How to be... Gorbad Ironclaw

Gorbad Ironclaw
Gorbad Ironclaw, atop his vicious boar Gnarla, was the mightiest Warlord that ever lived. Gorbad Ironclaw and his tribe, the Ironclaw Orcs, absorbed the Broken Tooth tribe along with the local Goblin and Night Goblin tribes, to create a massive force of Greenskin warriors. The tribe marched through Black Fire Pass to attack the Empire under the Emperor Sigismund. Gorbad's army conquers the territories of Solland and Wissenland, but Gorbad himself was wounded in the fighting. At the fortress of Altdorf, the Waaagh! was kept at bay outside the city walls. Gorbad unleashed Wyverns upon the city, who threw the defenders into disarray but were ultimately repelled without achieving their main function, which was to destroy the city gates. Eventually, the lack of progress and Gorbad's injury took their toll on morale, and the army disintegrated. The remnants of Gorbad's tribe were ambushed and defeated on their way home by a Dwarf army under the King of Karaz-a-Karak. It is not known if Gorbad survived the encounter.

Part two in my "How to be..." series (part one is here). Today I focus on Gorbad Ironclaw, an Orc (not a Black Orc) who rose to become a great Warlord. Although Gorbad wasn't a Black Orc, I don't see any reason why we can't recreate him. One of the challenges for Gorbad was that he appears to have a couple of Choppa items (helm and chest) so I've attempted to recreate them as much as possible within my set guidelines of making it as easy as possible to achieve.

Sadly though, one thing I have messed up on is that there are a few items I've used which are quest rewards (search for the items on WARDB to find the quests) so apologies if you've already done them and trashed the reward. If I find an easier way to get the items then I'll try and remember to update this post.

I've used the following pictures of Gorbad as reference:



At least working out the colouring is easy, blood red the whole way through.! Once again, the shoulders became a bit of a pain, there's nothing really that matches up, but also they are fairly hidden under his cloak on the model and painting so I've simply used a fairly low key set which doesn't stand out. The cloak potentially could be replaced by the Tyrant Glyph back piece as it has the fur style plus the pole at the top but I've gone for the easier option to get (that and I don't actually have the back piece.. *mutters*).

I'm not overly happy with the weapon either, I feel there's a choppa which resembles it more but I can't seem to find it, in fact I'm almost positive there is and it used to drop as T4 green loot, but damned if remember properly. The chest I'm sure I can find a better version for as well, but the Carnage one I used (just do some newbie PQ's) works in the meantime.

So here we go, Gorbad Ironclaw. WAR style (click for bigger pictures).




Head: Ancient (Antiquated)/Conqueror 'Eadplate
Shoulders: Shouldaplate of da Miner (Quest)
Chest: Bodyplate of Carnage
Back: Vanguard Cloak (T4 renown vendor)
Gloves: Staunch Manifers of Skill (T4 green drop)
Belt: Decent plackart of Skill (T2 green drop)
Boots: Primeval/Invader/Darkpromise
Weapon: Bad Waaagh Choppa
Shield: Blocka o' da Doombull

To read up a bit more on Gorbad Ironclaw, I suggest you visit the Games Workshop page about him. Some fun little tidbits of information. HERE

How to be Grimgor Ironhide

Grimgor Ironhide
No one knows Grimgor’s early history. He came from the east, staggering out the Blasted Wastes with an unknown number of grizzled, tired and hungry Black Orc bodyguards, now known to other Orcs as "Da Immortulz" (The Immortals). Upon entering the northern portion of the Worlds Edge Mountains he quickly took over the first tribes of Greenskins he came upon and within a month had carved out a small empire for himself. From there he set course on a campaign of destruction that the northern Worlds Edge Mountains had rarely seen in their history.

So with the new armour and weapon appearance system in place I thought it would be a fun idea to try to replicate some of the famous Orcs from lore. For my first one I decided on Grimgor Ironhide, as you can read above (and the link sends you to a Wikipedia article about him if you want to find out more).

So I did a bit of digging around on him and came across pictures of him and his miniature in the tabletop game. I decided to stick with the Games Workshop colour theme and try to replicate his armour and appearance as much as possible. Now a word of warning, it will not be 100% accurate, for once thing Lokax has a big metal plate stuck on his head so please ignore that for the sake of appearance, and the armour in game does not always equal what you see in artwork or on miniatures so it's as best as I can manage. Grimgor also appears in game at the last Greenskin hard PQ I believe, I've not used this as reference at all.

My rule of thumb for these is that all equipment should be relatively OK to put together, I want to try and avoid Sovereign and the likes so that most people can put together the same gear. Below are a couple of painted models (the first is the Games Workshop painted one so I've gone with that colour scheme) that I used for reference as well as the artwork above.

The actual armour set I came up with was easier than expected once I'd stopped trying to be absolutely perfect. For example I was looking for boots without spikes on the knees but were heavy full plate... Don't think there is any, so I had to settle on spikes. Same with the shoulders, I couldn't find any rounded shoulders that looked like Grimgors so I had to use ones with spikes on them. Oh and also, lets not mention the pose...

During my travels should I come across more armour models that will suit it better I will update the armour list. If you read the background, at one point Grimgor heads into High Pass so I placed him there for the screenshot. But in the meantime here we go...

Head: None/Hidden
Shoulders: Shouldaplate of the Fallen Explorer (green drop from Land of the Dead)
Chest: Primeval/Invader/Darkpromise
Back: None/Hidden
Gloves: Primeval/Invader/Darkpromise
Belt: Primeval/Invader/Darkpromise
Boots: Primeval/Invader/Darkpromise
Weapon: Bigchoppa of the Darkscale (from Lost Vale but the model does appear quite often)

I used Chaos Black primary dye and Ulgu grey secondary dye (ok, I used the Dye Preview addon) to get the colouring right and for the belt I used.. gah, can't remember now, but chaos black is the secondary colour. I used a knife trophy to try and simulate the choppa Grimgor has on the side and removed the other trophies.

It's easier to get the primeval pieces as there is no Renown or dungeon required. Just search for "priceless" on the auction house to find the repairable pieces.

You can also read more about Grimgor Ironhide on the official GW website here