Green TIEde Fighter - Spork's Fighta-Bomba - our Ork looted TIE fighter

The Green TIEd Fighta!

Another Fork and Spork - Pink Orks Looting Story:

One fine day aboard Fork and Spork's space hulk "Da Runcible Uv Ruin" Big Mek 'Eavy Tork shouted, "Oi!  Someting on da scannie!"

Da RUR (Da Runcible Uv Ruin) had been skipping through the Warp for some time now and much to the delight of Fork and Spork had brought the clan an exciting string of battles and an even more exciting chain of Lootins wif Dakka.

This particular day, the Orks pulled in a small craft which was spinning through space.  Inside they found an odd Space Marine -- whose black helmet and cape were a bit out of place.

"Mus' be we iz in some galaxy far, far awayz an' maybe a long, long time ago to find someting dis strange," grunted Spork when 'Eavy Tork showed him the salvage.

"But, let's loot it!" Spork continued, "An' dat humie looks burnt already - I donts want to eat any burnt hummus!"

Even with the Force powers, Darth Vader has no idea what is in store for his TIE Fighter!

In the "21st century Earth timeline" it started out as a Goodwill thriftstore find.  $3.19 for a Darth Vader TIE Fighter (Advanced) model.  Missing the cockpit hatch; missing the little Darth Vader figure.  And, right away, our Ork Lootin' gears started turning....

The raw material for our Green TIEd Fighta!  $3.19 price written in Sharpie pen.

First of all, it seemed fair that we should add some Orky metal onto the TIE fighter's damaged panels.  Would help it to go fasta and also be a place where we could have Orks with magnet boots stand on the model.

We found some pieces of sheet metal which were unused from an IKEA cabinet build.  Bent those around and with some epoxy, done -- onto the model to reshape the damaged panel.

The Vader TIE model had a nice little panel which slid open to view the engine compartment.  We decided to reshape the plastic and glue that open so that we could add some power feeds into that hardware later in the looting....

One of the fun things is always deciding how to modify looted 'ardware.

And we decided to add wings.  Why add the wings?  More places for guns!!!  Added some turreted guns with magnet attachments we had lying around.  Also -- made a nice place to hang some Ork bombs as well.

A look at some of our major modifications.

We also decided to add some bits to the bottom of the Fighta.  It was pretty boring without those....  We "borrowed" the engines from a Space Marine speeder to increase top speed.

A look underneath the plane.  Adding bits for more interest down here.

We had a big debate over whether or not to treat the cockpit with a Gorka/Morka face.  As a compromise the face is attached with a magnet.  So, when desired, it comes off.  This is also fun because we can change the angle of the face for different "Ork-titudes".

A view from the front of the Green TIEd Fighta - still a work in progress...

We found a pilot who would fit down into the cockpit (most of the way).  And, we added some plumbing from the engines to other areas on the plane.  This was going to be one of Spork's pink Ork's vehicles.  So, we used our method of super bright pink with Vallejo Paint in several areas.  To break up the coloring we decided to also create black and white stripes in the cockpit area.

Making progress.  Some pink in fun places and wiring and plumbing completed....

One of us is not such a great painter.  So, pretty happy that the white and black pattern turned out reasonably well....

Progress so far....

Added some special effects for twin-ion-engine plus smokey exhaust

And, wrapping up, one thing we have realized is that Ork model looting is never really finished.  There is always the chance to think of one more random bit to add -- one more hose or pipe to plumb -- or one more fun way to add color to the model.  

Feeling good about the progress so far.  But, whoah! we clearly need to do some work on our bases! 

Took a photo of the Green TIEd Fighta on an attack run with squadron mate :)

Green TIEd Fighta on attack run with squadron mate

Armies on Parade - Crimson Fists Frigate, the Fist of Vengeance

Somewhere near Pythos in the Pandorax System....

"Supeem Warboss Fork -- pleez check dis!  Dey iz turnin' to ram us!"

