Grath Watchmen

Here's my patrol squad of Grath. Originally they were some vintage Warhammer 40k Ogryns, way back from first edition, which puts them at about twenty years old according to the year molded on their slottabases. They'll work as any big, brutish troops in a sci-fi or quasi-fantasy modern setting. They're Ogres with guns basically.


I had traded (or bought, can't remember) these guys from Andy, who in turn got them off of ebay. They came painted as is, and only took a little bit of tweaking. They've been 'dipped' using PolyShades MinWax Black Tudor, and some areas on the figs were touched up as needed. They were based originally, but not very well, so they were also given new, matching bases.


On some of the figs their Ripper Guns weren't even painted, they were just left silver, same with their chain mail. The dip easily took care of this. I like this trooper because of his expression and copper colored armor. His left gauntlet is pretty cool too.


Here's a closeup of his flair I added (hence the title Grath "Watchmen". I used a .01 tipped permanent graphing pen for the black and a little red paint on the tip of a detail brush for the rest. I'm not the first person to put a Watchmen button on a fig, my buddy Supervike paid a little DC Comics homage a while back as well on a Spinespur fig, you can see it here.


Another fairly basic paintjob enhanced ever-so-slightly by the dipping process. Touch ups on this fig were kept to a minimum.


Nice camo pants on this one, and a beer-can grenade to boot. Again, no paint on the Ripper Gun, but I really like the impromptu head swap for a very sci-fi looking helmet. This guy would be the squad leader by default.


This one had a lot of touch up work to be done. I wish the whole team had this copper colored paint scheme.


It would unfair to say that this fig reminds me of someone in our group, but it does, really. He needed an above average amount of touch ups too. I like how the Ripper Gun is almost fully painted as well; stock, body, magazine!

As the title suggests, these aren't going to be used in the 40k universe, but rather the 5150 universe, as the aforementioned brutish Grath. Below is a pic of the Ogryn page out of my first edition Warhammer 40k Compendium, and following that is the official writeup on the 5150 version of the Ogryn, the Grath. They'll see the majority of action on the tabletop in this capacity.

Graths survive solely by fluid intake. They have the ability to convert most fluids into the necessary nourishment it needs to survive. Just a word to the wise, they do not care where they obtain this fluid.

The Grath is the perfect warrior. Graths will fight anyone (including each other), any place, anytime, and are in constant demand as mercenaries throughout the 5150 universe. Only in GAEA PRIME controlled areas are the Grath not used. In fact, any Grath caught in Gaea Prime areas are immediately destroyed.

Graths prefer hand-to-hand combat and will always toss aside their weapons to do so. They have no concept of sleep or imagination and are basic in there intellect. Graths are extremely loyal to their employers and it is common for a Grath to know only one employer during their lifetime. This can be a very, very, long time as there is no known natural cause of death for a Grath, just combat.