Shock Attack Gun!

 This week, I've painted a few more old space orks. 

First up, we've got a model that I've had for ages and have never quite dared paint: the shock attack gun. (Or shokk atak gun, or shok attak gun - there seem to be a lot of spellings.) To my mind, this thing is one of the holy grails of Oldhammer space orkness. It's a sort of shoulder-mounted heavy weapon, but that  doesn't do it justice. That's like saying that an elephant is shaped like a dog.

The shock attack gun is, in the 40,000 background, a bizarre heavy weapon invented by ork techs in order to fire snotlings (small, goblin-like creatures) at their enemies. The gun teleports the snotlings into position (roughly), with a variety of interesting potential effects. Depending on how you rolled on a table, the gun could cause frenzied snotlings to attack the enemy, or appear inside them, causing a vast explosion, or just blow things up. Alternatively, the gun could malfunction and teleport its wielder to who-knows-where.

In short, it was very random and orky. There have been three miniatures of the shock attack gun, as far as I can tell, and I managed to find the earliest version on ebay, going at a not-too-awful price. I think it looks very silly and is an absolutely superb miniature. The detailing is remarkable, especially when you reflect that it's hand-sculpted. The gun has a very Heath-Robinson look, with all sorts of cogs, belts, tanks, rotors, wires, vents and pipes. It seems to have a tap on the back and an egg-timer on the side - because, if you're an ork, why not?

Anyhow, it was a real pleasure to paint and will be a nice addition to my small force of old-school orks.

I also painted an ork in heavy armour. Someone had removed his original gun, which I replaced with a plastic bolter. He's a nice model. It's always weird to realise how very small these guys are. I do have some more recent plastic black orcs, from Warhammer Fantasy Battle. I reckon they could quite easily be painted and converted as friends for this guy.

And finally, here's a Gorkamorka boy (or maybe a yoof). These plastic miniatures are largely forgotten now, and they occupy an odd niche between the goofy orks of 2nd edition 40k and the hulking monsters of post-2000. Taking that into account, they're quite reasonable plastic miniatures for the time, but I doubt they're loved that much these days. Anyhow, this chap has quite a cool pose.

So that's the orks for now. I've absolutely no idea what I'll paint next. There's quite a queue.