Fork, the Supreme Warboss of the Yellow Orks turned to his Nav Boy's display; and focused on the blue craft on the image.  As its prow swung toward his Ork Hulk, Da Ruinin' Runcible, a huge grin dominated his expression.  "Lovely, dey IZ comin' righ' to us!"

Turning to, he bellowed, "Nav Boy!  All reactys to full!  All ahead frank!"  And, then drawing in an Ork lungful threw back his head with a full war-cry:  "Waaaaagh!"

Fork and Spork's Hulk - Da Ruinin' Runcible - With Looted (Failed Ramming Victim) Crimson Fists Frigate as Background.

An Explanation:

Back in August when we ran the Ork Train at the Reno Summit Warhammer Store, Mr E, (the store warboss) challenged us to take part in the Armies on Parade event in October.

The problem, of course, was "how do you fit an Ork Train on a 2 foot x 2 foot base?  The answer we came up with was to use 3 dimensions.  After thinking of a while we had realized that if we created a model of the inside of Supreme Warbosses Fork and Spork's Hulk that we would have plenty of space for the train.

Yet, as we started thinking about how to create the hulk out of foam, we felt that it would be fun to have something in the background to give nice contrast to our Ork lootings.

Write-up Part I -- Creating a Crimson Fists Frigate to be part of our Ork Hulk :)

Our friend Mr. M has beaten us with his Crimson Fists enough times ("preferred enemy Orks" rings in our ears) that we needed a little bit of modeling revenge.  And, we chuckled a bit as we imagined what might take place if a hapless (and smallish) Crimson Fists Frigate should try to ram an Ork Hulk.

The Hulk would win in the crash of course -- and after spawning to make up for any losses in the hand-to-hand assault which would inveitbly result -- the Orks would loot the remaining hardware from the Frigate.

So, we thought that it would be fun to make at least one wall -- or section -- of a Crimson Fists Frigate as an incorporated part of our Armies on Parade display.

How to do it?

We spent some decent thought pondering how to integrate the Space Marine's Frigate.  And, finally went with using the wall of the frigate as a "background" for the section of the hulk.

 And, we figured we could make something pretty gothic looking if we used a set of the scenery building pieces.

Then, at the local Game Kastle's swap meet we found this:  And, if we split it apart, we figured it would make great pieces of a Frigate!

We were worried that it would look flat, though.  So, we had the idea of making it with two flat sections one sloping up; the other sloping down.  We noticed that lots of Battlefleet Gothic ships have that diamond-shaped cross section....

Our concept for the section of Space Marine Frigate.  2 feet wide, 2.5 feet tall.  Angled so that it looks a bit Gothic.  We were thinking to hold it against the "rock" of the Hulk using magnets....

So, we built a plywood frame....  Here is the back-side of it.  Two pieces of 1/4" plywood attached to 2x4 pieces which we trimmed on a band-saw to match the angle we wanted.

Here is our plywood frame.  We painted it grey.  Ran out of time to do anything more fancy.  Going forward, we'll coat it with plastic and create some "insides" of the frigate for the Orks to be looting....

Then we covered it with plastic....  We were wanting the surface to look like a space ship.  We knew that wood grain would be hard to cover up.  We plastic sheeting at Home Depot which looked nice.  Plus, the ribbed structure puts small ridges in it -- which end up looking a LOT like the welded hull of a ship.

Here is the plastic sheeting we used.  Pretty inexpensive at Home Depot.  Cuts very easily, etc....

Once we had covered our wooden frame with the plastic, we realized that this plastic was not super easy to glue to.  We tried plastic glue out.  Did not bond (just stayed as a liquid on the surface of the white sheet).  Since this is a very large structure, we were worried that super glue would not create a very elastic structure.  So, we did some quick testing....

Of course our old friend epoxy would certainly bond.  But, we didn't have a lot of time before the Armies on Parade event -- and we would be in trouble even with the 5 minute curing epoxies.

Luckily hot glue turns out to do a really super job of bonding 40K plastic to the white sheet material.  In the trial (below) we glued a tank turret piece on and could not budge it after 30 seconds!

