Project: Ork Warboss in Mega Armor – On Hold

Building a Boss

As mentioned in my Deffcopta to Warboss Conversion article, I picked up a spare Ghazghkull Thraka model in a trade. It was poorly assembled and painted. After a quick stripping bath and knocking it apart, he was ready to be rebuilt. On a whim (quite some time ago) I slapped a spare Black Orc banner top on him for a head.

While I like the look, it almost felt more like a Deff Dread than a warboss. Off came the head. Since I’m using the Black Reach warboss as a base for my Biker Boss, I decided to have this be the same boss on foot in Mega Armor. A spare head later (and a bit of trimming to fit) and I have Red Jaw in Mega Armor. (I’ve come up with a name and backstory for my ‘Boss, to be explained after I have the story written out.)

The iron gob is just being held on by friction at this point as I’ll need to paint the face later. Now he needs some weapons. The power klaw is easily identifiable as belonging to Ghazghkull, as is the shoota arm. I like the klaw, I just hate the pose and the closed position it’s in. Time to get stuck in.

I cut back the pistons farther than needed and carved away the mounting brackets. One common mistake I see on open klaw conversions is that the brackets are left as is. The pivot point for the blades is on that mounting bracket so it needs to stay as is. I know I’m not explaining it right, but trust me, it wouldn’t work to just open the klaw. The blade piece is pinned through each piston and copper tubing added back over the pins to rebuild the pistons. A bit of plastic carved to make a new mounting plate on each side and it’s nearly there. Obviously it needs more detailing, but mechanically it’s sound.

The arm was raised up and double-pinned for strength. The existing power cable has been tweaked to come close to attaching to the back. Coming along nicely. Now what to do with that ugly TL shoota???