The Beard Bunker

Last week, in an optimistic spasm of idiocy, I said Maisey and I would finish refurbishing the Beard Bunker’s   tired old fail-fest of a Realm of Battleboard over the weekend. Pinning myself down to a deadline has previously resulted in my being late by over two months . I thought myself a fool. And yet, behold: This whole... on time thing is a bit off-colour for the Beard Bunker. It’s probably Maisey’s fault. He’s the organised one. I can’t even find my own elbow half the time. Anyway, in an emphatic departure from its predecessor, we’ve gone for a late summer look to the grass on this board. It’s a bit greener in the flesh than it is in these photos, but still, the overall effect we were aiming for was more dead and yellowy than your standard gaming board. I’m not going to go over the techniques we used in-depth; as mentioned in my previous post,  Battlesandbiscuits have solid tutorials on table painting and flocking . We’ve gone for a pretty conventional palette

I went to Games Day Today Yesterday, and I’m going to pop up a quick, disorganised and rambling post about my day. What I did at Games Day.   I met my friend Gareth shortly after opening, and we spent a considerable amount of the morning looking at the Armies on Parade and Golden Demon entries. After a curry, we went to the Forgeworld Stall where we queued for what must have been, literally, agonising, minutes. – The sales areas have been seriously sorted the hell out and are as slick as a Transocean drilling operation in the Gulf of Mexico. Surprised at the lack of queuing pain, we had a bit of a mooch around the design studio stalls, and then went to Forgeworld where we had a decent old chat with several people and saw a lot of new stuff. Leaving the Forgeworld area, we had one last look at the Golden Demon stuff (including scoping the slayer sword winning zombie dragon) and then sat down for the awards. (Sorry about the photography, it is sporadic and a bit shaky

The Beard Bunker’s oldest Realm of Battle board has been showing its age for some time. We bought it when they were first released, and I have several fond memories associated with it, my favourite of which was coming home from work to find Maisey sitting on the sofa, a pair of clippers in one hand, and a 2’x2’ tile in the other, surrounded (and I mean surrounded ) by mashed-up skull flakes. Skull flakes are not a breakfast cereal (for anyone except the inhabitants of the Imperium), but the byproduct of what happens when you remove the one thing about the RoB boards Maisey and I find a little, er, silly – that is, the ball pools made of skulls. Why the chap who sculpted said boards thought this was a good idea, I’ve no idea. Various theories as to their purpose abounded, although my favourite was that of a fellow hobbyist, who posited that the Old World was in fact a giant bean bag full of skulls. Anyway, Maisey and I (mostly Maisey) hacked and drilled those guys out to make

Over eight months ago, Jeff posted his plans for the army he’d be using in the Beard Bunker’s campaign . Meanwhile, only a few days ago, Maisey said he felt like he’d dropped the ball in not getting a vampire painted for his skellingtons . That may be, but at least he’s painted a Necrononcer by the name of Mallick .* I haven’t even painted a single character yet. In fact, the best thing I’ve got is a Green Stuffed butt crack . There’s only four months left before I’m meant to have this army ship-shape and ass-kicky. Until now, my plan for my Hochlanders ran thusly: “Bimble along and paint things in green and red when you fancy it.” Well, yeah. That there ain’t enough beans for a stew, grandma. ... Turns out I’m almost as good at painting Hochlanders as I am at making up American-South-sounding metaphors. Ooooooh, self-buuuurn. Self-flagellation aside, I’d better get my posterior in gear. Put simply, I need a plan. When it comes to concocting a plan for a new army,

So far, my army of Hochland only has foot troops . Now admittedly that makes sense for an army that spends most of its time in the Drakwald Forest, but I’ve already mentioned that the army’s general will be Erhard von Rüdiger, the Grand Master of the Silver Drakes. Well obviously, I can’t have a Templar Grand Master and not include a regiment of his knights, or in this case, Knights of the chapter’s Inner Circle. In this post, I have pretty pictures of the first four (of eight). And some of the Order’s backstory. Because yes. The Empire Knights kit is a relatively dated kit now, but has aged comparatively well. They’re pretty much historically accurate models in heroic scale (hello, Perry twins), but I feel like their helmets make them look like a poor man’s Brettonian. With the Middenheim army’s Blazing Suns , I got around this by using pistolier/outrider heads to Germanise those dudes right up. However, I wanted the Silver Drakes to have their own look, and once I’d wri

Hello all! In lieu of a real hobby post (sorry! Read here to find out why!) I open the proceedings for the Beard Bunker review of Dark Vengeance. The plan is for all of us who have gotten our hands on the box and sprues within to give you our impressions thus creating a collaberative review! Jeff: First thought, whoa. Seriously, I was all ready to dismiss this as a way to get the smaller rulebook and palm the rest off on ebay. Then I saw it. From the box art to the book via beautiful models there is precious little not to like. Ok, so real thoughts now. Haven't played the missions yet so don't know what teaching value this will be for new gamers, hopefully the other guys can help? For hoary old vets like me, the box has the non back breaker rulebook, duh, and some of the most stunning snap together models I have ever seen. Seriously, these things have layering of detail and pose that you will not believe. Its all made possible by some seriously innovative part design t