Here is my generic marines force, purposefully designed to be as "generic" as possible, allowing maximum flexibility to field a force from any of the codices. There's lots of magnets included in this force, with most of the weapons swappable in one way or another. You can see the slow and steady growth under the One Force label.
Colour wise, I thought to try and draw from a "realistic" military look, so the air wing is in grey... :)
... and the mechanised components are in a desert yellow.
As another 7th Ed army, there's units included to make up the formations, and there's also my Centurion conversions based on the Kataphron Destroyers.
The fantastic Korvydae model as my commander, and Iron Hand veterans to double as an Honour Guard or Sternguard.
Hammer-nator Termies and a Chaplain for extra kill. >:)
The troops, all magnetised to run either as Assault or Tactical troops, and interchangeable special and sergeant weapons. (There's 30 marines in total, a mix of Mk II, IV, and V; all the original resin models)
That's that then. I'm sure you'll see them over on the Beard Bunker from time to time, and they'll be expanded over time as well as I feel like it.
As I mothball my blog I'm taking stock of my hobby and armies as they stand.
Here at the end of 2018, this is my whole Necron army. What started off as a side project and a quick and easy army ended up being one of the most difficult as I had to customise every last model with electrical wire to replace the green rods in the original kit.
To my mind, a Necron army should always be about a horde of relentless, advancing warriors and I've tried to keep that in this army. I've got over 40 warriors that I take as many of as reasonable every time I play. In big units of ~20 they are amazingly resilient and it can be impressive to see almost half the unit return to life even if there's only one left on the battlefield.
Terrifyingly enough, today marks 10 years since I began this blog. I can't quite believe I've been back in the hobby for that long.
It can't escape the notice of any poor sod who's still checking that posting has pretty much ceased here. This is down to various factors, a big part being my own changing personal circumstances, and how much (or rather little) time I can give to the hobby. That which I have I am plowing 100% into actual hobby and so this place takes a back seat.
Considering its just hit such a milestone, I've taken the difficult decision that I'm going to mothball the blog. I plan to do a couple of posts to wrap things up over the next few weeks, but that'll be it for the foreseeable future. Should life ever return to a situation where I can support this again I may return but I offer no promises...
I won't be completely lost from the hobby blogosphere however, my very good friends and primary gaming group, The Beard Bunker, have agreed to allow me to join them as a contributor to their much more excellent site, so anyone who even remembers my ramblings and would like to see more are strongly recommended to head on over that way and add them to whatever site aggregator you use.
I'll be back in the not too distant future with those wrapping up posts.
Its been pretty hard not to notice the change in GW recently. We've seen:
the release of "Start and Army" bundles with actual savings
the re-introduction of Facebook groups for GW, Forgeworld, and Black Library
the tantalising possibility of the re-release of perenial fan favourites like Blood Bowl and Battlefleet Gothic
now we've had the call for questions and release of an FAQ that actually seems to answer real questions with actually thought out responses that while perhaps not perfect, definitely look like they are trying
and AoS is going to get a points system, and not just willy-nilly, but one that builds on the work done by the tournament community and has had input from mega tournament organisers and pillars of the AoS community HeelanHammer, Bad Dice, and FaceHammer (check their podcasts if you don't already, they're really good).
You can hardly argue that GW isn't trying to become a new company and one that so many of us have been clamouring for for many, many years. What strikes me is that a lot of this seems to coincide with the stepping down of Tom Kirby as Chairman of GW. As of 1st January 2015, Tom Kirby was no longer in charge of the direction of GW and if what I suppose is true, GW made this change just in time. While Kirby was perhaps a necessary evil when he first took the helm, his drive for profits over community involvement and seeming impression that GW was infallible was producing a truly poisonous relationship between company and customer.
I've been so pleased to see the changes in GW, and look forward to whats coming in the future if they continue this course.
As the end of each year approaches, I like to look back at the year, see what I've achieved (sometimes more than I realised - last year), and to have a think about what I'd like to do in the new year which often follows as a new years resolutions post. It helps me to keep stock of my progress, and try and know where I want to go in the coming year.
Its been quite a quiet year for me, with "life, the universe, and everything" somewhat conspiring to swallow up the majority of my spare time. In rough order of what I achieved, I started the year painting the Treeman/Avatar after finally developing a suitable molten metal technique, and managed to bring it to near completion later in April. I also managed to finally post a picture of the majority of my skaven army as they are painted.
A big part of my year was taken up by my trip to Japan, where I discovered Gundam. I've got a lot of potential material from that trip, but it'll take me a while to get any of that posted.
