Year: 2020 Page 5 of 12

October Resolutions Update

By

On 6th November 2020

In Blog

I got a lot more painted this month than in the past few, I felt I got a good deal of my motivation back.

Sorry this update is late, but events have been hectic lately!

I crossed the 1000 mark for number of models painted, and at the end of October stood at 1104 models painted.

Finish The Blood Ravens I Own on 1st January – 95%

I got painted this month, both squads of Hellblasters, a squad of 10 standard guys and 5 with Heavy Plasma Incinerators.

This leaves me left to paint for this resolution:-

  • Intercessors with Stalker Bolt Rifles x 10
  • Inceptors x 3

Paint 2000 Points of Stormcast Eternals – 85.5% Complete

I got the last squad of Vanguard-Hunters for the list painted, which completes the battle line for this list.

I now have left to paint:-

  • Lord Arquilor
  • Gryph-Hounds x 6

Paint 2000 Points of T’au – 65.2% Complete

I painted this month, a Strike Team, Stealth Team, Sniper Drone Team and the Commander in XV86 Armour.

Left to paint I have:-

  • Barracuda AX-5-2
  • KV128 Stormsurge

Complete 2000 Points of Orks – 15.25% Complete

This month I finally got started with this and I painted a squad of Ork Boyz and a Warboss plus a Mekboy Workshop for a kid battling cancer.

Other Resolutions

  • Rebase the Orks

Completed Resolutions

  • Paint 867 Models
  • Rebase the Blood Ravens
  • Finish the Death Guard
  • Paint Mortarion for Everchosen

So what’s on my painting list as we head into November

  1. Zone Mortalis Terrain
  2. Nighthaunt Dreadscythe Harridans x 20
  3. Space Wolves Swiftclaws x 3
  4. Palanite Enforcers x 5, Palanite Subjugators x 6 & Ambots x 2
  5. Stormcast Eternals Lord-Aquillor, Lord-Exorcist & Gryph-Hounds x 6
  6. Blood Ravens Stalker Intercessors x 10 & Inceptors x 3
  7. Death Korps of Krieg Grenadiers
  8. The Grymwatch & Rippa’s Snarlfangs
  9. T’au KV-128 Stormsurge
  10. Ork Megatrakk Scrapjet

Rewatching Deep Space Nine

By

On 3rd November 2020

In Blog

Deep Space Nine is by far my favourite Star Trek, and I have been waiting a while to rewatch it as Megan as been wanting to watch it and she and Lindsay were still making their way though The Next Generation.

But the other week they finally finished and we have now started Deep Space Nine, getting on average four episodes watched a week.

We just finished Vortex, I know the first season was a little uneven, but it’s very enjoyable none the less as you can see the beginnings of what eventually grows into what is in my opinion the deepest and richest of all of the Trek series.

By staying in one place, the show was able to actually really fully develop not only the core cast, but a greater number of supporting characters who contributed to the depth of the setting. I mean the journey of characters like Rom was so fantastic, and very rewarding.

Of course it really starts to kick off in season 3, and will take some time to get there, but it’s just a case of waiting for that!

We did get Move Along Home, which was a very bad episode, but still lots of classics to come.

Graphics Card Aquired

With the impending lockdown I threw caution to the wind and bought a graphics card.

Specifically I got a EVGA GTX 1660 Ti XC Black Gaming. I managed to snag it for £217 which was pretty good considering it’s normally £269.99.

Ok to be fair it’s B-Stock, but I am not bothered with this card being pleasuring on the eye physically.

I was getting myself very tempted by an RTX 2060 but, looking at some bottleneck calculations I was gonna run into some issues with my current processor, hence scaling back on the card.

On Sunday my PC was doing a restart so I figured then was as good a time as any to install the PCI-e power cable to get it ready, so that was done, and now all I need to do is wait for the card to arrive on Wednesday and slot it in!

Next thing on the list is a shelf for the keyboard, followed by a keyboard and then some new monitors to take advantage of the graphics card.

What I Am Modelling

I started the week by building and priming my next 10 projects, including my next Underworlds warbands.

I then cracked on with the T’au Empire Strike Team, getting them finished on Tuesday night.

I started in the Zone Mortalis Walls, Columns and doors at long last, the doors were finished on Wednesday night and I think they look canny good.

I then cracked on with the walls and columns, none of which I have completed by today, but they are coming close.

So what coming up for me next

  1. Zone Mortalis Terrain
  2. Death Korps of Krieg Engineers x 10 and Hades Breaching Drill
  3. Secret Heresy Project Unit
  4. Nighthaunt Dreadscythe Harridans x 20
  5. Space Wolves Swiftclaws x 3
  6. Palanite Subjugators x 6, Enforcers x 5 & Ambots x 2
  7. Stormcast Eternals Lord-Aquilor, Lord-Exorcist & Gryph-Hounds x 6
  8. Blood Ravens Intercessors with Stalker Bolt Rifles x 10
  9. Death Korps of Krieg Grenediers x 12
  10. The Grymwatch & Rippa’s Snarlfangs

What I Am Reading

Sadly not a lot 🙁

What I Am Playing

We had a game of Just One on Sunday, played with Megan’s mum over FaceTime and we scored 11 points.

Video game wise I played The Witcher on Tuesday for four hours, as you can see below.

And on Friday I did two hours of BioShock.

I still want to catch up and play the two hours of BioShock I missed.

What I Am Backing

Not backing anything right now.

What I Am Cooking

I made my dads stir fry on Wednesday as I was feeling down and wanted comfort food.

It literally is just microwave rice (he used Bachelors Savoury Rice) a couple of eggs, bacon lardons and some sausage.

But to me this is a real comforting memory of my youth in Suffolk.

On Friday I made Southern Fried Chicken Wings served with Red Potato Wedges.

My wedges were nowhere near as good as when Megan or Lindsay makes them mind.

And on Sunday myself and Megan made Black Bean Tacos, which were very very nice.

What I Am Spending

The Razorwire Energy drinks arrived on Tuesday, and they are really nice.

We ordered 60 serving tubs of cherry and apple, a 30 serving tub of raspberry, a fusion shaker and a sample of tropical.

The flavours are great, not too in your face and they certainly don’t taste as harsh as the stuff that comes in cans.

I think I will be ordering another shaker for Megan to use as she wants to have drinks now and then, although she wants one from Sneak because she likes bunnies!

Last week I ordered a combination HDMI switch and extractor to improve my streams, particularly for the Switch.

I got it installed in place and for part 4 of my Witcher III stream on Tuesday and it did make a noticeable improvement.

I did have to order a short 3.5mm extension cable to make sure it was all tidy when using it and I didn’t have wires all over the place, but it works pretty well.

I attached it to the wall just below my monitor using some Velcro strips, and it has a remote control allowing me to switch between inputs very easily.

My new Xbox Controller arrived. This will served two functions, first it will allow me to improve the stream audio by allowing me to listen the it over a headset, and mute the monitor, and secondly it will connect to my PC and allow me to use it in PC games.

Although the HDMI extractor kinda made the first function redundant, but hey, I can now play some games on the PC a lot easier now.

I paid a visit to Battle Bunker on Saturday and grabbed a few things, basically paints and the new Terminator Chaplain, and I got the Recruit Edition of Warhammer 40,000 in an impulse purchase!

And obviously I ordered the GPU.

  • Mood:- Knackered
  • Caffeinated Beverages Consumed:- 6
  • In My Ears:-
  • Tabletop Game Last Played:- Just One
  • Video Game Lat Played:- The Witcher III: Wild Hunt
  • Book Last Read:- The Last Ritual- S A Sidor
  • Movie/TV Show Last Viewed:- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
  • Current State of Projects:- Zone Mortalis Walls and Columns 75% done

First Week of Streaming

By

On 26th October 2020

In Blog

It’s gone ok, few teething issues, like I got to make sure the video capture card is working before I start.

And I have sat down and started on refining the sound quality as it’s not been the best, think I need to put headphones on for the in game sounds so it’s not picked up on by the microphone.

So that’s been put into motion and I have ordered a headset for gaming and a new Xbox Controller to allow me to use it.

The Switch is simple as all I have to do it plug in my headset.

Gonna get Megan’s help to take some publicity photos and I am really gonna start on the promo work this next week.

Right now I just wanna get it working first.

What I Am Modelling

I started the week off by painting Grashrak’s Despoilers for Beastgrave which were a lot of fun to paint.

Beasts of Chaos are amazing, and I would love to paint a full army of them, but I really don’t have the space for another army.

I then wanted to paint Skaeth’s Wild Hunt but annoyingly the second layer I wanted to do, well the paint had completely dried up!

So a new pot of Flayed One Flesh had to be bought, which was acquired by Megan on Thursday.

I painted up the MV71 Sniper Drones and Firesight Marksman for my T’au Empire, these got done fairly quickly and were in fact a joy to paint.

