The Beard Bunker

"Is there anything you want to do?" I asked Mark. "Yeah," he said, "watch Fury Road with me." It always was, to be fair, just about the most Mark film in existence. I was asking him because we both knew he didn't have much time left. You see, today's post is going to be heavier than our usual fare. A good friend to all of us for a decade or so, and a regular contributor to this blog since its inception, Mark passed away on Saturday the 19th of October following a long, painful struggle with colon cancer. This is a hobby blog, so this will be a hobby eulogy of sorts, sharing our thoughts and favourite memories of the orkiest gamer there ever was. Anyone inspired or moved by the contents of this post can lift our spirits by contributing to the Movember campaign that Andy is running in Mark's honour . You even get to vote for what kind of 'tache Andy will grow. Next week, we will be sharing Mark's final blog post for the Beard Bunke

"I say Carruthers. What time would you say it is?" "Well, sir, I'd say it's Dwarf O'clock." "Dash it all Carruthers you are quite correct! It is Dwarf O'clock!" Yes, the drums of war are sounding in the Old World once more. Our Border Princes campaign is coming and the Dwarfs of Karak Hoch are answering the call. Sound the horns , beat the drums, march to war, oh and paint many, many little mans. It's fair to say I have rather a lot of Dwarfs. BUT IT IS NEVER ENOUGH ! Ahem. I wanted to take the new burst of fantasy enthusiasm to paint some of the all-too-massive pile of Dwarfs waiting to join the Stormborne ranks. In this case it was a pair of 25 strong Dwarf Warrior units equipped with Great Weapons for what is technically called "Even More Killiness".The unit on the left is the Karak Hoch Fyrd and are the first regiment raised entirely from the new settlers in the new hold from our previous campaign. As such the

Is your gang tired of a constant stream of slaying, pillaging and loot carrying? Do you need a giant robot with an en-trained Xenos insect brain to do your heavy lifting and face smashing but you’re too short of time in your hectic gang warfare life? Then you need, THE 6 HOUR AMBOT! Beautifully Painted. Might have taken a while to do though... When Games Workshop first showed the Ambot model off, I knew that I needed one in my life. I also knew that I didn’t want to use their relatively ‘factory fresh’ paint scheme because A) I’m lazy and B) I wanted mine to look battered and heavily used – like the piece of tunneling equipment it is. I wanted to get it painted quickly – preferably between the time I dropped my Son off at school and the time that my wife picked him up. The challenge was on – paint an Ambot in 6 hours. I did cheat a bit, the model was already assembled and primed black when I started and I did the basing after bedtime. In terms of a

Here's the first squad I finished for my off-brand Ultramarines, the Cobalt Scions. They're even more Roman than the Ultramarines, in that they'll have Roman flaws as well: dangerous levels of personal ambition, an obsession with venerating and exceeding the deeds of their ancestors, and the naivety to think that the humans already living in the area they're going to claim as their new fortress monastery will be happy to hand over the reins of power. Heraldry I'm breaking from the standard rules of shoulder trim indicating company colours. Instead, the left kneepad does that job, with the squad number painted onto the right shoulder pad. Everyone gets gold trim, because gold looks great with blue. The chapter icon represents the Gauntlets of Ultramar (again, a bit of ancestor worship). The eagle-eyed will note that I appear to have some marines from squad 1 and some from squad 2 in this post. That's because there'll be some bare heads coming later, s