Anyway they got built and painted leaving me with only the Warhound Titan to build, and given the trip for my brothers wedding and other issues, I cannot see myself being able to finish this 🙁
Paint Blackstone Fortress And It’s Expansions – Complete
This month I got this resolution complete by painting the Ambul and Borewyrm Infections and the Archivist.
Completed Resolutions
Paint the Scourge for Dropfleet Commander
Paint 1000 Points of Early War Germans for Bolt Action
Paint 2000 Points of Necrons for Warhammer 40,000
Paint 2000 Points of Flesh-Eater Courts for Warhammer Age of Sigmar
Paint Blackstone Fortress And It’s Expansions
So as we are now a week into the month, what’s left on my painting queue?
Grand Army of the Republic BARC Speeder
Necron Warriors x 10 & Lord Hasmoteph the Resplendent
Ork Bikes x 3
Dacian Anvil & Vindictor
Constantine Valdor
Confederacy of Independent Systems B1 Battledroids x 18
Skitarii Vanguard x 10
Blades of Khorne Flesh Hounds x 10 & Karanack
Confederacy of Independent Systems Droiddekkas x 4
This is a bumper two week update due to being generally unwell this past week.
Part of that is probably mental, the car is in the garage, so I am stuck at home, can’t even get to club for a game.
Hopefully the car will be back with us this week, but the repair got delayed by the big storm.
And the bunny is getting better, but it looks like the head tilt will be permanent, which means he will likely need anti-dizziness medication for life plus eye drops.
Tidying the PC
My PC was a mess, after reinstalling Windows I needed to desperately clean the desk and make it tidier and tackle the cable management, cause that was horrendous.
But a couple of days of pottering around, and it feels and looks a lot better, I still need to replace the desk in the long term and the secondary monitor is starting to show signs of dying.
I then painted something that I can’t quite talk about yet, but it was a lot of fun to do and I am really looking forward to showing it off eventually.
I did print this Christmas decoration for our geeky tree, it was supposed to have an Enterprise D in the middle, but I ended up taking it out due to having to make it smaller to fit on my printer.
The Black Friday Steam sale happened, so I picked up Portal and Portal 2 very cheap, never played them before and figured why not try them, cost less than £3 for both of them.
And as I no longer have a DVD drive in my PC I picked up Far Cry and Far Cry 2, as I quite fancy playing them, alongside a dirt cheap copy of Splinter Cell, cause my original Xbox disk is scratched to hell
Oh and I saw a 4k Blu Ray of Star Trek Beyond for £5 on Amazon, so I bought that!
I am following the advice the doctor gave me, so no being in bed unless it’s for sleep, staying up until I am actually tired, no caffeine after 4pm (I am actually quite bad at that one) e and getting up at a set time etc.
The biggest issue I am having is that I love reading in bed, it’s my safe space to read and it’s where I feel most comfortable reading, so my reading has plunged to a record low.
But I am struggling to be asleep before 4am and it’s making my days awful, even when I am so tired I just can’t get to sleep.
I don’t want to end up on sleeping tablets, so I am doing my best to avoid that, but something has to give.
What I Am Modelling
I started the week by painting two units of Stromcast Eternals Judicators armed with Skybolt Bows.
This actually completes all the Stormcast Eternals I have right now, other than Yndrasta, the Celestial Spear, and the Celestant Prime should also be delivered and day now.
I then painted some Orks, specifically five Nobz, a Painboy, Warboss, Gorzag Gitatompa and Nikkit.
And whilst painting those, I also knocked out the Spindle Drones and Guardian Drones for Blackstone Fortress, which actually completes the original games and the Ascension expansion.
Started that late Monday night, with very frequent saves. I had intended to play a level a night but due to a shitty sleep cycle, I only got a chance ti play again on Friday night.
I also started streaming again, and had a very early morning Bioshock Infinite stream on Thursday, which was uploaded to YouTube on Friday.
I have got the old PC that used to belong to Geoff set up to run some old games via emulation, it is however a lot lot older than we thought it was and the GPU is not the GTX 750 that Geoff was told it was, but rather a GT210, which is significantly worse.
I have also played a little bit of Back 4 Blood, which has been rather enjoyable, and I am continuing to play Halo Reach.
What Tabletop Games Am I Playing
Sadly none, but I am playing Adeptus Titanicus tonight with Graham for an Intro game!
In regards to the YouTube stuff, I made it to 75 subscribers on Monday, which is amazing cause I was on like 30 something a few months ago, and at time of writing, I am now at 88 subscribers which is mind blowing!