Whilst waiting for the Flayed One Flesh, I painted some Ork Nobz, I promised this to another streamer, Cerantis, who is sorting out some Ork models to be donated to a young lad battling Leukaemia.

I also worked on a Warboss and Mekboy Workshop for him, and the Warboss was finished on Saturday.

With the Flayed One Flesh in hand I was able to make more progress on Skaeth’s Wild Hunt, they took a little while to do and were quite a different type of unit than I have done before.

And my first time using clear paints too, which are very interesting to work with.

I then picked up a T’au Empire Strike team and started painting them, getting the drones finished on Sunday night.

So what’s coming up next then?

  1. Zone Mortalis Terrain
  2. T’au Strike Team x 10
  3. Death Korps of Krieg Engineers x 10 & Hades Breaching Drill
  4. Secret Heresy Project Unit
  5. Nighthaunt Dreadscythe Harridans x 20
  6. Space Wolves Swiftclaws x 3
  7. Palanite Subjugators x 6, Enforcers x 5 & Ambots x 2
  8. Stormcast Eternals Lord-Aquilor, Lord-Exorcist & Gryph-Hounds x 6
  9. Blood Ravens Intercessors with Stalker Bolt Rifles x 10
  10. Death Korps Krieg Grenediers x 12

What I Am Reading

Not as much as I would have liked to, and I got none of my book read at all 🙁

I did finally get around to listening to the audio book of Lion El’Jonson: Lord of the First, which was fairly interesting.

What I Am Playing

We had a game of Star Trek Adventures again on Wednesday and this time Lindsay and Megan were able to join in.

Our ship was escorting a Vorta prisoner to an exchange with the Dominon when it was seemingly sabotaged.

Unfortunately power and connection issues for our GM Chris meant that we had a bit more downtime than I think we all would have liked.

Video game wise, I started the week by starting The Witcher III: Wild Hunt on the Xbox One, which I am streaming and you can see that below.

And on Friday I started a play through of BioShock: The Collection, again I will pop the videos below.

What I Am Backing

Not backing anything now, but I did complete the survey for The Rival Networks.

What I Am Cooking

On Monday I cooked us all an omelette for our “together breakfast”. Normally this is Sunday morning but this week it was Monday as Lindsay and Megan were helping Jane sort some stuff out for the Newcastle Mutual Aid group to pull together some food to help sort out food parcels for kids over half term.

It was just a big cheese one, not fancy but it was nice.

What I Am Spending

I caved, and I decided to swap out my iPhone 11 for an iPhone 12!

I know people will accuse me of being a sheep and all that, but I just like the way iPhones and iOS works.

Plus at this point I am pretty solidly bought into the whole iOS ecosystem, having an iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and AirPods!

Anyway I got the 128gb model in green.

I did place a small order with Element Games, I bought some Open Engine War Cards for Adeptus Titanicus, a pot of Grey Seer, an Army Painter Character Brush and a pot of Turbo Dorks Shell-Shocked.

And myself and Megan made an order for some Razorwire Energy drink powder.

We had a 20% off voucher and ordered a bundle of two 60 serving tubs, with apple and cherry flavours and a shaker, a 30 serving tub of raspberry and a sample of tropical.

This should get delivered on Tuesday as it took us over the limit for free delivery with DPD.

I also made a leap and ordered a new headset for gaming, my budget was very limited so I got a Razer Kraken X, this got delivered on Monday and hopefully this will help me deal with the sound issues that are irritating me on the streams.

And so that I can actually use the headset with the Xbox I ordered a refurbished Xbox One Controller from eBay which hopefully should arrive in the next week.

My mouse is also dying so a cheap replacement to get me by until I can afford a decent one was ordered. I got it for £13, should have been £18 but Amazon had a £5 off voucher deal for it.

It’s nice cause of the RGB effects, but it’s very much a get me by until I get a proper decent one.

I also ordered a HDMI Extractor, because it turns out the Switch doesn’t allow me to output sound to both the HDMI and the headset at the same time, so that was ordered and should replace my current HDMI splitter as well.

This Weeks Gaming Stream

By

On 24th October 2020

In Game Streams

So with me doing regular Twitch streams, I figure that it might be good to put together my gaming streams into a weekly blog post.

So here is his weeks

Tuesday – The Witcher III – Wild Hunt (XB1)

Thursday – BioShock (NSW)

Streaming Schedule Finalised

By

On 20th October 2020

In Blog

So this week I finally sat down with Lindsay and Megan and worked out my schedule.

