I have also built the next few batches of Necron models, the two Overlords, two Royal Wardens, Technomancer, Plasmancer, Crytothralls, Warriors and Scarabs.
Paint 1000 points of Early War Germans for Bolt Action – 12.3% Complete
I painted the first Heer Infantry squad, and I am extremely happy with how these turned out.
I also now have built the next few things to be painted, the Infantry Support Gun, Mortar Team, Sniper Team, Lieutenant and Riflemen and two Infantry Squads.
Paint The Scourge for Dropfleet Commander – 25%
I have completed the painting of the Starter Fleet.
I may still add to the fleet, I am keen to grab myself some Destroyers and Monitors and probably a Battleship.
These models have now all been built and await being painted.
Other Resolutions
On the other resolutions, well not much progress so far, but I have added the next lot of models for the Flesh Eater Courts, and I just need a few more to get me to what I want.
Paint 2000 Points of Flesh Eater Courts for Warhammer Age of Sigmar
Paint Blackstone Fortress and it’s Expansions
Bring my Mechanicum to 3000 points for Horus Heresy, including the Warhound Titan
So as we head into March, what’s on the painting queue?
Zone Mortalis Terrian
T’au XV95 Ghostkeel x 2
Blades of Khorne Skulltaker and Bloodmaster
T’au XV104 Riptide x 3
Custodes Sentinel Guard x 5
Blood Angels Primaris Apothecary and Sanguinary Priest
T’au KV128 Stormsurge
German 81mm Medium Mortar Team & 7.5cm LeiG 18 Light Artillery
I have decided to take the plunge and make a big update to the cooling for my PC.
The current cooling is fine, but the GameMax air cooler doesn’t give me room to fit anymore RAM because it overhangs the slot and I just want that but more control.
So I have invested in a Corsair H100i Elite Capellix AIO and a three pack of ML120 fans.
And reading that apparently I will need theee hubs to control these, I grabbed an internal USB hub, although I am not entirely sure how successful that will be if I am honest.
However, when it came to the install, it went very wrong!
When removing the CPU cooler, it pulled the CPU along with it, the fans have all been straightened and it’s seems fine, but well it’s a bit of a nightmare.
And of course the bloody AIO doesn’t fit in the case.
So me and Megan decided on a couple of things, we have bought a new case, a Corsair 4000X and decided to get my CPU checked out for damage, and in the meantime replace it with a 5600X.
It all arrives tomorrow, but it’s not the weekend I wanted to have.
What I Am Modeling
I started the week by putting on the desk, a German Heer Infantry Squad for Bolt Action.
These models I have had since they were released and I will be honest, they have been a little intimidating. I struggle with these guys being, well pretty much the ultimate bad guys.
I used Duncan’s late war painting guide as a basis and then deviated from there to make them more early war, and I am really happy with how they turned out, especially the bases.
I think I am very happy with this, although I do worry that perhaps I let my work on the German Heer influence some of the elements of these, which is the opposite of what I wanted to do.
I may end up stripping and repainting these, I dunno.
Once these were done I then picked up Reikenor the Grimhailer and started to put paint on him, he is the first named character I have for my Nighthaunt and he is a very very detailed model.
I then went on a building splurge to get my next twenty planned project ready.
That took up most of Thursday and Friday, but my next twenty projects are built and awaiting being primed.
And then I moved onto a set of Sicaran Ruststalkers I got when the Skitarii were first released, so yeah they have been waiting to get painted for a while!
This week has been dominated by toothache, and I don’t get to see the dentist until Wednesday.
It’s keeping me awake and might and making eating very very difficult.
It’s been ages getting an appointment because they have pretty much been closed all of lockdown and now I need a lot more work than might have been otherwise needed.
But it’s the least of my lockdown consequences I guess considering the state of my lungs!
What I Am Modelling
I started the week by putting Morgok’s Krushas and Morgwaeth’s Blade-Coven in the painting table first.
My toothache is really really bad, so I was very distracted and really didn’t do much initially, but I did concentrate on Morgok’s Krushas first.
The next thing I started to work on was the T’au AX39 Sunshark Bomber, it got moved ahead because my airbrush needs a good clean in order to get the main colour on the Ghostkeels.
I managed to get that finished late on Saturday night.
On the side I was also working on some Sigmarite Ruins from Mortal Realms to add to my scenery collection, I got one set from subscription and one from Forbidden Planet.
I am now reading Rogue Untouched and so far it’s really good.
I finished listening to Nexus and that was a decent read, although I am getting the feeling that the hopeless last stand might be an ongoing thread for 40K intro novels in 9th edition.
I also listened to Plague of the Nurglings which was a very fun book, and the first bit of Chaos in the Warhammer Adventures series.
Really loving these books and I hope they do more after the next one.
What I am Playing
On Saturday we played a game of the Thunderbirds Co-Operative Board Game which was a lot of fun, and for once, we actually managed to beat The Hood.
I love this game so much and hope everyone gives it a try some day.
So on stream last week I mentioned I was saving for a new capture card for my PC, and one of my viewers, was so amazing and went and bought me it.
I am utterly overwhelmed with this amazing generosity, I actually cried, it did come with a message asking me to keep on streaming, so I will keep that promise.
He has asked me to not publicly name him, which I won’t, but an EoE t-shirt has been sent to him!
He got me the incredible Elgato 4K60 Pro, which is a super cool piece of kit, and now has pride of place in my PC.
He sent it along with a pair of 5m braided HDMI cables to plug it in, and oh they are also very nice too.
I got it installed in my PC pretty much straight away after it arrived and took it for a spin, although it didn’t work with the HDMI Switch I had installed and I had to replace that with a HDMI Extractor that I used to use. But that wasn’t a bad thing as I had planned to do that anyway as I wanted to take the audio from the HDMI feeds anyway.
It now allows me to capture games at 60hz and passthrough to the monitor at 120hz which is a massive improvement for my gameplay and streaming!
I tested out the capture card with a stream today and you can watch it on YouTube now, but this is what the card is capable of doing!
I am so absolutely and utterly grateful to him for sending me this, and as of March I will be streaming video games again on Twitch.
But the addition of two 5m quite thick HDMI cables meant that I had to sort out all of the wires under the desk, which I did on Saturday with Megan’s help.
We got all the wires all organised and sorted out, although it still does look a bit like spaghetti junction. We have mounted an extension strip on the wall, along with the Phillips Hue Hub, a USB Hub and the Network Switch. And some Command Strips have been ordered to let me atttach a couple of power bricks to the wall as well and keep them out of the mess.
I did have to order a new 3.5mm extension lead to take the audio from the monitor to the speaker system, but because I removed so much superfluous stuff, I freed up some USB extension cables so that I could plug the Zigbee strips into a USB hub that’s plugged into a mains adaptor.
All the other wires have been routed together and tied together with cable ties, it still looks bad in many ways, and I think I need to get some shorter cables, and some trunking to hide them a bit more.
I do need to think about a better over all solution to that overall.
What I Am Modelling
I started the week by doing some airbrushing. I use the airbrush to get down base colours and with black spray paint out of stock everywhere I am now priming with the airbrush.
I got the Scourge done with their colourshift paints, and primed and got base colours into the T’au stuff.
The Scourge starter fleet was painted up on Tuesday morning, and I love the finish I got on these.
I then started on the Escher Gang using Duncan’s Warhammer TV video, but also worked on the Inperial Knight Gallant on the side as I couldn’t watch the video whilst playing an RPG.
The Knight was finished in stream on Thursday night and looks fantastic.
So what’s on the painting queue as we enter a new week?
Zone Mortalis Terrain
Morkgoks Krushas & Morgwaeth’s Blade-Coven
T’au XV95 Ghostkeel x 2
T’au AX39 Sunshark Bomber
Custodian Guard x 6
Reikenor the Grimhailer
Adeptus Mechanicus Sicaran Ruststalkers x 5
Blades of Khorne Skulltaker & Bloodmaster
T’au XV104 Riptide x 3
German Heer Infantry Squad x 10
What I Am Reading
Still reading The Sword of Surtur by CL Werner and I am aiming to finish it tonight.
I have also been listening to the audiobook of Nexus and Other Stories, although I am only listening to the main novella by Thomas Parrott.
What I Am Playing
I did upload that video of The Witcher 3, after a lengthy delay.
On Wednesday I played a little bit of Star Wars: Squadrons, which is such a fun game.
But I desperately need to play a bit more multiplayer to Git Good!
Also on Wednesday night, myself, Graham, Dave and Megan played finished our current Star Trek Adventures episode and that was a lot of fun, we even got ourselves a new ship!
On Friday I actually played some BioShock 2 and I only went and finished the game, you can watch the whole thing here as a YouTube playlist!
On Sunday I played Star Wars: Squadrons with Graham, Chris and Dave and the video for that is in the first section of this blog post.
This evening I also played a game of Roll for the Galaxy with Lindsay and Megan and of course Megan won, but I was only 9 points behind her, which I didn’t think was too bad considering it was my first play.
The wonderful Lord Barrington has been with us about two months now and he is slowly but surely coming around to us, the girls more than than me.
Not long after he arrived we noticed the eye on which he had his operation, was weeping, well it turned out he had an ulcer in his eye, and it was a nasty one.
So for four weeks, he has had to have eye drops four times a day, which he absolutely hated with a passion. Eventually he allowed just one of us to administer them, but very grumpily.
He has now been off them since Friday as his eye is fully healed, with just a small amount of scarring.
He is now starting to warm up to us again, but the eyedrops have set the relationship back a bit. He hides a lot when we enter the room, and often sleeps under the bed, but there are lots of instances where he is showing signs of trusting us.
The other night he briefly slept on the bed whilst Megan was in the bed, and he loves to play, if his favourite toy is anywhere near him, he goes mental for it.
He is however scared witless of Bonnie, she terrifies him a lot, he is very intimidated around her, if she is at the top of the stairs, he won’t come down for foods.
It’s hard work, but I am sure in time we will have a brilliant relationship.
What I Am Modelling
I started the week by finishing of my Plague Drones of Nurgle. These will serve in my Maggotkin of Nurgle for Age of Sigmar, Chais Daemons for 40k and Darmons of the Ruinstorm in Heresy.
I then started work on some Stormcast Eternals, the Vanguard-Palladors, Knight-Azyros and just because I was working on that style, Ironsouls Condemnors.
I played a couple of hours of The Witcher III earlier in the week which will uploaded in the morning.
On Wednesday I played a bit of Star Trek Adventures with Graham, Chris and Dave which was a lot of fun as we prepared the ship for a forthcoming battle.
On Saturday we played a quick game of Pandemic: Hot Zone North America, which we lost in brutal fashion as outbreaks in San Francisco and Seattle caused us to run out of red cubes!
I have started by stripping the paint from my original starter fleet, and this will be repainted this month in a colour shift scheme.
Other Resolutions
These haven’t really had any progress made for them, but I have arranged to get a few more Flesh Eater Courts models to help bring us towards the goal of 2000 points!
Paint 2000 Points of Flesh Eater Courts for Warhammer Age of Sigmar
Paint Blackstone Fortress and it’s Expansions
Bring my Mechanicum to 3000 points for Horus Heresy, including the Warhound Titan
So what’s coming up on the painting queue as I head into February?
Zone Mortalis Terrain
Escher Gang x 10
Stormcast Eternals Vanguard-Palkadors x 6 & Knight-Azyros
So now I am a Twitch Affiliate I feel like I really need to make the site a lot more professional, and so I have done some self teaching of After Effects to make myself a Going Live Gif and a Stinger Transition.
Hopefully these will add to the look of the streams and make them seem a touch less amateurish.
I still have a lot more to do, but the hope is that I can keep in adding away and making it look the best it can be.
The next things I am doing is changing my Be Right Back screen to include a slideshow of recently painted projects.
Barrington Update
Barrington is doing much better, his eye has really cleared up.
He hates the drops and does his best to avoid them, but he is still coming on leaps and bounds.
Everyday he gets braver and braver and he is starting to treat the house as his home now.
I was then working on a Destroyer Squad for the podcasts Sons of Horus army, these were nice to work on because I really love the Sons of Horus Green colour scheme.
I used to love GURPS as a kid and I really want to try playing it again, so I am backing Steve Jackson Games GURPS Pyramid Scheme which aims to bring to market a fourth volume of the venerable Pyramid magazine.
