My photography gets worse with every stage of this! I blame the midnight lighting (and the cluttered scene stopping my phone camera focussing).

Another hour and a half work on the first seven Orks. Helmets, weapons, spot colours and any visible teeth or bones have now been basecoated. There’s still a huge mess of trousers, pouches, boots, shirts, belts and strapping in plain spray brown but I think a bit of black on the boots and some different browns on the straps and pouches will finish off this first batch.

I still need to improve my speed if I’m going to reach the target but whatever happens I will have made massif steps in painting the army. So there’s no negatives here.

Next up is the spot colour stuff for which I currently intend to use a deep yellow tone. After that I’ll slap on some metallics on helmets and weapons. That leaves me the bases and for those I’m a little unsure.

With the deadline of mid-October in my mind I’m starting to worry about the size of this task. Maybe I’ve just started too late? There seems like a huge amount to do. I’m going to have to speed up significantly in those rare occasions that I get the chance to get my paint tray out.

I’ve got the Army Painter sand on the bases of 40 Orks. Even better, I’ve got leather brown undercoat (another Army Painter product) on 16 of those models.

As you can see from the photo of my painting tray that’s a full squad of Boyz armed for close assault including their Power Klaw Nob with their first colour on. Green skin and dull metal weapons (and detailing) should get them to the required standard.

Let’s see how long it takes!

Unfortunately there is, as they say, a problem.

I’ve not got any of my army painted. At all. And I’ve been using a high model count Ork list. I think I’m looking at close to 100 infantry models and 9 vehicles. Oh ‘eck.

I’m not usually a quick painter. I prefer to paint individual models to completion rather than batch paint units. So this is the perfect time to learn a hobby lesson.

I’ve got something like 8 weeks to get to a 3 colour minimum standard on everything. I’d also love to have a couple of models done to the best of *my* ability. So, with the assistance of coloured sprays and blind panic… I’ll see what I can do.

This was a surprisingly enjoyable piece to paint. Despite having had it sitting around for a number of years I’d not appreciated the detail on the casting. The chained skeleton, the Troll skull above the read entrace, the mix of 6th Edition and smaller 7th Edition skull pieces were all revealed to me during the painting process.

I started with a brown undercoat for everything. From here I concentrated on the Bad Moon itself with foundation colours – Iyanden Darksun for the moon and Dheneb Stone for the bones and teeth and Boltgun Metal for the metal frame. This was all washed with a Coat d’Arms Dark Brown wash for depth. I then gave the moon a number of thin coats of Sunburst Yellow, focusing more and more on the highlight areas. When I was happy with the texture of the moon I filled the eyes and tongue with Scab Red and highlighted the bones.

The angry tree was my standard wood shortcut at the moment. Black wash over the brown undercoat and a P3 Beast Hide drybrush to highlight. The skull piles were treated as per the teeth and bones on the moon. Finally I worked back at gave all the mushrooms slightly off-white stalks, and blood red booms. White dots were added for that traditional Goblin fungus look and to brighten the whole piece up.

Now, the real question is how will this piece work in games? The new 8th Edition book gives us a few options for interesting effects however none quite fit to my mind. The Idol of Gork (or maybe Mork) sounds nice and Orcy, but is not appropriate as it’s clearly not invoking either Orc god (and I have an old cardboard piece from the Idol of Gork scenario pack that is perfect for this already). Maybe it could be a Wizard’s Tower? There’s a little door for a Goblin Shaman to enter and practise his magic. Maybe a Sinister Statue? I can easily imagine the Bad Moon totem swivelling and zapping anyone silly enough to go near.

What will it be? Well, my current favourite is to go beyond the rulebook and create my own rules for it.

The Bad Moon totem

Orc and Goblin psyche is complex in it’s simplicity. They live to fight. But who to fight? One moment they’re fighting humans and the next they’re fighting each other.

Any unit starting a turn within 6″ of the Bad Moon totem becomes subject to Orc and Goblin special rule: Animosity for the duration of the turn. Any unit already subject to Animosity becomes even more unruly. Amend the Animosity Table to 1-2: Squabble, 3-4: Plan’s a good ‘un, 5-6: We’ll show ‘em!

First the good stuff. The mechanism of duels to determine actions is great. The range of tactics for managing one’s hand as one progresses through the turn really makes each card flip the starting point for a decision making process. My particular favourite element is the action points system – each model has two points to spend on move, shoot or fight actions in any combination. The nuanced flexibility again breeds decisions beyond the Games Workshop tradition – should my model shoot first and then move back into cover or should it move at double pace to close in on a enemy?

However, while the core gameplay seems solid there are nagging issues at the periphery. Of course, these may be misreadings of the book or basic misunderstandings. Whatever the cause these issues are bugging myself and Rich.

Special events – each turn there is a chance that a special event will happen. Fog may descend to restrict ranged attacks or, if we understand correctly, specific pieces of scenery may appear on the battlefield. This is the issue – the events are clearly defined in terms of their timing, effect and duration. The scenery changes lack clarity as to who places the item and how long it remains for. It feels unwieldy.

Victory conditions – unless one side is entirely dead after the 6 turns it seems impossible to win a game. By having all the victory points tied to missions it has led to each game being a draw even when one faction had a huge upper hand. This may be a factor of using basic crews and not having the models free to break from combat and capture table quarters.

If any Malifaux veterans would care to advise on these minor flaws I’d be very grateful.

As ever I’m hoping to record my thoughts on various nerdy (and some serious) topics. Let’s just see how it goes, eh?