Project: Ork Warboss on Foot – On Hold

Building New Legs

With the decision made to replace the legs on my Biker version of Red Jaw, I made a couple more decisions. One was to build a 500 point force to play against my son. The other was that in order to do that AND test the build for the leg swap I needed a foot version of Red Jaw (other than the Mega Armor version).

Grabbing yet another copy of the Ork Warboss from the Black Reach set (I have 4 more in total to work with), I immediately set to with the saw and hacked off both legs. No need for neatness in this kind of serjery. I’ve been eyeballing the spare feet I have from the Khador Scrapjack. I had stockpiled a few sets to use as feet swaps on my Berserker army and now they have no purpose. They look suitably Orky, and can easily double for warboss feet. I added the plant foot with a bit of tubing for a knee. The box was bulked up a bit with strips of plasticard and old OOP bike wheel caps fit perfectly on the ends of the tubing for the knee.

Looking pretty snazzy so far. A bionik leg worthy of a Bad Moon boss. Now to make it “work”.

I started by adding two pistons at the rear to replicate the hamstring muscles. They’ll also do the work of the quads since they are push/pull. rather than just pull like human/ork muscles. I’ve also added metal braces on both sides of the thigh that attach to the outer edges of the knee cylinder. Since that needs to be a hinge I’ll either need to carve grooves into the tubing or add strips around it to represent that. Something I should have thought about before gluing it all together. This is why I like a practice run first.

Dressings (rivets, bolts, etc.) still need to be added. Hoses of course are mandatory. The basic structure is there though. I’ll focus on the other leg and then clean up both at the same time.

The other leg will be trickier. It’s the raised foot on the Scrapjack. I’m not sure whether to keep the foot the way it is or try to mod it first. I The model has to stand on a 40mm base, so I’ve been toying with which Dragon Forge base to use. So far I’m looking at having to modify one. That’s okay, I just don’t want to make a habit of it.