Van Diemen's World Veterans: Heavy Weapon Squad TO-DONE!!!

 

H folks,

About 12 months ago The Trooper and I put a fairly big order into Victoria Miniatures to bolster his Imperial Guard collection (Astra Millawhatsits). I have been working on them ever since, in short bursts. I find Victoria Miniatures figures to be beautiful but challenging to paint. As a result, I hit quite a few stumbling blocks with these guys. During the last stages of painting the squad, I was spending 2 hours on each infantry model just to finish them off! That's why I don't collect Imperial Guard, I guess.

The autocannons themselves were completed a long time ago. They look a lot like Bren guns, a light support machine gun used by Australia in active service for a long time. I have painted the rounds with a blue tip to represent incendiary rounds (note also the blue stripe on the ammo boxes. The bases were done using dried soil from out near Parkes/Dubbo in central-western NSW. My mother-in-law went for a tour out there and collected soil wherever they stopped for me to use as basing material. All I can say is that I felt very loved!

See you across the table,

Marc

Ork Rukkatrukk Squigbuggy TO-DONE!!!

 

Hi folks,

For Christmas last year my son received a GW gift certificate from his uncle. After very careful consideration at my FLGWS, he chose to bring home one of these squig buggy things. The selection suits him so well! Over the past 9 months we have assembled it and painted together in short bursts; you canonly hold the attention of an 8 year old for so long. This holidays he said he wanted to finish it off, so we made one last big effort to get it done. 

It is, with perhaps the exception of my Imperial Knights, the most complicated model I have ever been involved with. Thankfully, my son is fearless and just got stuck in. I had a good chat to him about sub-assemblies, because I couldn't think of any other way to do it that he wouldn't find completely frustrating.

He is a very happy grot with the finished project; I can definitely see the impact Splatoon has had on his paint scheme. During the project I was constantly impressed and surprised by his brush control, he is just a bit ridiculous for his age. I helped him with the very small detail on the faces and squigs, as well as some washes (he is afraid of spilling the bottles). I did some of the checker patterns as well, he is still learning how to do those. Here are some final shots:

Hopefully, I can keep his love of orks going for a while. You never know with kids, but I think this will be something he remains proud of, even if 40K doesn't end up being his thing. 

See you across the table,

Marc

To-Do List 2021/22

 

Hi folks,

My new hobby to-do list is enormous, just like the last one. With most* of my 2nd Edition Dark Angels complete, I will be shifting my sights to a classic Legion of the Damned army later in the year. Legion of the Damned were my first army, so returning to them and giving them some justice on the paint table (hopefully) will be very cathartic.

My 9th Edition work will be focused on finishing off my Dark Angels Crusade army "The Last of the Plains People". I have a lot of options for that army as it grows, so I will probably be adding things to my list just as I cross them off! I also have a Warglaive to do for DreadTober and several family projects to work on. My son is still painting Orks with me, though we have had a break due to other distractions.I have just gone with the flow with this, because he is so young, but yesterday he was gazing lovingly at them and said he would really like to paint some more. Wifey has also been waiting for me to help her base her Necrons, which we got a roller for from Greenstuff World. That's a post in itself, so keep an eye out for it.

I have a couple of Age of Sigmar jobs to work on just for fun, we'll see if they can be a palette cleanser at some stage. That includes a couple of Warhammer Underworlds bands that I picked up during lockdown (supporting those local FLGSs), which I am keen to play on the tabletop when this COVID lockdown ends. 

With Wave 2 of the BattleTech Clan Invasion KickStarter (that's more capital letters than one would usually put in the middle of words...), you can expect A LOT of Mechs getting painted over the next 12 months. I am absolutely NOT adding them to my pile of shame**. 

I have also kinda forced my best mates into playing some Aristeia with me, which is an anime styled, futuristic, eclectic, skirmish, gameshow, tabletop, miniatures, boardgame. I have two teams from the core set ready to go, including some alternate models for Musashi (the famous samurai of legend) and 8-ball (a fluffy kung fu panda). It is a highly enjoyable game to play, so hopefully I can include some battle reports on the blog.  

Of course, there will be projects that jump out of the shadows and grab my attention; there is at least one super-secret piece I will be working on when it reaches me from Canada, which I am very excited about. 

If you want to check out the full to-do list, just check the side panel, it will be there all year as I slowly cross off projects!

See you across the table,

Marc

* I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.

** Oh Crom, please don't let any of these end up in the grey tide.

2020/2021 Hobby Season Review

 

Hi folks,

At the start of this hobby season I wrote a monumental to-do list, with the hope that I would get a fraction of the things done. A lot of my energy was poured into the 2nd Edition Army Challenge, which has to be one of the best things I have ever done in the hobby. The camaraderie between the challengers is fantastic and the work being done is just amazing on a daily basis. As a result, a lot of my 2nd Edition projects have been finished. 

In October last year I helped run DreadTober for the first time, which was a great experience. My son even painted an Ork Dreadnought with me for the challenge, then proceeded to rip me a new one with it on the tabletop! I can't wait to do DreadTober again this year! Hopefully, we can get a whole lot of people onboard again this year and make some amazing stompy bots. 

I also participated in Monster March this year and managed to paint a Forest Dragon which has been sitting in pieces at the bottom of my bitz box for way too long. It is in my daughters little Wood Elf army now, which pleases me no end. I advertised the challenge on MeWe, which has a very small but lovely Age of Sigmar community, and Gav Thorpe decided to join us in the challenge. Sharing WIP shots with one of my teenage White Dwarf idols was surreal. 

Sometime during the year the first wave of the BattleTech Clan Invasion KickStarter arrived at my front door. This is so exciting to me, I cannot even... Anyways, I managed to paint most of the Mechs I received in this initial delivery, including some for my good mates.

A little later in the year Sydney went into a harsh lockdown due to COVID19, which we are yet to come out of.  I challenged myself to finish a crusade army in this time. Quite a few of those models are on my to-do list as well, but I have not been quite as successful in getting them finished. Having said that, the preparation work is solid, so I am pretty sure I will get some wins on the board next season! There have been some significant exceptions to this though, which I will show at the end of the post. I even managed to get a few cracking games in before the lockdown curtain fell. I am really looking forward to some more gaming when it is safer to do so.

Overall, this season has really been a blast! Here are some finished projects:

2nd Edition Army Challenge

DreadTober

Monster March

BattleTech Clan Invasion KickStarter

9th Edition 40k

Tomorrow a new hobby season dawns! A new To-Do list will be forged! New badges of completion will be thrice blessed and sanctified! With it will be plenty of projects carried over from this season, as well as plenty of newcomers... if you can ever really call vintage Legion of the Damned figures "new"...

See you across the table,

Marc