Back once more!

Woo! It's been a while, but I'm finally back on the 40k trip so thought I'd update the site. Work has ceased for the meantime on Stadtheim, my fantasy terrain I've been doing. It's like all my hobby impulses, they come, they go, they usually come back again.

Even found myself working on the Great Gargant the other day until I ran out of pins. Unfortunately the ice and snow foiled my attempts to get some more, and then the urge passed and now it's on the shelf again. Hah.

My current whim then is my Knight Paladin. I'm basing him on a lego bionicle figure, but if all goes well it won't be immediately obvious at the end. Hopefully the first reaction will be "cool", rather than "oh cool, lego".

Finally I've got around to tweaking a few parts of the site. The latest blog updates will appear at the top of the home page, and things should look a little slicker in IE. I still recommend Firefox, but I'm getting around to hacking the site for IE's display bugs.

Anyway, just announcing my return. Hope everyone had a good christmas, I know I'm enjoying my week away from work!

And we're back!

Woo. The site is back online at last. I'm not quite finished, the army lists section needs a little tweaking, so I've turned off account registration (the only part of the site you really need to register for at the moment) until I sort that.

That section will let you create your own army lists online, then share or print them as you wish. As I mentioned before, I needed a tool to put together my own so I thought I'd share it. If anyone uses it that's great, if not, never mind hey?

I need to tweak the way my lists are displayed so I can link in my appropriate project logs to each part of the list, otherwise it's not much use for me (as a non-gamer!)

So the whole site has been written from scratch this time, meaning if you find any bugs I'd really appreciate a heads up. The project blogs are the main feature on the site and I think they work fine.

Thanks for coming back!

UPDATE: bugger. see this is what happens when you design sites that look right in firefox, safari, opera, chrome... I'm fixing the layout bugs in ie, but it may take some time. Oh and if you're using IE6 when I've stopped pointing and laughing I'd politely suggest you update to something a little more recent. Sorry, but it's just a dire browser to work with, I'm forced to do so all day at work, and I just can't face it in my free time.

The New Site

So as you may have gathered, the site is still offline. I decided to get the new version finished rather than spend a good hour uploading the old one.

Good news is it's nearly finished! A few sections to sort out, then it can go back online whilst I work on the admin side of things. Hopefully this week we'll be back in business.

Currently spending the rest of my free time working on Stadtheim which is making a refreshing change from the grim darkness of the future! Does mean I'll have no new updates to go on the site when it relaunches, but that's kind of the way this site has always worked. A few months of frantic creation then a few months of nothing.

My hobbies are nothing if not eclectic ;)

Moving host

Right, all packed up and on the road! The site is currently offline whilst I move everything across to the new host. May take a while, I'm in two minds about whether to upload the existing site, or use it as a push to finish the new one.

Trouble is if I wait for the new one to be done likely to be a long delay. We'll see..

Stay tuned though, something will be back soon, whatever that happens to be!

Where are the updates?

So ok, I'm guessing no one was really asking that, but I'll tell you anyway.

I am working on several projects at the moment, as usual. I tend not to update this site as much as I could, because I always feel I have to compliment updates with photos and that's hassle. Hah, I'm lazy I know.

However things will be changing. I've transferred my domain from one host to another, when that happens I expect the site will pootle offline for a while. I'm writing a new script for the site which will let me manage more things and even offer a few shiny features to my visitors. Oooh, see now that got you interested didn't it?

But for my projects I've gone off on something of a tangent again. My praetorian vehicles have stalled and are strewn around the room. I started a four legged sentinel which is looking awesome but unfinished. Now though I've started something I've wanted to do since I got into this hobby 18years ago or so.

I'm building modular terrain! I know, odd for someone who doesn't actually play the game. But I've always loved terrain building and wanted a modelling project to get my teeth into. And the other slightly odd thing? It's Mordheim terrain. Different to all my other stuff, but that's exactly the point. I've liked Mordheim as a concept since it came out and wanted to create a medieval/fantasy town to play it in.

I've got most of the materials now and I'm having a go at my first board piece. We'll see how it goes. If nothing else I've got some fun projects to do like a hirst arts church (pre-cast, those moulds are damned expensive to get over here) which I'll be customising. I'm making my own moulds for bricks in the same way I did the gobsmasha wheels. I've put in an order to antenociti's workshop for a load of fantasy accessories.

I'm looking forward to this. I'm taking two weeks off over the summer too, so I'm hoping this'll give me something to get stuck into.

Not quite sure where I'm going to store it mind, but that's a problem for down the road. :)

New IG

Spend spend. Right had a bit of a splurge which coincided with my thirtieth, so lots of goodies kicking around.

