Enter: Da Grot Webellyun!

Many moons ago on a wintery club night, greenskins clashed with orangeskins, shouting and bad grammar was expelled from mouths and strange vehicles arrayed on the table. And threats. Lots of threats. 'I'm having that trukk' being a common one. Bam, Louis and Owain played a few games of Gorkamorka, and its always been a game thats intrigued me. Growing up, I played Blood Bowl, Necromunda, Warhammer Quest, then had a gap and gradually got into 40k. Now however has been a great time to try Gorkamorka. For £40.50, you can get yourself a box of boys and a trukk to ravage to make into a mob. Only, I fancied something different. 

The Diggas looked appealing. Where orks love to copy the Imperium with its vehicles and camo designs, the Diggas copied the orks in Gorkamorka. Nice twist... but not me. Muties... Another interesting group, but converting models for it seemed difficult, and I want crude vehicles to build. Then I felt something gnawing my ankle. I looked down, and there were the grots. 

 I looked over the rules, and could see that although weak, they could gang up and outnumber their bigger cousins and their vehicles, while haphazard, could potentially be incredibly fast. Instantly though I knew I had to do grots. Winning games would be hard, but in my mind I want those hilarious moments and bringing down the occasional ork. Objectives in mind, how to build my mob!

With the latest Ork releases I knew that getting one of the mek guns would offer me countless bits to play with, an ork trukk would provide the basic chassis for a lugga and two boxes of grots would give me plenty of bodies. First thing to build, the cutta.

Heres how she looks, and I'm happy with the result. The frame was from two bits of sprue, as was the mast which was carved down to make it look like beaten metal or wood, either of which I'll paint it as. The crows nest was made from a base with a circular piece of flooring from a citadel basing kit, and then built up using pieces of plasticard and other such gubbinz as I could find!

I found the easiest way to attach the mast was to use part of an axle and a wheel, it was a natural fitting and looked salvaged enough to fit in with the feel.

Using a base for the crows nest means fitting a grot on top isn't a problem, and I have a grot with binoculars from the mek gun kit that suits it well. 

I've yet to make a sail or decide on what I want to paint on it, although crude GRC graffiti is tempting! 

Three WIP grots, the longer gun grots I'm using as snots as I've armed them with blunderbusses. Very happy with how they're coming along!

This is the lugga. Its not finished yet, but the basic shape is there and I'm sort of happy with it. Still needs more work, and I need to add some bits to make it a little more sturdy. The front cab is based around the hull of a sentinel, and I've used a leg to attach it to the back body of the lugga. 

Most of the other grots have been based green so I'll slowly work on this over the coming weeks when I'm able too, and I may undercoat the cutta soon as its finished and ready. 

I've even managed to fit a game in too, a four way between three mobs of orks and my grots. I've gained myself seven teef, and +1 bs for one grot although a couple were killed and Bam stole a few too! Swine, although I did gang up on his Nob and take him down! Looking forward to the next game, the fourway was a little chaotic so I think some 1v1 games are in order next. I'll post more updates when I can along with some other planned posts I have! 

Before I end this post, I'm looking for mob name suggestions! Send a comment and I'll see if any take my attention. Cheers for now though!

First of the Seventh

And on the Seventh Edition, the High Lords did get it so right. At least thats my thoughts after the first game 7th edition 40k I've had. For the first game, myself and the Alun took a trip to the Crow Valley Crusaders to face an Imperial Guard/Dark Angels army commanded by Byron and Gareth. Alun took his Dark Eldar, where I took mainly Imperial Guard with some Space Marines. 2k each, and we used the new mission set in the rulebook to see what our objectives were. Contact Lost was rolled up, and six objectives were placed.Vague report ahead as this was played a week ago!

Having to capture objectives to gain new tactical mission cards to gain those all important victory points works insanely well and creates a really fluid game as each army are racing around to capture or at least contest objectives to get those lovely cards. What this does is challange the player to be ready to adapt during the heat of battle, as it should be. This brings so many new decisions and options that I can't wait to play more of the new missions. 

 Myself and Alun went first, Aluns Dark Eldar racing across the field to capture an objective in front of the opponents battleline. Aluns shooting was pretty dire, and mine wasn't too effective either. The return fire did some damage but we were able to weather it.

After the 1st turn we had control of a couple of the objectives, although our enemis had got the upper hand acheiving a couple early on and getting first blood. Sometimes the objective cards will be kind, sometimes not so much! They vary from capturing certain numbered objectives to killing certain units or making them run off the board. As the game went on both sides built up points in this way, and it seems a really good way to play a game.

Aluns Dark Eldar faced off against a lot of Byrons army, and highlights include a Vanquisher rolling a six to try and blow the DE flyer out of the sky, but only stunning it, and Aluns Wyches being abysmal at using Haywire grenades and leaving the Wyverns unmolested. 

I had a lot of the Dark Angels to take on, and was able to keep them mostly at bay. His bikes where slowly whittled down before they took out most of my Tactical Squad and a Rhino, and even stripped a hull point off my vendetta.  I slowly advanced down the right flank and the Banewolf took out some DA devastators before being stunned and stopping me from doing much else with it!

I then had to contend with Deathwing, which the Executioner did beautifully, killing most of them. Using an Enginseer was great too, adding some survivability to a Leman Russ but also POTMS the Russ to fire its weapons at one thing then the battle cannon at another, very useful! Combat erupted between the DE and Byrons Guard over the objective, and it was brutal. The DE were shot up and unable to cope up with the numbers the Guard flung in. Then we got to fire at the Guard and almost wiped them out, but there were soooo many tanks left!

As we got to the end of the game we totaled up the vp's and me and Alun had pinched it 11-8, such a close game!  The psychic phase was a bit of fun too, I had taken 2 primaris psykers and also Tigurius just to see how it went, and pretty much got 1 or 2 powers off each turn, much less than I expected but its a much more fun experience than just rolling under your leadership and trying to remember which phase each power should be cast. I think it makes psyker heavy armies a little less scary to face, especially those tricksy eldar! Whether the Daemons will be over powered is another thing, but I actually like the idea of a warp rift spewing forth daemons and trying to take them on! 

The star of the show however has to be the objectives. I can see some games being really difficult if you draw cards that are hard to acheive, but challanges should be accepted and relished on the tabletop. I'm already looking forward to my second game, this time against my partner in crime and his Dark Eldar! Scares me a little, as they're fast moving so I know he'll be able to capture a lot of the objectives so I will have to concentrate fire well! 

As for the Astra Militarum, heres the vehicles I have so far! The chimera on the left isn't in the best shape but it does the job for now. I'm not gluing weapons on yet as I want the ability to switch between options to see what works well, and against different opponents I can choose the nastiest combos! I've got some infantry to get done too and need to add more. Some heavy weapon squads would be nice too!

Expect posts to pick back up a little more soon, the route to self employment is about to pick up huge soon, so I'll be very quiet for a few weeks but hopefully I'll have more time to post and do some batreps. Getting a couple of tables also means more games as theres room at the studio to do so! Huge thanks to Byron and Gareth for the game, always a pleasure lads. I've not played near enough games of 7th so this will get remedied soon. More thoughts on 7th edition to come soon, and also possibly a post on much I'm swooning over the new Ork Flashgitz. THEY'RE GODDAMN NOICE!