Watch out for Snakes!

Any of you Misties out there should get the title of this post ;)

Anyhow we're not talking about MST3K today, despite the exciting news (if you hadn't heard already) that the Kickstarter to bring it back to our screens was a massive success!

Today we're talking Orks of the Snakebite variety. Fiercely traditional and suspicious of new fangled teknology and gubbins, these Orks like to get up close and personal with the enemy so they can introduce them to the finer points of Snakebite Kulture.

Love this illustration by Adrian Smith!

I painted these guys way back in 2014 as an attempt to bolster Chico's Ork army in the 2nd ed game we played at BOYL 2014. Sadly for him I didn't paint enough as several entire Space Marine Legions invaded (sorry matey!). In the background - taking up most of it in fact - is a Goff Mega Gargant - needs some extra detailing I think...

So far the mob consists of a Snakebite Clan with two extra detachments of Boarboyz, a detachment of Bonebreakas and a detachment of  Squig Catapults,

For their special  card (2nd ed Space Marine rules) I'm planning a Warboss so they'll get some extra Nobz - oo er!

Again the Bonebreakas were a quick paint job to get them in to action - they definitely need some tribal markings adding...

Squig Catapults are one of the many mad and random weapons that make the Orks so entertaining to play. I'm not sure how effective they'll prove on the battlefield - the Buzzer Squig swarms they launch even confer a +6 save to infantry as they can be dissuaded from biting you by a thick cardigan it seems! They don't like the taste of Orks though so it can be fun to fire them into close combat on the off chance of  munching a stand or two  of the enemy before the Boyz get stuck in!

Nobz in Battlewagons (part of the planned Warboss' retinue) seem to be the only way of utilising the Boarboyz' speed I can think of - otherwise they need to stick close to the Nobz on foot as part of the Ork command rule - otherwise they revert to their instinctive behaviour of charging at the nearest enemy which IO suppose is not the worst thing they could do!

As well as lots of painting and Gargant building, I've finally got round to sorting out the large collection of Epic Orks I bought of Just John (fellow Oldhammerer) some time ago - thanks again John for the great deal by the way!

Other than a bit of a shortage of square bases (as a lot of my Ork infantry was based on squares I've decided to stick with them while basing Nobz and other special stands on 1p coins) the main problem I have is giving each clan the supporting detachments I feel best fit their character - especially clans like the Snakebites and Goffs.

As I have yet another detachment of Boarboyz, a detachment of Squiggoths and two detachments of Wildboyz I figure I'll just have to paint up another Snakebite Clan to accommodate them in the "no more than 5 supporting detachments per clan/company card" rule for 2nd ed.

This however then breaks the rule of not being able to field more than one of each clan - ah well! I'll just have to talk nice to my gaming buddies to see if they mind facing off against a Snakebite horde or - even better - set aside a weekend to do battle with all 14, 100 points of Orks that I have at my command. This way I could be "rules legal" in that once you have fielded one each of all the clans then you can start adding duplicates.

I see hard times ahead for the rest of the civilised universe as Waaaa-Thantz gathers steam...