Welp, it is the end of the calendar year so it was time for yet another “Bummer Bowl”, the event where I and a few others at our local gaming store Drawbridge Games compete for who is the least good at a given miniatures wargame. This year we played Aeronautica Imperialis, because it’s so delightfully random as a game. It’s a tournament, where the loser is the one who advances rather than the winner. And everyone is trying to avoid the Bummer Belt, a wresting belt with all sorts of trash glued to it to (more each year) that must be displayed as a mark of shame in our gaming area for the calendar year. Try as I might, I failed… so here is me receiving it in the “Loser Ceremony” hah.

I brought an Ork Air Waaagh, because I’ve been trying hard to stick to Orks for a while. And that proved to be a good decision in some ways, as there are some benefits to Ork planes in the game. But their bigger stuff is a liability, because we use the optional damage rules (with fire and smoke). And lots of points in a big model that loses the ability to shoot entirely if it’s lit on fire, and then slowly can take damage if the crew cannot put the fire out, is bad enough with those rules. Gets all the worse when Ork crew proves to be simply terrible at firefighting. So it was two games of my Ork Mega Bommer getting lit on fire with lucky hits then slowly burning to death while it lumbered around the board. Not my finest moments of gaming, hah.

Still was a great time and good friends to do a silly event with. So was all good. Next year I am DETERMINED to not lose the Bummer Bowl. I need to practice and get ready and hone a list for whatever system we decide to play, only to have us decide to swap two weeks before the event and then just have to get super-lucky at the event.

In addition to the Aeronautica planes I painted for Bummer Bowl, we had an all-flyers event this day as well at the amazing Drawbridge Games. And I got two newly painted Ork Flyers ready for that as well: a Burna-Bommer and a Wazbom Blastajet.

Above is the Burna Bommer, and I just plain love the way the Ork airplanes look. This one is loaded with racks of napalm missiles, and I look forward to taking it into battle in games. Below is the Wazbom Blastjet, which is amusing at least–it’s got a force field projector as well as some crazy heavy weapons that it brings to the battle.

I didn’t stop at painting airplanes tho. I haven’t mentioned it here yet iirc, but my big plan for 2023 is to do two things: a series of Ork “Normandy Invasion” events pitted against my friend’s Tau empire forces. Right now I’m starting to prep the drop assault forces for some skirmishes before we get to the larger games. That meant needing an HQ choice that could accompany Kommandos and Storm Boyz. And I thought, why not a Kommando Big Mek, who shoots a portal from the plane to the ground with a Shock Attack Gun, then uses a tellyporta to fling himself through? Just crazy enough to work? So I modded up a Shokk Attack Gun Mek with a Kommandos head and a little tellyporta on top his gun aimed at himself. And I modded the grot being hoovered up by the gun with the head from the Kommandos kit grot as well as a little backpack. Pretty pleased with the very silly result.

Finally, I finished up a Battlewagon. I’ve had this one mostly painted for a while, but it needed to have the highlights completed. So on a snowy evening in last night I cranked out this model as well.

I’m really pleased with the painting progress I’m making. If I push a bit this holiday week, where I do have some time off, I might even hit an exceedingly artificial goal of 365 Power Level/Points (across two games with totally different point/power systems but whatever). Which isn’t itself a milestone, but still represents a whole lot of Ork painting in the year 2022. I also painted a ton of Genestealer Cults stuff, a bit of AdMech stuff, and some Necrons stuff too. It’s been a lot.

Painting Challenge 2022 Progress

Warhammer 40k Orks Power Level Painted: 125

Aeronautica Imperialis Orks Air Waaagh Points Painted: 197