We did add Blood Angels to the painting pile, for these the Librarian and Aggressors have previously been painted, so those models will join the Dark Angels.
So we now have 2 of the 6 Combat Patrols I wanted to get done this year done.
Bring My Gloomspite Gitz to 2000 Point – 56% Complete
I added a Loonboss on a Giant Cave Squig this month, and next up I am going to be painting two more units of Stabbas next along with a couple units of Fanatics
This weekend, we headed south to visit family. First, we attended Megan’s nanny’s 95th birthday party in Thame. Then, we went to Suffolk to see my parents and treated my oldest nephew, Dylan, to dinner for his 18th birthday. Finally, we squeezed in a quick trip to Warhammer World!
Friday, we left about 10:30 and had to stop just once to charge the car, which was done at Watford Gap, but only because bizarrely all the chargers at Leicester Forest East were offline. We then had tea at the Harvester, and stayed at the Ramada at Oxford Services.
Saturday was a bit chaotic, we got to the party fine, but, though a miscommunication, the car keys got locked in the car, and the only viable option to get back in was to smash the rear passenger window!
We did that (which was a lot of fun) and then had to zoom over to Aylesbury to get a Perspex window fitted to make the car weatherproof, so me and Lindsay got to sit in Morrisons and have a cup of tea and a piece of cake!
So we got on the road to Sudbury a bit later than planned, not arriving until 7:30pm, we got to see my parents and Dylan for a couple of hours before we had to head off to our hotel at Haverhill, via a stop at McDonalds for tea.
The next day we took a trip to Cambridge, and we had a little bit of a wander, looking at some of the university buildings, our Durham graduate, Megan, was not impressed.
But we found Warhammer at the new location, I say new, the last time I was in the Games Workshop in Durham was 1999, when it was at a totally different location!
Then we drove up to Nottingham, arriving at the Riverside Travelodge, where we ordered in some food from German Donner Kebab via Deliveroo, and settled in.
I then listened to Davros by Lance Parkin, which was very cool, nice to see Davros without the Daleks, gave a chance for his villainy to shine. And I then listened to Master by Joseph Lidster which was a nice story with a bit of a twist!
What Tabletop Games I Am Playing
As said earlier, myself and Megan played a game of Combat Patrol at Warhammer World, I played Necrons, Megan played Sisters.
We played the Archeotech Recovery mission and Megan beat me 70-20.
Her dice rolls were on fire and her Penitent Engine, just ripped through my Skorpeh Destroyers and my Doomstalker!
The chest is feeling better, I am coughing less and I am able to climb stairs without needing my inhaler halfway up.
But the fatigue is another thing, I think I have spent more of the last couple of weeks in bed asleep, than awake, and its pretty annoying.
It having a marked effect on my memory as I am forgetting so much, and I have become a real burden on Megan and especially Lindsay as she has family stuff going on right now.
Hopefully I can push though it, and I will try as much as I can, that’s all I can do right.
What I Am Modelling
I started the week with a Nexus Syphon for my Age of Sigmar terrain box
A couple of games of the 40k league, but the third one I was due to play today, I utterly forgot about cause of the aforementioned issues, utterly unfair on my opponent and I feel like such a dickhead for it.
a bit more of Yakuza 0, its a weird game, but I am loving the story.
I also returned to the Halo Infinite campaign, the last time I had fired it up until last Thursday was the day Mary passed away, so I guess that explains why I didn’t pick it up again, especially as we moved house shortly afterwards.
What I Am Creating
I published the next battle report of Combat Patrol, this episode features the Drukhari taking on the Vangaurd Space Marines of the Ultramarines Chapter!
What I Am Backing
Nowt new, but I realised I forgot to pay for shipping on the Firefly: The Game – 10th Anniversary Collector’s Edition project, so we got that done, and I cannot imagine we will get it until later on in the year and not in the main wave!
But back in the day, Space Marines were the default starter army, S4, T4 and hitting on 3s with a 3+ armour save, they were decently tough, and didn’t need a lot to make them work well.
Plus they were really easy to paint and make your own.
But these days, they are not a good starter set, they have a bloated list that half the time makes little sense.
Here is the thing, how would you recommend starting a Space Marine army, its always been to recommend the Battleforce/Start Collecting/Combat patrol as they always included a Troops/Battleline, that you could build your army around.
But today, the Combat Patrol doesn’t contain a Battleline unit, the Infernus Marines aren’t one, and its a pretty elite force, simply not one that its easy to build an army around.
And even then, look at what is available, its so many units that its hard to actually look at the list as a beginner and figure out how to start an army.
A kid I know who wants to play Ultramarines was genuinely confused, because, they simply couldn’t figure out how to build an army, what they absolutely needed and how to synergise the army.
Look I am not saying Space Marines are now crap, its just really difficult to build a list as a beginner, and there is no starter box that represents the army as the very basic units which can form a decent core.
How would I fix it, well I would love to see a Combat Patrol with Intercessors at its core, the ETB Redemptor Dreadnought, and a Lieutenant.
Heck, why not release the sprue from Dark Imperium which had the Intercessors, Ancient, and two Lieutenants, then throw in an ETB kit, perhaps the Invader ATV, or as I suggested the ETB Redemptor Dreadnought.
Here is the crack, I ended up recommending the Dark Angels Combat Patrol, or the Blood Angels Combat Patrol, as these have generic units, one of which is an Intercessor Squad, a HQ and a couple of other interesting units. Actually, if you can, get both, they synergise well together, and just sell the upgrade sprues!
