This Warkopta is my latest project. To widen the kopta, I separated the two hull halves and bridged the gap between them with styrene sheets and a few vehicle bitz from my bitz box. More styrene was used to build shooting platforms along each side of the hull.

TheGM: The Gaffer has a massive ork army, so for many years I never saw a reason to paint orks. Then I went to a wargame convention flea market.

There, I found a Vietnam-era helicopter that a hobbyist had converted into an ork Warkopta.

It was quite fun. It had an ork gunner in the front with a rokkit launcher, and some orks shooting out of the side hatches. And it was painted a bright red—you know, to make it fly faster.

Suddenly I had this powerful urge to build a kopta-based army.

It was ridiculous. I already was painting half a dozen armies. I didn’t need another. So, I put the Warkopta on a shelf and left it for years.

This was my original Warkopta, purchased at a convention flea market. It’s the inspiration for the entire project.

Then, late last year, I was tired of simply adding to my existing armies. I’d already built and painted too many Imperial Guard, Space Marines, Necrons, Tau, Genestealers, Adeptus Mechanicus, etc. I actually was thinking of playing a computer game for a while.

Then my eyes fell on that kopta on the shelf. I’d never painted an ork. But if I didn’t need an ork army, couldn’t I build and paint a small warband of kopta-based xenos for skirmish gaming?

Naturally, I answered Yes.

Again, as I will repeat incessantly with these how-to articles, I am a mediocre, paint-by-numbers painter. So, I don’t have much to say about painting koptas.

When I decided to build my army’s second Warkopta (the first being bought), I painted a lot of the hull panels different colors, using washes and dry-brushing instead of a nice, solid colors. Oh, also I added lots of rust. I made my  kopta as ramshackle looking as I could.

As to the ork pasengers, I can say that I took a lesson from the Gaffer and painted my orks so that each mob was easily distinguishable. (So if two mobs get close, you can tell which model go with each mob.)

My Deffkoptas charge an Imperial Guard squad. The squad was decimated by the sheer firepower and mechanical builk of the koptas.

My first mob of 10 was painted with brown shirts and a desert keffiyeh—a head scarf—to clearly designate the squad. My second mob is painted with dirty white shirts.

Head attire identifies each mob, too. One mob has the leather headdress of WW I pilots—sometimes called a leather flying helmet.  I also have ork heads with WW I Pickelhaube helmets (the helmets with the spike on top). And a set of pirate hats.

For this article, what’s really important is what what I’m building and painting—and my thinking about my army list. My vision is this:

• Three Warkoptas: I recently built and painted my second using a large-scale historical helicopter. I  added lots of orky bitz. I took the two hull halves of the original model and widened the hull by using styrene sheets and vehicle bitz to bridge a gap between the two sides.

I also added a platform on each side of the hull  to hold 10 greenskins and a warboss.

Recently, I went to another convention flea market and snagged an old Forge World Warkopta. That wraps up this part of the army.

Obviously these Warkoptas are the main transports of my army—essentially glorified Trukks. Not all of them will make it to the enemy, but I can always jinx—as going Flat Out means I can’t shoot anyway.

• Nine Deffkoptas: Each Warkopta will be escorted into battle by three Deffkoptas. Not only does this look cool, but the Deffkoptas are a much more deadly than the Warkoptas (which are open-topped transports of mediocre armor and an obvious big target).

Deffkoptas also are rock-hard with Toughness 5, and there will be a lot of them, so they actually may last longer than my big koptas. Five are already painted; the rest are assembled and waiting for their paint job.

• One unit of Stormboyz: I already own Zagstruck, the only named ork model with a jetpack. I like the idea of having a mob of stormboyz that deep-strike onto the battlefield (obviously from a kopta at high altitude and thus not on the tabletop). I also like the fact that I don’t need to paint that kopta.

• Two Dakkajets: I still play 7th Edition, and Dakkajets in this edition are simply deadly. True, they can’t hold objectives, but they are the best shooters in the ork army. And I need some units that actually can hit things.

I actually will buy three Dakkajets. I have an old White Dwarf article about a fellow who converted a Dakkajet into a biplane. That means I will scrounge bitz from two boxes to make one conversion.

• One Stompa: What? What happened to my all-kopta army? Well, skimmers are fliers but not really aircraft. Ground troops can melee them. Thus, if I build a monstrosity of a kopta, use it as a skimmer without the “fleet” special rule, I can build a huge “Stompakopta” and use it a proxy of a Stompa and fit the “theme” of this army.

I’m excited by the idea of a Stompakopta. I see a large WW I dirigible as the backbone of the model, with lots of helicopter blades helping to keep it afloat. Maybe I’ll convert Deffkoptas to provide the engines and blades, and I may have some pieces from that extra Dakkajet model that I can use, as well.

The war carriage will simply be a massive platform with handrails, armed naturally with all sorts of big shootas and plenty of room for shoota-armed orks.

One thing, though: I don’t think this army is going to be particularly successful.

In my first tabletop fight with two Warkoptas and six Deffkoptas, the two Warkoptas were shot down on Turn 1, and my boyz had to hoof it on foot to the enemy. Not a promising first experience.

(I replayed the beginning of that battle again, and both Warkoptas were shot down again. So, it’s not looking good for the effectiveness of this small army).)

But who cares? Building and painting this army is the point and, in a solo game, I can adjust the opponent’s army composition to make it a fair fight against my kopta army, which will clearly be unbalanced and a bit vulnerable.

I just want to have fun. (Play the theme to Cyndi Lauper’s 1983 hit song.)

When finish the project, I’ll photograph the entire “fleet”—hopefully with a proper camera that produces better photos.

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The Corvus Cluster is a Warhammer 40K blog documenting our hobby adventures in the fantastical sci-fi universe of Games Workshop.