Alternative Ork Burna Boyz Review

Kromlech Orc Incinerator Team

Kromlech has sent Blood of Kittens products for review and like any good wargamer we sent them off to someone better at painting and hobbying than me, here is a review by one of my favorite players and painters Jody Pez Man. Jody is available for commissions for characters only contact him at pez5767@hotmail.com for pricing and details.

The Kromlech Orc Incinerator Team is a specialist squad for the Kromlech Greatcoats line of Orc models. The Kromlech Orc Greatcoats line, with their World War 2 style uniforms, provides a unique aesthetic of Orc that would be perfectly suited for use as Blood Axes. However, since I am a long time Bad Moonz player (see my older reviews if you don’t believe me), I was curious to see how the Kromlech Orc Incinerator Team would look in flashy yellow and black.

In the picture above, you can see the part of the kit laid out. The boxed set also includes a set of five 25mm round bases. As is often the case, I elected to work in sub-assemblies while I painted these models. While the resin casting required very little clean up, there was a fair amount to do in terms of prepping the models. After clipping off the injection points (vents) for the resin, I glued together any of the pieces of the flame throwers I could. Finally, I’d like to point out the rubber hoses, just above the left most head, in the middle of the picture above; I’ll be talking more about those later.

If you look in the photo above, essentially anything which was on a shared sprue in the first photo was assembled, so items like the blast shield, gun butt, or left arms were attached to reduce the number of overall parts I’d be working with. It’s important to note that I left the arms off the models while I painted, as I knew the arms and weapons would make accessing the model more challenging. I also elected to leave the heads on their frame. The heads are totally interchangeable from one body to the next; however, each gun and set of arms specifically matches with only one body. Kromlech has done an excellent job of splitting these models in such a way that it is impossible to mix up which arms go with which body.

The Orcs above were painted in their basecoat and had their sub-assembly complete. Here you can see the rubber hoses I called out earlier. The two hose bits specifically attach to the two models you see above. The rubber hoses, unlike the resin parts did need a little work to clean up, as they had a fair amount of flash. You’ll want a sharp, fresh hobby knife to remove this extra material, as these hoses are literally a rubber material and as such can be a little problematic to work with. On the models, there is a hollowed-out area in one of the hose couplings on one of the models to receive the hose. You’ll need to glue that end of the hose in first and let the glue fully set before bending the hose to reach the other connection point. I heavily recommend using the end of a hobby knife or a fine drill bit on the surface opposite the first point you glued to create a hollow point to “plug” the hose into. I really appreciate the realistic look of these additional hose bits, but they took considerable effort to get into place neatly, and I’m not sure such a minor detail was worth the additional time and effort it took to add.

(Please forgive my black bases. I am about to undertake rebasing my entire Ork army and I haven’t yet decided on how I want to go about painting those 300+ bases.)

After I got the rubber hoses in place, I dipped the base-coated Kromlech Orc Incinerator Team in thinned water-based MinWax American Walnut Wood Stain, as I usually do. At this point, other than basing the boys were ready for battle. As always, the Kromlech kits are perfect for this wash technique as the plentiful details and crisp sculpting and casting creates deep recesses for the wash to cling to. I’m quite pleased with how the Kromlech Orc Incinerators Team turned out. I think they look decidedly at home in my Bad Moonz color scheme while at the same time not looking like they are part of the fire patrol (which is why I didn’t paint their greatcoats yellow).

“But how do these Kromlech Orc Incinerators compare to the GW Burna Boyz?” I hear you ask. In terms of size, the Kromlech Orc Incinerators are slightly larger than the traditional stooping Games Workshop Ork Burna Boyz. Certainly, having a squad of both the Games Workshop models and the Kromlech models in the same army would provide an easy way to tell the two units apart. That said, the Kromlech Orc Incinerators match up closely enough that if you were to mix a squad between Games Workshop’s current plastics and the Kromlech Incinerators, they would look quite comfortable together. The older metal Games Workshop Burna Boy, while smaller than the Kromlech model, still is bulky enough to not look out of place against its more contemporary counterparts. As a final thought, if you’re playing Orks in Kill Team, the Kromlech Orc Incinerators are an excellent way to represent a specialist Burna Boyz on your team.

Hopefully you’ve found this review helpful. In a few weeks I’ll be back to look at the Orc Chirurgeon on bike. Until then, thank you for reading and happy hobby!