From GregB: Ork Dakka Jet & Ground Assets

Ork Dakka Jet and ground assets - plastic models from GW.

Hi everyone - glad to see there are participants in the Challenge getting their jabs! Here in Northern Ontario, Canada, I expect it will be quite a long wait for me, so I hope you don't mind these random submissions. You will see that further efforts on my WW1 painting have been delayed by this sudden lurch back into GW territory. This is an Ork "Dakka Jet" and set of Ork "ground assets" for GW's 40k-themed air-combat game Aeronautica Imperialis. These have been sitting on my painting desk for months, and when I finished those 10mm Roman Auxilia a couple of weeks ago, I thought I might as well finish these bits too. 

The dakka jet is the basic fighter for the Orks - can be upgraded with extra rockits for air-to-air combat, or given bombs for ground attack missions.

Aeronautica is a fun game - obviously the setting won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I enjoyed the original version of these rules that Forge World released many years ago. The re-booted version, with nice plastic models, is a lot of fun too. The rules are not complicated, and it is fun to have these little combat aircraft from the grim and dark future zipping around, blowing up stuff, and each other. 

A bunch of random colours and patterns...fun little models to paint, although it can be slow going.

The initial model range focused on the Imperial Navy and the Orks, but it has since expanded to include Imperial Army (Valkyries) and the Tau (really cool!). I started painting my initial sets last summer, with the expectation that I would finish all of the models in short order...but hobby squirrels run around in my brain and I get distracted. This is a particular issue when trying to paint Ork subjects...they don't really have a uniform look to their gear and kit, and so each model is something of an individual effort for me, which makes painting Ork stuff a slog.

And so this poor Dakka Jet has been sitting even longer than the Roman Auxilia from my last submission. Probably since last November, when I had been last working on Aeronautica stuff...this one Dakka Jet was sitting there at the corner of my painting table, falling on to the ground occasionally, with a couple of base colours already on, waiting for me to finish it. But for months I just could not find the inspiration - I didn't feel like painting check patterns at the time, and besides, I had momentum with some other projects - but I finally just picked up the brush last week, and now it is ready.

Ork ground assets...a bunker of some kind, and assorted flak batteries to protect it.

In the Aeronautica game many missions involve bombing runs. You need something to bomb - that is where these "ground assets" come in. The bunker-looking thing serves as a target for the incoming bombers...the same pack came with an assortment of Ork flak emplacements which would protect this and add to the fun in the game.

Another view of the ground assets...these are in the same "scale" as the models for "Adeptus Titanicus"....

So there we are...my first GW and first sci-fi models painted in many months! Thanks for reading, hope you are all doing OK out there. Cheers.

From TeemuL: Stay Safe (42 points)

It has been a while since my last post, probably two weeks or so, but worry not, I'm safe and healthy. It's just that I have had four largish hobby projects on my desk recently, and it is difficult to finish anything... I was also busy with other non-hobby tasks, painting fences and stuff.

But here are three brand new Speed Freeks from the game Speed Freeks by Games Workshop, you can buy these individually as well (from WH40K range), but if you want to buy the cars and other stuff, it would be just crazy to skip the starter box.

I selected rather general coloring for these ork, lots of red and yellow with some metal and black. Orks themselves are naturally green. Pretty much everything painted on Contrasts except the metals and skulls and horns and that kinf of things.

I stupidly glued them all together before starting to paint, which made it rather difficult to paint the face, chest and some other areas. They came up ok and being orks, I forgave a bit of messyness.

I considered some weathering and dirt, but on the other hand I like bright and clear models on the tabletop, dioramas are a different thing of course.

My main aim on the painting was not to get too much yellow or red next to each other, which was rather easy, since orks don't care that much of uniforms and they can paint some piece of metal red and some yellow and do it opposite way on the next bike. They are built from scrap anyway.

I was trying to be rather neat, but not too neat. Contrast paints helped quite a lot on that. I kept the bases quite basic, just some cracking texture paint from GW and sand colored trims. They should be home at the most of the dust tracks they go.

There is a plan that I will be using these during the summer, when we start a Speed Freeks campaign, but we need to finish the Kill Team campaign first. Hopefully I have enough time to build and paint one of the cars as well.

U: 0 (total 10)
N: 3 (total 7)
W: 0 (total 1)
F: 3 (total 15)
R: 0 (total 14)

S: 0 (total 2)

Points:

14 points per one "bigger than 28mm cavalry model" for total of 42 points

 42 total (total 250)

From Minion TeemuL:

I do like these and I do look forward to see the cars!