Painted Assault Intercessors

These fine ladies are Assault Intercessors for my Space Marines / Adeptus Astartes force in Warhammer 40K. They’re the spiritual successors of old-fashioned Assault Marines, though for whatever reason they don’t come with the jump packs that were the main draw for their inclusion in armies in the first place. Nonetheless, Space Marines are as tough as nails and do just fine at close quarters and melee so this loadout of pistol and sword is quite fitting. In the event that I play Death Watch, the only downside of Assault Intercessors is that they don’t fit into any Kill Teams. Luckily, recent experience is telling me that I’m utterly terrible at 40K so I’ve stopped worrying about the relative power of any of my army options and just gone with rolling the dice with friends.

I adore the dynamism of the sculpts for the Assault Intercessors; though it is true that a close friend of mine quite uncharitably (but accurately) refers to them as ‘skippies’ since they look like they’re frolicking into battle. The heads here are mostly from Shapeways and I’m really impressed with the quality of the printing; I’d recommend them for anyone wanting to mix up their GW armies with alternative heads. The paint scheme is, of course, the same as my previous Space Marines. On the one hand, I do love the look of a fully painted coherent army. But on the other, more pertinent hand, I find it a bit of a drag to paint essentially the same scheme on 50ish models. Character driven skirmish games are my preference these days for that reason among others.

Next on the painting table: Boomdakka Snazzwagon.

Painted Shokkjump Dragsta

Here is Shokkjump Dragsta number two for my Ork army in Warhammer 40,000. I have acquired a third one of these kits so I’ll have a complete Force Organisation chart slot of them once I paint the last one.

I’ve kept the same general blue colouring for this Dragsta as I have for my other Ork buggies but in an attempt to make it stand out a bit from the first one I’ve put a few of the panels in red rather than white. I’ve also make some slight changes to the build; mainly cutting off one rocket and replacing it with the firing one that was spare from the Scrapjet kit and leaving the engine intake off the front so that the poor blood bag Gretchin from the Snazzwagon kit could fit on the bonnet. I’ve really enjoyed painting these buggies; they’re very quick and satisfying to put a brush to despite how large they are.

Next on the painting table: Assault Intercessors.

Painted Boomdakka Snazzwagon

Here is a second Boomdakka Snazzwagon for my Orks in Warhammer 40,000. Although there are limitations on the number of repeated units per army in the game, I think I max out at 9 of each type of buggy so I’m never going to have to worry about that.

The painting is largely the same as the previous Snazzwagon, though I put more red splash colours in and less white to make it a bit more distinguishable. I’ve also mixed up some of the extraneous pieces, for example I cut of part of the roof to expose the crew, I left the poor Gretchin tied to the front off (but don’t worry, he’s going to show up later) and I mixed up the heads of the crew with some of the other kits just for a bit of variety. Ultimately the buggies still look pretty similar but at least I can feel like I’ve made an effort to keep them unique.

Next on the painting table: Black Panther.

Painted Kult of Speed

Since I’ve painted one of each of these Ork buggies for Warhammer 40,000 I felt that it would be a good time to share a ‘family photo’. The buggies are actually pretty cheap in the game so this lot only comes out at about 500 points; for context we usually play 1000 points and I think that the tournament standard is 2000 points. This was a really entertaining project so I do have some more further down the queue. Vroom vroom!

Painted Deffkilla Wartrike

Here is a Deffkilla Wartrike which is an HQ unit for my Kult of Speed Ork army in Warhammer 40,000. Since every other buggy is (not surprisingly) classified as Fast Attack, it’s important for game reasons that this HQ option exists as almost all armies require some form of HQ. In game terms it seems to be a bit more of a second line support model than the sculpt would suggest. Not that the Warboss riding the Wartrike here is any slouch when it comes to punching things with that ridiculous glove but rather it’s not particularly hard to kill him on the return swing and he provides a lot of utility to the other buggies via the Speed Waaagh! rule which allows nearby units to advance and charge thereby extending their threat range a fair bit.

