At last: Rikburgiz has rallied enough ladz to his banner to call himself a real Warboss!
After nearly six months, I finally put the finishing touches on the last three Nobz to complete Da Ironbullz 2022 Combat Patrol.
In truth, I actually finished painting the Nobz close to two months ago, but the arrival of my wife and my first tiny 'umie waylaid any progress on basing or varnishing these last three models until just recently.
Painting 500 points of models might not seem like a big milestone to many hobbyists, but it's a significant one for me. I am a meticulous modeler, a ponderous painter, and love lavishing attention on complex bases, all of which makes for glacially slow progress. Plus, Orks are not the most straightforward models to paint, either!
Here's a look at 500 (ish*) points of greenskins painted up and ready to get krumpin':
*This list was 500 points back in January before the Orks received two waves of points discounts. It now sits below 500, but I could easily stretch to >500 by including some solo models I finished previously, like my Nob with Waaagh! Banner or running my lone Killa Kan as a Deff Dread
Let's take a closer look at the units in this photo next.
The biggest and baddest boss of Da Ironbullz isn't a new addition to the army (I finished building and painting him close to 18 and 16 months ago, respectively!), but it just felt plain wrong to take photos of Da Ironbullz 2022 Combat patrol without some gallery shots of Da Big Boss himself.
I still love this conversion, but am all-the-more bummed now that he was one of the models who were afflicted with the infamous Curse of Expired Varnish of 2021. Looking back at some old pictures, I feel that I did justice by Da Big Boss with a pretty sharp paint job only to have it ruined by a thick, opaque coat of varnish that obscured some of the finer highlights and details. If you look closely, you can even see pooled globs of milky white varnish pooling in his teeth and in the folds of his attack squig's neck.
By comparison to some of the newer additions to Da Ironbullz, he (and the other models I painted in the same batch) don't visually pop nearly as much due to the opacity of the heavy varnish toning down the highlights, but at least he still looks decent enough to hit the tabletop!
Every self-respecting Warboss needs a mob of trusted Nob enforcers to keep the gitz in line, and Rikburgiz is no exception!
I've described this unit in a previous post dedicated to the unit, but I wanted Rikburgiz' retinue of Nobz to be a collection of individually unique models, each of whom has their own backstory and theme. I imagined these Nobz as the collection of biggest Nobz who are second-in-command to Da Big Boss in one specific aspect of Da Ironbullz culture; almost "minor characters" in their own right.
I'm pleased to introduce the first five of Rikburgiz' most trusted bodyguards:
As the highest-ranking Nob in Da Ironbullz, Rikburgiz has kept "Da Lootennunt" around due to his unusually surly, no-nonsense demeanor plus his lack of the extremely common Orky desire to mutiny in order to become da biggest boss yourself!
Given his role as the boss of Da Krusha's Krew, I wanted Da Loontennunt to look suitably brooding with a commanding pose. I used the cigar arm from the Flash Gitz kit and tacked on two bosspoles to make him stand out as the Boss Nob. Two bosspoles is better than one!
Unfortunately, this guy was in the wave of models that got hit with the expired varnish, so his final appearance isn't as crisp as I would like, but I still think he looks ok.
Even though Da Ironbullz never made it to Armageddon Prime along with Waaagh! Ghazghkull like they planned, they haven't been left completely in the dark as to what they missed. Other Ork warbands have returned back from Armageddon towards Golgotha, looting and pillaging along the way, and some have even stopped briefly on Volarius. There, they swapped war stories with Da Ironbullz about "Da Biggest Scrap There Eva Wuz."
No tale of the Third War for Armageddon could be told with no mention of the tuffest 'umie in the galaxy: Commissar Yarrick.
The stories of Yarrick left such an impact on one of Rikbugriz' nobz that he became obsessed--as Orks often do--with the idea of emulating this fearsome warrior. After all, he was able to stand up to the mighty Ghazghkull Thraka, after all!