What I Am Modelling
I started the week by painting a unit of 10 Gutrippas for my Orruk Warclans
Followed by Snazzgar Stinkmullett the Fungoid Cave Shaman for the Gloomspite Gitz, which means I have now painted all four of the Harbingers of the Malign Portents!
I started to listed to The Talon of Horus by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, it’s a book I have started a couple of times, but never gotten past the first 30 minutes cause I get disturbed then forget about it.
I was horribly ill on Sunday, so played through Portal on my Steam Deck for the first time since 2007, I want to play Portal RTX but my 3070 struggles with it!
We needed a KVM for the studio to allow easy switching between the media server and Lindsay’s laptop. This Ugreen one was on special offer on Amazon, so we grabbed it and it does what we need.
I then started on Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster, I have never played any of the first 6 games in the series as they were never released in Europe when I was a nipper, and even then they were on Nintendo consoles, which weren’t that common in the UK.
I returned to Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun, its a great game and I want to finish it, then play it again!!!
What I Am Creating
The first Warhammer 40k Combat Patrol Battle Report has been published, this one was between the Blood Ravens Space Marines Chapter and the Necrons of the Sautekh Dynasty.
We are brining back the tradition of having breakfast together on a Sunday morning, and I cooked the first one, which was croissants with ham, cheese and egg!
I have gotten a new headset, but not by buying it, my friend gave me a broken headset and said it was mine if I could fix it, turned out the dongle was borked, so after asking Logitech if I can buy replacement, they told me it was still in warranty and replaced the whole thing, which my friend was cool with as theirs had already been replaced.
I will be honest, I did really badly in 2023 and I just feel too depressed to go over them
So lets try and look forwards with some new plans for 2024!
Complete 6 Combat Patrols
This one is gonna be a fun one, and a bit easier, because I have three in progress!
Tyranids are half built, Sisters just need a Rhino, which is waiting to prime and the Chaos Space Marines is on the shelf needing to be built.
My plans were set, but then Hachette came out with the news for Warhammer 40,000 Combat Patrol, which will contain NINE different combat patrols, probably coming in late September I would imagine!
So my focus for adding will be stuff not included in that, so the the three I will add to my collection will likely be the new Ad Mech one, Grey Knights, Chaos Deamons (only need one pack of Bloodletters).
Bring My Gloomspite Gitz to 2000 Point
Should be relatively easy thanks to Stormbringer, I already have 640 points painted that I completed in the last few weeks, and I am adding two units of Stabbas and a Fungoid Cave-Shaman next.
That’s it, just read 40 books, and yeah I include shorts!
Start the Combat Patrol Battle Reports
Thats what I really want to focus on this year, battle reports with the Combat Patrol format!
I currently have painted and ready to play:-
Original Adeptus Mechanicus
Necrons
Space Marines (Blood Ravens)
Drukhari
Death Guard
T’au
As previously said, sitting on my shelf waiting to be added are a Tyranid and Chaos Space Marines Combat Patrol and the Sisters just need a Rhino which is waiting to be primed.
I also am just a few units short of the Adeptus Custodes (need a single squad of Sisters of Silence), Chaos Deamons (need a single squad of Bloodletters)
The gaming table is going up in the studio tonight or tomorrow to record the first battle report which will be, Necrons vs Space Marines!!!
Hope you all had a good Christmas, mine was fine, but I was ill for most of it and for one point over 72 hours was awake for less than 10 of them!
But other than that, it was good, we went to my sister in laws for the dinner, which was nice, and we had a great time with Megan’s family.
Me and Lindsay kept up our tradition of a Chinese takeaway for Christmas Eve and a movie, this year it was Super Mario Bros. And Christmas morning it was turkey bacon stotties with mushrooms, and the egg that Lindsay has been adding recently and Tymbark Apple & Cherry juice.
We didn’t do much in the way of gifts, we limited ourselves to £25 each, so I got Megan a book and a rainbow Stich controller holder. Lindsay got a book as well, plus a bunch of Steam games, as she has decided that she wants a Steam Deck in 2024.
My favourite present was a Moopsy toy that Karen made for me, its adorable, I just need to find a place to put it in the studio!
New Years was quiet, me and the otters went to Pauls for a few hours, then returned home and they went to bed, whilst I had a chicken wrap and chips and played the last of Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered.
Hopefully 2024 is gonna be a better year, because 2023 has been challenging.
What I Am Modelling
I started off with a big batch of Ultramarines, starting with a squad of Aggressors
And then I finished off Silver Linings just as the bell struck midnight, which I was happy with, great game, but the DLC felt disjointed because of the episodic nature.
I won a voucher from Maltesers which I combined with a voucher from some market research I did for KFC in order to buy a copy of Assassin’s Creed: Mirage, which made me very happy, as everyone knows I am a massive fan of the series.
Ok I will be honest, the death of our dear Douggie hit me hard and sent me down a huge depression spiral and the past twelve days have been a haze, and everything in my life has been kind of neglected.
But I want to finish this, so how about a big lot of 12 wonderful songs!
December 12th – The Avocado Song – Marian Call
We are starting with the amazing Marian Call, that typewrite musician from Alaska and The Avocado Song, a song that’s just great with a nice bit of aggression!
First time for this rap group that have been making music about video games since 2007, and this song is about the classic game Shadow of Mordor from their album Legend.
CG5 has been making songs about video games and pop culture for about a decade now, and this is my favourite song of his, about a charcter Nintendo seem to be content to ignore Waluigi, who really needs his Taco Stand!
And finally here is the last song for 2023, Roll A D6 by Assorted Intricacies a great parody and one of my favourite DnD themed songs, hope you enjoy it too!
