Saturday 17 November 2018

Ork Warbuggy


Greetings vaqueros! Today we'll be celebrating the end of the 21 year career of the 2nd edition Ork Warbuggy!




Orks were my first army in the 40k universe, as I've probably mentioned once or twice, and while I always wanted one of these bad boys, I somehow never got around to buying the warbuggy until earlier this year when they were still available to buy from GW's webstore. I believe this may be one of their longest serving plastic kits - the ork bike of the same era got a rerelease a year or two back as the 'Space Ork Blastabike' but is now being produced by Revell so it only partly counts! This venerable kit has finally been retired in order to usher in the new range of ace ork vehicles that have come screeching into our lives in a cloud of burnt rubber and human, so it seemed a fitting time to get one done before my attention is grabbed forever by the new shinies. Mmm, so shiny.


The keen eyed among you may have already noticed that I didn't assemble this vehicle by the instructions - I've replaced the crew with armless metal minis from the 2nd ed range to better fit in with the rest of my army. The crew, while iconic in their own way, are almost an entirely different scale to the average ork of the times, pushing the limits of bio-diversity and imagination at once. This trend continued from the Rogue Trader range, which was already small to begin with. Ork Speed Freeks are just really small dudes. Probably helps them go fasta...


The warbuggy kit comes stock with a multi-melta that resembles a Laramie Super-Soaker, and while I'm very fond of it, I wanted something a bit more no-nonsense to stick on my ramshackle war-kart crewed by fungus-men. These two heavy shootas look the business, and with a little tinkering I put an ammo box on both sides so there'll be plenty of dakka to go around. 

Those are definitely rust stains. Not any kind of other stains.

The metal gunner is bigger overall than the plastic one, but strangely not as tall, so I had to cut down the gun mount and give him a little platform from the Gorkamorka Rokkit Buggy set so he could at least see down the gun's sights. This element took the longest to model and is not something I'm itching to do twice, so if I get around to doing more of these it will be interesting to see what the loadout is...

"Caught under wheels rollin'"

I managed to source a whole pile of these grinning moon shield decorations from eBay to save me having to freehand a lot of moons. I mean I love moons, but not that much. Certain individuals who will go unnamed wanted me to file off the skulls on the front here because they look dumb, to which I say, YOU look dumb. Handsome but dumb. Just the way I like them. Carry on.


This force of Black Moon Mercenaries is coming along slowly but surely, and I'm having a lot of fun with them. Having finally nailed down a scheme that I like for this new chapter in my ork story, I hope to produce more minis at a faster rate - maybe not as fast as a warbuggy crewed by psychotic green killers, but, like, pretty fast.

And what's next? Well since we're breathing new life into old models, maybe we can roll some old bikes out of the shed and fix them up too...

"Every part of the collection of broken 90's toys is used..."

Adios for now!

21 comments:

  1. I like the new ork vehicles a lot, but they are not quite the classic buggy.

    This is a really top class iteration of the model, with some really well thought out modifications. Love it.

    Oh yeah, maybe Speed Freeks are small, like jockeys.

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    1. Small crew can be very handy to get around various modelling challenges - I had RT sized crew in mind when I built my Spleenrippa, for example. But I prefer the look of the giant headed gurning 2nd ed chaps. Zero consistency! Maximum enjoy!

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  2. I see the Black Moon a-rising
    I see trouble on the way
    I see quad bikes and fightnin'
    I see bad times today

    Don't go 'round tonight
    They're bound to take your life
    There's a Black Moon on the rise

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    1. Quad bikes! My old warboss used to ride one... maybe that's another project I can dig up out of the rubble of my garage...

      Cool song! :D Cheers!

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  3. Replies
    1. Thanks Warburton, I had a feeling you'd like this one :D

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  4. Crooksy your magnificent bastard! I'm loving what you are doing with the Black Moons and each addition to the force just gets better and better!!!!!

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    1. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

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    2. GROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

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  5. Gasp! That's real beauty! I had never seen one of these in the b/w scheme, and I have to say it's gorgeous! You have to do more!

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    1. Thanks Suber! I have a couple more of these and some Gorkamorka parts that I'll marry together. I sort of wish I'd bought more when I had the chance but I'm also sort of glad I didn't... ;)

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  6. Great stuff Crooksy. When it comes to Ork vehicles you are a master craftsman.

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    1. Thanks Sean! I just really love working on ork vehicles!

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  7. That Buggy is a such a great kit with so much nostalgia attached to it. It felt like the biggest and most complexly detailed kit at the time. And the 1997 Games Day Big Toof river mega display made them that year's hot thing. It's just small enough to be a miniature without being overwhelming to paint. The gunner's arms have weird elbows.

    Love your work replacing the krew on this. Your rendition is chock full of character.

    You not doing a little banner on the pole?

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    1. The gunner arms are a bit odd. I could have used different ones but they were there and time was of the essence (I knew if I didn't finish it before I got the new buggies then I'd never finish it...). For similar reasons I didn't do a banner. I may revisit that but I liked the simple pole with a moon on top :D

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    2. You want the moon on a stick! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERDUbAv8Qz0

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  8. Another magnificent orky ride. The buggy is pretty much the iconic ork vehicle, I get all misty-eyed when I see one this beautiful.

    It's quite the thing seeing such treats emerge from the tangled morass that is your hobby station.

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    1. Don't fear The Mess, Mr Saturday... it only feeds it :s

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