Sorry about neglecting this blog...

 Life has been coming hard at us the last few months, long story short: My estranged (we broke contact due to her manipulative ways and unrepentant alcoholism) mother turned out to have cancer, after which we quickly got news that it would be untreatable and terminal. So we spent the months trying to rekindle some sort of contact, so we could at least say our goodbyes. After that there was the funeral, deciding whether to accept or reject the inheritance, cleaning out her house and a lot of emotional unpacking and processing along the way, which is still ongoing.

I have still been hobbying though, as that has been my mental lifeline. Prepare for incoming photodump, after the break!

Well, life happened at me, a lot...

Yeah, so I had a two-month stomach bug, followed by a corona scare. Luckily all is well, but I'm still rebuilding my strenght/stamina after barely holding on to nutrients during the stomach bug.

Which left little spare energy for hobby.

I did manage to squeeze these lot out: 

A Squig with a fancy hairdo: 

Naturally, I also participated in the Iron Kingdoms: Requiem Kickstarter, and this has once again urged me to do a bit more on some IKRPG character miniatures:

 

 

They're two minis for the same character, a Knight-Ironhead. As the new version of the IKRPG doesn't work off combining two archetypes, I'll have to figure out how to make him work, ruleswise.

 

Also, ofcourse I pre-ordered Cursed City. Warhammer Quest, but horror, and with a strong Eastern European vibe? Perfect.

So, not much to report. See you again next time, whenever that may be!

And yet, I live....

Well, we survived 2020...

And I seem to have been neglecting this blog, my apologies. Between corona, depression and a busy year at work, what rare time and motivation I had for the hobby, I elected to spend on the hobby itself, rather than posting about it.

Anyhow, time of a big catchup dump of pics, and then on to the next year.

Ofcourse, the Indomitus box got acquired:

(And ofcourse the image is rotated... Sorry.)

I also managed to snag a piece of classic Space Fleet art:

Which reminds me, I still need to get that framed... What do you think, a clean, sleek modern frame, or go baroque and gothic for it?

I printed the start of a Japanese village, for a long suffering medieval/mythological Japan project: 

As frustratingly many projects this year, I lost steam before I actually got them painted...

I printed and built some more Necromunda stuff (again abandoned before I got to painting, see a pattern?

Around this time, our PCs main storage HDD was starting to give out. (I've yet to recover all files on it, including notes for a decade+ spanning DnD campaign....)

I built another Destiny 2 Ghost, again a gift for a friend from across the Channel:

(The overspray on the icon on it had been fixed before sending it off.)

The unpainted Necromunda terrain I had set up in previous post did finally get painted, even though it took until Oktober:

Hmmm, tasty....

Ofcourse I had to join in the McFarlane Primaris craze:

Can you guess from this pic, which Chapter I will convert and repaint him into? ;)

Fine, work in progress pics to give some hints:

 Because my Howling Griffon would be a Lieutenant, he needed a Power Sword, just a small one:

Again, this project has yet to see paint...

Gears once again shift, now towards Orks:

Freebooters to be precise:

Ofcourse, Freebooters need to ride in style:

True to form for this year, paint is yet to come...

Final leg of the year, and final projects (still ongoing): Cyberpunk City. A third building was erected:

 While working on this, a long-awaited treasure arrived:

I'm waiting for work and life to ease up again a bit to properly get into this and read it from cover to cover. Hopefully next weekend!

That brings us back up to current affairs. This weekend I added lighting to my Brutalist Cyberpunk building: 

 And with that, that project is ready to receive paint as well. :D

Till next time, hopefully sooner than last. ;)

Time for an update!

So, it's been a few weeks since my last post. But I haven't been idle. (Just lazy with posting... My apologies!)
Time to catch up. What have I been up to?
Mostly, I've been spending my hobby time experimenting with the airbrush and finding it quite entertaining.
Here are some of the projects I've been working on, most are an excuse to get time in with the airbrush, get used to things.

A Zero:

 This plane is a trial run for the J7W1 Shinden kit that I have. I want to get colours and techniques sorted out before I start on that kit. At this stage it needs decals and brushpainted details.

To keep in the Japanese theme, I've also been slowly but surely working on a 90mm display model of a female Samurai. With this one I'm taking my time as I want this one to be display-worthy, not just a throwaway practice project. The model and subject simply deserves it. To that end, I've also made a (simple) display plinth for her:

(As you can see in the background, I also hammered out a quick squad of Necrons for 40K/=I=Munda skirmishes.)
The lady Samurai has also reached the brush-painting stage this weekend, so I'll be spending some time with her on the painting desk over the next couple of weeks. I'm looking forward to the final result, but I'm not willing to rush the model. Best take my time for optimum result. With this model I've really discovered the joys of Blu Tac masking.