This year, I also set myself a relatively modest 5 goals as part of my New Year's resolutions. All were partial successes, I posted pictures of those models I hung onto, but have gotten rid of most of the Tyranids, got rid of a lot of my old models that were hanging around but still have more to be rid of, made progress on One Force but didn't complete everything, and the same for other painting projects.
Post pictures of all the models I painted during 2014
Skaven army, the Tyranids, One Force marines (Mk II and Mk IV)
Continue the clear out
Tyranids, Space Wolves (most of them), a lot of spares and bits and pieces
Complete painting One Force as it stands
5 Mk V marines and jump-packs, 10 Mk III veterans with combi-weapons, missile launchers for all squads, Master of the Forge
Complete standing painting projects
Skaven warp lighting cannon, Treeman Avatar, Tau Firewarriors and Riptide, and any other bits and pieces I have lying around that I've forgotten
Return to blogging
I'll keep on plugging away, and see where I get this year.
A ways back in July, while in Japan, I bought a model of a Gundam, and finally I can show you the build. Kind of apt with the current re-launch of the Tau and all.
Firstly, despite everyone touting GW as the best model builders in the world etc. etc., they've definitely got a thing or two to learn from BanDai, the kit is staggering in its design and complexity.
Take a look at the sprue below. You may notice that the plastic has two tones of grey, that's because they are able to cast the sprue in at least two stages to produce pieces that are already articulated, with extremely complex joints and sliding parts, some actually cast within other parts to move like pistons.
The whole kit is press-fit, I didn't need a drop of glue, and the only time I used any tools was to remove the parts from the sprue, clean the odd mould line (far, far neater casting that GW), and to cut a few pieces of piping to length that were inserted into joints to represent hydraulics.
The kit was essentially two kits in one. The first was the fully articulated skeleton of the model that you can see below. Every joint was articulated with a very wide range of motion. In fact, as I continued to build the model I discovered more and more points of flexure and the number of poses that you could build is mind-blowing.
Once the skeleton is built, you add the armour panels to make up the final model. The different parts are cast in their appropriate colours so you don't even need to paint, and as before, every single piece is press-fit, highly secure, and there are individual pieces for every sub-part of the skeleton so none of the articulation is lost with the build.
The final result is absolutely brilliant, with multiple hands that can be swapped to allow different weapons to be gripped, all sorts of moving parts, and so much possibility.
Best of all, since returning, I've discovered that you can buy them on Amazon and other online retailers, so this guy might just be getting a friend sometime in the future.
Fear not fellow bloggerites, I'm not dead, just very very busy.
To whit, I'm currently slumming it in Japan on a trip for work. This means two things:
I'm occupying my evenings when I'm stuck in my room by painting the final grunts for One Force
GUNDAM!!!
Yep, Japan is a bit of a hobby mecca (as long as you like Gundam that is). Even the local chain of electronics stores - Yamada Denki, has racks and racks of Gundam models for you to buy and build.
This song plays near continuously in the shop.
How the staff don't go postal by the end of the day I don't know.
They can even make selling fridges seem somewhat more exciting. I promise you there really are fridges underneath all those stickers.
Of course, the best place to go if you are anything like me is Akihabara - Tokyo's electronics town. Akihabara started life as a district where the Japanese and US military were selling off spare electronics parts after the second world war. Local students used to buy up the parts and make radios out of them to sell on and earn money to fund their studies. Ever since it has been synonymous with the sale of electronic goods. It really gained its reputation in the 80s and 90s when it was a one stop shop for tourists and locals alike to get the latest electronic gadgets at knock down prices, often long before they appeared in the local shops, and years before they reached the rest of the world.
Nowadays, with the growing prevalence of tech in the west, and apps on smartphones taking the place of many of the little gadgets that used to be sold, Akihabara has shifted its focus away from electronics (don't worry, you can still find loads) to other aspects of Japanese culture, namely manga and collectibles. If anything, its made the place even more colourful than before.
Even the graffiti and the bikes are more colourful in Akihabara.
Back to Yamada Denki and the Gundam - just look at how many kits there were, and this was only a single set of shelves, there were at least 4 full racks just of Gundam, and that's not even mentioning the other racks of models.
There was even a Unicorn Gundam - in unicorn mode no less.
Well I couldn't rightly pass up such an opportunity, so after a lot of umming and ahhing, I settled on the basic, original Gundam.
