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Showing posts from May, 2021

In Praise of Soup Armies in Warhammer 40,000

This is one of those titles that really only makes sense to the initiated. If you don't know what a 'soup' army is, it's where your Warhammer army combines forces from multiple factions, e.g. an army that contains Sisters of Battle, Imperial Guard and Skitarii. Soup is great from a lore perspective, but presents obvious game balance conundrums, not least of which because it's only really the Imperial, Chaos and (to a lesser extent) Eldar than benefit from it. You know that thing where infantry advance behind tanks? Worse, thanks the rules in 40K's 8th edition, it was a way for competitive players to farm Command Points by taking token detachments of cheap forces, giving rise to phrases like the "loyal 32" (a token battalion consisting of 3 Imperial Guard squads with a couple of jobsworth officers whose only job was to stand around scratching their arses and, when asked, passing command points to a surly Space Marine). This in turn has led some people o

Something Icky This Way Comes - Plague Marines and Cultists

Greetings fellow devotees of the Plague Father, even as I become more immune to our bloated lord's latest and most irritating creation I nonetheless serve him. By painting some of his most devoted servants, the Plague Marines of the corrupted Astartes. These are powerfully hard to photograph well... Yes, the latest "God Squad" of the Graven Star chapter of Word Bearers are complete and ready to share their special presents with you all! First, lets have a little natter about the Plague Marines kit and what I did with it. Once I realised how I was going to incorporate the various elite squads into the army I knew I wanted to use the Plague Marine kit to represent the Grandfather's chosen. Trouble is, the Plague Marines are... how can I put this politely... a little cartoony in places? Having a good hard stare at the sprue pictures I figured I could "dial them back down to 11" and make it so that they looked like they fitted in with the more restrained normal

Modular Urban Board Project Log 1

I was fine with my long-serving plain grey urban board. Sure, it had absolutely no features or texture to it, but it was fine. But then I made the ruined chapel with a fully scenic base, and it served to emphasise how comically minimalist the board was. A big grey plain of meh. On top of that, in building said chapel, I'd really enjoyed working on the kit. The new Sanctum Administratus kit is very much in the same vein, and I started to have ideas... ones I couldn't ignore, as it turns out. I wanted more visual interest on the ground, I wanted large modular buildings, and I wanted a lot of primer spray. My wallet beheld my ambition, and it knew fear. Some of the new and highly exciting beige paving slabs in action. I'm sure you'll agree that nothing says 'backdrop for ultraviolence' like beige paving slabs. As pictured above, I now have enough for a Kill Team board. There's... quite a long way to go before a full 40K layout. This is a big project, so to st

Brush Care and Maintenance

Greetings one and all. A long time ago, in a blog far, far away (hence the odd watermarks), I was having one of my maintenance days and wisely decided to take some pictures. Thus allowing me to share my tips for protecting one of the most expensive consumables we use. Brushes. Eight years later, we figured it was time to revisit this topic and update it for our older and wiser selves. Same brush, top and bottom, one of my old ratty ones to show just how effective it is. So in true infomercial style: do your brushes look like this? Good paint brushes are really quite expensive, each of my lovely, lovely Series 7 brushes (more on brush choice later) costs a minimum of £10. If you abuse them you'll buy them again, and again, and again. Care for them a bit and they'll last you a fair while. No brush lasts forever, (I describe them as consumables for a reason) most of us downgrade from 'A'-grade to 'B' when they lose the fine point. B-graders are for base coating an