Looking Back: Warhammer 40,000 2nd Edition Gretchin

I've got a war inside my head.

Over the last few months, we have been thinking a lot about greenskins in various forms, from painting a longsnout, to playing Space Gits, to converting the Red Gobbo, to being hopeful for the upcoming edition of Warhammer 40,000, to finally be disappointed when the orks were revealed. With the devastating loss of John Blanche, we have been reflecting on how we got involved with the hobby, particularly with the 2nd edition of Warhammer 40,000. The legendary cover artwork for this edition features a group of Blood Angel Space Marines being assaulted from all sides by Space Orks. This piece of art pulled us into a hobby shop and led to us getting a copy of the 2nd edition of Warhammer 40,000, where we went on to paint every model in the box, including the 40 mono-pose gretchin. These charming gretchin and the more vicious-looking ork boyz were our introduction to Space Orks, and continue to hold a special place in our hearts. John’s passing prompted us to pull out some of the original models we assembled and painted. We were particularly happy to see the small legion of gretchin, and wanted to showcase them here, as a reminder of how we started this hobby, and hopefully also as a push to keep working on greenskin models in 2026!

This iconic piece of artwork by John Blanche is responsible for getting us into the miniature wargaming hobby.

One of the Warhammer 40,000 2nd Edition plastic Gretchin sprues from the boxed game. It came with 40 of these little guys! Look for a conversion of one of these in the future on the blog!

Some of the first models we painted after starting in the hobby, followed by a recently painted Longsnout. From left to right we have one of the 2nd edition gretchin, a GorkaMorka mek, and a Longsnout. We have come quite a long way since 1996 (the amount of primer on some of these early models makes us cringe now).

A fraction of the 40 Gretchin included in the Warhammer 40,000 2nd edition boxed game.

We also found an assortment of characterful snotling models that we painted over the years, including one with a squig being served on a small platter.

We also found some painted grots from the Rebel Grot/GorkaMorka era that were painted at a slightly higher standard (which is not saying much).

- Eric Wier