Ork warbuggy, madboys and a beast of Nurgle

 Lots of stuff this week, most of it ork-related. But first, what is Games Workshop's most overcosted miniature?

I think a lot of people would nominate some big war machine, or a particularly fancy character, and that's fair enough. We seem to be moving to a point where no GW model costs less than £25, and no squad of models is less than £40. And of course, if you really want to burn through money, you can buy some ex-Forgeworld titans and spaceships that cost hundreds of pounds.

But my choice would be the humble Beast of Nurgle. This is a plastic kit, and it's notable that it is indeed humble. For £36, you get one plastic model with very limited customisation options, which isn't a character. If I remember rightly, you have to take them in units of two or more. That's a shame, because I really like the miniature. With the right options, it looks like a silly, happy blob-monster, and has that rare thing for a Warhammer kit: charm.

Anyhow, I saw two of them going for £30 on ebay and bought them. When they came through the post, I was surprised to find that they weren't legit: they were 3D printed models, presumably scanned from the original. Oh well: I can easily see why someone would make their own. Anyhow, I painted one of them and really enjoyed it. I think he would make a good friendly alien or enthusiastic sidekick.

"Hi guys!"

I tend to give most of my models a thin coat of spray-on matt varnish. I sprayed this model with a new can of Colour Forge matt varnish, having given the can a shake. To my shock, white stuff came out, presumably spray that hadn't settled properly. Luckily I'd only sprayed one side of the model before I realised the problem, but I still had to repaint it, which was a nuisance. Oh well, lesson learned. 

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Now then, on to the orks. I've been chipping away at a few models for a long time, and I've saved them up for this post (lucky you!). First up, we've got three more metal madboys: not the most sympathetic depiction of mental health, but excellent sculpts with loads of character. It feels quite weird to see GW models with such a range of expressions. I have no idea why one of them is missing a shoe, but they still look as if they're either thinking things over or having a super time. Which feels very orky.

And finally, here's another warbuggy. Like the one I made a few months ago, this is a plastic kit from the later 90s, with oddly-proportioned crew. This time around, however, I was missing a lot of bits and had to improvise. The driver is a completely different plastic miniature, a truck driver from the Gorkamorka range, and the gunner's arms are from a chaos space marine, with some of the armour cut down and some fabric-type ridges sculpted in with green stuff and milliput. 

I like these models. While the crew don't fit well with the main ork ranges, either old or new, the sculpting is fine and the vehicle itself has lots of nice detail - but not too much. You can do a lot of things with it and I suspect that they would have been a lot of fun to convert, back in the day.