Following the teaser shot in the 'one month in' post a couple of days ago I thought it would be polite to do the actual full post on the Storm'amma.
But first, a bit of background....
The Birth of a Dream:
During the battle of Mahenna Gorge the Ork forces under the command of Warlord Rotgul Snagork were decimated by a large Imperial Armoured Company. The image of hundreds of Leman Russ tanks and super heavy vehicles left a lasting impression on the Greenskin Boss. He looked on in awe as a Stormhammer super heavy tank crashed through his lines and let loose a barrage of shells, rounds and lascannon bolts which saw a Dread Mob torn to scrap swiftly followed by a entire mob of trukks and every boy they were carrying. He turned to his Boss Mek, Grubnutz, and said “I wantz one of dem.”
Rotgul had a vision. He had seen the might of the Imperium and its seemingly endless armoured might and he had been impressed. He wanted the same, a green wave of armoured might that could crush anything before them. His Meks looted every scrap they could find from the battlefield, when the Imperial recovery teams moved in they found not one Imperial wreck or damaged vehicle remaining.
Ork Meks are used to looting scavenged vehicles, but they had never done it on this scale before. They copied Imperial designs for tanks and warmachines, often simply replacing Imperial for Ork weapons but always taking the opportunity for “impruvin’” the design to meet their Bosses vision of more dakka. Where they lacked an Imperial wreck to loot they fell back on Orky know-whats and built something from scratch.
Leman Russes, Hellhounds, artillery, Baneblades, Shadowswords and a multitude of other “impruved” Imperial tanks rolled out of the Ork manufacturing plants. Imperial Guard tank commanders captured in battle were forced to help organise the force so it resembled an ad-hoc Imperial Armoured Batttlegroup. Supported by a horde of boyz in chimera like trukks the newly launched Ork Horde of Warlord Rotgul took to the field to face the Imperial forces.
Da Storm’amma
The Stormhammer had made a greater impression on Warlord Rotgul than any other tank he had faced. The sheer size and amount of firepower it possessed called to him like nothing else had.
The first task he set his Meks was to build him a Storm’amma. With the command to improve on the Imperial design. That meant more guns and room for it to carry some boyz into the thick of the battle.
As the Imperial Stormhammer the greenskins had faced in combat (“The Indomitable”) had survived the battle the Meks were forced to take a wrecked Baneblade hull as the basis for their creation. After cutting the great machine into pieces and making some heavy modifications they put the tank back together longer and wider than before giving them the room for the weapons, transport and a louder engine.
Once complete it was armed with enough weapons to make a Bad Moon sweat at what the cost in teef must have been, and had room for a mob of boyz inside. Equipped with a top of the range Ork communication system it could act as a mobile command base while blasting out encouragement to the lads.
Warlord Rotgul put his most trusted tank commander, Duffwort in charge of the Storm’amma. Along with his pet squig Squishy, Duffwort keeps a mixed crew of Nobz, boyz and grots in something close to resembling order. Nothing pleases him more than opening up all of the warmachines weapons in one go, on occasion leading to an accidental Ork or grot casualty, but Duffwort feels it is not his place to fire around the infantry; it is their job to get out of the way.
So basically my Ork army - or rather the random collection of tanks I seem to be building - are all looted Imperial designs. Each one will keep the role it was originally built for, within reason. As such a Shadowsword became Da Choppa - a long range anti-warmachine tank.
Of the tanks I have done so far the biggest by a fair amount is the Storm'amma. Basically a Baneblade which was quartered and then lengthened and widened. It makes a Baneblade look a bit weedy now.
And now the pictures...
The underside shot shows just how much wider and longer the tank is compared to a regular Baneblade kit. Basically if you removed the white bits and glued the grey corners together you get the floor of a Baneblade.
Detail shots:
Track links - As the vehicle was lengthened the Orks had to improvise and extend the tracks - additional Orky road wheels were added and new track links put in (which were a bitch to do, wish I had started casting back then).
Engine/Gubbinz - Amongst other things new exhausts were added, an access panel showing the internal 'big barrel' (no idea what it is for) as well as a removeable paneling above which leads to some fans and another access panel (hinged) leading to the fuel cap and an emergency 'big red button' - well it will be red once painted.
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The door hinges open and the entire panel is removeable thanks
to some magnets which you can't see from the outside. |
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As you can see I changed the door slightly as well as adding
the inspection ledge. |
I think that is enough for the first post, I will do a second one later covering a lot more of the details such as the turrets, sponsons and crew.