I bought the new IG codex, so I'm currently recreating my army lists. A little depressed there's no chimera option for the Techpriest now, what with me having a nice Techpriest Chimera all converted. Never mind.

Also waiting on the new cadian battleforce and a catachan command squad, then I've got kicking around here a cadian squad and cadian command squad, and a shiny new valkyrie.

And finally, arriving from the US at some point will be my praetorian torsos from tpc. So I'll be using cadian parts to create another two squads for my praetorians. I think now might be the time to separate out the two armies. Excellent.

Not a huge amount to show yet. I've been building other bits and bobs whilst waiting for the last order to arrive (so I can figure out what I have and what I can equip). And spending time getting my GTA site back online.

I'll be back soon with photos, especially of my valk which is pretty much built now. Not a big flyer fan, but this is sweet as. Might have to get another for conversion fodder..

Ravenwing (hah, didn't see THAT coming did you?)

Ok so tangents ahoy. My praetorian tanks have stalled I'm afraid. I ordered a valkyrie and cadian command squad with a view to keeping my IG going forward, but the site I ordered them from is being incredibly slow so I've moved on. snooze ya lose

My Ravenwing have been desperate for some love, I've had them for a few years now, living unassembled in a cupboard. So to make sense of what was there and what I already owned, I've come up with a plan.

Two ravenwing squads, each supported by an attack bike. That much was already planned. But one squad will be three normal bikes, with the buggy in tow.


The second squad will consist of trikes, incorporating the attack trike I'd made years and years ago. I'm really happy with how the new ones are coming together, in large owing to this great tutorial over on Bolter and Chainsword. I'd seen it ages ago, but finally got around to purloining a few parts for my trikes.


Had a chance to give my Dark Angels a proper look over, and I'm really happy so far. They're my most complete army, if I wanted to I could field about 2500 pts of painted models (not all painted well, granted) and a further 1k or so of unpainted stuff. I've also got a couple of rhinos to sort for them, and the potential of a new deathwing squad unless they go in the blood angels. We'll see.

Lots to do. Unless my Valkyrie arrives before the weekend, then I'll be doing that instead :)

Praetorian's Ho

Right then, things are progressing nicely. Hit a minor stumbling block in the praetorian tanks in that I've run out of road wheels. I need something about 18mm diameter to work for the hellhound. If anyone has any suggestions..

The two APCs are now complete though, which is good news, and quite surprising that I took two simultaneously all the way through to completion. Not like me at all really.

I've started the hellhound, the chassis is underway and I've found a suitable tank. As I say though, roadwheels will be an issue here.

Planned out the command chimera, but that now needs my predator to arrive. Hopefully it's just delayed by the holiday break.

Also started a basilisk. I'll get photos and a log up asap. It's sort of a Hummel meets an M110a2. Ish. I've found enough large road wheels to do this one, but of course I've run out of tracks! They're on order from ebay.

Oh and I undercoated my Kiv Guard Armoured Fist squad, so they'll need painting at some point. I think I'm going to invert the colour scheme to denote them as a different unit type.

The baneblade is finished, did I mention that? All painted and shiney. One of the sponson hvy bolters has come loose, not sure how to fix that at this point, but it's painted. So again. Woo.

I very nearly bought some praetorians from ebay, but resisted the urge. Still holding out hope the phoenix club will cast their suitable torsos and I can convert cadians.

Si

Warhammer World

Edit: Woo, I'm famous. Well not quite, but I they did post my photo of the valkyrie interor on BoLS. Which frankly is far better than being famous, right?

So after a long bloody time in this hobby I finally made it to Warhammer World today. Really enjoyed my visit, spent just over an hour wandering around, had a coffee in Bugman's. Had the miniatures hall all to myself (literally, the automatic lights had to turn on for me).

I took a fair few photos, which you can see by clicking on the valkyrie below:

If any of the pics on the gallery don't work could you please just post a comment, I'm not sure I've entirely finished writing the script yet :)

Whilst you're there looking at my photos, I've also got another album which may be of interest. It contains various images of models made by other people. Basically as I ramble around the web I find things which inspire me in some way. If your pic is in there and you really don't want it to be please just let me know, but you should consider its inclusion a big compliment, I've very fussy about what I download.

Random 40k Photos Gallery

The store at Warhammer World is great too. Very different atmosphere to my local store. I have to be honest, I don't like Games Workshop stores. I find them to be quite oppressive and usually filled with obnoxious people. Hence I stay out and order everything off the net (the advantages of not being a gamer). But I really liked this one. The bloke I spoke to was informative and not a complete ott loon like a lot (you know who you are..).

