Army Profile - Kommissar Krumpa's Blood Axes

My Orks are another army re-done from its 3rd ed. roots.  When I first made an Ork army, it was a Bad Moons force, with a bunch of Stikkbommerz, Dreads, big grot mobs and a hugely expensive (like 6-700pts) Meganob unit with all the bells and whistles.  With the release of the 4th ed. Ork codex and their new kits I wanted to update the army.

A lot of the new kits were great and I wanted to include a number of them.  Bikes, koptas, kommandos, and the new Trukk and Battlewagon kits all looked fantastic.  Originally I was looking at doing a force with a lot of Kommandos and Stormboyz, which suggested Blood Axes to me so that's the direction I went.  Playing with lists and looking at models moved me away from the Stormboyz towards a more mechanized list, but the Blood Axe angle remained.  They evolved into a desert-themed force, sort of a "Grot Patrol".

Aside from the new models, I also hunted down some cooler old-school models to include, notably in the unit above.  I wanted a unit of Ard Boyz, and originally planned to convert some from WHFB Black Orcs, but instead went with these Rogue Trader Orks in power armor and Ork-made robots, aka Tinboyz.  On the left is a Runtbot, basically a robotic gretchin.  There's also a couple of robot Squats, a couple of robot Panzees (aka Eldar), one regular (from the Bee-ten faction) and one spiky.  Three beakie robots (robot marines) round out the group.  One is painted like a "Shiny Skull", to mock my Silver Skulls, another is a "Burny Skull" to mock my Word Bearers, and the third is a generic Ultramarine.  Their Trukk is a converted WWII halftrack with the front wheels left off, a rokkit, ram, and some gubbinz added.  I've also considered running them as Flash Gits from time to time.

Once I decided upon Blood Axes instead of Bad Moons, my old Meganobs no longer fit in.  I still wanted to field some, so picked up some of the more recent version which fit in better with the Blood Axe aesthetic in my opinion.  With the bosspole is Krumpa himself, titling himself Kaptin, Kernal, Kommissar, Kommandant, etc. as the mood strikes him.  Some time after painting him, he suffered a fall which knocked a chip of paint off of his head, but fortunately this ended up looking like a big steel plate in his skull so I left it alone and used it as part of his "cybork body" representation.  The other megas are sporting two twin-linked shootas and three kombi-skorchas.  They normally ride in the battlewagon, but in smaller games sometimes commandeer a Trukk instead to save points.

I love the meganobs, and will drop pretty much anything else to keep them in any list I make.  Except against certain things they're very sturdy, and will tear many things apart.  With the ability to make them scoring (count as Troops with the Warboss) they're a good unit to toss at an enemy objective.

Here's the meganobs' normal ride, the battlewagon.  The official wagon is a great kit.  If I were to include another wagon in the army I'd want to convert the second one, but I'm proud of having this one in the army.  The Grabbin' Klaw rarely sees use, but it looks cool and makes sense to me as a way to load the meganobs into the vehicle!  The klaw is magnetized for ease of moving it around and transporting the model.  The ram is also magnetized, for potentially swapping for a deffrolla down the road.  At the time I built it the deffrolla debate was still going strong, and rather than worry about it I just left it off and used the ram instead.

Here's my Slugga Boy squad and their Trukk.  All of the Troops units in the army are different - megas, trukk ard boys, trukk sluggas, trukk shootas, foot shootas, grots.  The nob is an old metal nob, and the boys are repainted from my Bad Moon army.  Some used to be Stikkbommerz, which I represented by trimming some axes down to look like stikkbombz.  For these guys, they're just spiked clubs/ccw.  The trukk is the new trukk kit, with an enclosed cab built on, in part because I generally don't like painting crew models.

Last of the trukk-borne units, a mob of 11 shoota boyz with one big shoota.  The vehicle is based on the old trukk kit, with enclosed cab and some other extra parts added.  They're 11-strong instead of 12 to allow the Big Mek with Kustom Force Field to ride with them (KFF made from a Tau shield generator).  Sometimes the Mek rides in the Battlewagon, but he's got a reserved seat here.  These guys aren't really intended as a hard-hitting unit, more just objective holders and are often one of the first units to go when I'm trimming for smaller lists.  These guys are more that used to be Bad Moons.

The big foot mob, 30 shoota boyz.  The gasmask heads are from Micro Art Studio, with the exception of the nob's, which is a Black Orc helmet with the tusks cut off to make the gas cylinder look.  Big shootas are from the Assault on Black Reach set.  This unit can dish out a lot of shots on the move, and can be hard for the enemy to shift.

Gots, from the new plastic kit.  Cheap scoring unit, often kept in Reserve to keep them a little safer in the early turns, then come on to claim an objective.

More grots, this time metal ones used as Lobba crews.  I love my Lobbas, and I think that sneaky indirect fire fits in well with Blood Axe gits.  The lobbas are just IG mortars propped up on whatever's handy.  The ammo boxes represent Ammo Grots which allow for re-rolls.  Strength 5 mortars are nothing to sneeze at, and when they hit well can rack up the wounds.  They also make good Outflank bait.

Two Deffkoptas with twin-linked rokkits from the AoBR box.  Depending on the game and opponent may start on the table or might Outflank.

Warbikers, with a couple of heads taken from the Burna sprues.  I like the mobility and firepower that these guys bring; the powerklaw is just the icing on the cake and frequently goes unused.

First half of the Kommando unit.  The metal (now Finecast I believe) set is lovely, with a lot of detail (for Ork models).  The nob is an especially cool model and would make a great nob or warboss even if you don't want to use Kommandos.  The guy on the klaw side of the nob is a plastic boy added to round out the squad without having to buy another box for one figure; a big backpack was added to him to make him fit in with the ohters.

The other half of the Kommandos, with the two burnas.  One is the official kommando burna, the other is an older metal burna boy.

It's a pretty simple army for the most part.  The vehicles generally cluster together in range of the KFF for the first turn or two while the big foot mob and lobbas hold another part of the field and the bikes, kommandos and koptas (hopefully) go where needed and hop on targets of opportunity.

As with all of the armies, you should be able to find some Battle Reports for them on that page, or through looking through the tags.

Update 11/24/2012 Walkers!:

Deff Dreads

Killer Kans

Group shot with Battlewagon