Painted Ork Speed Freeks

Here, after much delay, is the completed army photo of my Ork Speed Freeks for Warhammer 40,000. I really enjoyed playing with this army and it was a very enjoyable project to work on and eventually finish. Of course, no project is ever truly finished and I may go back to the Orks at some point if the mood takes me. This lot is actually not even 1000 points (so less than half of a ‘normal’ army), though at the time we were playing at 1000 points so this worked for me with a few ringers to proxy for various other miniatures.

Needless to say, I couldn’t fit all of the buggies into my lightbox so I tried an outdoor photo with less-than-perfect results.

Painted Shokkjump Dragsta

This is the last Shokkjump Dragsta for my Warhammer 40,000 Ork force. It’s been sitting painted for a while but I had no base available as I got the kit second hand and the base size is apparently not available for any normal ordering. Luckily a friend with a 3D printer was able to help out to get one with the appropriate size and shape. By sheer luck, the Ork buggies appear to be overpowered in their current rules and I got a few free wins against Gareth before we realised that I hadn’t suddenly stopped being rubbish at 40K. There has been a recent change in their rules limiting any force to just three of each type; luckily I don’t exceed that so if I need my ego to be stroked I can get out my army with almost no changes and play it again.

I made a few very minor changes to the construction of this Dragsta; the main noticeable one is switching the positions of the Rokkits and the main gun but I did also remove a couple of extraneous bits and pieces from the chassis to give a slightly more stripped-down look. The Dragsta retains the blue main colour that I used for the Speed Freeks but I’ve used yellow this time as a secondary colour which I think works pretty well. As with all the other buggies I painted this one in sub-assemblies; it’s effective in terms of the final result but I have to admit that it means that the painting process feels like a long succession of ‘not finishing anything meaningful’ until you get to the final step and glue it all together. Nonetheless, I’m really pleased with the final result here.

Now I just need to think of a good way to get photos of the whole force of Speed Freeks as their huge bases mean that there is no way I’ll get the entire force in my lightbox.

Next on the painting table: Amazing Spider-Man.

Painted Kustom Boosta-Blasta

This a second Kustom Boosta-Blasta for my Warhammer 40,000 Ork force. There isn’t strictly a Kult of Speed sub-army, even though I think that there should be, but if there was then that is definitely what I’d be building.

Just like with my second Boomdakka Snazzwagon, I painted this Boosta-Blasta in the same style as the first one but with more emphasis on the red. Otherwise, I’ve tried to make them look a bit different with some slight changes to the optional modelling pieces like opening the roof a bit and switching the top gunner to face another direction. It’s not a perfect solution but it’ll do for now.

Next on the painting table: Assault Intercessors.

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.