Although the Deffkilla Wartrike is a fun sculpt I think I enjoyed painting it a bit less than the other buggies. This might be because so much more of it is just plain metal rather than chassis and so I felt that it fitted better to be painted black and silver rather than a lovely bright blue. Still, it was a highly satisfying miniature to paint and being the least fun of the buggies is still a pretty high bar to meet. GW has really shown why they’re the top as far as miniatures are concerned.

The driver is taking the current pandemic very seriously, even wearing his mask when going into battle and not just when going to the shops. Truly, he is the hero we deserve.

This Gretchin gets a lot of love from me for being a cute little critter calmly doing his job while everyone around is whooping and hollering. One has to imagine that a single wrong step from the Warboss when the Wartrike goes over a bump would see him sailing off into the dust though.

The Warboss is demonstrating that he has amazing core strength and balance as he’s seemingly not holding onto anything as his Wartrike careers all over the place.

Next on the painting table: Ant-Man.

Painted Megatrakk Scrapjet

This is a Megatrakk Scrapjet, yet another buggy to go in my Ork army for Warhammer 40,000. Unlike most of the other buggies this one is actually competent in melee, presumably due to the giant drill on the front. However, it is also fairly competent when shooting as it’s loaded down with machine guns and rockets; although of course being an Ork vehicle it’s pretty unlikely to actually hit anything at range.

The Megatrakk Scrapjet is my favourite sculpt out of the Ork buggies; it’s literally a plane with the wings knocked off and some wheels and tracks added. I really enjoyed working on the whole thing; it’s just such fun kit to build and paint. There is actually supposed to be a Gretchin in the back firing the rear guns but I realised while I was assembling it that 1) it would be impossible to paint while assembled and 2) it’s not actually possible to see the little chap anyway through that tiny little window. As a result, this is the only buggy with just a single crewmember.

But! What a crewmember! It’s Biggles, but as an Ork. Words cannot express how amusing I find this sculpt; it’s just perfect in every way.

Next on the painting table: Shuri.

Painted Shokkjump Dragsta

Here is a Shokkjump Dragsta, another part of the Kult of Speed I’m slowly creating for Orks in Warhammer 40K. First, a little background. In the lore (and rules, of course) of 40K, the Orks are experts at forcefields and teleportation technology. They have long had a weapon called a Shokk Attack Gun which works by teleporting critters inside of armour, tanks etc. So the Shokkjump Dragsta is basically a Formula 1 car with a built in teleporter that randomly causes it to blink across the battlefield. To say that it’s entertaining is a bit of an understatement.

I kept the general painting style of the Shokkjump Dragsta the same as the other buggies, so mainly blue on the chassis with some white sections for contrast. In that sense it’s a classic Death Skulls colour-scheme, though that’s just a coincidence; I just felt like painting these blue.

The driver and crew are a bit of different aesthetic from the hillbilly style of the previous two buggies; they look like proper racing car drivers and I deliberately gave them matching costumes to make it seem more like the uniform of a team.

Next on the painting table: Okoye.

Painted Kustom Boosta-Blasta

This is a Kustom Boosta-Blasta, another of the Wacky Races buggies for my Warhammer 40K Orks. It’s one of the cheapest buggies available and therefore another one that I foresee sitting on objectives and plinking away at stuff. On the other hand, it does have a D2 main gun in the unlikely event that it can hit anything with it which I imagine could be useful for knocking over a couple of Space Marines. It also has a ram to do a few wounds if it charges in, though it is otherwise so useless in melee that it seems a bit unlikely that I’d be doing that other than in an emergency.

