Space Ork Kommando Skwad

 I thought I might quickly explain how I paint ork skin. Orks vary in colour from the quite drab to the lurid, and these days I tend to do it one of two ways, depending on the lightness.

Usually, I start with Vallejo Russian Uniform, a slightly drab colour that looks about 3/4 green to 1/4 grey. Then I give that two thin washes: one with dark green (GW Caliban Green) and one with Leviathan Purple contrast paint, watered down to be effectively an ink. The green one provides shadow. The purple one is important because purple is a "flesh" colour and gives the impression that ork skin is the equivalent of human skin (at least, that's the idea).

Then I highlight with a mixture of Russian Uniform and Game Colour Sick Green. Finally, I add some bright yellow (Warpaints Daemonic Yellow, to be exact) for the eyebrows and so on. And that's it, really! If I want an ork to have lighter skin (I assume younger orks and gretchin are more brightly-coloured), I would start with Sick Green as a base coat, used both washes and leave out the Russian Uniform.

Anyhow, on to the models. 

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First up, here's a random bionic ork. He's not actually a 40k model at all: he's an old Blood Bowl miniature, called cybork. But he certainly fits in with the others. As with so many of these miniatures, he's a nice sculpt and has a good mixture of detail and simplicity.

But now for something a bit more ambitious. Sometime in the mid-90s, towards the end of the old-style orks, Games Workshop produced a few kommando miniatures. Kommandos were wily orks who, instead of charging at the enemy, could creep into position, and were allowed to infiltrate on the board. 

The design of the miniatures is obviously a nod to WW2 British commandos, with their uniforms and wooly hats (with predictable ork logic, the Stormboys are equally obvious Nazis). As every British boy of a certain age knows, commandos are awesome. 

I'd painted some of these models a while back, but I wanted to spruce them up and bring them into line with the rest of my oldhammer force. That meant redoing the skin, as well as generally tidying the painting. While I had three of the same sculpts (there aren't many different models in this group), some of them had lost their original axes.

One got a dynamite stick made by drilling into the hilt of the broken axe and inserting a bit of string. Dynamite and kommandos probably go together quite well. The guy beside him got a knife from a leftover Warlord Games plastic Roman's sword. The shape looks quite like the classic fighting knives carried by WW2 commandos.

One of the models had been hacked to pieces, and was missing an axe and an entire arm. I did some repairs, and was pleased to find that a broken power claw fitted perfectly. He got a chaos bolt pistol to match, and is now the nob of the unit. 

Here he is with a friend.

The final two are unconverted. I really like the expression of the guy on the right. He's seen a lot and he's not having any.

One of the best touches about these miniatures is that each kommando is carrying a Swiss Army knife on his belt, just in case he has to open a tin or get a stone out of a horse's (or tyranid's) hooves.

And here, then, is the entire squad. They just need a suitably dramatic caption.

Deep in the storm-wracked ruins of Plogius Minoris IX, Leftennant "Grabba" Gutrog and his kommandos stealthily advance on the unsuspecting forces of the Imperial Guard.

You know, I never actually set out to make an oldhammer ork army. Oh well! Gork and possibly Mork must have willed it to happen!