With this conversion, I tried to match Yarrick's pose as best I could, although I opted to mirror his stance to take advantage of the cloaked Flash Gitz body. I gave him a looted storm bolter (counts-as Slugga for game purposes) and a Choppa at his belt to match Yarrick's saber. Finally, no homage to any Commissar would be complete without an iconic peaked cap, which came from a Kromleck resin bit.
I'm probably least pleased with the paint job on this guy, which is made worse by the fact that he was the second Nob to suffer from the expired varnish.
Yarrick may be the Hero of Armageddon but he wasn't the only Imperial hero to defend the hive world from Waaagh! Ghazghkull. A certain chapter of gothic beakies were also one of the major forces on Armageddon Prime. Since one of my regular gaming buddies is a die-hard Black Templars player who has a converted Emperor's Champion, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to converting one of Rikburgiz' Nobz to look like an Emperor's Champion of my own.
This guy turned out exactly as I hoped. I didn't match the details on the Emperor's Champion model exactly but did try to keep some elements like the holstered pistol on his right hip, the clenched left fist, the purity seals on his left shoulder pad, his creme tabard, and the laurel wreath on his helmet.
From a painting perspective, I tried to use slightly more black and white on this guy than on the other Nobz, and freehanded some cross iconography onto his various armor plates.
Just to make sure the Black Templars reference was crystal clear, I modeled him to be standing on a damaged Templars shoulder pad and added a bit of plasticard work to the concrete on his base to feature a shield with a Templar's cross. The latter detail is subtle but I hoped would be appreciated by people once they notice it.
Every Warboss needs an enforcer Nob who can intimidate, bully, or even krump his underlings back into line once they get too unruly.
The Nob that Rikbugriz trusts with this important task takes his job very seriously; so seriously, in fact, that he is nearly as likely to lop off the heads of upstart Orks as he is the heads of their enemies!
In order to realize the theme of "executioner" for this model, I piled on as many skulls, trophies, and axes as possible. I also wanted him to appear particularly large and intimidating so gave him double-wide armor plates on his shoulders to make the model appear broader than an average Nob.
I don't typically like models with gore, but I had to make an exception for Da Exekushuna. It's somewhat hard to tell from this picture, but his base features an eviscerated, decapitated guardsman gushing blood into one of Tsaragrad's many urban canals. Da Exekushuna clearly lives up to his name!
Coincidentally, this was a nice opportunity for me to test out a potential color scheme for the local Tsaragrad defense regiment, who will surely make an appearance on this blog in the future... but not until Da Ironbullz warband grows yet larger!
The fifth and final Nob (for now, until I get around to painting the other five) for Rikburgiz' retinue is the one whose theme I think is probably the weakest. I originally started out wanting this model to be a savage, bloodthirsty berzerker, but as I gathered bitz for the conversion I realized he looked more like a pirate than a berzerker. I've since found a much better candidate starting point for a berzerker Nob (no spoilers!), so decided to lean into the pirate/duelist theme for this guy instead by giving him a head missing a right eye, a Jolly Ork skull bosspole, and as many fixed-blade choppas as I could find. No mechanical choppas for him--just cold, hard steel.
Finally, it's only fitting to cap off this section with a group shot of Rikburgiz and his Nobz retinue, which also features Grimjaw da Stubborn, the grizzled Nob who carries Da Ironbullz Waaagh! Banner into battle. He happens to be one of my favorite models I've ever made! I've featured the conversion and painting process on him in a previous post, if you want to read more.
I already took some decent photos of these two units for a previous post, and in that same post I also provided some commentary on their themes, modeling/painting choices, and background. Still, I figured it wouldn't hurt to snap a couple more shots of these guys while I had my mini photography setup deployed.
What are the next chapters in the war raging over Tsaragrad? Only Gork (or possibly Mork) knows!
In all seriousness, finishing the first 500 points of Orks for Da Ironbullz has energized me to keep pushing on all fronts!
It turns out there are actually quite a few fronts these days... including:
No matter what, I'll be back soon to share more hobbying progress here. Stay tuned!