The almighty Space Ork Gobsmasha

Bit of a change of pace once again from my continuing adventures in Advanced Heroquest, as I've been blowing the dust away from several old boxes lurking under the bed. These boxes are a small treasure trove of Rogue Trader and 2nd edition Warhammer 40,000 models that I thankfully never got around to throwing away. You've seen my weirdo Chaos renegades previously, now it's the turn of the Space Ork Gobsmasha.

I was chatting online to the editor of Secret Passages magazine recently and he mentioned that, like mine, his dad also painted his miniatures for him. His dad had also kindly built a Gobsmasha, using the instructions provided in White Dwarf. You can have a read through and even build your own by doing the same here.

I, on the other hand, managed to get hold of the official model. I believe they were clearing them out at the time so I bought one for literally pennies (probably) at one of those GW store "grand openings".

The model itself came in a clear plastic box, rather like an obese blister pack. Inside were a few pieces of chunky creamy resin, replete with air bubbles and soft as shit detail. It looked like a white chocolate novelty gift from Thornton's.

It is at least quite "Orky", I guess.

Being a vehicle, it posed even more of a daunting task to paint than usual, so once again my dad glued it together and painted it. But he used the mattest of matt enamel paints. In fact it was so matt that it felt horrible to handle, as if it'd been fashioned out of a melted down school chalkboard. By the time the 2nd edition 40k box was taking up too much space in my bedroom however, I felt brave enough to repaint it myself.

This time I used acrylic paints and daubed it in "satin finish" Humbrol. For some reason, I decided painting a stoned version of Brum's face on the front was a good idea too. Otherwise it looks quite okay for the time. I added some spare bits from a Leman Russ tank kit and Space Ork gubbins as well, because otherwise, there really isn't much going on with this model. It's literally a box with a featureless tube stuck on the front and what look like bottlecaps for wheels. The scratch-built version in White Dwarf looked a hundred times better!

In the 41st Millennium, oversized staples are handy for attaching space marine helmets to things.

Naturally, a spare plastic beaky marine helmet dangled off the back. It wouldn't be a completed model without one. The helmet is attached by the means of a piece of thread (stolen from my mum's embroidery box) painted brown and two staples (stolen from my mum's work desk, sorry mum). The plastic Space Ork crewman (creworc?) waving his arms around fruitlessly was also added. And a heavy flamethrower, because there's clearly plenty of room for it.

Quite how this vehicle could actually function at all is, of course, neither here not there. The gun alone allows no room for the crew, so where my plastic Ork's legs are supposed to be is a matter of interesting conjecture. That frontal gun is so huge, so massive, that assuming it could even fit inside that little box, the recoil would rip the Gobsmasha in half. But ultimately, so what? None of the tanks and fighting vehicles of the 41st Millennium make any sense whatsoever. It'd be a bit churlish to criticise the Gobsmasha in the way I've just done, wouldn't it? As bad as it is, it's just cool. 

Ancient aliens and Chaos renegades

Growing up I was lucky to have access to a wide range of books in the house. My dad even had a copy of Fighting Fantasy's Starship Traveller! My dad was really into Star Trek, so I guess it must have appealed to his dream of being Captain Kirk and meeting glamorous alien ladies in constant soft focus.

He also had a couple of books by a certain Mr von Däniken and others of his ilk. I remember being fascinated by the ideas proposed in them, but at the same time thinking, even at that young age, "surely this can't be right".

It was later on while reading about Genestealer Cults in early Warhammer 40,000 that I recalled the absurd von Däniken. I'm uncertain whether the lore of 'stealer Cults was retconned soon after into them being the lurking vanguards of Tyranid Hivefleets, or whether that was there from the start. But in any case, I loved the idea that these sinister groups of aliens could infiltrate and subvert a planet's society, perhaps over the course of thousands of years, until the main baddies arrived.

This gave a great sense of the age, history and sheer vastness of the Imperium, which today has shrunk to the size of a city like Birmingham and horror of horrors, has an evolving storyline. Get out of my sandbox! Anyway, Genestealer Cultists drove around in pimped-up "Coven Limousines" and that was the coolest thing in all of 40k. 

As for von Däniken, I re-read the books and those of his followers and thought maybe the guys at GWHQ had read them too. They were bestselling books back then, and David Icke had embarrassed himself on Wogan talking about alien shapeshifters holding the highest positions in society. It was all there I guess.

Somewhat off-topic (sorry, you need to allow me a rant every now and then, it's my blog), but what really bothers me about these "ancient aliens" authors, is their insistence that earlier civilisations than their own Western one simply couldn't have built the complicated structures that they did. Instead, it had to be aliens, and it's interesting to note that an early Ufology subset of alien beings were tall blond creatures dubbed "Nordics". Going further, other authors skipped aliens altogether and claimed that ancient Mayans, for example, were actually European Celts. 

It's the kind of nonsense that gives me fond memories of the 40k setting actually being somewhat satirical and ironic rather than dreary po-faced straightlaced boredom with a crappy ongoing narrative about super-super-even-superer-and-increasingly-super-supermen.    

When being a Chaos renegade meant cocktail stick spikes on your head and random shit for arms.

So, Genestealer Cults were great and I managed to collect a fair few metal models of the various hybrids, a magus and even a Patriarch. All of which were bought at Games Workshop store "grand opening" events, because I could rarely afford full price models. Strange to think that £3.99 for four metal dudes in a blister pack was an expensive purchase back then, representing as it did a whole month of pocket money saved without buying candy sticks, 2000 AD or crack cocaine in the meantime. I'm currently writing a full post about these events, because some core gaming memories are contained therein.

Unfortunately, over the years much has been lost to me. I say "lost", but what I actually mean is "thrown in the bin in what seemed like a sensible decision at the time". Literally thrown in the bin. Boxes filled with epic scale Space Marine models. The original boxes of plastic Imperial Guard and Space Orks. Even the famous RTB01 Imperial Space Marines box. All that remains can be seen above. BUT! I kept all the metal Genestealer related models, which goes to show how much I cherished them, perhaps.

In another post I'll be covering a seminal moment in my gaming life, the Terminators & Tyranids boxset. In the meantime, you can see in the photo above all that remains of that box, too. Namely, two Tyranid Warrior arms pressed into service as goofy mutations for my Chaos renegades.

They're an "interesting" bunch aren't they? The guy second from right looks like he's saying "what? What's the problem?" after leaving his car parked on a dipped kerb. As for Mr Milliput-Blobhead on the far left, erm... 

Still, the exposed brain guy still looks pretty cool despite holding his left hand out for his change.

Originally I'd painted the plastic beaky marines so badly, and with heavy enamel paint to boot, that I'd needed to dig the paint off with a spade. The Blood Angel marines (more like Blob Angel marines in my case) thus became Chaos renegades for 2nd edition 40k. In fact, it's only while writing this that I remembered I'd intended using them as a bodyguard retinue of chemically and surgically "enhanced" (hmm) Chaos marines for Fabius Bile. By the way, the Fabius Bile model was so good that the modern version is basically exactly the same, just much bigger presumably. In fact, it must be absolutely huge because it seems to cost more than parking your car for half an hour at Bristol Airport.

What a disjointed mess this post turned out to be. But that's what happens sometimes when you're uncovering old memories as you actually write the damn thing and it turns into a series of misty-eyed reminiscences. But that's blogging for you. Anyway, I don't get paid for this and I don't have an editor, so go and puzzle over the mystery of who built the pyramids or something if you don't like it. Here's a hint for you, it was the Egyptians. OR WAS IT? Bloody hell.