From the mighty, towering Warbosses, we now swing to the other end of the spectrum with the lowly Grot. The labourers, assistants and functionaries that make Ork society (such as it is) function, and occupy the lowest rung in the Warbands.
I avoided GW's Grot with its loin cloth and bare feet, as being too wild and not representative of the IG theme of the Blood Axe army.
I envisioned the Blood Axe's using their Grots more strategically, actually training and equipping them to serve, admittedly as unequal partners, in their Waaaghs. After all, Grots already man the artillery and pilot Killer Kans, so not that far of a stretch.
I also recalled the Whiteshields from early editions of the IG (and I think more recently with Cadians). More inexperienced and less battle hardened recruits seemed like a thematic match with the Grots, so added a white arm band as a nod to those old Whiteshield units.
The first 'squad' of Grots is a Rifle section. There's a fair number of components that go into these guys (totally reasonable for a 2 pt guy that you need 60-90 of, right?)
- The body is from GW's Fantasy Goblin range, only using the less 'medieval' legs and torso.
- Bare heads are GW Goblin heads, while the helmeted heads are from Basicks, one of the early (and now defunct) Polish microcasters, created after the split at MicroArts Studio.
- The guns are converted Lasguns from the plastic Orlock Necromunda sprue
- The other arm is from the GW Empire Flagellants range
- Finally I added things like kit from the IG sprue and a random assortment of backpacks
I've painted them in my standard Longteef colour scheme, kind of an urban camo, with bluey greys and whites and a touch of actual camo on the helmets. I felt I needed to include some actual camo as its a distinctive feature of the Blood Axes, but too much can look muddled (not to mention its quite time consuming to paint) so I felt that just the helmet was a good compromise.
Hope you like this intro to the more rank and file and will be back next post with more of the Grots!