The final (current) airbrush experiment has been a Warhammer 40K Eldar Vyper. I don't play Eldar, or own any more models of them beyond this one. I just got this one once from someone who knew I was "into that Warhammers stuff", and maybe I could do something with it. So a good excuse to tackle a model and a colour I wouldn't quickly choose for other projects:

Main lessons from this one: Airbrushing is really, really cool (but that's really a lesson learned from all these projects!), have the patience to wait for things to dry, and don't remove masking until you're ready to either stop painting or can safely put the masked item aside from any overspray....

I've also been building some Deffkoptas and painting another trio of Meganobz for my Ork army.

And with the weather being as nice as it is the last few weeks, I've also taken the occasional night off for some late night flame staring sessions:

I've missed out on Militracks this year, due to budgetary and planning constraints, but will be sure to rectify that next year!

What is in the project qeue after these? 
There is still a piece of Necromunda terrain to airbrush the base colours on, my Goliath gang needs finishing, I'd like to do some more on my Orks, especially the Stompa is starting it's siren call for the airbrush... I still want to build a skimmer boat inspired by the Mare Solum facebook group (an alternate Necromunda setting, placed on an ocean world, really intriguing stuff!). And I have a pair of larger scale Battletech/Macross robot kits that I'd like to paint. GW has announced Adeptus Titanicus for August and the models are looking mighty appealing.
Plus I'm still combing through my stockpile for quick projects that allow me more airbrush practice...
Whew! I need longer weekends!

Here we are, all caught up...

See you next time!

After Action Report.

I had a game of 40K last weekend. The first one since, well, early/mid 5th edition, which makes it roughly 5 years, I'd say?
It was with someone I've never played with before (Maarten), who had an army I've never dealt with before, Imperial Guard (or should that be Astra Militarum, these days...).
My Orks got chewed up hard! But nonetheless it was quite an enjoyable afternoon playing 40K.

So, about the game:
I don't recall exactly what we both had in our armies, we each had 1250pts of our respective forces.
I do recall that I faced an infantry platoon, a lascannon unit, a mortar section, a self propelled mortar, as well as a Leman Russ tank, a Chimaera APC, and a Valkyrie full of veterans with scary guns.
I had my 20-strong mobs, one shoota, one slugga (they rode a Battlewagon), a unit of Trukk Boys, My MegaBoss and his three MegaNob mates, some Lobba Mek Guns, 2 Skorcha trakks and my Lootas.

Here's how our deployment looked from my end:

First turn my Lootas got hit by mortar fire. Hit hard... The entire unit was obliterated in a single shooting phase!
This set the pace for the entire game, really, Maarten used his shooting phase quite effectively.

Another example is here:

The end of the Movement phase, turn two I believe. In my first turn I had rolled my vehicle phalanx up the bridge, intent on taking the objectives that were clustered around it from the imperial guard, well, ... guarding them.  As you can see a Valkyrie just swooped in...
After that shooting phase (and attendant leadership tests for losses. I'm not sure I like the new Mob rule...) the Battlewagon carrying 19 slugga boys and a Nob and the Trukk right behind it, carrying 11 boys and a Nob had evaporated, leaving only the Nobs of the two units. My Stormboys unit (on top of the bunker in front) had been halved, with the irate Nob killing off the other half trying to restore fighting order... 3 Nobs were left on the bridge, where my armoured phalanx used to be...
It was impressive to see, even it did present something of a challenge for me the next turns. ;-P

 Eventually, I managed to get what was left of my Orks into close combat. But by then they were simply too few to really turn the tide. They acquitted themselves well though.
In the end the game was a lot closer that it seemed to me. Despite having less than 10 models left on the field, I had only lost 7 victory points to 9. (Could have been closer, hadn't I prematurely discarded a certain objective card. Oh well...)

So, my first taste of 40K seventh edition, and with a skilled and pleasant opponent to boot.
So what did I think of it?
The core is still the same as before, so no surprises there.
It's nice that vehicles are nice and robust now, it really invites you to be more free and aggressive with them. Which can backfire, as I experienced in this game, but hey, you don't play Orks if you're worried about the occasional plan blowing up in your face. :)
Having had no psyker of my own in this game, I'm postponing judgement on the psychic phase until I've had a more active role in it.
I really like the new dynamic objectives! It kept us both engaged and active throughout the game and presented some interesting puzzles to solve each turn. It forced us to act and think dynamically. Very nice.
I'm sure the game could be optimized further, and no doubt there is already imbalance inherent, and will only get worse with progressive codex releases. But for a friendly game among reasonable people (who despite this still manage to like the 40K setting)  it suffices nicely.

What I took away from this game for my army:
I really have trouble cracking armour with my Orks. The people I used to play with all had fairly infantry-focused armies, myself included, so this has never been a priority for me. Oh, and flyers are dangerous, I should have more than one unit capable of dealing with them.
It was fun playing against an army that doesn't wear power armour, your attacks actually feel effective! :D

And finally, after last weeks indecision, this game put me firmly back in the green hobby wise! I've been painting on the second half of the Meganob unit, doing some converting on my Nob bikers (though the first model for the unit is yet to be completed) and have been going through my stockpile to see what armour-cracking options I already have and could paint.

Until next time!