Well this week has mostly been quiet, the only bit of real stuff that happened is that Lord Barrington had to go to the vets, he has an ulcer in his eyes, and I became an affiliate on Twitch.
We watched WandaVision on Friday and it was amazing, if a bit sinister. We were so happy it was good, we needed something to fill our Friday night TV slot given that there is no more Star Trek for the first time since October.
But it’s really been a quiet week overall, I have been doing some work on my streaming setup, and hopefully will be able to show off the final product on tomorrow nights stream.
So I am just sat here watching DS9 with the girls and Bonnie sitting between my legs.
What I Am Modelling
I started out by finishing up the Primaris Outriders for the Blood Ravens, these were an interesting until to paint. A lot more dynamic than the standard Space Marine bikes but a touch more difficult to build and paint.
I then moved on to the last remaining piece of the Blood Ravens I had out standing, the Assault Intercessors, I had the 10 from Indomitus and a single one from Getting Started with Warhammer 40,000.
I then got the columns for my Zone Mortalis painted, there were a lot of these to do but they have been sitting under my desk for nearly two months!
They are currently at the washing stage.
So what does my painting queue looking like heading into next week.
Zone Mortalis Terrain
Escher Gang x 10
Stormcast Eternals Vanguard-Palladors x 6 & Knight-Azyros
Sons of Horus Destroyers x 10
T’au Y’vahra & Trchnical Drones x 2
Morgoks Krushas & Morgwaeth’s Blade-Coven
Nighthaunt Endless Spells x 3 & Liekoron the Executioner
T’au Ghostkeel x 2
Imperial Knight Gallant
Plague Drones of Nurgle x 6
What I Am Reading
I read The Head of Mimir by Richard Lee Bryers, not made much progress this week but I am half way though.
What I Am Playing
Played a little bit of Star Wars Squadrons which is very entertaining on the Xbox Series S.
On Tuesday I returned to video game streaming by playing four hours of The Witcher III.
And whilst trying a few things out on my stream I played a couple of games of Star Wars Squadrons. Just technical tests to try out a few things.
And finally on Friday I played two hours of BioShock 2.
What I Am Backing
Not backing anything, but I did get and return the survey for Wyrd Science Magazine.
What I Am Cooking
On Saturday night, me and Megan made tea. We made Honey Buffalo Wings, me and Megan made the wings together and Megan made the sides.
She made baked potatoes, which were then stuffed with broccoli and a cheese sauce made only from cannelloni beans and cheese, and some honey and garlic glazed carrots.
And this morning, I made breakfast, an American classic of southern fried chicken and waffles. Although the waffles were store bought, I didn’t want to put pressure on Megan to make any fresh.
As the title says, I just gained affiliate status on Twitch!
It’s taken some work to get there, but I have found my niche, and it’s streaming painting, so for the time being, video games are moving to YouTube, but not being streamed live.
It’s taken a few painting streams but they have been hitting their stride and were able to bring my average up nicely, the video game streams were pulling it down.
So until March, I am no longer streaming video games on Twitch and will focus solely on hobby.
So this means the schedule is likely to change going forward, because I think squeezing in another painting session would be good, but I am gonna chat to Megan and Lindsay about that this weekend.
In the meantime my schedule going forward at least until the end of January is Monday and Thursday nights 2000 – 0000.
And I am probably gonna initiate a raid from 2330 or so.
The Odd Change Here Or There
So I ended up moving my streaming software from Streamlabs OBS to OBS Studio, simply because many of the features I was looking for only worked in OBS Studio.
For example I have now got a thing set up do that when I get a subscriber, my window goes crazy with rainbow colours and anime speed lines!
And because I managed to trigger someone Echo in the middle of a stream, I have built some webhooks in IFTTT to control a few things in the studio, so for example, I can now hit a button to boil the kettle ready for my break.
I am also thinking of doing something with a spare webcam I have, it’s been suggested I place it elsewhere in the studio to provide a sort of behind the scenes view of the stream, so I might try that tomorrow.
Anyway I need to get some sleep, but I have had my first subscription and I am happy as Larry with that!