I am not trying to become some kind of popular content creator, I just feel like there is stuff I want to do for my own enjoyment. I have zero interest in appeasing the algorithm, I just want to make content that I personally want to see myself.
So my current focus is on the battle reports in the casual narrative style, and retro video game playthroughs. And any Twitch video game playthroughs will get added to that as well.
What I Am Backing
Sadly Munchkin Mayhem was cancelled, so right now I am not backing anything.
What I Am Cooking
Not a good week, other than beans on toast, nowt.
What I Am Spending
I feel like I am finally in a place where I can restore this section of the blog, but I may not share any hauls quite as frequently.
This week was subdued in terms of spending initially, I bought myself the Play Pink Bundle on Humble Bundle, I had most of what’s in the bundle, but what I didn’t have saved me plenty of money still.
And Steam Codes for most other stuff is being given to friends, who don’t have them.
I also bought a couple of video games in addition to the bundle.
I bought Far Cry 6, well I got it dirt cheap from a friend who works at Ubisoft. I also grabbed Alan Wake Remastered with a voucher for the Epic Games Store and the Premium Add-Ons Bundle for Forza Horizon 5.
I also kinda spent some money on a Raspberry Pi kit, I am enjoying old games and I want to add a emulation machine in the den, that’s easily transported around. Along with a USB Bluetooth dongle so I can link the DualShock 3 Controllers to it.
This week I had my birthday, and it wasn’t what I hoped for.
My sister in laws cat went missing, and I have some medical stuff to deal with.
So Fosfos, Emma’s cat went missing on Sunday night and it’s not like her to wander, so Monday Emma was busy leafleting in Blyth where she lives.
Tuesday, Lindsay and Megan went up to help her, but she was still no where to be found, thankfully she returned home at 2am Tuesday and woke up Emma for cuddles.
So that was a huge relief.
Tuesday night we went out for Nando’s for my birthday, which I really enjoyed, haven’t had a Nando’s since the day before the first lockdown and I really enjoyed it.
Present wise, Lindsay and Megan bought me the Evil Comes Prepared expansion for Disney Villainous and the Orruk Warclans Battletome, and I bought myself the Stormcast Eternals Battletome and the Charadon terrain box.
At the weekend we were meant to have some of our nephews staying but Gandalf our arsehole of a rabbit developed an ear infection, so he had to be rushed to the vets and needs hand feeding for a bit, so that was not a good environment for the boys to stay over as they are very active.
He is slowly getting better, but he really does fight us when it comes time to give him his medication.
What I Am Modelling
I started off by painting the Negavolt Cultists and Rogue Psykers for Blackstone Fortress.
After that Megan joined us to play a game of Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu, and we managed to close all four gates and save the world from the terror of the Old Ones!
I then began work on a Fire Raptor for the Heresy Death Guard, I have had this model for so long, originally it was intended for the Space Wolves, but plans changed.
I know some people are determined to not get Warhammer +, but I have, and I will walk you through the reasons.
And I have honestly seen a lot of rants about it, mostly seeming to focus ok the animation side, but I do have to say that Warhammer + is a service that is more than just Warhammer TV, it’s also the included mini, the Warhammer Vault access, the apps, etc. to base your impression on just one aspect is just a bit daft.
First off, I would never usually suggest getting a service/product based on its possible future potential as I find this is usually a waste of money as nothing is ever guaranteed. Products should have a decent feature set before launching rather than promises of future features.
However Warhammer + makes sense financially for me, let me walk you through it. I play both Age of Sigmar and 40K, and I use the apps, which currently cost me £2.98, which is going to rise to £3.98 with the new AoS app.
So annually I will be paying £47.76 to Games Workshop for these two services, so Warhammer + would only cost me £2.23 if I get the annual plan.
Now the £10 voucher for signing up before 1st September means actually it’s going to be -£7.77, and when add in the model you get with the subscription, models that I want both of, you save even more.
These models I have set at a price of £20, although the Megaboss from the normal range is £25. So that means it’s actually now at -£27.77.
So it works for me, of course for other people the maths will vary and for them it may not be worth it, but it is for me.
What’s It Actually Like???
Well in all honesty, it’s a little thin on the ground right now, but what’s on there is good.
Angels of Death is very cool, although the mouths are a bit odd, but I can live with that.
I am yet to watch any of Hammer and Bolter apart from Old Bale Eye, which I really enjoyed.
The Battle Reports are well, extremely high end and professional and really raise the bar for those. Makes my stuff look pants by comparison.
The painting Masterclass is superb and I am digging out some Thousand Sons Terminators to try out some wet blending.
The Vault, that’s the one aspect I am less keen on, simply because you can’t download stuff, and the site is clunky when using a phone, if they bring us an app for that it will be better.