They come as two parts, a fully poseable inner skeleton of parts, and then the outer armour additions. Its all on separate sprues of appropriately coloured plastic so I won't even have to paint it, and there's a full set of transfers too. Awesome, can't wait to build this guy.
Mind you, should you ever feel the need to re-paint any of your Gundam, or build and paint any of the other models that were available, you wouldn't be short of supplies:
Or, if collectibles is more your thing, then there were plenty of places to pick up just about anything you could think of, and some things that I kind of wish they hadn't thought of. If you are ever in need of being weirded out, do a little research into the culture of doll ownership in Japan - let me just tell you that they are FULLY customisable and can be found in many of these shops.
Much cooler though was this guy...
... and this guy...
... if only!
Of course, since I mentioned I'd been working on One Force, I should at least show you where I'm at with painting them.
All that's left is shading and highlighting of the armour, battle damage and weathering and that'll be the last of the core 30 Tactical/Assault marines finished. It'll have only taken me three and a half years to reach that point - positively rapid pace.
Checking back over the tutorials on The-Vanus-Temple to find the 360 spin code for my post on the 40K calendar, I realised just how much cool info there is on that website and wanted to catalogue and share some of my favourite links:
There's the aforementioned 360 spin tutorial to produce Games Workshop like images that the viewer can rotate.
The year is essentially over and as far as this blog is concerned, 2014 was effectively a non-year. Including this post, and my post setting out my 2014 new year resolutions, I've managed a mere 9 posts, and of those, only 5 actually connect to anything particularly hobby related.
Its not so much that I haven't done much hobby, I've been somewhat productive (time permitting) but have had to sacrifice time that I would normally have spent blogging so that I've had time to do the actual hobby required for blogging.
Anyway, looking back over what I've been up to this year while not blogging, it turns out I've painted up quite a bit.
As soon as I saw GW's new treeman kit, I just knew that it would make an absolutely fantastic alternative model for the Eldar's Avatar of Khaine. The old Avatar model, despite being quite a good model when released, is really showing its age compared to the newer items, and for a simple painting project, the Forgeworld model is a little more money than I can afford/spare. Conveniently, the model was released just before my birthday, so Mrs. G., being the superstar that she is, picked me up a kit.
Well today I turn 33, and it just happens to be my 233rd post on this here blog (when I do get around to blogging). As I haven't managed to put together another post since last week, I thought I might just dump some of the randomness that floats around in my head for you all to ignore to your hearts content.
Its not quite the big date for me this year that I'm definitely looking forward to, that's the 21st September when I hit one third of a century! In some ways I never thought I'd ever get that far, not because of some morbid expectation of death, but more because I really don't feel all that old, I still play with man-dollies and toy soldiers for pity's sake :D
As I'm sure many of us are at the moment, we're thinking about what we'd like to achieve in the coming year, and for the last few years I've set out myself some resolutions for the upcoming year to see whether it can encourage me to keep my hobby going, and to keep myself updating the blog. In the past I have made:
2011 I didn't make up any resolutions but I did do a 2011 in review
So what do I hope to do this year:
Complete the core of One Force: I need to complete the last of the core force, battle damage and weather all the models painted so far.
Expand One Force: I currently hope to add an Elites unit (most likely in MkIII armour and the Iron Hands special troopers), heavy weapons for all of the core units and a Scouts unit (probably the HH recon squad).
Paint my Skaven: a repeat of last years resolution to paint, base and generally finish the Skaven I have so that my force is a more reasonable size. I'd also like to make some unit fillers as I think that'd be quite fun.
Build a small Tau detachment: I've had a squad of Firewarriors for ages, ever since I returned to the hobby, and they can now be taken as a small allied detachment, so along with a Riptide, I hope to add some serious hitting power to my armies.
Have a clear out: I've got a lot of models sat in boxes/crates that I really need to go through and get rid of those that I don't need/want/use. I live in a small flat, so don't have more than a single small cupboard for all my gaming paraphernalia, so I have to be ruthless.
Independent Characters Hobby Progress Challenge: This will be this years new army, and I want to paint something bright, colourful and fleshy to break from all the armour and metal I've painted in the past. I'm flip-flopping between a Deamon or Tyranid army, and of course the Tyranids are getting a new book soon so they are tempting, but there's a lot of cool models in the deamon range, I just can't decide.
So that's it, should keep me busy this year. As well as all these, I'd still like to keep the blog going and hope to keep a more regular posting schedule than I have at late, and to attend the odd weekend event to keep in the gaming, but I just don't know what the next year will hold for me, so I'm not going to commit to any of those things.
