I’m going to start things off this week with a bit of look ahead for a project I’m trying to piece together. As I’ve mentioned on umpteen occasions for me a bit part of the hobby is the fluff that goes along with all the different games I play and none of them have richer pot to pick from than 40K. One of my favourite authors is Dan Abnett. The thing that makes him stand out are the details he puts in about normal, if you can call it that, life in the imperium. You see a lot of this in the Ghosts series but it really comes to the front in the Eisenhorn books by looking at all the things that take place away from the war zones where people will never see a space marine and in lots of cases most of them will think they are only myths. With Kill Team coming out I got the idea of doing Eisenhorn’s band as a kill team. The only problem is that there isn’t an option for an Inquisitorial kill team but the idea has been logged now so even if it’s only a hobby project it would be fun to do. So I’ve been searching for models and I’ve had a bit of win this week. I’ve found a few models that would work well and ordered a few, which I will show you when they arrive, but I couldn’t find anything I liked for ‘Slick’ Devlen. The model I kept going back to was Kal Jericho but with it being out of production the ones on eBay were all in the £30 region which is just way more than I’m prepared to pay. But I keep looking and this week I managed to find one that as at £6 with a few hours to go, so I thought it’s worth a punt at £10, made my bid and sat back expecting the price to sky rocket. Much to my surprise I won the bid, but then thought that this might be too good to be true and I may never see the model. But I was too cynical and it turned up a couple of days later as advertised. So I’m a very happy hector.
I’ve continued to make steady progress on the Death Wing this week with all of the models beginning to really take shape. The next phase is going to be to finish off all of the details on the models and there are a lot of details. Just when you think you are getting on top of things something else just seems to appear. Once all the details are done the next step will be to back over all the models and finalise the shadows and highlights with everything standing together on the base. That will finish the main build off and I then just need to do the individual heavy weapons. These have all been magnetised so there will be the option for a Cyclone Missile Launcher, an Assault Cannon, Heavy Flamer or Plasma Cannon. Once those are done it will be a final touch of weathering before everything, including the base gets a coupled of coats of satin varnish. After all these are intended to be gaming models so they have to be able to take a few knocks and scrapes.
The Gene Stealer Cult models have also turned up this week so I’m going to have to make a start on them if I’m going to stand any chance of being ready for a game by the end of the month. I do have a colour scheme picked out for them so as long I can be ruthless with myself and just go with that scheme regardless then I’m in with a shot. The key here is remembering that they are gaming pieces and we are planning on starting our campaign in September so I really need to have something ready, even if I want to change things later.
Game night this week was a bit quite but we did play what I think is one of the best pick-up games out there and that is ‘Age of War’ I’ve talked about it below but you basically lay out some cards that are grouped into colour sets. Each card has a point’s value and if you can get all the cards in that set there is a ‘locked in’ points value. You roll the dice and try and match symbols on the dice to those on the cards. If you manage to do this you take the card. The person with the most points when all the cards are gone is the winner. Nice and simple. Then just to spice things up you can also steal cards from your opponent. As I said a really good game and one that I would highly recommend.
Also having seen the new Ork bubby images on line we were all looking forward to the Orks coming out later this year. So with Orktober just around the corner Al wants a bit of work doing on a kit bashed trukk that has been sitting around in the cellar for what feels like forever. Most of the work is already done but he wants my gort riggers to drop in an engine and add a bit of something to the front. The perfect way to use up some off cuts of plasticard.
We are on a bit of roll with DnD and we managed to get another good session in this week. We had nearly a full party but were missing the one character we really needed in our hunt for a Buckavac and that was flaky elven ranger so we had to hire in some extra help in the form of a Firbolg hunter who was staying in the hall at Adun. Our plan was to head form Adun to Redhall and fulfil our contract for the hunter’s hall along the way. On the second day we encountered the Buckavac and it very nearly wiped us all out. A bit of magic from Hop who turned Orrakk into a Giant saved the day. We not just need to make it to the next hall to deliver on the contract. I’ve no idea how much we will make from it but the key thing for me is that it allows us to keep the magical fealty marks which should be a big help in our travels.
That’s it for this week and I’m don’t think I’m going to get a lot of hobby time in this weekend. It’s my dad’s birthday this weekend so I’m going to have to take him out for cheeky pint or two, which always hampers my ability to hold a brush. Whatever you guys get up to this weekend I hope you enjoy yourselves and I’ll hope to catch you all again next week.