Here is our gluing test.  Plastic glue didn't work.  Hot glue was great!  (And, hot glue was really fast -- certainly compared to epoxy!)

Well, at first we were thinking to build our Frigate out of pieces of Imperial Buildings -- such as some of the terrain sets.  Mr. E had pointed out that the windows on those have quite a "gothic appearance" - just like Battlefleet Gothic's Imperial ships.

However, when at the Game Kastle swap meet we spotted a cast-aside Fortress of Redemption we new we had found some better raw materials!

Here is the donor Fortress of Redemption.  Turned out to be much easier to take the turret sections apart than the tower itself....

Breaking the Fortress apart turned out to be pretty tricky.  In the end, we used hot water to weaken the glue bonds - and then pried things apart.  We ended up with all of the pieces intact (for the most part).

Then, we started trying some layouts....

Right away, we had the idea of using the building skirts along the bottom of the top portion of the Frigate.  Then we noticed that we had just enough of those skirds to put some right-side-up -- and another piece reversed.

Trying layouts of our pieces.  Part of what we tried to work out was anticipating where we would put a blast hole in the side of the Frigate.

After some trials fitting we started hot-gluing things down.  This is a good point to add that we ended up purchasing a little band-saw about a year back to help with another project.  That turned out to be HUGE for building the frigate.  We were able to carefully trim sections off of the Fortress's pieces with nice repeat-ability.  And, it really helped with the speed of construction.

Our trusty Ryobi mini-bandsaw in action.  Turned out to be extremely useful for trimming the pieces in a nice and straight fashion.

As we started gluing things down (and that's hot-gluing, mind you), we took a break and showed our progress to Mr. S at GameKastle.  He gave us several additional pieces of advice:  1) work on making sure that the Frigate doesn't look like bits glued to a board; 2) use the two color spray paint trick; 3) always work on building your narrative....

So, one thing we did was carve out the white plastic where we had placed access doors so that they looked realistically indented.  That did help a little bit with the appearance.  The biggest factor though (in hind-sight) was deciding to make the Frigate's walls out of two angled pieces.  It still allowed us to have a wall at 90-degrees to the Hulk's shell -- but created more interesting internal angles for viewing.

Here is the Fist of Vengeance with most of the components glued.  Still some work to go on the cargo bay....

Part of the grand plan was to have the Fist of Vengeance in a condition where it had *just recently* rammed the Orks' Hulk - and the Orks were gearing up their looting efforts.  So, one idea was to create a cargo bay at the bottom.

We found a plastic salad container (from Trader Joe's grocery store) which looked pretty good as a cargo bay.  Then we added bay doors slid most of the way open.


Then, we started priming everything black as Mr. S had instructed.

We have most of the black primer on.  Turned out using 2 cans of black primer for this project!!  Got the cargo bay doors fashioned at this point - ready to prime again :)

We didn't want the Frigate to look perfect - so we were planning for a blast hole on the upper left portion.  We used a "hole saw" to cut a hole in the wood behind the plastic.  Then used a heat gun to melt away the plastic surface.

We did this after we had put on our Space Marine blue coat from the top angle -- and Alien Purple from the underneath angle.  So, we primed the blasted hole black again.  And, this ended up creating a nice "charred" look!

Here is our blaster hole - thanks to our heat gun!!  Mr. S had suggested that a heat gun held nice and steady up close to plastic would have a nice effect - and sure enough!  What we did was heat it up and then poke it with a screwdriver to make it look "blown inward."

For the final painting, we decided to keep things simple.  We used some nice red to paint a few accent items -- such as the Crimson Fists logo and the ship name.  Decided to also paint the ribbons on the large side-of-ship statues as well.

Here is The Fist with the red painting done....  Also, have the cargo bay put together....

And, lastly, we used magnets and washers to mount guns onto the turrets.  We decided that any good Space Marine's Frigate would be sporting weapons like Plasma Obliterators -- so we borrowed our Ultramaries Obliterator for this mission.  :)

And, here it is with the turret-guns magnet mounted.