Drop me a link if you are doing something similar, and a very Happy and model/painting/gaming-filled New Year to you all.
As has become a tradition for me, I'm going to look back over the past year for my hobby to see where I was and where I've got to. So in 2013 I managed:
36 Blog posts, passing the 200 mark for total number of posts
One Force has progressed well, and now stands at 1500 points
I'm especially proud of the conversion I did for the Storm Raven, I think it looks a lot better now.
I went to two tournaments this year
I came back from the March Throne of Skulls with the Best Necron certificate (in part thanks to also getting a Best Sports certificate)
I made at least one of Blog Wars this year, and only just managed to avoid the wooden spoon
Painting wise I managed to total up 70 painting points, not what I'd hoped, but not as bad as I'd thought it would be.
As well as all of that, I've also completely changed career, having to go back to school part time to do so, completed my first triathlon, and renovated about half of the place we live in, so I've been pretty busy.
I also started this year with a series of New Years resolutions, so lets see how I managed to hold up to them this year:
Maintain 1 post minimum per week - FAILED: Although this worked for me in 2012, this year life and everything else kind of got in the way.
Attend more tournaments/gaming weekends - COMPLETE: As well as the two tournaments I went to, I also got in a gaming trip to Warhammer World with some local guys.
Sell my spare stuff - PASS: I did sell of a lot of stuff, but there's still more to go, so not totally complete yet (but then it may never really be complete).
Complete my Skaven (at least all the models I own, and anything I buy) - FAIL: Nothing painted for the skaven, but thankfully only a Warp Lightning Cannon bought, and I hope to make a little progress in the new year.
Beat last years painting points score - FAIL: I came closer to equalling it than I expected, but just didn't have the time.
Bring One Force to a playable 1750 points force minimum - FAIL: I managed to get to 1500 points, and didn't buy anything new, so I'm almost through with all the models I currently own for the army.
So out of 6 resolutions, I managed to complete one, and pass one, but failed the other 4 which just goes to show that I was just a little too ambitious last year, or that I wasn't as dedicated as I could have been this year. Either way, I'm going to have to reconsider how I'm going to go about hobby next year.
So that's how my hobby year has gone, if any of you out there are doing something similar, I'd love to hear about it just in case I don't already follow your blogs. I'm away over the Christmas/New Year period, so won't be able to reply straight away to comments, but will be checking in as I now have internets abroad!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all. - Andrew
Amazingly, today marks 5 years since I started Iron Legion. Can't quite believe its been that long. Looking at the post number, it would seem that I've managed to average exactly 45 posts a year, a little under 1 post per week. Not bad really, but that's not been all that consistent, with times when I've managed to keep a good run going, and other times like recently when a new job, going back to university, and renovating our house means that hobby ends up right at the bottom of the pile, I take a bit of a break.
I'll be back soon, and in the meantime, as a birthday present to you all, I found this out at a recent game and it was news to me:
Skyfire works not only against Flyers and Flying Monstrous Creatures, but against Skimmers too. May not be all that important, but it opens up the flexibility of units like the Hydra, Hunter/Stalker and others that have the Skyfire rule without Interceptor.
If you follow any of the rumour mills out there you'll have seen recent talk that GW is abandoning finecast in place of plastic and that forgeworld will be coming more "in-house". I'll probably be the only one to say this, but I'll be sad to see finecast go.
It's got problems, major problems, but if you step back from the rage for a moment, you'll see those problems have a lot more to do with the casting process than they do with finecast. Bubbles, flash, misaligned casts are all symptoms of casting resin and certainly not exclusive to GW or finecast. In fact I've seen the same people bitch and moan about all these things with finecast, but just put them down to par for the course for forgeworld because it is made from resin. Double standards much?
A lot of the problem comes from GW marketing finecast as the best thing since sliced bread. A bold claim they couldn't back up with product, but get a problem with either their or forgeworld's respective products and they will replace them without question (at least in my experience, others may differ). If only they'd taken some advice from forgeworld on casting techniques and problem solving, or had a decent quality control system (less of a problem with plastic, but I've still come across problems), I don't think they'd have had half the bad press they did.
I can only hope that we may see forgeworld start to use finecast so we can get their delicious detail without risking our health every time we try and clean and trim models. I also hope forgeworld getting closer to GW won't see their excellent customer engagement start to suffer, and that we might see a softening of GW's policies as they learn from those that are eternally loved.
