Warhammer 40.000 (2nd edition) – Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka and his Goff Big Mob (Games Workshop)

I painted these as a response to a paint challenge on the Crown Command facebook group.

The challenge was to paint a start sprue Ork and/or Space Marine from the Warhammer 40.000 2nd edition starter box.

I chose to approach this as I would have back when, which is to say I always painted a whole mob, never a single miniature. My rule was (and has been since) only field with painted minis on the table!

But let me say up front: I do not like these Ork minis.

To me they represent what I did not like about wh40k 2nd edition, which all things equal is my favourite version of the game.

But I felt the Orks really got neutered. All the richness of the Ork clans disappeared, whereas the Space Marine chapters started to grow their individual identities, Orks where reduced to a muddle of lego coloured brutes with no personality.

Furthermore, the uniform nature of the Ork miniatures in the starter box was a step back from the very versatile RTB13 Space Orks from the Rogue Trader era.

A word on Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka

While I liked the Ghazgkull miniature, the idea of named characters also seemed wrong to be as I used to name my Ork characters and even gave some of them a bit of backstory.

But this was a natural progression from the roots of roleplay in Rogue Trader, to to full tabletop wargame and I am glad I got a chance to get the miniature for this paint challenge as I think he is badass.