And, here is the finished Fist of Vengeance!

So, that's the story of building the Fist of Vengeance Frigate section for our Hulk.

More writing to come -- we'll write-up building the rest of the Ork Hulk.

And, of course, much more work to be done.  Ideas at this point:
- Build internals for the frigate on the reverse side of the model!
- More painting?  Although we liked how this ended up a bit muted for a background piece
- Add Orks and Grots working the surface over.  (That IS the reason the "F" is bent on the "OF" in Fist of Vengance -- we'll have a grot pulling it off.)

And, not really sure what to do about the fact that the Crimson Fists seemed to have used a pretty unconventional spelling of "Vengance".  For now, we'll keep it.  Fork and Spork are enjoying the humor of Space Marines spelling something the way Orks would do it!

40K Ork Warboss "Spork" as Motivational Speaker

Hi everyone,

Got to wondering if Ork Warbosses might have more tricks up their sleeves to motivate their Boyz than simply being the biggest and loudest.  (Probably not - but it's fun to imagine!)

Had to reload our favorite font to set these up.  "Battle Breath" - http://www.dafont.com/

Link with more about Spork and his Warboss brother Fork here

Will also work on a more detailed write-up of the history of Fork and Spork.  Not done yet, though :)

Warboss Spork explaining the battle plan to his Boyz

Keys to success from Warboss Spork

Final words before the Waaaagh!

If we made enough of these, maybe we could print out a calendar??

Powered Play Bases and Objective Markers Arrived Today!!

Hi everyone,

Very exciting -- our PoweredPlay Bases and Objective Markers Arrived Today!

[Here's a link to the PoweredPlay webiste]

Here's what arrived today!  Light-up bases and Light-up objective markers!

We had first met the Chris from the PoweredPlay team at the Bay Area Open convention last year.  Had a great time chatting with him -- and learning about his plans.

Then we bought one of the basic kits -- and still working on fitting it into our Ork Steam Train / looted wagon, the Dakka Chugga.  (Going to be sweet having the burna of the locomotive lit up!)

Then, our friend Corey at Gator Games showed off a Warmachine model he had cored-out to add an early prototype of the PoweredPlay team's 'light-up-base'.  Extremely cool!

And, now our set has arrived....

Have to say that we're pretty excited about the light-up objective markers.  Reason:  we tend to be subject to forgetting things -- and among those things we might forget -- where the objective markers are.  If they're lighting up, it's gotta help!  [Here's one of our blog posts / rants about our poor remembering skills while playing 40K!]

Here's how the objective markers look once we got them assembled.

 First we loaded the button cell battery into the LED assembly

 That fit into the bottom holder

 We placed the two slotted pieces above to create the "light pipe" to connect to the marker

 And, Shazam! here's our marker lighting things up :)

We'll glue the assembly together and work on painting things into a nice color scheme.  (Fork will likely pitch for yellow; Spork for Pink....)

We have some ideas for the bases already -- will post more about those soon.  (Some ideas as part of our Pythos IV campaign -- Supreme Ork Warbosses Fork and Spork working on some more looting -- and going to light those up!

40K Campaign is Underway -- A Battle for Pythos IV

Hi everyone,

Today we headed over to Game Kastle to meet up with Mr's M, L and Z to start our 40K Campaign!

Fork and Spork were in attendance as we rolled off to see who would select their landing zone first :)

This is us rolling a 6!  And, get to deploy first....

Mr. M (our Game Master -- or Campaign Coordinator) had placed a map on his blog so that we could study things before hand.

Here's a link to that:  http://battlefleetbadgerhound.blogspot.com/2015/06/pythos-iv-campaign-maps-initial-maps-of.html

With four players, he nicely crafted the military zone of Pythos IV to have 4 Spaceports -- and so that each of us could take one if we so desired.

We were lucky and rolled to land first -- and after a bit of bashing back and forth, Fork and Spork elected to land in the southern-most Space Port:  Hex 1-34.

Tyranids and Eldar then landed -- and things ended up with Tyranids to the left of us; Eldar to the right.  Mr. M's Space Marines are directly opposite.

After considerable argument, Fork and Spork summarized things as follows:

Fur Pythos Numma Four, dese are da Orky Know-wotz:

- Supreme Warbosses Fork and Spork 'ave seezded da best spotz
- Sniffed ou' Panzys landin' to our righ' 
- An, dos' Bugz is 'ere too -- on our lef'
- Humies is far off on da udder side (no worriez)

Spork:  "I sayz we charge direkly at them Panzys and fight 'em now!"
Fork:  "Shet yer pie hole, Spork.  Dat's empy headed talk.  Take da Hive City, says I!"

Map showing the results of Ork Rekon

Haven't decided on our orders yet -- likely to have a bit more arguing between Fork and Spork before we can share the plan....

Here's the layout with the hex IDs....

Created this fancy map to show where everyone holds territory right now.

The big decision is whether we go after Mr. Z's Eldar (with his powerful new Codex behind him); or Mr. L's Tyranids; or charge to the Hive City to unlock the Moon!

We'll post more as things develop :)

We'll also post more about how Fork and Spork are coming along!

And, here is a link to Mr. M's write-up of the Pythos IV back-story:  http://battlefleetbadgerhound.blogspot.com/2015/06/a-brief-history-of-pythos-iv-discovery.html

"Use Real Things for Real Things!" - Update on how to make pipes, tubes, wires, cables, etc....

Hi everyone,

Wanted to post an update on what we've found to be a better way to do things....

Few weeks back we were posting about using our little press (from Poland) to make wires, tubes and such out of epoxy putty.  (Here's a link to that blog post.)

And, we mentioned that when we chatted with Seth at Game Kastle about this -- mentioned that we wanted to add wires and hoses to our Ork Supreme Warboss (Spork) -- and also that we wanted to add bigger, more involved ones from the "engine" to the "Eldar unit" on our newest locomotive conversion "Da Pain Train"....

And, after being super patient and indulgent, Seth said "use real things to model real things."  :)

So, we've been working at that!  Here's our update.  Spoiler alert:  Of course, Seth was right.  PS:  Got very similar and excellent advice from friends on DakkaDakka.

1) Wires / cables.

Where to get little cables?  Well, around here, if you need old electronic stuff, you can buy recycled electronics at nice low prices:  Weird Stuff Warehouse!

So, we headed down there -- and got some small spools.  You can see the prices on them ($0.50 and $1.00 and $3.00).  The super small gauge wires were cheaper (30 AWG) the 18-20 AWG bigger stuff was a little bit more....

Here are some spools of wire - and a short length of multi-conductor wire we got at Weird Stuff!

Then, we brought out our trusty hand drill (some good advice from a different DakkaDakka set of questions and help from friends)....

Here is the little hand-drill set we got on Amazon

After a little bit of experimentation -- found that one of the small drill bits is JUST right for the 30 AWG wire.  Don't even need to strip the wire.  Slides in with insulation on!

For the larger wire, we used one of the middle-sized bits -- and there we did have to strip the wire to get it to fit into our drilled hole.

What we were going for on Spork was to run "power" from his backpack (which we had built up from some bits) to a) his leg; b) his head; and c) his POWER SPORKA....  So, we used little wires for his head and his leg.  And, then we used the bigger wire for the POWER SPORKA.

After cutting the wires -- we primed them.  (Ended up with lots of paint on our fingers.)  Then a little bit of painting and super glued them into place.

Here is how Spork is shaping up these days.  Going to add some spikey bitz to that front pink part of the POWER SPORKA.  Had put the chains and skull there.  But, when we decided to change his pose to "OVER DA HEAD" had to move those.

We were also really eager to find a way to do pipes and tubes (so that we could run LIKWIDZ and GASSEEZ between the engine and the looted Eldar flying on Da Pain Train)....

So, we found that on HobbyLink we could order miniature PVC tubing, rods -- even I-beams!

