April roundup

 Another month, another photo dump of progress...

Still not had any gaming, but that should hopefully change soon.

I've kept the pile of shame ticking over and finished off some odd hobby jobs - including more contributions to the Life Of Die podcast.

Next month will see my next 'new army' project for this year.... Epic Squats - I let go the small army i acquired a few years ago and used it to fund some fresh unpainted minis.

My vision for these guys will be some kind of Nordic/Pirate theme, black/grey/white/red using some Space Wolf decals where required.

I will have a boat load of plastic infantry and bikes, but not much of the heavier metal praetorians. As such my theming will be more of a mobile/raiding force rather than the traditional dug in/tick like dwarves of lore.

Anyhoo, here's the stuff, More Green Marines, based 40k guys, and some stuff from the Life of Die 'white dwarf' style photo shot for the latest video(s) on Epic list building.

March Roundup (and a bit of April too!)

 It's been a relatively busy month hobby wise!

Firstly have sold/am in the process of selling some excess Epic and 40k stuff that I know I will just never use - either because I didn't paint it, or because it's for an army I don't collect or want to paint.

Feels great moving this stuff on, and the brief period of reclaiming some space in my constantly shrinking office/hobby space where I'm spending most of my time these days.

Of course I couldn't do that without doing something equally stupid... My choice this time, having just sold a whole bunch of Epic space marines was to start a new small Space Marine army?!

Partly the motivation for this was to make some Epic 40k/3rd edition specific formations, as well as paint up some stuff for fun.

I've knocked out a battle company of marines, some armour, a Thunderhawk, some terminators and support stuff. (still to base these so i'll put them in the next post)

I plan on adding some land speeders and bikes - my new aim being to make this a 1997 era specific army (although I've already broken this plan by using some older 2nd ed stuff and putting it all on square bases... meh!)

Aside from this I continued my efforts to paint all the things, including some epic and some old 40k models which I originally painted as a kid, and was happy with them at the time, but I knew I could do them more justice now, so they took a bath in some methylated spirits and I'm going to enjoy tackling these again.

Out with all the painting stuff, I've been trying to learn the rules for 3rd Edition Epic, playing some solo games, doing the same for Bolt Action to keep my brain fresh!

Epic - Cleansing the palate

Popped some fairly random miniatures out of my Epic box for a quick 28mm/WW2 palate cleanser.

Fun to paint bold colours at this smaller scale again.

In addition I finally completed my plan to create drop-pod company using wall plugs I bought last year.

I also took my epic Orks out for a bit of an inventory - as I didn't include them in my re-basing exercise last year (for good reason - my sanity).

I've concluded that I have 'too much' of some stuff, and not enough of others. e.g. I have multiple copies of the same clan, but I'm lacking some support options and cools things like the mek-boy renegades.

So I think I'll get rid of some of the stuff I'm not overly fond of and try to find the missing bits for a reasonable price.

Bolt Action - Small Squads

 So March is looking like it's going to be the month of small squads, painted in a single session. (At least that is the plan!)

In a moment of madness I nearly bought a Bolt Action USMC starter army... Luckily the shop I had it in my basket with ran out of stock and I was too tight to pay full price elsewhere!

to satiate my need though, it dipped a toe in with a single sprue...

I have to say that USMC will be my next full Bolt Action army, of that there is little doubt. I loved painting them and have already put lists together for them, plus it would be a great excuse to use my jungle terrain set!

Other than those guys, I've kit-bashed some more British Commandos, this time using the 8th Army sprue as the base, and adding bits from the USMC, DAK, and Commando sprues (plus my usual green stuff caps) to bolster my existing sections, or function as a skirmish force.

I also finished repainting my Paras - and I'm much happier with them now.

Next up - I think I'll build some Brandenburgers using a DAK sprue to give my desert Germans some elite troops. After that all that remains on my Bolt Action sprues are a dozen or so Early War Germans, which I have some plans for!

I also picked up those 40k Ad-Mech Sicarian Rust Stalkers recently, and think i might use them as a little palate cleanser.

In other news - our little podcast has been doing well, and recently Chris and I had a chat about Bolt Action on it. Gordon has also been very busy and snagged some very exclusive interviews with some veterans of the industry including Andy Chambers! well worth a listen;

https://open.spotify.com/show/3ItXAn2F0g9bAv7MaumWsf

Enjoy!

Bolt Action - A Wet Weekend's Work

 Hi,

Just a quick round-up of Bolt Action goings on since my last post.

We have new DAK reinforcements in the form of a couple of Motorbikes, an Opel Blitz truck and Pioneer half-track.

I also kitbashed some weapons platforms and magnetised spare 2cm Flak, Pak 36 and panzerbusche 41 options.

I settled on a scheme (for the 4th time) for my British Paras, and began applying it, and I also rescued my Sdkfz 222 by re-applying the base coats after making a mess of highlighting before.