Power Armoured Paint: Land Speeder Completed

 Welcome back to the Vault! Today's post is brief as it's been a long weekend. Saying that I've found enough hobby time to complete the Land Speeder for the Light Bringers Space Marines. I wasn't happy with the boring flight stand it came with and rustled up a funky base as well!

Warsmith's Words: The Retro Raider

 Welcome back to the Vault! My recent hobby sessions have taken a slight tangent. Hobby Brain has been saying "Finish the Iron Warriors Kill Team". Hobby Heart has said "Blow that; build the new shiny!"

Heart beat Head. My friend Jon at Battle Bling recently released a Land Raider mod kit which turns the plastic model into a retro Raider with a lot of nods back to the Proteus. One impulse purchase later, the bits were in my grubby mitts!

With its calling back to early models I figured this model ought to be an ancient Chapter Relic, and should belong to the Veterans of the Long War. I had ideas to convert the Lascannons and Heavy Bolters with Death Guard bitz (Entropy Cannons and other Nurgley guns) but I couldn't find all the cannon parts in the spares box.

And so the Iron Warriors have received reinforcements!

Pestilential Painting: Spreading the Sickness

 Welcome back to the Vectorium! Octoberfest is approaching fast and the Death Guard are mustering for war! I thought it would be fun to create some themed Objective Markers to use at the event. The Death Guard have a secondary objective called "Spread the Sickness" which thematically involves corrupting objectives so what could be more appropriate than some pools of filth and nurgley grossness! 

First up are the chewed up remains of an Emperor's Spear and some sort of larva emerging from the pool having feasted upon the yummy marine bits nearby.

Yes Dave. I went there.

Pestilential Painting: Infected Rhino Transport

 Welcome back to the Vectorium! Today's post is both early and short! I'm off to Warhammer World tomorrow with some of the First Founding 40Kers, and we are making a full day of it. I'm taking along the Death Guard as we've got a table booked for a multiplayer game, and we'll still have plenty of time to visit the Exhibition Hall, go impulse shopping in the store, and eat lunch in Bugmans!

I have a couple of units on the hobby desk at the moment; a unit of Blight Lord Terminators are almost complete and I've started a second Rhino Transport. In true Death Guard fashion I've been modifying the stock Rhino kit to show Papa Nurgle's blessings.

Fixing the Vindicare

Welcome back to the Vault! I'll admit today's post is a bit of a click-baity title; I don't mean fixing the Vindicare's rules in any way, I literally mean repairing my broken Vindicare model.

My Sniper model is one of the old school metal models, and it had an unfortunate episode some time ago where it fell off a shelf onto the floor. It's arm with the rifle broke off, and the material fixed to the base was damaged. Here's a picture of the original pre-"incident".

Twisted Fungi

 Welcome back to the Vault! I've had a wonderful few days of holiday, and I've indulged in some painting sessions. I mentioned in the last painting post that I wanted to work on some non-Death Guard models as I've got a bit jaded painting gold trim and grunge! 

So first of the mini projects is the Twisted Fungi collection from Krakon Games. I'm a big fan of the quirky Krakon models, having backed a few of their Kickstarters (I selected these fun guys from the Sidhe/forest creatures project).

Pestilential Painting: Foetid Bloat Drones

 Welcome back to the Vectorium! The crappy weather over the weekend gave me the opportunity to indulge in a leisurely hobby session. Sensible Varchilde should have put paint onto some of the Death Guard models, but the hobby butterfly alighted on my shoulder and I decided to build some more models to add to the painting back log instead!

Thus the addition of two Foetid Bloat Drones to reinforce the original Drone from the Dark Imperium box set. The first of the Daemon Engines is armed with the ridiculously named Flesh Mower.

Power Armoured Paint: DIY Redemptor Dreadnought Base

Welcome back to the Vault! It's been a while since I've written about Warhammer 40,000 but fear not as the hobby butterfly has alighted upon my backlog of unpainted Space Shark models.

I have started applying the base coats to a Redemptor Dreadnought. This is one of the "easy build" kits which I've modified to a different weapon fit with the addition of a mini chain gun and missile pod.

Long term readers will know that my Carcharodons are all based on the lovely Sector Mechanicus bases, but this range does not cover the massive 100 mm based used for the Dreadnought.

What's a hobbyist to do? Well, one dip into the bitz box and hobby supplies later and I was suitably furnished with materials to fashion my own:

The Dead Shall Rise

I see you have ventured back to the Vault once more. Whilst the warm summer sun tempts us away from the painting desks, there is dread chill in the crypts.  I've spent a couple of hours applying more paint to my Wraith diorama, and the model is now at a point I'm happy to call it done.

The Dead Shall Rise: Work In Progess

Welcome back to the Vault! The hobby butterfly seems to have settled in the fantasy realms as I've started on another "terrain" project.  This is a little different as it's an entry for the Frostgrave Facebook group's monthly hobby competition under the theme of "Wraith".  The brief is deliberately vague to allow the creative juices to flow!

I purchased the first issue of the Age of Sigmar "Mortal Realms" magazine when it appeared as two quid for a dozen or so miniatures was just too much of a bargain to pass up. And luckily a bunch of those were wraiths.

