I've made some progress towards preparing Da Ironbullz for our upcoming 1.5k point tournament in October by finishing up mobs of shoota boyz & meganobz as well as a painboy.
This unit was an easy one to finish, as I actually already built 23 shoota boyz for our 1k point tournament back in May.
Sticking with the goal of each unit in my army having a distinct "theme," I wanted these shoota boyz to appear like they are obsessed with loading up on armor and ammo to be the toughest, fightiest gitz around.
In hobbying terms, this means every model in the unit will have a red helmet, at least one metal shoulderpad, and at least one (sometimes multiple) extra ammo clips or bands of bullets hanging from their bodies. I also tried to pose each of these models as if they're crouched behind cover spraying bullets recklessly at the enemy.
Previously, I had built five meganobz for our May tournament with no plans to add a second unit. Now that my October list calls for two units of four meganobz, I wanted to distinguish each unit from the other.
For this unit, that meant leaning into a "bull" theme with the Black Orc helmets from Warhammer Fantasy (or "Orruk 'Ardboyz" in Age of Sigmar, or whatever...) and bosspoles and glyphs featuring horned skulls and bull imagery. After a couple quick head swaps to the models I built back in March, Da Longhornz took shape!
In gaming terms, I'm planning on fielding these with the standard power klaw & kustom shoota loadout, but couldn't resist adding some extra weapons options to a couple of the models just in case I wanted to mix it up in the future.
The plastic painboy model is bursting with detail, so I didn't feel the need to make many changes. That said, I'm not a fan of his cartoony power klaw and scrunched face, so I replaced those with a Kromlech resin power klaw and a scarred head from the meganobz kit. I rounded out the conversion by adding some shoulderpads and a bosspole featuring skull and/or bone iconography (fitting for a painboy, I thought!).
I was disappointed to see that Grot Orderlies are no longer treated as models with profiles in the new 9th edition Orks codex. Nevertheless, I wanted to convert a Grot orderly out of a WHFB Night Goblin body with a 40k grot head, and equipped him with a plasticard bone saw and a pistol with two needles/syringes from the Painboy's power klaw I replaced.