Oh and the best bit, you can order forgeworld goodies in the shop and you get free shipping. How awesome is that? I want a thudd gun for my griffon conversion I'm planning, but didn't want to pay 20% ish of the price in shipping. Excellent stuff.

I'll go again when they've got one of thier special displays on. Starting tomorrow is the war of the ring exhibition, which I think would explain why there were quite a few armies missing from the museum.

Oh and the siege of vraks table is great. I got a few pics of the vehicles on it. If I gamed, I'd love to play on that terrain. The next table across had a massive ruined monstery type building which was a bit special too.

Wouldn't fancy it on a weekend though. I'd suspect it can turn into a bit of a bear (cub) pit.

Si

Two updates in one week? Crikey

As I mentioned, I've taken this week off work. It's fantastic not to have to stress about, well everything.

So what am I actually doing? Well I'm busy playing through the dow1 campaign with Eldar. Trying to decide if I'll like DoW2 or not. I enjoyed company of heroes well enough (and I understand DoW2 has quite a bit in common with it), but just had no longevity for me. I played a few missions, a few skirmishes. I prefer the proper battles, all this sneak in here with two guys and do X then escape crap bores me. But I'll try and keep an open mind.

Great news! For me anyway. Since Tamiya recalled their entire spray lines to the UK (very helpful) I've been struggling to find alternative colours. Humbrol do a few decent ones I can get through one of the local hobby shops, but the dark red tamiya spray was giving me problems. Until now! Halfords red primer to the rescue. It's a perfect colour match near as damnit, and the best bit, since it's primer, they do a 500ml can for 6.99. Bargain.

As such today I've basecoated my baneblade. It's been sat on my shelf gathering dust pretty much since I bought and assembled it. So it'll be good to get it done up and put in a cabinet all proper like.

I've bought a few new things, well I say new, ebay is fun. I picked up a copy of the old Imperial Guard Collectors Guide. Some really cool stuff in there, the army galleries at the back especially. Following on from that though I've decided to paint my old cadians (the metal ones) in one of the mordian colour schemes and use them as an auxillary squad in my praetorians. I think they'll work really well, especially since they didn't have flak armour so share a lot of visual cues with the praets.

Speaking of Praetorians, I bought a Mordian Lieutenant off ebay, who will be getting decapitated when he arrives and be turned into my praet lt. And with a bit of luck phoenix club will start casting Col Gravis' praetorian rough rider torsos, so I'll be able to do my cadian conversions much more easily. Excellent news.

Oh and to add to the eclectic nature of this post, I've also been painting some of my grots. I found a decent tute on, erm, possibly dakkadakka, from someone who had use basecoats and washes and got great results. I don't except the same quality finish, since my brush control leaves something to be desired, but if I can paint a squad in less than the 10hours or so it usually takes me I'll be chuffed.

I'm rambling. I'll get some picks of my baneblade up later, then other stuff as inspiration takes.
Si

Photos

Greetings! Right then, some updates.

I've just posted the new project log for my chimeras. As I mentioned these are going to be solely for my Praetorians when I split them out of the main army. Development is coming along nicely, just a shame I've run out of tracks and roadwheels otherwise I'd be working on the hellhound too.


I've also started a log for the ravenwing buggy I've been sitting on for months. Needs a lot of work, but I'm really happy with the initial concept:


Finally I've added the log for the new grot trukk, inspired by the sturmtiger (ish).


I've uploaded a new photo for the Arbites Chimera as well.

On holiday this week with very few plans, so I'm thinking I will crack on with some of my modelling. Not sure where to work, the gargant is looking quite tempted, and I've just started painting my baneblade. I'd like the get the praetorian chimeras riveted and ready for painting too.

Finger's crossed eh?

An Update!

Wow, it's been over a month since I last posted. Sorry about that to those who care.

Good news is I have been working hard of various models, aside from a week of feeling like death. No photos as of yet, but I will be making a rather large update soon.

I've started painting the second two wartrakks, they're looking ok. They're quite different to the first one, not sure which style I prefer. The new way is definitely quicker, so I may just stick with that for the sake of getting things painted. Also started the wartrukk in the same style.

Also have begun a trukk for the new grots I bought. It's very sturmtigery, assuming you can imaging the sturmtiger as an open topped troop transport with no big gun. Heh. I quite like it.

