Loads of Metal Space Ork Stuff

 Time for some orks! The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that 3rd edition Warhammer 40,000 was a time of great disaster. It's definitely the point where the great grimdarking of Warhammer began, and the orks were hit especially badly by this. With the possible exception of some gretchin, I don't think any of the old models survived into the 2000s, which is a great shame. Still, the blood of martyrs is the heresy of eternal war, or something.

So, without further ado, here are some more old orks! 

First up, we've got two metal minis: a freebooter bad doc (that's a pirate mad medic) and a mek with a burner/flamer. These are such nice models. The detail of the sculpting is terrific on both models, with loads of cool touches. I particularly like the way that the mek is sculpted like a welder, rather than a soldier with a flamethrower. The doc is one of the meanest-looking old orks, and even by greenskin standards he's an ugly customer. The only bum note for me is the small hand hanging from his ear. I painted it like an earring or perhaps a decoration on his shoulder armour. 

Then here are two randos. The guy on the left is a Space Crusade plastic ork. He's not the greatest model in history, but he's got a certain goofy charm, and there's lots of space on the model to embellish him. On the right, there's a metal madboy with a custom weapon.

Madboys were an odd feature of the very complex 2nd Ed ork rulebook. They seemed to be suffering from various forms of delusion and mental illness, which probably wouldn't be treated so comically today, and gave the sculptors the opportunity to make orks with great facial expressions. This chap, I think, is feeling down. He is wearing an apron, and has some little tools in his belt, so perhaps he's a mek who is nervous about firing the ridiculous gun that he's just built.

And here are two plastic boys from the original ork boys set. They're a bit step down from the metal models, of course, and come in two weird poses: squatting as if about to have a poo, and creeping away to the right. Anyhow, they've come out alright, and bulk up the numbers reasonably well.

But that's not all! For the first time on this blog, I present... the ork wartrak.

Back in the ancient past of 1989, there were very few plastic vehicles (four, I think). Instead, ork buggies and the like were made of metal parts that you had to stick together. I found one of these, a wartrak, on ebay minus its mounted lascannon, and so I bought it.

Ye gods, this thing was a swine to put together. We can (sometimes rightly) complain about the complexity of modern plastic kits, but this thing was terrible. I pinned it, used green stuff and superglue, and every other trick I could think of, but it was a terrible struggle to get it to stay together.

It didn't help that I had to improvise a gun out of an old plastic bit (I've no idea where that came from), some plasticard and a sight off an modern Skitarri gun. I put it on a base for some small level of stability: back in 1989, you just plonked it on the tabletop.

Anyhow, at last I painted it, and quickly realised how much easier it would have been if I'd not stuck it together first. I gave the orks lighter skin than usual, just to make them stand out from their machine. I think these guys are probably Evil Suns, given that they use a lot of red, but they could still fit with the other chaps.

So there we are! Old orks is da best orks. Nuff said.