As part of the January build wave for our 2021 Hobbying Sprint, I'm tackling one of the most important models in any Ork army: the Warboss himself, Big Boss Rikburgiz da Krusha!
I've been collecting GW's greenskins for nearly two decades, dating back to 3rd edition of 40k and 6th edition of Warhammer Fantasy (R.I.P.). Suffice to say, I've converted my fair share of Ork characters over that time; probably close to two dozen or so.
This time around, I wanted to build a Warboss that was distinctly "classic 40k Orky" while still being unique compared to the many other dime-a-dozen Warbosses out there.
I planned to accomplish this by:
With this general image in mind, I sketched up some concept art:
(*Note: technically speaking, I ended up using the plastic Warboss Grukk Face-rippa's body as the core of this conversion due to being slightly larger and easier to work with than GW's pewter Warboss, but I retained the key design elements from the classic metal Warboss as the defining features of the conversion.)
You might have noticed in the sketches above that I wanted a scenic base reflecting Rikburgiz standing on some concrete steps above a ruined culvert, allowing him to assume a commanding pose while roaring for his boyz to advance.
This level of detail built into a base was going to require substantial real estate... but the Warboss model technically comes with a 40mm base, which was far too small for my grand designs.
Thus, I somewhat foolishly decided to scratch-build a nesting pair of bases: a 40mm "gaming" base magnetized atop a 60mm "scenic" display base.
This base build turned out to be more complicated than I anticipated. Who knew cutting perfectly round concentric circles out of foamboard was so tricky?!
Here are some work-in-progress pictures of the base:
For maximum gaming flexibility, I wanted to be able to field Rikburgiz with different load-outs, including a Big Choppa or Power Klaw and a variety ranged weapons.
However, I've never been a big fan of magnetizing different weapons options into models unless there's no suitable alternative.
I thought I might get around this conundrum by scratch-building a custom Power Klaw arm that was so ambiguously loaded up with various guns, rokkits, and blades that it could justifiably "count as" any weapon I wanted to take in a given list.
This was going to require a lot of fiddly plasticard work, which hasn't been a particularly strong hobbying skill of mine historically. Nevertheless, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! Here are some pictures of the klaw as a work-in-progress:
After the dust (and glue, drywall filler, and greenstuff) settled, I was left staring at the final product. Without further ado, introducing Big Boss Rikburgiz da Krusha:
