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The Hellgruntaz - An Ironjawz WIP


mrstimpson38

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So this is it.

2017 and I've decided on my first army that I'm going to finish from sprue, to paint, to tabletop. As I've always loved Orruks and have played a fair amount of them over my short time with AoS, I've decided to go all in on my Ironjawz and finally 100% finish an army. I've built plenty of models in the past, and even have a few armies between AoS and 40k, but never once have I painted anything to completion. But with my first tournament months away, and the lore monster screaming in my brain, I finally have the motivation to actually complete a project. Without further adieu...

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The Hellgruntaz

In the deepest pits of Ghorddro in the Realm of Fire rages the most hopeless battle seen in all the realms. The fierce tribe of Orruks known as The Hellgruntaz have been beset on all sides by Khorne's legions since the crowning of The Four in the Age of Chaos. Although they've survived the endless flood of daemons for countless centuries, and the Goretide of Korghos Khul in the Age of Sigmar, their numbers are ever dwindling against the infinite waves of Chaos that strangles the little ground the Hellgruntaz hold.

As they've never had a moment of respite in battle for countless years, The Hellgruntaz make due with the only spoils left around them in the vast ocean of gore strewn as far as the eye can see. Smashed Juggernauts, Khornite armour, and the bones of daemons and men alike are torn from fresh corpses and pounded around each Orruk in a desperate attempt to gain some kind of advantage over Khorn's legions. But for these Orruks, hope is dead. All they can do is rip and tear until their last light is snuffed out, drowned in an ocean of blood and the Waaaagggghhhh of dying Orruks.

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Over time I'll post up pictures, lore, and battle reports for this hopeless band of Orruks. Here's to a great year in AoS.

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Today was a pretty big hobby day for me, but it's getting late so this will be a short rundown of the events.

  1. Batch priming!
  2. Megaboss conversion!
  3. Testing out a color scheme based on my Exorcist army and typical Khorne colors!
  4. Painting the base-coat/wash of the The Hellgruntaz lead Ardboy!
  5. Subjugating an old friend to a Pine Sol bath to get him ready to join the ranks!

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It blew my mind how much time I saved batch priming all those models at once. I did 15 models in the time it would normally take me to do 2-3. If you haven't tried this yet, do it. You'll thank yourself every time you prime from there on out.

The Megaboss conversion was done in a couple steps. First, I took the big old skull on his right shoulder. I figure since these guys have been fighting nothing by daemons and men for centuries he may have never even seen anything else his entire life. And to fit him in thematically, I cracked open a box of Mighty Skullcrushers that is dedicated to filling out my conversion bits for The Hellgruntaz project. Secondly, I spent a good bit of time with a file and sand paper making everything look stock. Then I decided he needed the skulls of his first Mighty Lord of Khorne represented for all to see. Along with an augmented fist and crown, to remind all that even the Juggernauts of Khorne aren't safe from an Orruk who is fighting for his clans survival. Chapter Masters everywhere are envious of this guys Iron Halo.

I wanted to represent the colors of Khorne in all armour worn by The Hellgruntaz because the only metal they've had time to procure since as long as they can remember is that of the ocean of dead followers of Khorne at their feet.  I also felt that my typical Orruk skin wasn't appropriate for The Hellgruntaz because it's far to light for an Orruk that has stood in the pit of hell for as long as these hopeless survivors have. I've also really came to love the GW Sepia wash. So much so, that the entire model was completely saturated in it after the initial base coat. And will be again once I get all the details and touch-ups knocked out in the next couple days. As I'm still a new painter (I think this is my seventh model?) I'm pretty slow at painting and will treat each piece as a hero unit. After all, these guys are about as heroic as they come, so they deserve it.

Lastly, you can see a Warchanter in a mason jar filled with Pine Sol. This was bitter-sweet. The skin on him was probably the best Orruk skin I've ever done, but unfortunately the armour was the worst I've ever done and didn't match the theme of The Hellgruntaz what so ever. So he will be drowned in the pit of Sol, and reborn a Hellgrunta. A fate I wouldn't wish on an enemy.

Overall I'd say it was a great hobby day. These will probably not be the norm as I usually have my kids with me 24/7 when I'm not at work, but I happened on some solo time today after work that I took complete advantage of (thanks @Chris Tomlin for the podcasts to listen to and @Sangfroid for the great Ironjawz battle reports). Maybe I'll have them work on their armies with me in the next couple days so I can knock out some assembly of a unit of Gore Gruntaz. That will put me just about in line with my goal of having one of each unit converted, primed and ready to paint in the next few weeks.

Well that's that! I hope you enjoyed reading the first update! Expect some lore updates soon as I'd like to start with some character stories sometime soon! Time to watch some DotA!

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Looking good and I'm liking the red colour scheme, a little tip you may want to try out, as bronze doesn't "rust" as such get some Nihilakh oxide technical paint and daub some in the recesses of the weapons and bronze armour I'm pretty sure there is a Duncan Tutorial on using it on Warhammer T.V you tube so you can get a professsionals view on it. But it will make the bronze look older and aged in line with your excellent backstory. 

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@sangfroid

Thanks for the compliment and suggestion. I checked out Duncan's technical video and picked up the pot from my FLGS. I put a bit on to test it out and felt the color contrasted a little too much with the rest of the scheme. I'm sure I'll find a use for it further down the line, so I am still glad you suggested the stuff.

@Soulsmith

Thanks, bud. I really like the thought of Orruks completely backed into a corner. And desperation isn't something that I typically associate with Orruks, but I like that these ones are a bit more somber than other clans. I've been watching professional DotA since the first International, and DotA in general since downloading replays to load into the WC3 client was the only way to watch! I love it. Playing it is fun, but not something I do often.

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I think I may still paint for a while tonight, but I Figured I'd give you guys an update with what I have at the moment.

  1. Group photo!
  2. Paint lineup!
  3. Base idea!

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So the three you see here are mostly finished. I did them kind of quick and dirty because I have a ton of Ardboys to do (17 more!) and they don't really have much variation between them so I want to bust them out before I get bored. They are also my practice runs before I get into my Brutes, then my Heroes, then my Gore-Gruntas.

The paint lineup you see there is pretty muted. And once they're washed in the Sepia they're downright dirty looking. Just the look I was going for.

I went to my FLGS today and picked up the Stirland Mud (SM) and Agrellan Earth (AE). For the bases of these guys I may go with mostly AE and patches of SM tossed in. Inside the patches of SM I'll toss in heads and skulls from different Khorne kits, probably a bunch of Bloodreaver heads. I'll also toss in some tufts on each of them. I may leave the Ardboys bases mostly just tufts and the two specialty paints, while leaving the extra bits for the bases of all the other, larger, models.

That's it for now, guys. I think they're coming along nicely and I'm learning a lot from painting these models. I know I could get fancy and edge highlight more, but this being my first painted army I kind of just want to get it done so I can take it to my FLGS and start playing with them! That being said, there are places that I've edged highlighted (mainly straps, fur, and the lead Boy'z head), and I do plan on delving into it a bit more once I get done with these Ardboyz.

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This is shaping up to be a really solid army! Like you say, nothing wrong with painting up your army to a tabletop standard and then going back later and adding some extra details at your leisure - it is a great feeling to just have a painted army...not that I ever seem to manage it!

It's definitely worth doing some test bases to decide your scheme and see how the paints work together. I would recommend checking out da black suns by Chris Tomlin as he uses a mix of technical paints, tufts and I think sand - might give you some ideas!

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

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Thanks for the kind responses, guys. I really appreciate it. I've got quite a few 25s left over from a mass base purchase I made a while back for my Space Marines. I'll definitely do quite a few practice runs to nail down something special for these guys. And that's funny you mention lava bases Vasshpit. I was thinking about doing a fire effect under the big cracks in the AE! Possibly with a light dry-brush to give the edge of the cracks a slight glow effect. I'll post up my test runs once I get started on them.

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Looking great. Interested to see how the bases come out. What I would say is try an edge highlight on the armour to make it feel sharp and give it the appearance of metal. If you have just washed the khorne red you could try that, though I would advise something a bit brighter just on the sharpest edges. Keeps the armour dark [emoji4]

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There's a video I seen a while back where the painter uses Wazdakka Red and Wild Rider Red to edge highlight over Khorne Red. I really liked how it turned out, but his sample size was pretty small, so I don't know if it would still look good on these models, or if it would pull to far away from the muted tones I'm going for.

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I tried mixing Rakarth Flesh and Mephiston Red and do a small sample. Here's the result.

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It's hard to tell with my grainy picture, but on the table it looks quite nice, while also only being a slight highlight.

I do like the result, but edge highlights are something I'm going to come back to every now and then while I'm painting the rest of the army. It's so time consuming, and I want these models table ready ASAP!

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Small little update on the status of my Warchanter I was trying to strip with Pine Sol...

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As you can see, basically nothing was stripped. I soaked him for 24 hours the first run, didn't get any results, then soaked him another 24 hours... and nothing wanted to come off.

I used a hard bristle toothbrush, and completely submerged him for 48 hours. I'm at a loss. I'll see if I can find a bottle of Simple Green, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it's the primer I used (Rust-Oleum Sandable Black Automotive Primer).

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So I've had a little bit of time here and there the last couple days. It's been full of a few different things.

  1. ****** Pine Sol!
  2. Some kit-basing!
  3. Someone wanted some edge highlights?

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So I've seen tons of posts on the internet on how Pine Sol is super awesome at stripping miniatures. Well I'm here to tell you that Pine Sol was useless for me. I submerged my Warchanter for 24 hours, shaked it, twirled it, drove it around in my vehicle, and other things that I wont admit to. After that I scrubbed the model with a firm toothbrush and basically nothing came off. So what did I do? Repeated the process again, but this time I soaked it for 48 hours while giving it a shake quite frequently. The result was posted a few posts up, but to state it here, almost nothing came off. So after some searching, I read up that some people were getting good results with a product you can buy from places such as AutoZone, called Super Clean. I figured I'd try it, and I'm super glad I did. After 6-7 hours of soaking the model almost all of the paint came off by itself. Then I brushed it and cleaned it pretty thoroughly and as you can plainly see, this stuff WORKS. And man does it work well. So I refilled the mason jar with a unit of ten Tactical Marines I "painted" when I first started putting brush to plastic and I can't wait to have them painted up in my Exorcist theme (the same theme I'm using for my Hellgruntaz).

The kit-bash with the axe was a test run to see how a double-headed Choppa/Axe of Khorne would look, and I'm very pleased with the result. Once painted I think it will really make that model (and in effect, the army) unique on the tabletop. The banner flat out needed to change. That Beastman head was completely out of place in my fluff of Mortal and Daemons of Khorne, so I chopped most of the face off and pieced together a Juggernaut head. The result is pretty fun to look at now, but I think once it's painted it will be striking. I'm probably going to change his choppa out for an Axe of Khorne to give it some symmetry and make it stand out even more. On the subject of the Warchanter, I'm going to leave the front armour off of his chest and use the necklace from the Megaboss kit on his chest as seen in the picture. I may try to figure in one more kit-bash on him before I prime, but only if it feels natural.

And lastly, @Soulsmith asked to see some edge highlights, so I figured I'd oblige him. To be honest, I think I overdid it on the foot, but all in all I think it's a very good first try on a full body highlight (for the armour anyways). That's a Khorne Red basecoat, Evil Sunz Scarlet highlight with a smidge of Wild Rider Red on a few of the extreme edges. Since the model is one I've been working on the last couple days, it hasn't been washed in Seraphim Sepia yet, and there's a lot of touchup to do, but the result looked so good I wanted to present it for you guys now so you can see a WIP shot. I still think that edge highlighting is something I'm only going to do sporadically in between all the other painting I have on the table, but just doing this has shown me how much fun edge highlighting really is. And because it's so different than the basic painting process I follow, it's something that I can use to break up the monotony once it starts to set in.

 So that's it for today. Lots of little thing here and there. Hope you've enjoyed taking a look!

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Mate, nice one! Edge highlight worked perfectly. Don't worry about over doing it, you should see how my brutes are looking! Have you drybrushed your bronze with a bright silver?

Also it's possible the stuff suggesting pine sol may be out of date. There was a cleaner here in the UK, and they changed the recipe which stopped it stripping.

Might steal that idea for my second warchanter, it's a great idea!

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