A number of other people on the group have made the same purchase so I've decided to do something a little bit different and incorporate some of the spectres into a diorama/terrain piece.  A quick dive into the bitz box and the hobby supplies found some useful pieces allowing me to knock this up:

Frostgrave: Vapour Snakes

Welcome back to the Vault my fellow Venturers. In these uncertain times it seems frivolous to be writing about toy soldiers and board games, but whilst we practice social distancing and self isolation at a physical level we can still maintain connections about the hobbies we love through the gift of the internet.

So I hope you are all keeping yourselves safe and well, and taking time to indulge in your hobbies to keep rooted to a level of normality.

Gamers always seem to be able to adapt to changing situations; we just happen to be in moving in a new cross system, global meta, and I know friends and family are already adopting new approaches to their gaming.  The First Founding D&D group are investigating Discord, and my family are enjoying regular evening board games sessions.

I want to explore Frostgrave's solo play expansion,  Perilous Dark in more depth.  I've had a trial run of the first scenario ("Writhing Fumes") which did not end well, but I'm planning a second run through. The scenario calls for the use of some specialist monsters called Vapour Snakes and I came across a The Tabletop Engineer's excellent tutorial for scratch building some.

So how did my efforts turn out?

Tales from Titan: Legend Has It

Welcome back to the Vault once more! Long term readers will know I'm pretty casual with my competitive 40K; meaning that I rarely enter events beyond those organised at my local club and store, and I tend to play lists I find fun rather than cut throat "meta" lists.

That's not to say I don't indulge in more competitive games on occasion.  Several of my play group are keen tournament players and will happily travel long distances to throw dice and move models. Recently I was asked by Marcus our resident Eldar player for a game against my Grey Knights (specifically the double Paladin bomb list that's been doing well at a number of large tournaments in the wake of the Rituals of the Damned book). 

Regimental Reporting: Reinforcements on the hobby table

Welcome back to the Officers Mess.  This year's summer excursions began with a trip to Warhammer World and I've finished my vacation with a hobby session building some of the kits I purchased whilst away.

Warhammer World has a lot to offer a 40K enthusiast like myself; wonderful dioramas and models in the exhibition hall, plenty of gaming space, great food and beer from Bugmans, and of course lots and lots of opportunities to buy new toys.

I had decided to reinforce the Cadian 82nd with a few kits from the Direct Only range, the most important being a new Hell Hound to be added to my Octoberfest list:

Regimental Reporting: Making the most of the Cadian kits

Welcome back to the Officers Mess!  The focus of my recent hobby time has been split between slapping paint on some more random fantasy models and readying the next Cadian Infantry Squad for the paint table.

It's very simple to buy a Cadian Infantry Squad kit, build all the 10 men and say "done", but unfortunately you don't necessarily get all the options you want for your squad in that box! In simplistic terms a fully equipped Infantry Squad will contain:

• One Sergeant
• One Vox Operator
• One Special Weapon Trooper
• One Heavy Weapon Team (2 Troopers)
• Five Lasgun Troopers

The Cadian Infantry Squad itself contains 2 sprues which will each build a Sergeant, Vox, Special Weapon (albeit flamer or grenade launcher only), and a varying number of Lasgun Troopers depending on how many of the other options you build.

Sarge, Flamer, Vox

The joy of a well stocked Bitz Box

Welcome back to the Vault once more! I've been spending some time de-cluttering the house (saying good bye to books long since read and clothes too tatty even for me to wear), and of course this leads me to think about the Hobby Mountain.

I am a self-confessed hoarder of games and models (both painted and unpainted). And especially unused model components. Whilst I'm not ready to bid "bon voyage" to any of my gaming stuff  (although I feel a swell of ruthlessness coming on), I have been assembling some kits and clipping Bitz (components) off the sprue to clear space on the shelves.

When you've been in the war gaming hobby for a while the Bitz Box can get quite deep, and this allows you to pull tricks like this off:

Reinforcing the Kill Zone

Welcome back to the War Zone my fellow Kill Team Leaders! This week's hobby time has been spent dabbling with Kill Team; as you can probably tell I'm really enjoying this new game! I showed off a lot of terrain I'd been painting in the previous article, and I've been working on a gaming piece to use with it all.

Power from Paint: The Sand Viper Coven

Deep in the darkened places of Comorragh lie the crafting halls of the Haemonculi Covens. They do not work in metal or stone, neither wood nor jewel; their material of their artifice is flesh!

My Dark Eldar collection is predominately based around Kabal forces (as seen in the recent Mayhem post.), backed up by some Wych Cult units. The third part of the Dark Eldar triad are the Coven which are noticeably absent in my collection, save for a few Wracks and a Haemonculus.

Review: Traders Galaxy Lamiar Gun Slaves

Welcome back to the Vault my faithful Venturers; this week the hobby butterfly has landed on some new Sci Fi models!  Traders Galaxy have sent a blister of their new "Lamiar Gun Slaves" through hyperspace for us to play with and review. So let's crack on and see what goodies we have got out mitts on.

Power Armoured Paint: Long live the League!

Welcome back to the Vault! Rumours of war are beginning to reach the Void, and the Carcharodons Astra preparations for battle are becoming more serious.  The First Founding Club are holding a League in the run up to the Mayhem tournament, and the Space Sharks will be participating.

Review: Traders Galaxy Miniatures

It's a cold wintry day outside the Vault today, so I've decided to huddle inside to indulge in some hobby time and drink copious cups of tea to keep warm.

I've been given some Sci Fi models produced by Traders Galaxy to review, so lets get the blisters open and see what goodies we've got inside. I should warn you there are a lots of pictures in the post!