clear my mental debt” to Wudugast after several long years, and recently looking over some Orks by that guy in our blog-circle who paints really fucking well. OK, too broad, I guess. I mean this guy.

Ans yes, there will be more Orks in 2023!