As I mentioned in my post on Monday, I’ve been invited to have a game (well games technicall) of 40k with friends in Cheltenham using my Space Wolves.  This coupled with the fact I’ve agreed to also play some games with my brother on the weekend 18th ~ 20th March have made me dust off the Wolves in my cupboard and grab hold of my scalpal and green stuff in an effort to actually have at least a legal army put together!  I’ve started assembling a Rune Priest in Terminator armour to lead my 1000 point army that I’ll be using against my brother.  Plus have ordered a few extra bitz in order to make 5 more Skyclaws and a Wolf Guard to lead them.  Currently my intention is to max out all of the packs I’ve got and add at least one more pack of Grey Hunters.  I actually have three Rhino’s as well, so this would mean that I’ve a Rhino for each Grey Hunter pack – and in fact a Land Raider Crusader for the Blood Claws (if I make up a Power Armoured Wolf Guard Pack Leader).  Finish a Razorback and my Long Fangs and then I’ll hit my 1000 points without too much hassle.

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…to create a decent Thunderhawk Gunship for a sensible price using regularly available components?

The last weekend I visited friends in Cheltenham and have subsequently been invited along for a few 40k games with my Space Wolves should I fancy it.  It also seems that they play fairly large (as in Apocolypse sized) games which set my brain off at a tangent thinking about Space Marine super heavies and similar.  Mooching on the good old internet it would seem that the only thing Space Marines have available to them is the Thunderhawk Gunship which after years of secret development Games Workshop have never quite got off as a standard plastic kit.  Now in Apoc games it’s not too difficult to tag on an Imperial Guard ally and poke in a couple of baneblades – but that’s not the point of this post

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Quite a nice, free online magazine that’s available from the WAMP website.  Worth a read for certain!

Click here for Portal Magazine number 6

Yes, ignore the fact that it’s actually the 14th January!  The past couple of months have flown by as they have a tendancy to do around the Christmas period.  I have actually done quite a bit of painting during that time too.  Not as much as I would have liked, but enough to say that I’ve done bits.  I completed a test Ogre head and actually started on main Ogre, managed to do some fairly impressive rust effect on the metal parts too.

For Christmas I actually got given two of the new GW Paint Stations and a box of Ungor Beastmen that will go a little way to starting my Beasts of Chaos army up again.  One of the Paint Stations I managed to get swapped for a Shrine of the Aquila – a huge terrain piece that as my girlfriend pointed out can be used to display miniatures on, in addition to gaming with (yes she’s a fantastic lady who encourages me in my hobby .  I’ve assembled this obscenly large piece of scenary, got it all undercoated and have started to airbrush it with pretty good results.  I’ve only started the blue outer colour and not got onto the interior cream yet, but it’s progressing solidly.  I’m away this weekend, but want to make a concerted effort over the next couple of weeks & the weekend between and get at least to the point where I can weather it like they do in the ForgeWorld painting book – basically with oil paint and stream it so that it looks dirty and grimey.  I’ll do this on a test piece first though – not going to risk it on the actual main piece!  I’ll get a picture or two of it up once I work out the best way of taking it – it’s substantially larger than I’m used to taking.

Despite my last post being in August and saying that I’ve almost got my office/modelling area finished, I’m only now coming close (yes it’s December next week).  I’ve got sliding shelves in one of the cupboards now and have almost brought over most of the stuff from Mum’s.  It’s just down to random bits and bobs now and gettings everything put into it’s correctly place.

On the painting front however I have in the last few weeks finally managed to sort out things generally and am trying to get at least an hour’s worth of painting in of an evening whilst watching a bit of telly.  I’ve been messing around with an Ogre from a half box I discovered when I moved and thoroughly enjoying it.  Not got loads done really, but doing painting as I am (little and often) I’m actually starting to get my eye back in.  With a bit of discipline I may actually improve my painting speed as well, which would be good.  I’m trying to really push my shadows and highlights as it’s something that I’m not that confident with doing.  Updates of the Ogre will (I hope) be forthcoming soon.

I’d love to get back into doing some more airbrushing, but going to do it one step at a time.  Doing ‘normal’ painting requires less electricity and although I’m not hard up (yet) it pays to be a bit thrifty this time of year.

Yup, over eight months since my last post and boy have things changed in my life.  I have recently just bought (and moved into) my first house which has consumed bags of time and money – but worth it without a doubt.  I have a three bedroom semi-detached place with garden and garage.  I’ve just got a pair of corner desks in the small bedroom, which is going to become my computer/modelling room and hope to move most of my model making and painting supplies across fairly soon – although I’m lacking cupboards so most will have to live in the spare bedroom for a short time.  The other major change is that I’ve started dating the most amazing lady in the world, so have been spending quite a bit of  time with her – although she lives an hour and a halves drive away (or two and a half hours public transport journey) so most visits are planned in advance.

It is still my intention to paint something for entry into Golden Demon this year, however due to time restrictions I’m not sure what I’m going to be able to do.  I had started to tidy up some Empire Outriders/Pistoleers so that’s still a possibility.

Anyway that’s just a small update of things – hopefully I’ll be getting back into painting fairly soon.