I need a schedule to try and get myself back on track personally and give me some structure.

I am using streaming as something to do, to keep me motivated and on track.

So here is my schedule for Monday to Friday

Monday

  • 2000 – 0000 – Minis Painting

Tuesday

  • 1100 – 1300 – The Witcher III on Xbox
  • 1400 – 1600 – The Witcher III on Xbox

Wednesday

  • 1400 – 1600 – Minis Painting

Thursday

  • 2000 – 0000 – Minis Painting

Friday

  • 1100 – 1300 – BioShock: The Collection on Switch
  • 1400 – 1600 – BioShock: The Collection on Switch

Weekends are being left free to do stuff, I may do ad hoc stuff but nowt scheduled in.

I started tonight with my first stream, which you can see below.

New CPAP Machine

This week the NHS sleep clinic gave me an upgraded CPAP machine, following Covid they figured they need to keep a closer eye on my sleep apnoea.

The new machine is a ResMed Airsense 10 Elite, which is a lot smaller than my old machine and a lot fancier.

For one, it’s got a built in 4G modem so it uploads my sleep data each night direct to the sleep clinic, so if I don’t use it, I get a telling off.

It’s also got a built in humidifier which really contributes to the smaller footprint and allows you to actually control it. So I have been able to set the level to humidity to one I am very comfortable with.

Overall it’s a very compact machine and is far less complicated to set up and use than my old one.

And obviously very glad that we have the NHS because if I had to buy this privately, well, it costs more than my PC!!!

PC Cleanup & Graphics Card Dilema

I took a bit of time to tidy up the PC interior and fit the Wi-Fi antennas.

I rerouted the cables for the CPU cooler to go behind the motherboard and just about was able to get them into the headers, but the fan cable required an extension cable.

I also removed a 2TB HDD which wasn’t working, and did a general tidy up of the wires.

The target for saving for a graphics card is currently £200, but I may end up bumping that up to £250.

I am currently thinking a GTX 1660 Super is about what I want, but with the unveiling of Big Navi later this month, it may result in price drops to the RTX 2060 and the 5600 XT to be in my budget.

The headline is, I do not really need to go to anything beyond 1080p. It would be nice to eventually get a 1440p monitor, but that’s a long way off.

So the question is, do I stick to my guns and hope the GTX 1660 Super also benefits from some price drops, or do I perhaps go bigger and try and grab a better card to future proof and make 1440p gaming a possibility.

Either way I am not going to be making a decision until I have hit the £200 in savings and the Big Navi reveal.

All things being equal, I hope to have about £175 by early November so it’s likely I could be able to make a purchase in the Black Friday sales.

New Addition to the Studio

Megan has cross stitched for me this wonderful piece featuring all the lead characters from the main Star Trek series and their ships.

Looks fantastic on the wall of the studio and really helps complete the place.

What I Am Modelling

I started the week by building the Ambots for Necromunda, and then I built the Palanite Enforcers and Subjugators from Dark Uprising.

Whilst playing Star Trek Adventures on Wednesday night, I finished off painting the Palanite Enforcers Patrol, and then got transfers on them Thursday morning.

I then placed a T’au Stealth Team and Commander in XV86 Coldstar armour on my painting table, along with the Marketlight Drone and Homing Beacon from the Stealth Team.

These were finished surprisingly quickly, I think the wet palette had really helped when painting T’au.

Next up were the Hellblasters for the Blood Ravens, two squads of them. One squad of ten, containing the five from Dark Imperium and five multipart ones, and then a squad of five with Heavy Plasma Incinerators.

Going forward when it comes to Hellbalsters, I want two more boxes of them, one to make into a squad armed with Assault Plasma Incinerators. And the other to split between the Blood Ravens, with five bulking out the squad with Heavy Plasma Incinerators.

I tonight started on Grashrak’s Despoilers from Beastgrave which is on the Twitch stream above.

So what’s coming up in my painting plan then?

  1. Zone Mortalis Terrain
  2. Grashrak’s Despoilers x 6 & Skaeth’s Wild Hunt x 5
  3. T’au Strike Team x 10 & Sniper Drone Team
  4. Death Korps of Krieg Engineers x 10 & Hades Breaching Drill
  5. Secret Heresy Project Unit
  6. Nighthaunt Dradscythe Harridans x 20
  7. Space Wolves Swiftclaws x 3
  8. Palanite Subjugators x 6 & Enforcers x 5
  9. Stormcast Eternals Lord-Aquior, Lord-Exorcist & Gryph-Hounds x 6
  10. Blood Ravens Intercessors with Stalker Bolt Rifles x 10

What I Am Reading

I finished Doom of Fallowhearth, and you can read my review here.

