Legion of the Damned Landspeeder Progress

 

Hi folks,

A couple of months ago this Landspeeder showed up on eBay for a princely sum. Knowing how rare they are to find complete and unassembled, I put my order in very quickly and added it to my Christmas list. Landspeeders are one of the few vehicles that Legion of the Damned can field according to the 2nd Edition army list, so I really wanted one to add a bit of variety to my army. I could take a Rhino as well, but I prefer to teleport my marines in; it is so much more characterful!

All of the parts were accounted for and in excellent condition. I think the base is a more modern one, which I am not going to complain about. The original was such an awful thing. As it is, the model will be prone to snapping due to the weight of the model on such a fragile stem. I am sorely tempted to use metal rod instead, but I'll give the clear base a go first. If I ever have to repair it, I'll be using something a lot more robust.

Interestingly, two of the pieces have different year stamps on them. It makes me wonder if this box was a "Frankenstein's Monster" kind of deal. Again, I have nothing to complain about, especially considering they are both from the mid-90's.

I spent an hour or so trimming metal flash and mould lines with my hobby knife. Metal Landspeeders are notoriously difficult to assemble, so I have taken my time putting it together. I left the engine block overnight to set and will keep it as a sub-assembly. Attaching the seats was probably the most frustrating part (so far, at least), as slight bends in some of the parts have left odd gaps. I doubt you will notice on the finished model, otherwise I would pull it apart again and carefully bend the parts back into shape. 

Hopefully, I'll get some time tomorrow to undercoat the parts and get started with the free-hand flames. 

See you across the table,

Marc

Legion of the Damned Combat Squad 2: TO-DONE!!!

 

Hi folks,

During the Easter long weekend I went down the south coast of NSW with my wife and kids. After a pretty horrible couple of months, I really needed to get away and reset. The place where we stayed is very dear to me and has a way of reminding me who I am. My family has been visiting here for over 50 years (before I was born!) so walking out to the beach is like travelling back in time. So many important things that have shaped me as a person have happened right here. Interestingly, it is also the place where I first played 40K, on an old camping table with folded cardboard figures. 

When I got home, with sand in my pockets and nothing on my mind, I realised I had very little time to get my project done for the 2nd Edition Army Challenge. I have really loved being a part of it, so the idea of falling short in the 5th month didn't appeal to me. I quickly put together some subassemblies an undercoated some things, then raced off at the start of the new school term to a Year 8 camp (supervising 60+ 14 year olds). By the time I returned I had less than 48 hours to finish the squad! Knowing this, I promptly procrastinated for another 24 hours and spent time with my son, playing board games and watching Fellowship of the Ring. During the last 24 hours I posted WIP shots as I burned my way through the painting stages, it was pretty epic and the other challengers gave me wonderful support. Here are some photos of the finished Legionnaires:

This month is bonus month and I have a large backlog of extra models I didn't get around to earlier. I'm hoping I can make a dent in those, or even get them all done. It would be really great to have the whole force complete before I move on to some more modern models and other things.

See you across the table,

Marc

Legion of the Damned Combat Squad TO-DONE!!!

 

Hi folks,

It has been another tough month on the "real life" front for me, but I still managed to scrape some hobby from the bottom of the jar and serve up this Legion of the Damned combat squad. The free-hand flames and bones were gloriously painful to paint with the deadline looming, but overall I have to say the artistic process was cathartic. The finished projects for the challenge this month should be posted soon, so if you would like to see some more retro goodness (the Eldar painters in particular are killing it), please take a look at the Dr The Vikings Cowabunga Slice and Dice blog. I have been writing a bit of fiction for each of my entries, so if you are interested on my own personal take on the nature of the Legion, you can catch up with the previous posts too. Here are a couple of close up shots of the finished models for this month. I am particularly happy with the squad leader, the base model for which was one of my first purchases in the hobby. They came in blisters of three back in those days! the rest came from a Warriors of the Imperium box my mate Heinz gave to me at some point.

I am a little concerned that I am running out of arms for my tactical marines at the moment, so I think next month I will have to do a scavenger hunt in my garage for spares. I am also ashamed to admit that I have nearly blown the deadline for Monster March. I'll see if I can salvage my project today.

See you across the table,

Marc

Legion of the Damned Dreadnought TO-DONE!!!

 

Hi folks,

It feels like it has been ages since I posted anything, primarily because it literally has been ages. So far, this year has been horrible. My son was pretty sick with COVID at the start of the school term, which also happens to be a rotten time to have time off, due to the workload all teachers have as we try to get everything going. A week after returning to work I became unwell myself, with some random thing, that put me in the hospital within a couple of days and made me profoundly unwell for 8 days. In total, I lost 8 kg of weight during this time, which is over 10% of my body weight. Within 2 hours of me returning to work, something else happened, which has taken weeks of active management to settle. The short of it is, real life has really put me in a dark hole the past couple of months. I'm slowly digging myself out, but it is going to take some time. During the last coupe of days of my illness, when I could stomach sitting up for a while, I managed to finish this Dreadnought for the 2nd Ed. Army challenge. I even wrote some fiction to go with it, which has been published on the challenge blog.

A fun challenge for the month was to paint something red (it is a 2nd Edition challenge, after all!). I chose to start working on some objective markers, starting with this Khorne helmet. Poor guy must have had some seeds in his pockets, because Khorneflowers have bloomed where he fell...

At the moment I am constructing a combat squad for the next challenge deadline, and feverishly painting a Tyranid monstrosity for Monster March... more about that later!

See you across the table,

Marc