Weren't very expensive -- and just arrived....  They are going to work out well.  But, as you can see we've got a little bit of work to do to get 'little tubes' which fit nicely inside 'bigger tubes' -- to resemble tubes, fittings, unions and the like as you'd find in real plumbing systems.

The tubes, rodes and I-beams we got on HobbyLink

So, now (in addition to finishing up Spork) we're ready to start work on Da Pain Train :)

Da Pain Train - Gotz rodz and pipez.  'Ere We Go!

And, with the plastic I-beams we got -- what'll we work on?  Well -- mostly likely a gantry for the Grot Rokkit so that we can use it with the Ork Pulsa Rokkit rules in the up-coming campaign!


As for the little press -- it's still going to see action.  As we see it now -- it's still great for making tubes of different sizes -- particularly when we need them to bend very tight corners.  So, planning to use it on Da Pain Train to make 90-degree elbow piping pieces  :)

40K Campaign Beginning (Incoming Message)

Hi everyone,

Will be playing a 40K Campaign -- our friend Mr. M running the campaign; playing with Mr's L, Z and C....

Below is the exciting Astropathic Transmission Mr. M shared which has started things off.

+++Incoming Astropathic Transmission+++

+++Authentication::Matteo Morellis:: Captain 8th Company+++

+++Origin ::Segmentum Tempestus+++

+++To::Pedro Kantor, Chapter Master::Eyes Only+++

–Begin Message–

My Lord,

We have received a partial astropathic distress signal from the rogue trader Van Buran’s cruiser indicating that it was under attack by unknown Xenos in the Pythos system. The transmission reports that the rogue trader’s fleet stumbled upon the Pythos system shortly after it had emerged from a warp storm and indicated the potential presence of significant stocks of war materials dating from the great crusade including space marine wargear. Forgemaster Mendez believes that the machine spirits of at least some materials may still be intact and recoverable.

Sector intelligence indicates the presence of Tyranids and Orks in the nearby Octarius subsector. An incursion by either xenos thread could result in the permanent loss of any war materials, many of which could be used to rebuild the chapter’s armory and fleet.

I have ordered my strike cruiser, Sword of Rynn to divert to the Pythos system with all speed to the Pythos system for the empire. My battle brothers are even now preparing to purge the xenos with holy fire.

There is only the Emperor. He is our shield and protector

-End Message-

Mr. M has been working on a planet and a moon for the campaign.

Mr. M's planet and moon models for our campaign!

Some discussion about "taking over the moon" in the early stages -- but sounds like to get to the moon, Mr. M is going to require taking over the Spaceport first -- as a gateway.

Mr. M has set up rules for the Campaign -- and there is a provision for each player to have a Supreme Warlord -- at 275 points -- to head up that player's army.

Lots of spirited discussion on our side -- but we have gotten excited about the idea of playing Orks with our Supreme Warlords "Fork and Spork"!  (Big credit to Mr.'s L, Z and M for a very long IM session where the idea for Fork and Spork was 'spored'.)

Will post more about "Fork and Spork" -- but here's what we can share so far....

- Fork -- the leader of the Yellow Ork clan.  (We'll work on a better name than "Yellow Ork Clan")....  He's got a choppa weapon with forks on the end -- looks like a "Fork"....

Here is Supreme Warlord Fork!  (Leader of the Yellow Ork Clan)

- Spork -- the leader of the Pink Ork clan.  (Yup, better work on better names there as well.)  He's got a "spork" weapon which are we are building out of a spoon (Baskin-Robbins) with tines on the end....

Still working on Spork.  Painting him in pieces and then will assemble.  Here is his "Spork" weapon!

  Have more work to quickly get done on Fork and Spork - to be ready for the first battle(s).  Haven't ever played in a campaign before - so not really sure what to expect.  But, already this is tremendous fun!!!

[By the way, we're now wondering if Fork and Spork ("brothers") grew from a damaged/mutated spore -- and were co-joined early in life.  *Until* after one particularly strong argument (perhaps due to feeling the Waaagh! particularly strongly one-day) Fork chopped Spork away from the shared body....]