I started on The Last Ritual by S A Sidor, which is an Arkham Horror book.

What I Am Playing

A bit of Star Wars: Squadrons which I am really enjoying, even been streaming a bit of it too.

I joined the Mills brothers for the conclusion to our Star Trek Adventures game on Roll20. We saved the planet and didn’t destroy the Cardassian Space Station in the process.

It got really tense and came down to the last rolls of the game, we needed four successes with four dice, and we just pulled it off!

What I Am Backing

No projects in the pipeline at the minute, but I completed the survey for

I also finally got my transfers for Forgotten Chapters, these are really lovely and I can’t wait to get them onto my Sisters of Battle models.

What Am I Cooking

On Thursday I made burgers, but in a nod to depression era recipes, 25% of the meat was replaced by onion.

This makes them very flavourful, although Megan hates the idea of them and had a vegan burger instead.

What I Am Spending

I didn’t go mad on Prime Day, mostly because I am saving towards a new graphics card.

I did pick up an Echo Dot 3rd Generation for Lindsay’s Office, but she took over that and paid for it, so I didn’t spend the money.

And for myself I got a third party dock for the Switch, so when streaming from that I don’t need to take down the main dock from upstairs.

In the Sega 60th Anniversary sale on Steam, in indulged and bought the Sega Mega Drive Classics collection of 57 games and Sonic CD, which cost me a bit over £6.

At some point I plan to play though the 3 Mega Drive Sonic games and Sonic CD, my only disappointment is that Knuckles Chaotix has yet to be ported to anything at all.

I also managed to grab a Servants of the Abyss sprue to complete my Blackstone Fortress collection.

  • Mood:- Satisfied
  • Caffeinated Beverages Consumed:- 5
  • In My Ears:-
  • Tabletop Game Last Played:- Star Trek Adventures
  • Video Game Lat Played:- Star Wars Squadron
  • Book Last Read:- The Last Ritual- S A Sidor
  • Movie/TV Show Last Viewed:- Glee
  • Current State of Projects:- Grashrak’s Despoilers 50 % done, Mekboy Workshop 10% done, Ork Nobz and Warboss primed
  • Graphics Card Fund:- £40– 20%

Project Big Picture

By

On 13th October 2020

In Blog

I don’t often talk football, beacuse whilst I love the sport, I am not the most knowlegable about it, and when I talk about it, I tend to make a fool of myself.

But Project Big Picture makes me want to break that habbit, beacvuse I have feelings about it.

Simply put, I think that many of the proposals are good, the 25% of money going to the EFL is a great start, but the power aspect I utterly disagree with. Placing power into the hands of the nine longest serving members of the league is not a good thing, and allowing them the power of veto over takeovers and other issues is a bad road to go down.

If we take the aborted Saudi takeover of Newcastle United, we know how that would have played out, the big six would have all said no to the possibility of a club with the ability to disrupt their dominance of the league. How is that fair, it would essentially create a closed shop at the top of the league.

These proposals would lead to stagnation in the league and a loss of competition and excitement. And the abolition of the League Cup and reduction of the league to 18 teams robs other teams of much needed match day revenue.

As I said before there are good aspects, the 25% of TV deals and abolition of parachute payments will make the EFL much healthier and better positioned to survive, but the special voting rights are bad for the Premier League, and bad for football in general.

In this instance, if the big six want to form a breakaway league, I say let them, the pyramid is bigger than six clubs mostly owned by billionaire’s, and I think the other clubs need to be prepared to jetision the likes of Liverpool and Manchester United if they want to use the Covid-19 crisis to make such an audacious power grab.

So that’s my biannual football post done, but in all seriousness, I think that the state of the game in this country would be infinitely worse off if these proposals were accepted in their current form.

Doom of Fallowhearth

By

On 12th October 2020

In Book Reviews, Reviews

I have been provided with an advance copy of the new Descent: Journeys in the Dark book The Doom of Fallowhearth by Robbie MacNiven, published by Aconyte Books, so here is the honest review I promised in exchange for the book.

So here is an important disclaimer which is always important to put out there first. I have a casual work contact with Asmodee to demonstrate board games for them in stores and at conventions. Asmodee being the parent company of Aconyte the publisher.

Secondly I am a friend of Robbie’s on Facebook, and whilst we aren’t best buds, we do interact with each other on occasion and I consider him a class person.

I am going to try my best to not let these things cloud my judgement in this review, but I accept that subconsciously it might.

What’s is Descent: Journeys in the Dark

Simply put Descent: Journeys in the Dark is good old fashioned dungeon crawler whose linage goes all the way back to Heroquest.

Based very much on the Doom board game published by Fantasy Flight Games, you can see influences from across the gaming hobby, with bits from Space Hulk and Lord of the Rings being identifiable.

It’s set in the world of Terrinoth, a setting shared with Runewars, Runeage and a few other games and RPGs published by Fantasty Flight Games.

It’s a high fantasy universe and you will recognise many of the tropes and races seen in other similar fantasy style settings. It’s not particularly unique, but it is fairly well developed and interesting.

Descent is the dungeon crawler game in that universe, with one player being the evil overlord of the dungeon and the others taking in the tiles of the hero’s.

For a dungeon crawler, let’s be honest it’s one of the best out there, and the only reason it’s not in my collection is that Lindsay and Megan aren’t as enthusiastic about high fantasy as I am!

The Story

I am gonna be upfront about this, the book is at the same time, familiar and comfortable whilst still being new and innovative. It’s contradictory but it works.

The basic plot is that a band of adventurers are reunited to try and find Lady Katheryn the daughter of the rulers of one of Terrinoths baronies. She had been sent to the northern frontier town of Fallowhearth to learn how to rule, and prepare her to take up her mother’s position.

The adventurers are three of the Borderlands Four, characters who fit common tropes, yet subvert them in very interesting ways. There is the human rogue, who just wants to go back home and sit down, the dwarven alchemist who is mainly interested in blowing stuff up and the orc pathfinder who is the levelheaded leader of the pack and probably the most sensible of them.

The tone of the story is gritty and dark, it’s a very modern take on the old sword and sorcery story from my youth. There is certainly a shared history between the characters, and some bitterness, weariness and regrets too, and whilst we don’t exactly get a full and complete backstory, we don’t need it because it feels so natural.

This story is a tale of revenge and love, and asks the question, how far would you go for someone you love, how deep would you go?

Conclusion

This is a surprisingly emotional story and parts of it literally had my heart crushed, and I was moved to tears as well.

This is generally a very by the numbers story and you pick it up and start it thinking it’s gonna be just a pulpy fantasy adventure. But it’s not, it’s deeply emotional and shows that a good writer and make a familiar and well trod genre, fresh and invigorating.

I’d also loved that we had some really good normalised LGBT representation in there, which felt very natural, very right and fitted so well with the story.

Solid 5 out of 5 stars.

The book is released out now in North America and available in the U.K. on the 26th November.

An Early Post

By

On 9th October 2020

In Blog, Uncategorised

Having an early post this week as I am headed off for a short weekend holiday for my birthday.

I will put out a post about the trip away once I am back and recovered, rather than trying to squeeze everything into one long post.

For my birthday I did get a few nice little things from loved ones.

Megan and Lindsay paid for the trip away, and Megan made me this amazing Carcassonne cross-stitch which is now hanging up in the studio.

Paul and Mary bought me this awesome little modelling tool kit, which is very timely as my hobby knife is on its last legs!

And Jane and Geoff gave me some cash, so I have added that to my graphics card fund.

What I Am Modelling

I started off the week by continuing with the Stormcast Eternals Vanguard-Hunters, this completes the four units of Vanguard-Hunters I own, and gives me two each units armed with either a Shock Handaxe or Storm Sabre.

Whilst doing those I also painted some Spirit Hosts I got from Mortal Realms on the side, these were super easy to do so I just kind got one with them.

I then built and primed a T’au Stealth Suit Team and Strike Team, along with the rest of the models for the next 10 projects.

I then painted a base coat of XV-88 by airbrushing the T’au Strike Team, Stealth Team and the XV86 Commander. I also airbrushed on the main red armour colour of the Blood Ravens Hellblasters.

After that, whilst waiting for the dishwasher to finish, I knocked out the last of my UCM ships for Dropfleet Commander.

For the weekend away, I took with me the Palanite Enforcers for Necromunda. The paint scheme I have come up with for them is heavy in use of Contrast, but I think it works quite well.

So what does my painting queue look like now?

  1. Zone Mortalis Terrain
  2. Palanite Enforcers x 10
  3. T’au Stealth Suit Team x 3
  4. Blood Ravens Hellblasters x 15
  5. Grashrak’s Ravagers & Skaeth’s Wild Hunt x 6
  6. T’au Strike Team x 10 & Sniper Drone Team
  7. Death Korps of Krieg Engineers & Hades Breaching Drill
  8. Secret Heresy Project Unit
  9. T’au Commander in XV86 Coldstar Battlesuit
  10. Nighthaunt Dreadscythe Harridans x 10

What I Am Reading

Not much chance to get more than a few little bits read here and there, must do better.

What I Am Playing

Mostly been playing Star Wars Squadron, high has been a lot of fun, although I kinda wish I got more options to play as the Empire in Story Mode, although to be fair I have just finished the second mission.

Nowt played Tabletop wise but this weekend should see plenty played.

What I Am Backing

Not backing anything right now and no updates on existing projects.

What I Am Cooking

On Wednesday night I made my attempt at Posh Dogs.

I took some normal bockwust, in a part baked roll, in which I spread Dijon mustard, and packed in some caramelised onions.

On top of the bockwurst I then melted some Gruyère and we served them with some red potato wedges made by Megan.

What I Am Spending

For my birthday I treated myself to Star Wars Squadrons. I was torn about getting it for Xbox or PC, but it was in Argos on a great deal, so I spent my Nectar points on it.

With Lindsay moving upstairs we decided to grab another Dolce Gusto machine, the new one is a Lumio and was half price at Curry’s PC World and has an auto shut-off function and a slightly bigger tank.

It means the one I grabbed her last month is moving upstairs to her office, so she doesn’t have to go up and down the stairs every time she wants a coffee.

Because I got a refund from a few things I had to send back to Amazon as a gift card, I decided to spend it on a new power brick for my Xbox One.

I want to do some streaming from it and realistically that means I need it downstairs So rather than pulling a power brick out from behind the TV each time I want to use it, I bought an extra one to keep downstairs in the studio.

The Studio Reborn

By

On 6th October 2020

In Blog

Early last year I relocated my desk downstairs to share the office with Lindsay.

She has worked from home for over about 13 years now and it’s not always plain sailing for her, she can get very lonely. And the depression was really eating away at her during work hours on her own.

So I packed up my upstairs studio and moved down to keep her company.

Unbeknownst to me, that arrangement has not been working for Lindsay, she finds me an annoyance and a distraction, stopping her from working.

She says she can’t get any office banter with me because I am doing one thing and she something very different.

We tried everything we could to make it work for her, offering to give her complete control of what we listened to, so she could silence it when she had a phone call or needed to concentrate etc.

But alas, its just not worked for her at all, so today, as she prepares mentally for a return to work after a few weeks off, she decided to move her desk upstairs to my former studio and turn it into her office.

Which leaves me with the bigger room as a new studio, I do share it with Megan of course.

I was literally just getting comfortable in the downstairs room, I had put up shelves, and all sorts to organise my space and make it manageable, so I guess it was easier at this point for Lindsay to move.

We have decided to take a short bookcase from upstairs and put it where her desk was and we visited IKEA to pick up an armchair to go next to it. This creates a little reading/relaxation area for Lindsay to chill out in, or for myself and Megan to just sit and read in.

I have moved a bunch of books around, including most of my war games books and RPGs and placed them in the book case and will be relocating my “small” electric guitar there.

This has allowed me to relocate my Warhammer Underworlds core games and a few boxed games from Games Workshop to my top shelf and thus freed up some room in the board games shelves.

But the final step has been taken and the upstairs studio had now been renamed in Alexa, The Office, and the downstairs office, The Studio.

Today was my birthday, it was very nice, Megan made me scrambled eggs on dinosaur toast and we had southern fried chicken for tea. Megan also made me an amazing birthday cake.

The girls let me spend our Nectar points on Star Wars: Squadrons for Xbox One and they are picking that up for me tomorrow.

This coming weekend, we are off to the lakes for a weekend in a hot tub and playing board games.

What I Am Modelling

I started off by painting a bunch of UCM ships for Dropfleet Commander. Four Cruisers, a New Cairo, Santiago, and two Madrid’s, two Destroyers, both Kievs’s, four Frigates, two Toulon’s and two Taipei’s and six Santiago Corvettes.

I then got round to putting the transfers on my Titans, and I am currently debating doing some weathering on them.

I then finished off a Command Squad for Nikkis Death Korps of Krieg, along with a 3D printed Primaris Psyker and Sniper.