So it's been a while, and there's always reasons. I won't call them excuses because they are mostly conscious choices but they are there nonetheless. Over the last few months I've completed my first triathlon (in under 3 hours, and all the training that entailed), cracked the 2 hour mark for a half marathon, and started a completely new career. We're also about to embark on a significant remodel to the main room of our flat, which will entail further disruption.
I'm sure I'm not the only one out there that finds the other things in their lives get in the way of their hobby. I thought I might do a few posts on how I manage to keep abreast of what is going on in the hobby-verse and to scratch that hobby itch during the times I can't get to the paints or the table. I'm going to title these "Keeping the Hobby", hopefully some of you out there might find the odd titbit of interesting information in them.
Notes
This one might seem strange at first thought, but how often are you doing something else and all of a sudden a thought pops into your head for a conversion, a pose you'd like to use for one of your guys, maybe an idea for a new army or some background for your existing army. I know for sure that this happens all the time for me, but the problem I tend to find is that by the time at back at my painting table I've forgotten all about it.
I've taken to carrying a notebook with me as much as possible, dedicated purely to my hobby. I'll write down paint schemes, tips I read or hear about, bits of fluff ideas or anything else that pops into my head just as quickly as possible in it so I've got them to go back to whenever I need to.
I'll tell you, its amazing the number of times I've sat down at my painting table, and drawn a blank when trying to figure out what to tackle next. I quick flick through my notes and that's always cured.
So that's it for the first post, simple, but probably the most effective of all the things you can do to keep going with your hobby when you don't have time/space/energy to paint.
What do you do to keep your hobby mojo going in the lean times? Lets hear your suggestions in the comments below.
Well, Blog Wars 5 has been and gone, and I'm "happy" to report that I managed a credible 3rd (from last :D). Yep, from 10th in the first Blog Wars, to mid table at Blog Wars 4, to 3 from the bottom, I'm on a roll and I'm sure that wooden spoon will be mine in November at Blog Wars 6. No matter though, as it was a great day, I had 3 fantastic opponents, and 3 great games. Blog Wars has also moved to a new venue, the North West Gaming Centre, a part of Marauder Gaming, and in my opinion this is a great move. Its easier to get to, a nicer room, had better and much more varied terrain, a better discount on product for attendees, and really great staff who were a pleasure to talk to and obviously very passionate about what they do and building a community of gamers in their area. I hope that in future we'll be staying at the same location for Blog Wars.
I'll be posting up battle reports later on, but for now I'd like to show you some of the awesomely modelled and painted armies that were present on the day. It was fantastic to see so many well painted armies on the tabletop, and some brilliantly creative forces too.
(where I was able, I've added links to the appropriate blogs, if I've missed yours let me know and I'll get it added in)
Matt Greenwood's gorgeous Eldar and Grey Knight force. I was "lucky" enough to play these in my first game, and see them up close, fantastic.
For the second year in a row, I'm off to Salute, the wargaming and miniatures tradeshow run by the South London Warlords. Last years event was a real eye opener for me, seeing just how many different systems were out there, and discovering entire genres of gaming I hadn't known about until then. In case you are interested, you can see some of the fantastic miniatures that were to be found in my posts from last year: Salute1, Salute2 and Salute3.
Well, its my 200th post, can't quite believe it myself.
It's been not quite a year since I had my 100th post, and I've reached 200 so quickly thanks to resurrecting a lot of posts I lost from the past, and migrating posts over from an old blog I decided to retire.
The total page views for my blog has smashed through 46,000, with Where's Wally getting picked up by Faeit 212 finally toppling the spike I got from attending the first Blog Wars tournament. That page alone has almost 3000 views!
Items of note in terms of progress for me and my hobby since my 100th post include visiting Salute (1, 2, 3), the birth of One Force and that armies development, taking part in the TFP: Badab Competition and almost winning, finally managing to return for Blog Wars 4 and the subsequent fateful visit to WHW.
For the next 100 posts, well I'm definitely looking forward to the seeming imminent release of Tau (I may even resurrect my Iron Man themed Tau (and the inspiration for the name of this blog) that were the first things I painted on my return to the hobby, who knows.
What a legend, only primarch to have a tank named after him - what better accolade could the imperium bestow upon someone??? As a die-hard Space Wolves player and collector of course I have a soft spot for the big hairy brute, and I'll tell you what, I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what Forgeworld do when they get around to the Sacking of Tizca.
For some, I'm sure the abiding image of Leman Russ is the one below from the cover of Prospero Burns:
For me however, I think I'll always first think of the (very) old Leman Russ model that once was available from GW:
