The Beard Bunker

Greetings bunker dwellers! It is I, Jeff of the... well, the Beard Bunker actually. I've finally moved in permanently from the old site so you'll be seeing me rather a lot more going forward. To kick off, I thought I'd return us to the dry desert heat of North Africa with a companion project to Maisey's Aussies , my Bolt Action Italians: This lot are the first squad of the army. Italian formations of the period are a bit weird to British eyes and making them fit Bolt Action's rules took a little finagling. I'll be talking more about the historical aspects of the army in future posts so stay tuned for that. Today, instead, we'll be focusing on the models and the painting. Let's get to it! Ignore the base rims, that's not a mistake to be fixed later, no... it's a stylistic choice honest... The models are Perry Miniatures ' range of metal Italian WW2 chappies. Now, before we get much further, I have to have a tiny grumble: I love the

As a rampant hobby butterfly, I'm much better at starting new and ambitious things than I am at finishing them. Everything I start is doomed to WIP-shelf relegation as a new sexy project tempts me away. Mounds of basecoated or half-assembled things lean against each other in boxes, exchanging disappointed glances and wondering if their time in the sun will come. Screw that. If 2017 is even a patch on 2016, we're going to need escapism and endorphins in equal measure, which means getting stuff done, gods dammit! To that end, as promised at the end of my post on the merchant's house , here is the blacksmith forge from Tabletop World . It amazes me that this kit is just four components. It's like a diorama that requires almost no assembly. What I will say is that Jeff was wise to mount his on a base - the joins connecting the smithy to its house have patchy contacts. I got over this with an enthusiastic application of thick super glue, but struc

Back in the glorious summer of 2016 I set about a little personal project to create a North Africa themed collection of models and scenery. I've already posted a little about before in  I've Got Sand In All The Wrong Places . Well I've finished the British and Australian section of the project and now ready to get started on the board. I had several options when it comes to creating the actual board it's self. Firstly I could try and lay my hands on one of the good old Realm of Battle boards from Games Workshop. They were great boards, if a little on the pricey side. We have successfully created a desert board from these before by sculpting mud cracks over the skull pits. This gave the board a dry feel and was pretty simple to do. A second one of these would mean we can take the one that Charlie owns and create a huge 6'X8' or 4'x12' gaming surface for those really big games. This plan met a fairly terminal halt when I discovered that GW don't ac

Two of Tabletop World's beautiful buildings have sat unpainted on my scenery shelf for long enough that I don't even remember how many years I've had them for. If the Dwarves have the Great Book of Grudges, I have the Great Book of Unfinished Shames. Thanks to a looming deadline and the continuing hobby bender initiated by Total War: Warhammer as described in my last post, another Shame can be struck from the book: the merchant's shop . Note: when I took this photo, I didn't notice that the 1st floor wasn't sitting on the ground floor properly, hence the visible gap on the right balcony support strut. I mention it purely because I wouldn't want to make Tabletop World look bad on account of my doziness. As with the other two tabletop world buildings wot I done painted, these models have such crisp casting and sculpting that they're just satisfying to paint. With this latest one I've introduced a little tonal variation to