Weekly Waffle #329 – Deff from above.
20th April 2024
For this weeks Weekly Waffle I’m continuing on the Ork theme again this week and I’m also starting put into practice some of the things that learned whilst I was at Adepticon. In particular my class about limitless painting and getting armies finished. The key to this was that you need to get the basics right and then you build from there. But also that with the basics done right you can have a model ready for the table top really quickly. It may not be grate but it’s ready to play. Now I’ve taken this and adapted it to what I’m looking to do which is to get units finished to the same sort of standard as the rest of my Orks. With the things I paint I’m trying to push myself a little but at the end of the day I don’t want to be spending weeks on something which isn’t going be a display piece. So with this approach in mind I’ve been working a new unit.
I’ve been continuing to plod away at cleaning my pile of shame, specifically some Deff Kopters curtesy of Artel Miniatures. They are badged as an Airborn Shokk Skwad which in turn are part of their Iron Hordes range. I have a bit of a thing for anything made by Artel and have quite a few of their creations in my collection. they make really interesting minis and these are no exception.
The set consists of three miniatures with a selection of different weapons. A decision I made as soon as I saw the bits was that I was going to use magnets to give me some different build options. Not just in terms of which weapons to use but also in which rota and noise cone could go with which body. All of these are interchangeable as are the side pods where the weapons fit. Although I have to say I’ve made a bit of gaming blunder with the first pass of the build but I’ll get to that in a little bit.
In keeping with what I learned at Adoption the key with this unit was to get them to a table top standard where I would be happy to field them along side my existing Orks. Not that I have any plans to play any game in the near future but this is standard I want to achieve. There are a couple of different weapon options available to them which are either guns or rockets. This is where I made the mistake because I went with guns which I think look cool. But in game terms now they don’t have that option and can only have rockets. It’s not that big of a deal because the weapons are magnetised so as soon I get the rockets painted I can swap them out. There is also big bomb option that I haven’t painted but the same principle applies with the in that I can be added later.
The key thing here has been to get a unit painted up that could in theory be used in a game, and that it would fit in with my existing minis. I’ve gone with the standard colours I use for my Orks which are red and blue with a yellow highlight. When I first got the minis, quite some time ago now, I wasn’t really happy with the bases and was going to change them out for some custom ones matching my storm boys. But instead I decided to go with the ones that came with the miniatures. I will always have the option to go back and revisit them in the future if I want to . And this is on the key elements of the limitless painting approach. You have go the minis to standard you are happy with but there is always room to come back and revisit them in the future, because you have got the basics right and built on that.
Now just to manage expectation here. It’s not like I think I can come back to these guys and tern them into some super completion wining piece. But there are little bits on them that I think could be done better or tidied up. In this case though I didn’t want to spend a lot of time repeatedly going back over things and making small adjustments. I just wanted to got something finished to a level I was happy with.
This approach was something I had started before going to Adepticon but the class was good because it reinforced this way of working was ok. It also went to into detail about why it was a good way of working but more importantly what you need to do, and what you shouldn’t do, if you want it to work for you.
As things stand at the moment I have three more Deffkoptas added to my Ork list and I really like how they have turned out. The sculpts are, as always from Artel very nice, and they just look cool. The colour scheme means they will fit in with rest of my army and add something just a bit different. I know that they can’t be used in an official GW event but I’m not really planning on playing any competitive games at any point in the near future so they work for me. But what do you guys think.
You can see more Ork miniatures at my gallery here.
On the topic of playing games one of things we stumbled across at Adepticon that got me and Pete thinking were some guys playing a 2nd Edition game of 40k. It seemed a bit odd at the time but they were having loads of fun and it got us thinking that something like this could be a way forward. Both of us are not really that interested in the current rule set so going back to a ruleset we like or even going with something like One Page Rules could be a good way to get us playing again. Just because there is a current official version of a rule set doesn’t mean you have to use it. At the end of the day it is just a game so as long as both you and your opponent are happy with the rules you age going to be using you can use whatever you want. Granted it won’t help you if you playing all your fun games with 4th Edition and you rock to a tournament with no idea how to play tenths and an illegal army. But if you are having fun with friends what does it matter what the rest of the community is doing.
I just thought that was something for you to ponder are I bring this weeks weekly waffle to a close. The mojo hasn’t worn off yet form Adepticon and I’m putting things I learned there into practice. I have a few more projects to finish off before I start on some of the models I brought back with me. But some things that will be making there way on to my paint station of the next month or so are some StarWars inspired D&D miniature along with one or two Bolt Action tanks with some unusual paint schemes. Or at least that is the plan at the moment.
So until next week I hope you enjoy your hobby time, keep yourselves safe and I hop to catch you all again for more weekly waffle next Saturday morning.
