Summer of Shadows: Snakebite Mob for SWA

Well, my Summer of Shadows has not gone as planned. Continued ill health has scuppered many plans this year, but most of all it has meant I have played no further games of Shadow War (and I'm a few games behind the others now!) Sad times indeed.

However, I have managed to assemble a dedicated crew of Orks (RT, 2nd Ed, and Gorka Morka in the mix) and paint them up to represent an oldschool Snake Bite mob - I was previously using an assorted mob of orks from my existing old school force as can be seen in my earlier post.

First up is my Boss, Kaptin Fang who is armed with a Kustom Shoota (w/ reload), Big Choppa, wears 'Eavy Armour and has a Clip Harness. He has survived a few scraps and has picked up the valuable Dodge skill (one of the reasons I like Snakebites is that they are one of the only Ork Clans (along with Evil Sunz) who can access Agility skills.

"Wot choo lookin at, scum?"

I had a spare 2nd Edition Ghazkhull Mag Uruk Thrakka lying around who seemed the perfect fit. I have owned the model before, and since lost it, and bought it again twice over (once with Makari the standard bearer in tow, they are being saved to lead my Goff force) - but I've never actually painted him before. The model was a little daunting to the younger me and I was surprised to find a little of that apprehension return when I finally came to paint him. That passed very quickly once I started in with a brightly coloured Snakebite scheme and I found myself having great fun painting up this icon of 2nd Edition. Yes, there is extra detail on virtually every single surface of the model, but once you get stuck in it pretty much paints itself.

I love the detail of the Stikk Bombz at the back of the model. That screams 2nd Ed to me :)

The only problem was the very obvious Goff symbol on his back. At first I thought about just making it flat with putty and then painting on the Snaklebite glyph later, but I got a bit drunk and decided to 'sculpt' one instead. My GS skills are infantile, but luckily that sort of works when it comes to Ork glyphs. All in all I was pretty chuffed with my first attempt on Ghazkhull and he is exactly what I had in mind for Kaptin Fang when I was creating my SWA crew.

Kaptin Fang and his Boyz

Here we find Kaptin Fang hanging out with his Boyz: Blak-Mamba, Lard, Tusks, and Pyfon... who may not reappear if I don't get round to rescuing him from the Eldar!

Da Yoofs - appropriately (for round here at least) hanging out near some scenery made out of a discarded NO2 Canister

I plumped for a handful of Gorka Morka orks as being suitably feral to count as Snakebites, but also armed simply with shanks and sluggas, as are my Yoofs: Pig-Spit, Pork Rind, Adder-Boy, Grass-Snake, Swill Pot, and Vypa... except that Pig Spit has been promoted to a Boy after surviving a head wound and rolling 'What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger' on his second mission, so I might do some temporary swapping around with him and Pyfon, depending on what happens on the rescue mission.

Too Inch scours the sulphur stained sands for scrap to make shooty gubbinz with

Too Inch da Spanna Boy is armed with a Big Shoota with a Red Dot Sight, and a Massive Spanner. This Spanner boy from Gorka Morka with his bionic shoota arm was the perfect fit. I have left off giving him a backpack for now (there is a peg on his back that originally held a shotgun) to see how the campaign progresses and how I might want ot customise him.

Too Inch and Da Yoofs make a charge across the sands

I will eventually add each of the available Ork specialists, but in keeping with both the Snakebite background and the numbers based approach that I went for with this crew, the first on my list was a Runtherd with six Grots.

Snotragg da Runtherd and his horde of six miserable, snivelling, little grots

The Grots are obviously the classic monopose plastic Gretchin from the 2nd Ed starter box. The Runtherd is an Ork Slaver from Gorka Morka. The colour scheme is also echoing the Snakebite colours, but far less obvious as might befit a Specialist for hire.

Kaptin Fang's Snakebite Crew swarm from their huts to charge across the sands

Next up for the crew are a new Spanna Boy, Rattla with his Old-Skool Rokkit Launcher, and Doc Gristle the Pain Boy, who has dispensed with the middle man as it were and replaced his own right hand with a massive knife. These two jumped out at me from my leadpile as the most Snakebite-esque of the candidates and they are already assembled and undercoated, working their way up the painting queue.

Something really satisfying about workign with these old sculpts. So evocative of the period that first got me hooked on the hobby :)

Now, if only I could get a few more games in!

Thanks for reading. Do pop back again. I'll make tea.