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Here come the Nobz!

Jan 5th, 2020

With the first two test Boyz under my belt, I next wanted to try my hand at modeling and painting up some Nobz.

I am planning for every unit in Da Ironbullz army would bear the same overall colors and textures (such as the same primary colors of red and yellow), but I also want each unit to have subtle themes that make them stand out.

To accomplish this, I'm planning on adhering to a couple rules:

1. Each unit will have distinguishing elements in terms of their base (i.e., setting), their modeling details (i.e., armor & weapons), and painting (i.e., similar colors used for various surfaces).
2. More elite units will be cleaner and brighter (less battle damage/weathering and more bright primary colors), while more generic units like Grotz, Killa Kanz, and Boyz will typically feature more dull/neutral colors and be more heavily weathered & beaten up.

For example, I am planning on my Shoota Boyz to be heavily armored (at least one metal shoulderplate each, and all helmeted heads) with additional ammunition somewhere on each model, to be based as if they're staking out a ruined power plant (so will be based with ruined building debris, power cables, metal crates, generators, etc.), and to all have red helmets and yellow or black & white check shoulderplates.

Hopefully this approach will allow each unit to appear cohesive and distinct from other units while also ensuring that Da Ironbullz appear as a unified force on the tabletop!

With these rules in mind, I recently built & painted two Nobz: a generic mega-armored Nob and the Boss Nob for my Shoota Boyz squad.

Mega-Armored Nob with Power Klaw and Kombi-Scorcha

I gave the mega-armored Nob a power klaw and kombi-scorcha, and mostly stayed true to the bitz straight out of the mega-armored Nobz kit. The only exception was the substitution of a helmeted head from a Black Ork (*err... I mean "Ironjaw Ardboy"? R.I.P. Warhammer Fantasy Orcs & Goblins...).

In terms of painting, I wanted all of the Nobz units in my army (aside from unit bosses) to feature mostly red body armor with yellow jawz and shoulderplates. As above, I tried to stay (relatively) light with the weathering & battle damage. Here's how he turned out:

Shoota Boyz Boss Nob with Kombi-Rokkit and Power Stabba

I was a bit more adventurous with the conversion of the Boss Nob for my Shoota Boyz. He's built from a static posed Nob body, helmeted head, and choppa arm, but his kombi-shoota arm has been spliced together using a regular Boyz shoota, rokkits from the mega-armored Nobz kit, and a scope. To make the Shoota Boyz theme more apparent, I also added a backpack of rokkits from the Boyz kit and used the blast plate from the Boyz rokkit launcha as a bosspole.

Painting this guy was fairly straightforward, with the exception of adding a lime green object-source lighting effect to his choppa to make it look more like a true Power Stabba:

And here's how Da Ironbullz look now with four total models finished:

A sneek peek at a Killa Kan

In parallel to painting up these two Nobz, I also was excited to build up a Killa Kan since I surprisingly haven't ever worked with the plastic Kanz or Dread kits since they came out many years ago.

I kept this build fairly simple given that I was just getting the feel of these new (to me) Kanz sprues. I only ad-libbed one minor modification, which was scratch-building a vertical arm with an array of smaller rokkits.

If you look carefully, you might notice a little green (well, silver for now) helper on his base. Yes, that's a snotling from Warhammer Fantasy!