Just like the Boomdakka Snazzwagon, the Kustom Boosta-Blasta was a joy to paint. It’s covered all over with cute little details like the cyborg (cybork?) arm on the driver which seems to be attached directly and permanently to the gearstick. I feel that something is somehow missing in the middle though, as there is a big metal/black section of engine in between the colour bits at the front and the main chassis. I think if I were to paint another one of these (and spoiler alert, there is another one in the queue) I would find a way to liven that up a bit.

This Gretchen is presumably supposed to be doing a job as a mechanic. It’s pretty hard to see inside due to the construction of the buggy (and my photography skills) but he’s working away in there with a spanner as big as he is.

I really enjoy these little Gretchin hanging on the buggies; in this case quite literally.  He looks like he’s having a pretty good time back there.

The gunner has gone full cyborg, and doesn’t seem to even have any legs. Getting permanently wired into a gun turret on top of a ramshackle buggy seems about as Orky as one can be.

Next on the painting table: Gamora.

Painted Primaris Librarian

This is a Librarian, my first HQ choice for my Space Marine (Adeptus Astartes) force in Warhammer 40,000. Librarians in Warhammer 40,000 are more interested in exploding fools using the power of their minds rather than collecting late fees, though I imagine that someone out there has modified one to be doing the ‘shush’ finger pose. Now that I think of it, Space Marine wizards have been called Librarians for as long as I can recall and I don’t think I ever got to the bottom of why that is the joke. If anyone out there can illuminate me I’ll be very interested to find out what it is.

The Librarian has a classic pose, using the ‘reaching out to zap with magic from my fingers’ look beloved of wizard miniatures everywhere, and I absolutely loved painting her. The bulk of the armour is, of course, in the same style as my other Space Marines but I enjoyed the extra bling she’s carrying such as the locked book and associated key hanging off her belt. I went for anime-style pink hair after a bit of discussion with my son as it tied in nicely with the pink on the tubes (what are they even for?) hanging off the Librarian’s armour. For the record, he though it looked silly and felt that I should give her brown hair.

Next on the painting table: Kustom Boosta-Blasta.

Painted Boomdakka Snazzwagon

This is a Boomdakka Snazzwagon, the first part of an Ork army for Warhammer 40,000. Orks in 40K are broadly split into two groups – football hooligans and Wacky Races. Of the two, Wacky Races is very much my preference and now that GW have released a raft of comedy buggies I decided that it would be a great time to pick a few up for painting purposes. Who knows, I might actually play some games with them at some point. The Snazzwagon’s main purpose appears to be clearing light infantry with sheer volume of fire but it also has a built-in penalty to be hit by incoming weapons and is quite cheap so I suspect that it’ll end up sitting on an objective in the backfield somewhere.

The kit is everything I dreamed of from a modern GW kit. It’s loaded with detail and characterful inclusions. For example, the passenger footwell is filled with empty beer cans and spent brass which is think is a beautiful touch considering that the roof pretty much means that this is hard to even see on the finished model. I went with blue and white as the main colours; mainly because I can’t bring myself to paint any of the vehicle green as it would clash with the crews’ skin. Thematically I think that this makes them members of the Deathskulls Klan but of course I’m a filthy try-hard so I’ll play them as whichever Klan gives the most entertaining mechanical advantage.

This chap really exemplifies the Kult of Speed for me – he’s not driving, he’s not even bothering to aim, he’s just hanging on to the back of the buggy and whooping and hollering away.

I love the sheer enjoyment on the driver’s face, but the fact that I missed the huge gap in his shoulder and then made it really obvious with the way the wash pooled is quite annoying.

This little Gretchin is probably meant to be firing the gun in the passenger side but for some reason he’s decided it’ll be more fun to hang out of the window and fire the most useless weapon into the entire game.

I’ll admit that some people might think that the main inspiration for the Kult of Speed is Mad Max and not Wacky Races. Even if they’re wrong, they can quite reasonably point to this blood bank dressed up as Tom Hardy’s character in Thunder Road.

Next on the painting table: Steelhead Halberdiers.