Drop Force Imperator was up next, along with two flamer armed Scions that I had sitting around spare.

I am now working on some Vanguard-Hunters for my Stormcast Eternals.

I also built some bits for a special thing I am hoping to have finished in the latter half of October, but more about that when they are done.

So what’s on my list to do right now?

  1. Zone Mortalis Terrain
  2. Palanite Enforcers x 10
  3. Stormcast Eternals Vanguard-Hunters x 5
  4. T’au Stealth Tram x 3
  5. Blood Ravens Hellblasters x 15
  6. Grashrak‘s Ravagers x 6 & Skaeth’s Wild Hunt x 5
  7. T’au Strike Team x 10 & Sniper Drone Team
  8. Death Korps of Krieg Engineers x 10 & Hades Breaching Drill
  9. Secret Heresy Project Unit
  10. T’au Commander in XV86 Coldstar Battlesuit

What Am I Reading

I haven’t really picked up any books since last time I posted.

What Am I Playing

A game of Carcassonne on the PC but that’s it.

What Am I Backing

Nowt at the minute.

What I Am Cooking

On Saturday Megan was supposed to make a stirfry but she wasn’t feeling very well, and so I ended up making a Cajun Chicken Gumbo, which was really nice.

We served it with rice and onion rings, and I think I will make it again one day soon.

Sunday morning it was my turn to make breakfast, so I made burgers, with emmental cheese, mushrooms, turkey bacon and a fried egg.

What I Am Spending

I spent a few pounds and bought myself the One Special Day Humble Bundle, which got me 8 new games and one new expansion. I have given Ogre to Graham and Talisman to Misha.

I also had a voucher for some money off a Fanatical Bundle of my choice, so I picked up the Reaper Bundle 6 as well as a bargain basement copy of Warhammer Quest and Space Wolf plus a few other little bundles too.

I need something to better organise the charging cables on my desk and so I grabbed this set from Amazon, and they have worked out quite well.

I also grabbed myself the current hotness of Among Us too as a birthday treat!

And to make the office work better for Lindsay, we grabbed an IKEA Trådfri colour bulb which has been added to the Hue system and works quite well with that.

September Resolutions Update

By

On 1st October 2020

In Blog

So this month I got to 989 models painted, but I didn’t get as much painted as I wanted to do, which is annoying.

I really much redouble my efforts in October.

I did find the joy of painting with a wet palette this month, and its a bit of a revelation.

Finish The Blood Ravens I Own on 1st January –

I haven’t gotten any of these painted this month 🙁

I still have to paint:-

  • Intercessors with Stalker Bolt Rifles x 10
  • Hellblasters x 10
  • Hellblasters with Heavy Plasma Incinerators x 5
  • Inceptors x 3

Finish The Death Guard/Paint Mortarion for Everchosen – Complete

I finally got round to painting Mortarion, and I couldn’t be happier with how he turned out.

I also got the Space Marines Heroes painted as well, so that is the Death Guard complete, and both resolutions competed.

Paint 2000 Points of Stormcast Eternals –

No Stormcast were painted this month ;-(

Still left to paint are:-

  • Lord Arquilor
  • Vanguard-Hunters with Storm Sabres x 5
  • Gryph-Hounds x 6

Paint 2000 Points of T’au –

I first started by pointing the next Strike Team, a Cadre Fireblade and Devilfish, which means I now can field a battalion detachment for the T’au if I so wish.

Left to paint I have:-

  • Commander in XV86 Coldstar Battlesuit
  • Strike Team x 10
  • XV25 Stealth Suits x 3
  • Sniper Drones x 4
  • Barracuda AX-5-2
  • KV128 Stormsurge

Other Resolutions

  • Complete 2000 Points of Orks
  • Rebase the Orks

Completed Resolutions

  • Paint 867 Models
  • Rebase the Blood Ravens
  • Finish the Death Guard
  • Paint Mortarion for Everchosen

So heading into October, what does my painting queue look like?

  1. Zone Mortalis Terrain
  2. Death Korps of Krieg Command Squad x 5
  3. Millitarium Tempestus Drop Force Imperator x 5
  4. Palantite Enforcers x 10
  5. Stormcast Eternals Vanguard Hunters x 5
  6. T’au Stealth Team x 3
  7. Blood Ravens Hellblasters x 15
  8. Grashrak’s Ravagers & Skaeth’s Wild Hunt
  9. T’au Strike Team x 10 & Sniper Drone Team
  10. Death Korps of Krieg Engineers x 10 & Hades Breaching Drill

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