+ inload: Ork Deff Dread +

+ Fee Fi Fo Fum: The Car-Cemish Campaign +

The Car-Cemish Campaigns were a brutal, dirty war that broke out towards the end of the Nova Terra Interregnum, when the so-called 'Alien Wars' had reached a third peak in activity. It saw the Ironstave League – an abhuman Imperial Dominate in the Galactic East – defending their holds against the orks of Maggrod's Marauders, whose expansionist attacks were becoming increasingly daring and successful following the withdrawal of Battlefleet Potemkin from the region.

The League's mineral-rich Mining Worlds made them a target too tempting for the bloody-handed Maggrod, who invaded Lugnum and the recently-colonised Ichtar VIII in a twin-pronged attack. The squat's calls for aid initially fell on deaf ears from the nearby Imperial Commanders, but as the threat escalated, elements of three Chapters – all freshly drawn from the recent 10th Founding – moved to the support of the embattled abhumans.

Led by the bulk of the Protean Sons; the Astral Claws and Hammers of the Emperor also deployed in Company strength. The campaign was a bitterly-fought affair, with the greenskins forced to assault wherever possible in order to avoid being trapped on the brutally-hostile surfaces of the squat's worlds.

+ Astral Claws desperately engage an ork of the Marauder's specialised Torgox Skwadron, The three pictured battle-brothers were all killed; their remains unable to be retrieved. +

While Maggrod himself was killed relatively early in the war, and the orks largely driven back, one of his lieutenants – the infamous Skakhanak Mad-dagga was able to rally his reeling forces and defeat the Protean Sons in the the Bald Badlands Massacre. With the death of three of their senior officers, the newly-founded Chapter were forced to withdraw from the war, sweating bitter emnity against Mad-dagga's Marauders.

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 + (W)ork in progress +

+ The modern Deff Dread – or ork Dreadnought – model is one of those kits that I loved from the moment it was released, but never quite had a good enough excuse to buy. Eventually, I had a spare bit of scratch and took the plunge. So far, I've just been working on the underlying metals; using a mix of browns, black and silvers to give a lovely varied finish. +

+ The plan is to paint the metal plates, then add scrapes, knocks and bumps by using a sponge and back of a paintbrush to remove it while the paint remains wet. +

+ One of those rare kits that I just wanted to build stock, I was very tempted to use the cool ork 'mask', but decided on the vision slit. This is so I can stick with the Alien Wars core concept of 'what would old models look like if they were made now?' and do an homage to the cardboard dreadnought stand-in from 2nd edition. +

+ RARR! *mechanical grinding noises* +

+ You can see I've started by painting in that very 90s bright red front panel. It'll be an interesting balancing act to get it to both be recognisable as the artwork above, and also fit in with my grimy RT-themed ork force. +

+ Even just looking over these, I can see it'll be tricky – I think I'll end up using Charadon Granite (the core grey colour of the palette I used for these orks) as the basis for the black. +

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+ ...and for those faithful few, those noble sons of the Homeworlds, I promise I'll be getting round to painting up the squats that I've been saving up. The Car-Cemish Campaign seems a perfect excuse. +