In general I am happy with the service, if they keep up with the new content every Wednesday I will be very happy.
I would like to see the YouTube painting videos included in the service at some point, just so everything is together in one place that’s a bit easier to navigate.
The service is as I said, thin on the ground, but I think within a few months it will be a lot better.
I have subscribed for a year because I want it to be a success, I want it to work, and I am breaking my own rule because if this does work, it will be an amazing resource for the community.
The reveal of the first weeks new releases, is a bit underwhelming, I would have hoped for a couple of the Citadel Masterclasses and at least two animations.
The Vault additions are actually pretty nice, with some White Dwarfs for this year being added.
But it’s still early days.
What I Am Modelling
I started off the week with some Triarch Praetorians.
These have been painted as being from the Szarekhan Dynasty because they serve the Triarch and thus why would their armour be in the colours of another dynasty?
Stormcast Eternals Praetors x 3, Knight-Vexellor & Vindictor
Legio Custodes Agamatus Jetbikes x 3
Stormcast Eternals Anhiliators x 3, Lord Imperatant & Gryph Hound
Blitzkrieg HQ & MG34 MMG Team
Death Guard Fire Raptor
Necron Canoptek Wraiths x 6
Mechanicum Magos Macrotek Engineseer & Servoautomata x 4
Flesh-Eater Courts Crypt Flayers x 3
What I Am Reading
Ummm I actually haven’t read all week 🙁
What Video Games Am I Playing
Not played a lot, but just a few bits and pieces here and there.
I did manage to get the Saturn emulator running properly. Retroarch ended up being a bust, there wasn’t a single core that could run the games correctly and the way it handles six button controllers is kinda annoying.
So I ended up going with Mednafen which works like a dream, just need to add a graphical front end.
Speaking of six button controllers, I finally managed to get my hands on a reasonably priced 6 button USB Mega Drive controller, and playing Street Fighter 2 on the Mega Drive Mini is no longer an awful nightmare!
For the Home Assistant server, I am going with the Raspberry Pi 4 solution, but just to ensure it’s going to be as future proof as possible, I am going to build it around the 8GB version.
That’s probably gonna get out together in the next six weeks or so, and I will hopefully be able to join up a lot of the house smart systems together properly.
That said, I am actively looking to see if IFTTT can do many of those functions and if it’s possible we could put off the Home Assistant server by using that. Then again, I do like to tinker and Home Assistant would be a challenge and something to occupy me.
The Network Attached Storage is already in progress. When I built Megan’s PC I also built a PC for her dad, he had an old Dell Optiplex eBay special which managed to screw itself up all the bloody time.
Anyway I got sick of fixing it, so I built him a new PC that should last him a fair few years as his biggest usage is amateur photo editing.
Anyway this Optiolex has a couple of hardware issues, the motherboard has a couple of dead SATA ports and is very much at the end of its usable life as a general PC.
So I intend to use it to fiction as a the houses NAS for the short term, I have grabbed a SATA SSD to serve as it’s system drive and I am gonna pick up a couple of Ironwolf Drives next payday to run in RAID.
The idea being that all of our files can be stored centrally and backed up at the same time.
Next year I plan to transfer the NAS to dedicated hardware, potentially by pinching Megan’s motherboard after replacing hers for something a bit more high end. Plus either grabbing a new GPU for Megan so the 1660 Ti in her system can go into the NAS or getting something like a 1650 Super for the NAS.
The GPU would be needed because by the time I get ti the situation where I can put the NAS into dedicated hardware, I want it to be running a PLEX server too, so we can have our own home Netflix with all of the DVDs and Blu-Rays we have ripped onto the server.
I have a rough plan in my head now, and think that it’s possible in a couple of months I will have the basics of both of these systems up and running.
They are going to be housed in the cat cave (spare/junk room) and we have a monitor already set up in there for them, we will need a network switch still as both devices will need to be plugged in via Ethernet.
What I Am Modelling
I started the week by painting the Judicators with Boltstorm Crossbows for my Stormcast Eternals, two squads of five.
And then I painted the Beastmen for Blackstone Fortress. I have tried to give them a load of variety, with at least one dedicated to each of the four Chaos Gods and one that’s Chaos undivided.
I am also working on printing a fleet for Battlefleet Heresy, so far I have gotten printed out a Battlebarge, with some damage from a print failure and four Strike Cruisers.
You can see my Bioshock Infinite play videos here.
I also got my Saturn emulator up and running and can now play some games I always wanted to play as a kid, but couldn’t because my parents couldn’t afford a Saturn.
