Squig Destroyer

“What's this?” Sirrus Bizniz asked the nervous-looking mek. Of course, Sirrus knew perfectly well what it was: it was a battlewagon. A big pile of armour on wheels and tracks, designed to transport orks too wimpy for a traditional charge. Sirrus liked his enemies to see him coming. He liked seeing the fear in their eyes as he got closer. The question was not what the battlewagon was, the question was how the mek would try and sell him on an idea that didn't mesh with his Klassik Goff vision for the Metalwaaagh.

“Tour bus,” said Zibbitt. This was, to be fair, a pretty strong opening. “Just for transport between battles. We made it big and tough to show that you is the boss.”

This was clearly rehearsed. Bignooz had put Zibbitt up to this in case it didn't go down well. It was satisfyingly chunky, and the black paint job was pretty dread, but it felt wrong to see something so big look so toothless.

“Needs dakka,” Sirrus said eventually.

Zibbitt’s brows furrowed. “You want to use it for kombat?”

“No, it's a wagon, and I is traditional.”

Patiently, Zibbitt explained, “Guns is weight, and weight means fuel.”

“Did I ask you, or did I tell you?”

“You wants dakka, you gets dakka,” Zibbitt said quickly.

“And a big ram.”

Zibbitt opened his mouth, probably to say something about weight, then wisely shut his trap.

Sirrus gazed at the wagon, imagining the ram. “Make the ram spiky,” he said. “And give it a klaw.” Spikes, gunz, a klaw. Yes. Good. Metal.

“But you don't want to use it in kombat?”

“Course not, what does you take me for?” Sirrus said dismissively, and turned to the next idiot clamoring for his attention.

If nothing else, it would be fun to drive around camp. And if any squigs should happen to bounce out in front of the spiky ram... well. And if anyone annoyed me, he could dangle them on the klaw whilst travelling from scrap to scrap. Plus, you could fit a lot of grog in something that big. On reflection, having a tour bus would be pretty alright. Sirrus grinned.

+ + +

After doing a whole lot of Ork wheelz for Grimtoof's Evil Sunz, I was determined for my Goffs to have nary a wheel between them. Partly for variety, partly because ground pounding just feels so... Goffy. But the thing is, it really adds different gameplay to the list, and the army had no big chunky armoured units. One of the key design philosophies in building this army is that it should give every part of my opponent's army something to do, and hitherto I didn't have any big tough vehicles. Plus once I had the idea for the conversion in my head, I wanted to build it. And so, Squig Destroyer came to be. And to think, it's only been (counts) eight months since I posted my last Goff unit.

This is the stock ram, but with the teef snipped off the top, which helps change the profile, and then loads of spikes from the Stompa kit and a few other sources bolted to the front.

The only change here is that I didn't use the giant kannon barrel, which looks like it could actually deliver serious boom, and replaced it with the housing of the zzap gun fused with an autocannon barrel. This way, the gun more closely matches its kannon matches the weapon profile of being functionally near-identical to a single missile launcher, as opposed to the Leman Russ battlecannon the stock calibre looks like.

I didn't want to go full 'ard case, but did want a roof, since it worked better for the silhouette, and gave me a mounting point for the rear ladder to help explain how the hell orks board this thing with their runty legs.

The thing about the standard plate you get in the kit is that it has a giant hole usually covered by the turret mount, but I didn't want the turret back there, since it'd clearly interfere with the passengers. The kit is designed for the turret mount to locate to one of two spots on the chassis, so I attached it to the forward point, and slapped some plasticard plates over the rear hole, then snipped up some styrene rods to make rivets.

This followed my usual method, although the bulk of the metal highlight was drybrushed, and I got pretty loose with the rust stage to add some much-needed colour to what was otherwise a giant black brick. Finally, I watered down Armageddon Dust and used it as a dirt wash on the wheels and tracks.

We'll see what mood takes me. I'm bouncing between a few projects at the minute, but for the Goff's I feel like I sort of have to eat my greens a bit, which probably means twenty beast snagga boyz. Time, as ever, will tell.