What beats a Kommissar like ol’ Yarrick? An even BIGGA Kommissar! Stands to reason, don’t it?

Armageddon Ork wisdom

I’m taking a slight detour this week to a side project, a brand new Ork Warboss! I have a Blood Axe Ork army that has languished without updates (other than the Kommandos) for the past few editions of Warhammer 40K. But I’m going to blow the dust off them to play a game with Apologist this weekend, as part of his Ashes of Armageddon project. I’ve used my Orks in a lot of different narrative campaign settings over the years, and when I enter a new one, I like to make a new Warboss. I new warlord can often help an existing army feel fresh and new.

Modelling

When I picked up the Ork Warboss in Mega Armour, the LED potential was clear. I knew I had to get that big shoota firing, and I had to do a cool bionic eye to go with the “Yarrork” theme I had planned. The LED techniques used on this model can be found in my LED Muzzle Flare Tutorial. The only difference is for the bionic eye I used a single Red 0805 Chip LED (3V) and 100 ohm resistor from Small Scale Lights, rather than the TruOpto 1.8mm LED mentioned in the tutorial. This LED is sculpted into a bionic eye mounted on the Warboss’s face, rather than being embedded in a resin head.

The Blood Axe officers cap was sculpted from ProCreate modelling putty. When sculpting something like this, I find it’s best to work one layer at a time, allowing the first layer to dry before adding the next. I started by sculpting the peak/visor directly onto the head of the miniature, followed by the section that would become the red band. Next, I added the main bulk of the cap, and then I added the top layer that would form the rim. Finally, I sculpted the skull insignia. This is quite time consuming, but it’s probably easier and produces better results than trying to sculpt the whole thing in one go.

The blood on the axe (geddit?) is created from Araldite two-part epoxy resin. This might not actually be the best material for this, but it’s the only type of epoxy I had to hand. I mixed it up and allowed it to cure for a few minutes until it was partially cured and tacky. Then I used a spare piece of plastic rod to apply it to the blades, being sure to string it between the two saws. Once the epoxy had dried, I applied one thin coat of Citadel Blood for the Blood God technical paint. Both the epoxy and this paint are semi-transparent, which creates a very effective liquid gore effect.

The so-called “Kommissar Yarrork” was most likely born from an Orky desire to emulate an intimidating opponent like Commissar Yarrick, and the typical Blood Axe need to ape the most effective parts of the Human military machine. This hulking brute formed part of Ghazghkull Thraka’s “Counsill of Clan-bosses”. It is unknown whether he was already part of the council when he assumed the Yarrork identity, or whether this persona resulted in his elevation. In any case, it was all for nought, as there are no confirmed recorded instances of the greenskin imposter getting within a hundred miles of the honourable Commissar Yarrick during the war.

Extract from ‘The Second War for Armageddon: A Final Definitive History’ by Scribe Primus Howtopher Buxcraft

Painting

I wanted to keep the mega armour fairly neutral, so I settled for a Leadbelcher and Nuln Oil scheme. This utilitarian scheme is in keeping with the ‘Commissar’ and Blood Axe theme of the model, and helps to frame the points of interest like the face, gun grot and axe head. This is also why the armour glyphs are grey, to provide a little bit of visual interest but not draw the eye away too much. For all other elements, such as the skin, leather and red trousers, I followed the paint recipes detailed in this post. The only exception was the grot skin, which I wanted to appear as a slightly different tone from the boss. So I substituted Straken Green for Warboss Green for and Nurgling Green for Skarsnik Green in my normal Ork Flesh recipe.

It was tempting to sculpt Shootit the grot some fancy clothes since he is obviously the boss’s favourite, but in the end, I decided to keep him fairly drab and utilitarian, so that he didn’t draw focus. I did give him a gold cap badge though, just to show he is a bit more important than the average grot.

The helmets on the boss pole are painted in the colours of the three Space Marine chapters that were cannonically involved in the Second War of Armageddon: the Blood Angels, Ultramarines and Salamanders. I stuck to canonical MkVI and MkVII helmets, which are probably the most appropriate for the era.

That’s all for today, I hope you’ve enjoyed this detour to Armageddon. Thanks very much for reading today’s post, and please remember you can also follow my work on social media at Instagram, Threads, Twitter/X, Bluesky and Mastodon. And of course don’t forget to check out Apologist’s Ashes of Armageddon project blog!