Alas I then got distracted, somewhat bizarely, by my Praetorians of all things. I've been trying to come up with a decent design for their chimeras for a while. I started thinking about trying to recreate a Saracen, but too many odd angles and finding wheels the right size was a pain. Anyway the wheeled transport for the arbites has somewhat satiated that desire for a while. In the end I've gone for an FV432 style design. I'm hoping it will tie in ok with the Ragnarok esque leman russ, it's quite a different design. But they're simple little functional transports and I'm happy with the design. So I'm doing two. I've also got the plans ready for a hellhound version. I might wait until the new IG releases for that though to get some ideas (and bitz!).

Speaking of new IG releases, the Valkyrie is only 35quid! What a bargain. I shall definitely be buying one of them. My Kiv guard will soon be separated from the Praetorians and start to garner their own style. So many plans, so little time..

Speaking of bitz, I just placed another order with Bitz Box and they're really spot on. Far cheaper than the other bitz sites I've found (Wookiehole is painfully expensive for some things), has a reasonable stock, though I guess all bitz sites are prone to running low as they try to sell the more unpopular pieces. And their delivery times are spot on, 2 days delivery for a dirt cheap order. Very impressed and will definitely have to remember them for the future.

Not a lot else to prattle about at the moment, I will be back with photos of the various things I've mentioned when I get a mo. Also busy trying to find Mordians on ebay (to decapitate and use as Praets). Once I get a new squad I think I'll break the Praetorians into their own section on the site. Woo for too many armies (and that's not including the Ultras and Blood Angels sat in my display cabinet, or the CSM in a box under my desk or my ageing Ork clans :) ).

Grots are back!

Hrm. It would appear my "project updates" jobby to the left isn't working properly. I'll recode it at some point, but for now I'll have to manually point out updates.

I've updated the wartrakk's blog with the finished pics of the first one and the wip pics of the next two. Quite happy with how they're coming along.


Also bought the ork battlewagon (hence my move from arbites to grots for now), and I'm currently working on ways to make it fit better. I get the feeling it might end up being a cross between a tank and Howl's moving castle. We shall see.

Bought two sets of the new gretchin models, probably going to be my "slugga" boyz. Pretty cool models, fairly flexible I think.

Finally sorted out some display cabinets for my models too. Bought two six foot high ones which are now more or less full. I'll take some photos for posterity. Shame how bloody awful my painting was (meh, and is if we're honest). But nice to see the history of my collection in one place. Well two places, all the wips are still in my study.

Oh yeah, and I've finally been inspired to do my iron squiggoth (named after Krooza's of course), which I think will have to rock. Oh yes.

An update!

I'm as shocked as you are. Hah. I did post up the finished images of my Arbitrator Squad which makes a nice change. They're not perfect, but I'm pretty happy with them.

I thought rather than trying to start a load of project logs that won't get updated for months, I'd just do a general update to show what's on my desk at the moment. Well ok, up until about two minutes ago when I cleared it so I could reach the keyboard, but you get the idea.

Firstly the reason my gargant has been put on hold. Basically I channelled all my terrain building impetus into this instead of the big boy. I'll get back to him though.

This is going to be a diorama/photo terrain for my arbites. I just wanted to do sort of a segment of a hive. I still needs a lot of work, but the idea is starting to show. At the bottom we have the sewers (the underhive to some extent I suppose), then above that an industrial section with large delivery doors and vehicle access, then at the top will be the habs. Loads to say about this but I'll wait until it gets further and start a full log.

These guys I put together in an evening, just wanted something easy to do. They're my armoured fist squad for my Kiv guard army. Pretty basic troops, just shortened lasguns (to fit in the chimera, see). The sergeant is a little more interesting, but not shown here :) Oh and my phoenix club rough riders are left, which I'm doing for my praetorians when I get around to it.

The current state of play in my arbites army. There's a scout squad in there which is awaiting delivery of my procreate I ordered from ebay. Then there's the bike at the back, which is awaiting inspiration. Alas you can't buy that from ebay.

Finally my detective squad for my arbites. Four metal minis, two are ikore and two are heresy I think. I've done some minor mods, lasguns on a couple, tiny bits of greenstuff (a mowhawk, a ponytail, sunglasses and an armoured vest). More details as an when.

I've just ordered a load of evergreen plastic for the diorama, and finally bought a toxic chemical plant thingy for the gargant. Oh and some more resin bases.

And I still keep getting bored and flit to other projects. Hah. This weekend I'm hoping to photograph all my armies as they currently stand and get this site updated. Most of my dark angels are done, but have been for about ten years. Not very well done but worth posting. Of course I still have a ravenwing box I've barely touched to add.

So much to do, so little time.
Si