WARHAMMER – A Saga in Miniatures Part IV: The Captain, the Dreadnought and Some Space Orks

by Paul Feldman

To read Part I, Part II and Part III of WARHAMMER: A Saga in Miniatures, click here.

Forces may be Awakening elsewhere, but this particular sci-fi saga has reached its end. In this post we’ll look at the last two Space Marine miniature and the few Space Orks I painted. For sure the remaining unpainted figurines and engines of war beckon to me now and again from their sprues. (A sprue is the plastic frame that the parts to toys and models come attached to. If one were to leave one’s discarded sprue out with no remaining parts on it, it would be a Mötley Sprüe indeed. Ah-ha-ha). I know if I really wanted to make the time to finish the set I could, but other opportunities and obligations have dictated otherwise. Put another way: I sold out, man.

That’s not to say I’ve completely tuned out on Warhammer 40,000. There are a few sites I regularly visit to see if there are any cool new models out, or I’ll check in at the Lexicanum, the wiki of all 40k mythology. The best is finding photos of vintage minis I remember painting as a kid, or scanned-in pages from old sourcebooks or issues of White Dwarf.

What I realized in cataloging my love affair with Warhammer 40k is that it’s a way for me to access that part or myself that doesn’t look for reasons not to enjoy something. Maybe it’s brainless appreciation, maybe it’s the low-rent version of a guy buying a sports car to recapture the younger days he sees in the rearview mirror. And while I’m pretty sure my high school punk rock art student self is showing here, 40k doesn’t permeate the culture the way so many other properties do. It still feels like it’s mine, my own private reality escape pod. That’s a pretty immature way to look at things, I know, but I’m talking about engaging my adolescent self, anyway.

Let’s start the show:

First, the Captain. He was no one to approach lightly. The considerable detail and intricacies of this miniature loomed tall before me in 28mm scale, a challenge to my vorpal brush. After two days of eye-squinting labor, the Captain of Leviathan’s Legion 2nd Company, “The Great Deep Ones”, was ready to deploy:

I went again with putting the word VALDE on the banner, which at the time I thought was Latin for “GREAT”, (For “Great Deep Ones”). As we mentioned previously, this word actually means VERY. And I’m very sorry for that mistake. Is his face rather a mess of undefined features? Absolutely. But you can still tell by looking in his eye-indentation that this guy has seen some shit. And yes, the small banner on his weapon is free of writing because I lacked the skill to even fake scribbly lines, as I did on the sealed bits of parchment hanging from his cape. BUT, I did achieve a long-time goal: I painted light reflecting off the jewel in the center of his breast plate. Look at the little white gleam on top. Success! Did you hear that sound? It was the keystone of self-actualization sliding into place on the pyramid of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. You remember, from health class:

Next up, we have what the rules of the game classify as a Space Marine “vehicle”, though it’s really more of a nightmarish exo-suit. This is what is known in 40k as a Dreadnought. When a Space Marine is gravely wounded in battle, what remains of his body is placed in a Dreadnought, where he will live physically wired into the machine forever, or until the machine gets blown up. Grim. Dark. Metal as F*ck.

The Dreadnought was especially enjoyable to paint as I was able to break into some new colors I had yet to use, like enchanted blue and goblin green. (These are the actual names of the paint colors. Other Citadel Paint colors include leprous brown, scab red and pallid flesh. Because much of Citadel’s core demographic still gets carded to get into a PG-13 movie).

Astute viewers may also notice a banner on the Dreadnought’s left leg reading “VALDE”. Never let it be said that I don’t really commit to something. There’s also a teensy-weensy banner under the winged skull on the faceplate. This was intentionally left blank, because I know to punch my weight.

My Imperial strike force was complete. Now, on to the Space Orks…

I was never really a fan of the Orks in Warhammer. They’re fine as enemies, but design-wise they never really grabbed me in the way the Quasi Fascist/Ancient Rome motif of the Space Marines did. However, once I got started painting these few Orks, I found a new appreciation for them.

The best part for me was painting the faces with the deep-set, beady red eyes and bestial snarling mouths. Also I was pretty stoked to do a passable job on all the buckles and hardware on their belts and what not. Again, all I had to do was put a primer layer of black paint on, making sure to get in all the nooks and crannies, and when I went back with the actual colors I was rewarded with some lovely results, at least for me. With so many of the details actually molded in to the miniature, it’s a lot easier to paint them.

…And that’s as far as I got. Yet there are tons more orks to paint.

Special weapons dudes, the Ork Warboss, there’s even a few Ork helicopters to paint. Actually, I did start painting one ork pilot’s head:

But with that disembodied, partially painted head, our Saga in Miniatures ends. Perhaps one day when I hear the siren call of overpriced acrylic paints and brittle polystyrene I will pick up my brush again, but until then… I will just have to wait until everyone in the house goes to sleep and play with the few painted minis I have. Nobody look at me when I do this. I said, don’t look at me.

Metal Rules.