Now that both mine and Megan’s PCs are complete, it’s time to turn my attention to my next projects.

Setting up a Home Assistant server, and adding Network Attached Storage.

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.

Then I painted the Night Scythe for my Necrons, a model I have wanted to paint for absolutely forever!

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 just wanted to see some variety on the table.

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.

Tomorrow I intend to try another Battlebarge and a couple more Strike Cruisers, the plan is to get a fleet ready for Company of Legends.

Right now on my painting table are Sylas Beastbane, Leena Stormspire, Astriea Solbright & Berek the Indomitable, who are about 50% done.


So what’s coming up next week?

  1. Zone Mortalis Terrain
  2. Sylas Beastbane, Leena Stormspire, Astriea Solbright & Berek the Indomitable
  3. Death Korps of Krieg Infantry Squad x 10
  4. Stormcast Eternals Vindictors x 11
  5. Blood Ravens Primaris Chaplain on a Bike
  6. Kurdoss Valentian
  7. Custodes Pallas Grav-Attack x 2
  8. House Taranis Knight Castilian
  9. Blackstone Fortress Traitor Guardsmen x 21, Commissar & Ogryn
  10. Stormcast Eternals Praetors x 3

What I Am Reading

My review of Target Keee by Stuart Moore was published and you can read it here.

And I started on Pandemic: Patient Zero by Amanda Bridgeman and I got it finished, it made for uncomfortable reading if I am honest.

You can read my review for that here.

I am now reading The Serpent and the Dead by Anna Stephens

What Video Games I Am Playing

Played a variety this week, there was a session of Bioshock Infinite, a bit of Clustertruck, Halo 2 Anniversary, Star Wars: Battlefront 2.

You can see my Bioshock Infinite play videos here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Bb2riFrAxQ

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.


My current queue of games to stream is right here below

  1. Bioshock Infinite (Nintendo Switch) – In Progress
  2. Assassins Creed (Xbox Series S)
  3. Borderlands(Nintendo Switch)
  4. Assassins Creed The Ezio Collection (Xbox Series S)
  5. Horizon Zero Dawn (PC)

What Tabletop Games I Am Playing

We played Carcassonne as a family on Thurday night, albeit on the Switch, quite predictably I came last!

What Am I Creating

I got the unboxing video for Carnivale done!

What Am I Backing

Still backing AB Con, it’s only for a small amount, but I think it’s good to encourage events like this.

I am also backing Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game at the Otter-Penguin level right now, but might up it to the Polar Bear Dog.

What I Am Cooking

All I cooked this week was a mad concoction of chips, beans and cheese for lunch on Sunday for me and Lindsay.