Tabletop Apocalypse: Makari

Showing posts with label Makari. Show all posts

Wednesday, 6 April 2016

Converted Mega Armoured Nobz - Budget Wargaming

I wanted some Mega-Nobz for my all grot army, but I didn't want to spend a lot of money. Luckily at the time it wasn't long since the release of the Sanctus Reach box set, so I had a lot of Ork sprues lying around the place. I suppose Mega-Grots would be the correct term for these guys.

It turns out with a bit of elbow grease and some spare parts it is easy to make some fairly convincing Mega-Nobz using the regular Nobz box. The best part is that you get so many of them - I built a unit of 4 to accompany Makari into battle (see earlier post - Waaagh Makari if you're unsure what that means). I still need to up armour the legs to make them look a bit more mechanical and fill a few gaps, but I'm happy with the way they look so far. One day I'll have to paint them too .... and don't even get me started on the Battlewagon they ride around in!

The trick to building these guys was to glue the body and legs together and then add a thick piece of Plastic/card across the top of their shoulders (those big white blocks you can see in the pictures. I then added the arms and put on double-layered shoulder pads to make the torsos really big. After that it's really just armouring the rest of them up with spare parts and getting some power generator type things on their backs. Scale wise they're actually quite a bit bigger than Space Marine Terminators, so everything worked out well.

I'd honestly recommend building Mega-Nobz like this to any Ork player with decent conversion skills as the GW ones are a bit of a rip-off! It does help if you've built some Killa Kanz recently too as the spares from them came in very handy on these guys - plenty of armour plates and glyphs. The only real difference would be how you put the arms together as mine are basically Power Klaw parts mashed into spare gun bits for a mechanical look, but I'm sure you'd figure something out.

Saturday, 19 March 2016

WAAAGH Makari!

The 2nd edition legend returns and this time there will be blood!

When I first started working on my all grot army for 40k I had a epiphany of sorts. The army needed a leader, someone with pedigree and class. There could only be one contender - the only gretchin special character to ever exist - Makari. Back in 2nd edition he was Ghazghkull's banner bearer and his only power of note was a 2+ invulnerable save attributed to the favour of the gods, or perhaps just dumb luck. When the new model for Ghazkull was released Makari disappeared from the game and the background and into oblivion - except for a short piece of text that said that Ghazghkull sat on him and subsequently fed him to a squiggoth.

Makari in 2nd edition.

Clearly this wouldn't really be enough to kill the legendary Makari. In my version of the history he escaped death by fleeing in an old suit of Ghazghkull's Mega Armour. Through blind luck he rebuilt himself as more machine than greenskin and then began to lead a colossal Waaggh of grots against their oppressive Ork masters. Also he had become quite clearly insane after his transformation!

With these fanciful ideas in mind I bought the first model for my grots - an old metal 2nd edition Makari. I then did some fairly heavy conversion work to mash him into a suit of Ghazghkull's armour. For sheer comedy value he also had to be outrageously big, so I added more armaments to the already bulging suit of armour and finally a scenic base to make him even taller!

After a few coats of paint the mighty Mekka Makari was finally finished and ready to bring the a

gaming world to it's knees.

That's one big Grot!

Da Lucky Stikk makes a comeback. This time with Makari's personal heraldry.

Thursday, 10 March 2016

The World's Biggest Deff Dread Part 2

Nothing like a low angle shot to make things look even taller!

This time I'm focusing on the work in progress shots and how I made the Mechanicus styled crew. The Night Goblins were taken from the Battle at Skull Pass (although I bought them on e-bay). I found after looking through the fantasy range that they were the closest to grots aesthetically and I really liked the character of the models.

Those of you who read my previous article on this project will know that the Dred was inspired by the idea that the Grots would attempt to copy Imperial designs like the Emperor Titan. With that in mind I had to have Mechanicus looking grots. The only problem was getting them to look suitably 40k, as a load of bows and arrows wouldn't cut it. I also wanted to introduce some primitive cybernetics to reinforce the look.

With these thoughts in mind I set about customising the crew. I took the basic Skull Pass Gobins and did arm and weapon swaps with the 40k Runtherd kit - which was a bit challenging with single piece plastic casts and the final product took a lot of greenstuff to bring together.

For the tallest tower I wanted to create a Captain of sorts to lead the lurching machine into battle - but he had to be suitably mechanised. Luckily I managed to procure the head of an Ork Mek. I carved away the Ork's head so that only the cybernetic half of his face remained. I then did the same thing in reverse with a plastic Grot's head and then glued the two parts together to get a cyber-grot head!

Sky Captain Dingwannga strikes fear into the huddled masses

For the next crewman I wanted to introduce some robotic limbs. I was particularly happy with the claw on his back (I think it was made with an old Gorkamorka Buggy's handlebars or something and some plastic offcuts). As he was a single piece cast I had some problems with his right arm, so in the end I replaced the whole thing with a chainsword.

Crewman Bagoo revs his shiny new chainsaw with pride

After that I added a few more crewman made by adding guns to the Night Goblins I had acquired. Once they were glued in place the model was ready for paint.

Here's one I prepared earlier

The finished model before paint

Wednesday, 9 March 2016

The World's Biggest Deff Dread

Introducing to you - the worlds biggest Deff Dread. Measuring a maniacal 8 inches tall and weighing in at .... well, a lot for a piece of plastic.

One of my big 40k projects is an all Grot Ork army. I had the idea years ago and joked about the crazy conversions I could make. One day I just went for it and started buying rebel grots by the bucket load on e-bay.

Anyway, this piece was inspired by the idea that the Grots would try to copy successful Imperial Weaponry like an Emperor Class Titan, but respective to their own size - even to the point of it being crewed by Mechanicus obsessed grots with red robes and cog-tooth patterns. The best part was that the army was already red, so it fit well visually and thematically.

To gain more height I used some small Chaos Defiler legs to replace the usual stubby ones. The back castle is actually an old Gorkamorka Truk chassis with tons of bitz and spare parts glued together. To build the towers I made a frame using shaved down sprue and then covered it with armour panels. The grots are actually Night Goblins from one of the Warhammer starter sets that I bought cheaply on e-bay.

I've also got some grainy work in progress shots - the one from the back shows how I constructed the castles using sprue as a frame. As I have a lot of material related to this project I may do another post with the rest of it.