Ork Dreadnoughts have four arms. Genestealers have four arms. So, my Ork/Genstealer Hybrid army must include one with four gribbly klawz.
This involved buying lots of klawz, and as Genestealers have three claws on their hand I bought lots of extra blades so each klaw has three blades too. This means in real life they wouldn’t be that effective (there’s nothing for the top blade to shear against, and it stops things getting between the other two klawz, but IT LOOKS AWESOME so nothing else matters). Each klaw is removable and attached with rare earth magnets for ease of transport and to stop them breaking off. It also means I can detach them for vehicle damaged results, and wave them around in my more childish moments while making robo-wibbly noises.
The pilot is taken straight from the goofy 2nd edition Ork Dreadnought. I love the way he’s sticking out his tongue. And, I really want to see Dredd pilots, it gives a sense of scale. I wonder if the upcoming Deff Dredd kit includes one. The Dredd model has a solid closed hatch that took an age to drill and dremel out, and then find a replacement hatch from my bits box the right size to replace it. But it looks fantastic.
The big chompy skull is from the Chaos Dwarf Hellcannon. I wanted the Dredd to look like a giant bug, and attempts at doing this with plasticard and gubbinz looked silly rather than scary (in a goofy kind of way). I added a classic oldskool Squig in the mouth because he’s awesome and I want a whole army of them. I miss stupid smiling models.
In terms of upgrades, this also has Grot Riggers, which is the dude on the base, being the Direct-only Oiler Runt. He needed no conversion work (I figures he’s a third or fourth generation Gretchin/Genestealer hybrid and therefore quite Gretchiny apart from the purplish skin hue).
There’s also some fairly major reposing in the legs, to give the impression the Dredd’s powering forwards on its stubby legs. This was incredibly difficult – and all the weight goes through it left leg and required some heavy-duty brass pinning. What’s annoying about this is soon everyone will be able to achieve similarly awesome and dynamic poses with a minimum of work as the new kit will be plastic. Bums.
More of my Greenstealer army soon. If you missed the thirty-strong Shoota Boyz mob – take a look at it here.
