The Warforge Miniature Modelling and Conversion

Hoodoo Voodoo

Since finishing up my warphead model, I've been quietly lamenting over the fact that warpheads and weirdboys are somewhat difficult to fit into normal lists. Despite that, I usually try cramming both that and a Shokk Attack Gun into my casual game lists, because I find the randomness of both to be unremittingly hilarious. After a fair bit of playtesting it attached to different squads, I feel that Shoota Boyz are probably in the best position to get the most use out of the Warphead's presence, though fluff-wise I have no doubt a warphead's normal rabble would tend more towards the slugga side. Shoota boyz have the advantage of moderate range, meaning that if my warphead suddenly decides he wants to use his deepstrike power (courtesy of a hapless D6 roll) they can still get a good volley of pain off at their target of choice. If no good infantry targets present themselves, you can always try for a deepstrike behind rear armor of an enemy's vehicle so that you can unleash a rokkit salvo. This adaptability beats something like slugga boys pretty solidly, and they're cheap enough to be a good 'psychic buffer' for the Warphead's leadership rolls via Mob Rule.

With that said, I turned to the idea of what the orks that hang around with a Warphead must look like. From the outset I had two competing ideas. The first was that given Wurrzag's ability to tap into the warp and inadvertently reanimate corpses, I imagined that some of the boyz he hung around might be zomborks, or 'Dead 'eadz' - orks that had fallen in combat near him, and had therefore been crudely reanimated by his Waaagh! powers. You'd have boyz with somewhat hilariously mortal wounds just walking about unaware that they were dead yet, missing limbs, that sort of thing. The second idea I had for these guys was that they might adopt Wurrzag's tendencies by taking up crude wooden masks of their own and adorning themselves in strange fetishes.

I think overall I've decided on something leaning more towards the second idea than the first. As-is, I find the idea of a unit wearing masks and trinkets to be much easier for general purposes than having to explain to everyone who asks why a squad of my shoota boyz are zombies. There's too many Chaos-y, Nurgly connotations there. Plus, the appearance of a unit wearing masks led by my warphead is probably going to look a lot nicer. That said, I expect the majority of the boyz in the unit will be the shaman types, with maybe a handful of Dead 'Eadz lurching about among them just for variety.

So, a while back, in anticipation of this very project, I entreated my good buddy, Nozeminer, to help me out by making a set of wooden voodoo masks that would fit on boyz, yet match the overall 'theme' of Wurrzag's. After talking a bit of design with him, he was nice enough to sculpt up some greens for me:

These masks have since been sent off to D6 Hobbies, where they have been cast and may be purchased, should anyone be interested.

Anyway, with these masks made, it was just down to the simple task of casting them up and putting them on. Given that they're mostly flat, fitting them onto an ork face poses a bit of a challenge if you don't first hack the front of their gobs down a bit. However, with a little bit of knife and filework, you can glue them right on. I'm going to be greenstuffing straps a bit later on, but for now I think it's a pretty good look for a squad:

These guys are not an overwhelming priority for me at the moment due to an impending tournament in two weeks time that I have to prepare for. However, I'm aiming to have 20 of them made and ready to paint shortly after the tournament ends.