Necromunda Necro Resurrection - Orlocks

[Kaludram]

Well, it all starts with this...

You can see that I got cocky pulling these guys apart and actually damaged the last one with the bolter. No damage to the Orlock parts (waist up). I just need to glue together the bolter again. His leg, however, may need some bionic repair...

Once this was done, I pulled out all the other parts I would need for the Orlock gang:

Moving generally left to right, I have
--A lot of the weapons and holsters I plan to use
--A few plastic Orlock juves from the original box set. Picked 'em up used and needed to strip them (gangers largely unsalvageable)
--A Hasselfree mini and two metal GW juves that will be my core juves (and entries for Yaktribe competition 14)
--Two metal Orlock leaders
--Four metal Orlock heavies with no weapons or backpacks. Preliminary fit tests show these may be a challenge to use. I am open to suggestions on how to arm these guys.
--Two Catachans with special weapons (grenade launcher and plasma gun)
--16 Chaos marauder legs
--6 Cadian torsos (for my armored Orlocks)
--5 Catachan torsos including one from the sentinel sprue that will get plundered from the pilot
--5 MRM biker torsos
--5 MRM flak vest torsos
--...and the Catachan tops I salvaged from the top picture

Time to get to work...

 

[Kaludram]

Okay, so the good part about your wife renting a movie you don't care to watch is that you can do some model work instead of earning points you know you can never cash in anyway. (All you married guys out there know what I'm talking about. You can earn the points, you just can't use 'em.)

With Yaktribe Competition 14 "Neglected Youth" ongoing, tonight was Juve night. I decided to work on the 7 Juves I have planned for the Orlocks. I like a variety of weapons for my Juves--not so much for tactical flexibility as an opportunity to look different. Of the 7, four will be primarily armed with a pistol and knife (my cheap guys) and the other 3 will have an extra HTH weapon with their pistol. Here's what I have to work with:

So I started with Zero. You would NOT BELIEVE how tough it is to find an open-palm right hand. Apparently everyone in the Realm of Sigmar, 41st Millennium, and post-apocalyptic Earth are right handed or ambidextrous and therefore always carrying a weapon in the right hand. Since I have the sculpting ability of a cross-eyed dung beetle, this scuttled my original plan to have Zero with an open right palm and a pistol grip sticking out of his jacket--ready to draw and just daring you to start something.

Instead, I settled on an Imperial laspistol--recent vintage with the las pack visible. My success with metal on plastic joints has never been good (and I've tried a lot of different things) so I decided to drill a quick hole:

and pin the joint. The lastpistol came from a random Imperial Guard Cadian bit shaved down to the wrist so it would look good compared to the other hand just poking out of the sleeve of Zero's hoodie. The result:

Very satisfying. My next guy was the plastic Juve with a busted knife. He was otherwise relatively intact, so I decide to cut off the blade and give him brass knuckles with a little file work to the knife hilt and guard. Armed with a bolt pistol, he is my best-armed Juve so far.

Next I went to work on this guy. Picture doesn't show it well, but this guy has a messily broken off left forearm and glue/accelerator spew all over the right side of his head.

So I decide he would be my overall biggest cut job of the plastic Juves. I clipped his head at about the mouth and started working on removing his left arm (including the shoulder guard), holster, and head to the shoulders. Unfortunately, I nicked my thumb pretty well, so I had to stop for the night. To feel like I had accomplished something, I put all 5 minis on bases and am calling my progress a solid 4-1/2 juves on my way to 7.

So, nothing terribly imaginative yet, but I really like the Juve I am now calling Zero. He has a big gun, but his attitude is much bigger.

Stay tuned

 

[Kaludram]

...forgot how tedious it is to file mold flash lines off plastics...

 

[trollmeat]

File plastic? Scrape with scalpel.

 

[Azzabat]

No, I know what @Kaludram means ... it's SO tedious doing plastics compared to metal. Metal is much easier, and much more forgiving. I had a box of British Bolt Action plastic mini's I started assembling last year, and I got so hacked off with them I binned them and bought metal replacements at over twice the price. I hate mould lines on plastic. = (

 

[Kaludram]

File plastic? Scrape with scalpel.

I have found I get a little too enthusiastic with the scalpel, so I resorted to a good set of files for mould line removal. I've gotten pretty fast at it, but since I depend heavily on dry brushing to cover my lack of painting skills, even a small line shows up clearly on a finished product.

