Me: So where does someone go to eat at 10pm on a Wednesday in Schaumburg Illinois?

Hotel Desk Lady: Buffalo Wild Wings is ALWAYS happening.

Me: Always?

HDL: Always!

I touched down at O’Hare airport outside Chicago on a cold and windy March evening and headed to Schaumburg about 30 minutes away. I had flown directly from a conference in Las Vegas, so the desolate corporate business parks of this Midwestern suburb were oddly comforting and understated after the garish buffoonery of the strip. I met up with Chris from Slow Death Games, ate some unappealing brewpub food and talked shit before hanging in his room assembling a key piece of his Wild in the Streets booth for Adepticon, a wall of old punk / HxC flyers that we thought might attract up to one additional customer throughout the weekend. During the evening, and into the late night, we talked about expectations for the convention, which revealed both of us were entering this endeavor with a massive brick of consternation, which looking back I find odd.

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It’s starting to look like a real army now.

My previous update focused on the troops component of my 40K Bad Moon army so far. I cheated slightly in that a lot of them were units I mostly painted last year, then added a few extra guys. This time, I’m going to get into the slightly more snazzy stuff, all of which, I can assure you, has been 100% completed since I started this project.

I hate youuuuu.

The lootas were almost responsible for completely torpedoing my enthusiasm for getting this army painted. I picked them up because they seemed like a good choice for the army, both rules-wise and fluff-wise, despite not particularly caring for the models (although I think they’re improved – from both a visual and practical standpoint – by popping them on 32mm bases), and I’ve definitely learned a lesson from that; from here on in, it’s purely models I like and am enthused about painting, regardless of their potential effectiveness. My attitude towards them soured further when I discovered what an absolute bugger they were to paint and assemble, two processes that had to happen in weird, overlapping stages because of how fiddly it would have been to paint them all in one piece. I think my mistake was assuming I’d be able to chuck them together and paint them as easily and quickly as regular boyz, meaning I got frustrated and impatient with them when that turned out not to be the case.

Because of my lack of interest in these guys, I’d initially painted them to a the absolute bare minimum standard I could stomach, based them, then kind of ignored them since the latter part of last year. When I was painting my big mek in January (more on which below) I decided, having got my head around what went wrong previously, to try and tart them up a bit. They were a bit more enjoyable once I’d initiated the necessary adjustment of attitude, and I’m reasonably happy with how they turned out with a bit of extra attention lavished on them. I can’t see myself looking to expand this unit in a hurry, though.

My first proper introduction to the 40K universe’s Orks was via White Dwarf 134 ,which contained rules for Ork mobs in Space Crusade and the feature on, and painting guide for, Andy Chambers’ first iteration of Waaagh! Ghazghkull. And ever since digging into that, and subsequently the colossal, bonkers 1st-edition Ork army books, the Bad Moons have been my main guys. (Seeing the pointy-hat-sporting Bad Moon models, from that very WD article, at the Corehammer Christmas Chiller was my own personal highlight amongst the onslaught of nostalgia the cabinets at Foundry subjected me to.)

It seems that since the start of my time away, when the shooty yellow guys were very much supporting cast to the dour, assault-focussed Goffs, the Bad Moons have had something of a reversal of fortunes and become the poster boys for the GW Ork range. However, I’m not really too keen on the way they’ve approached the paint jobs on the official materials; it seems to be a case of painting any available surface yellow – what always appealed to me about the colour scheme was the combination of the yellow with a darker colour, and I feel like there’s not nearly enough contrast, in terms of colour or hue, with a lot of what I’ve seen via official GW channels. In addition, everything looks too clean – skating a bit too close to the gleaming, primary-coloured 90s aesthetic for my liking.

I’ve literally just realised I haven’t finished off the teeth on that guy’s banner pole. Rats.

As such, I wanted to paint up my mega-armoured nobz in a way that I found both more appealing, and more realistic (as much as an 8-foot, semi-robotic, fungus-based space monster can be deemed “realistic”), than the Tonka-truck vibe given off by GW’s take on the models (although I’m still far from convinced this vibe isn’t exaggerated further by the new, plastic kit – I limited myself to adding a few accessories from that kit to my existing, old-school metal versions). I’m pretty chuffed with how these guys came out – I think the yellow is sparing enough to provide some nice contrast with the grimy metal and darker armour plates. I’ve still got a few more of these knocking about, unassembled, so I’ll probably paint a couple more to add to the mob. I feel like one carrying an enormous banner might be nice.

Nice to have you back, pal.

For me, the Shokk Attack Gun was the ultimate encapsulation of the orks’ propensity for daft weaponry that could mess people up in a variety of hilariously unpleasant, and unpredictable, ways, and was a staple of most of my 2nd-edition 40K experiences. This meant I was delighted to see, upon returning to this army, that it had made a comeback. I was less delighted, however, to see the face on the new sculpt, which just looks super-goofy. Initially, I was contemplating a fairly elaborate kitbash for this model but, since I already have a converted warboss in the pipeline, I thought I’d just get an HQ out of the way and expedite the completion of a playable army. As such, I just stuck to a simple headswap, using the one from the plastic mega-armour kit.

I’ve a few more bits on the spreadsheet for the orks (63% competed at the moment, stats-fans), but I think this seems like a good point to give myself a break from them for a bit – I have a fully-painted, if small, army and Duggan’s offered to pop round soon and ease me into 40K’s latest ruleset. Also, I need to get cracking with my Frostgrave chaps so they’re ready in time for the forthcoming CH tournament.

To close out, here’s how The Spreadsheet’s looking.

Not too bad, so far. If I can keep this up I’ll be well ahead, but I have a feeling I’ll be hitting a few speedbump models once I’ve exhausted all the easy options. Looking at you, mountain of Space Hulk Genestealers…