No, I know what @Kaludram means ... it's SO tedious doing plastics compared to metal. Metal is much easier, and much more forgiving. I had a box of British Bolt Action plastic mini's I started assembling last year, and I got so hacked off with them I binned them and bought metal replacements at over twice the price. I hate mould lines on plastic. = (

I totally sympathize @Azzabat. The one advantage with plastics is the ease of scraping off parts you want to change. A good scalpel can do some major work on plastics where a saw and dremel are necessary for metal minis. Mixed bag for sure...

On a separate note, I finally found the open-palmed right hand I was looking to use for Zero. Cadian tank commander...I knew he was here somewhere. I'm glad Zero's laspistol turned out well or I'd be inclined to chop it off and go with my original plan for him.

 

[Kaludram]

I finished excavating my fifth juve's neck cavity and ended up with this:

I wanted to give him a slightly new look--smaller head, arms that weren't totally buffed out (Catachans, cough, cough) and winded up with this:

I think he turned out okay. Next update will be some gangers...

 

[knowman]

Love the brass knuckles. Rest of the figs are looking good too.

A short while ago, after my own deep nicking incident, it occurred to me that the "cut gloves" we have in the kitchen (because I'm clumsy and easily distracted) might be handy when working with Exacto knives (because I'm, well, you get the point). I'm not confident it will do a damn thing vs. the point if I stab myself head on, but so far no cuts from the blade edge...

 

[Fold]

Man, those plastic juve models really are HUGE aren't they?!

 

[SirFrog]

Love the brass knuckles. Rest of the figs are looking good too.

A short while ago, after my own deep nicking incident, it occurred to me that the "cut gloves" we have in the kitchen (because I'm clumsy and easily distracted) might be handy when working with Exacto knives (because I'm, well, you get the point). I'm not confident it will do a damn thing vs. the point if I stab myself head on, but so far no cuts from the blade edge...

I've never had that problem, but I guess a life in the scouts gives you some handiness with knives.

I do like your Orlocks so far, they're quite a bit removed from my own repainted Catachans.

 

[Kaludram]

Thank you for the kind comments. And yes, the old Necromunda box set plastics do make the juves look pretty big. I am addressing it a little by using some parts from the Apocalypse Survivors kits (which are roughly 28mm non-heroic scale) and then removing a little bit of height from the bottom of their boots. But if you think these guys look big, wait until I show you the Goliath juves...

For full-fledged gangers, I wanted to go for a more edgy look than the standard Orlock gang--like a group of fighters on the edge of going renegade out in the Badzones. This is why I chose the Chaos Marauder pack to mix in with my Catachan torsos. The loincloths and groin guards also have a slight Orlock feel to them--more so than straight Catachan fatigue pants.

Here is my first set of Orlock gangers.

I like the look of the legs, but an unexpected issue arose when I stuck the first few together. The Catachan pants have the belt and the Marauder torsos have the waist band with belly plate. That means when you mix these two sets, my Orlocks don't end up with a clearly-defined waist. I am thinking of a few solutions (including doing nothing) but would like some opinions from the community. Please let me know what you think, and remember...I have the sculpting skills of a cross-eyed dung beetle.

 

[Kaludram]

And while you consider my ganger conundrum, here is the Heavy situation. I picked up 4 Orlock Heavies sans weapons a while back in a trade. (Didn't need all that 54mm Inquisitor stuff anyway; no one around here can even spell 54mm... ) I picked this one to carry my Heavy Bolter:

...and here are the other 3...

You'll notice the two on the right are the same sculpt. No weapons, no backpacks...just the bodies...and they don't mesh easily with Imperial Guard heavy weapons bits, mind you.

So I have a pair of Catachans with Plasma Gun and Grenade Launcher. I have the old Orlock Leaders (one with bolter, one with meltagun). I have already decided to go with a Heavy Bolter for some firepower at high strength. The Orlock weapons I haven't represented yet are Autoslugger, Flamer, Heavy Stubber, and Missile launcher. Never felt a need for missiles when I have a grenade launcher. I like to have options for a campaign and prefer to model and paint in one go. What do you think the last heavy or two should walk around with?

 

[trollmeat]

Autoslugger for sure. When you give an expensive weapon to the other heavy but still want decent firepower.

For the 2nd, I'd be leaning towards heavy stubber. Flamers don't really feel "Orlocky" to me, and can easily be put on any other standard ganger model - use the Heavy models for larger/heavier weapons

 

[Kaludram]

Autoslugger for sure. When you give an expensive weapon to the other heavy but still want decent firepower.

I was already working on an autoslugger using a bolter, part of a cadian flamer, and a bipod (from the SM Scouts sprue, I think):

Came out okay, I think:

This will go on one of my Heavies.

 

[Kaludram]

Done with the Juves...finally.

So, the guy on the far right is my biggest kit bash so far. He used Catachan head and left arm, a MRM flak vest, legs from a Necro Ganger, and an autopistol right arm from the Necro Juves. Here are the bits:

Got so tired of cutting up Juves that #7 is just the standard original box set juve with a stub gun and a couple of grenades glued to his hip. The only guy that is completely plain is the autopistol metal Juve.

Now if I can just get the motivation to start painting....

 

[Kaludram]

Autoslugger for sure. When you give an expensive weapon to the other heavy but still want decent firepower.

For the 2nd, I'd be leaning towards heavy stubber. Flamers don't really feel "Orlocky" to me, and can easily be put on any other standard ganger model - use the Heavy models for larger/heavier weapons

So, since this is along the lines of what I was thinking of doing anyway, I took this as validation and ran with it.

In the end, I built 3 heavies. Add to that the two Catachans with special weapons I already had, and my Orlocks will have 5 options for heavy firepower (beyond the meltagun-toting leader model I also have).

My concept for the gang is that the gang leader got the inside scoop on a shipment of arms that could be "helped to fall off the back of a truck" coming out of an Orlock factory. Although he knew this would be a sure way to get outlawed, he was on his way to the Badzones anyway and needed the firepower more than the clean reputation. The quick raid resulted in captured equipment that many of the gang members decided to flaunt as stolen by not even filing off the Imperial Aquilas.

Here are the heavies with a back shot of the ones I built to show the backpacks I used to beef them up. Two just got standard packs from the Cadian Heavy Weapons sprue, but I opted to chop up a comms pack for the last one. I figured a respectable Heavy laying down 2 dice of sustained fire might want a searchlight on his back from time to time to help walk shots around a kill zone.

Believe it or not, the Heavy Bolter was the last one finished. The way the arms and gun positioned meant a lot of putty work was needed to fill in the gap in the chest reserved for his normal weapon, so to be economic with putty, I finished the other two, mixed some milliput, filled in the Heavy bolter guy's chest, assembled him, and then did gap filling on the other two minis while glue set on the Heavy bolter. By the time I was done with them, I was able to do gap work on the heavy bolter before the milliput finished drying out.

So now that I have 5 heavies, 2 leaders, and 7 juves ready to go, I need to turn my attention to the gangers. Still haven't gotten any word from the community on how to fix these guys' waist lines. I am all ears but will need to get some work done soon so I can prime the gang and get painting. Gotta have Zero and his buddies ready for the Yaktribe 14 competition.

 

[Ben_S]

I like how you justified not bothering to remove the Imperial logos

Marauder and Catachan parts work well, though it can be difficult to tell whether they're intended as Goliaths or Orlocks. As for the waist problem, is it that the model looks too short or simply missing a belt?

If the problem is height, you could try a small spacer between the legs and torso, then fill the gap with putty. It won't require any detailed sculpting since the join can largely be covered up by arms/weapons and, if need be, a few pouches or grenades.

 

[Kaludram]

... As for the waist problem, is it that the model looks too short or simply missing a belt?

The gangers are quite good for height. In fact, they are my tallest figures already, so no spacer is needed. The issue is purely aesthetic--no feature really says "from here up is torso and here down is legs" like a waistline would.

I think I am just going to start experimenting with pouches, grenades, holsters, knives and other kit to try to obscure the waistline that isn't covered by weapons being held low. I also plan to start using some of the MRM torsos. Although they don't have a belt on them, they do add some more definition than the Catachan torso does.

 

[Fold]

A belt is a good entry point detail to start sculpting. Roll out a thin, even sausage of putty, apply it to the waistline, and then flatten it. After drying, add a few tiny sausages as belt loops, and flatten. Then add a ball of putty as a buckle, flatten and square off.

 

[Kaludram]

I would like to assert that the reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated. I will be attending Scout Camp with my Boy Scouts this coming week, so all Orlock activities are suspended for 10 days.

Long live the Emperor