The Beard Bunker

When Maisey painted a demi-company of Dark Angels , all with freehand squad markings, I envied his madness. When Tom painted a whole battle company of Raven Guard , I envied his madness. When Jeff painted a battle company of Blood Angels using, of all things, an 'Eavy Metal painting guide, I really  envied his madness. I envy them no longer, for the six frosted Smurfs in today's post put me in the same sanitarium: a full battle company of Space Marines, all lovingly highlighted and covered in freehand heraldry. Upon completion of the company I immediately took to our gaming group's WhatsApp thread to share my thoughts and reflections at that time. It's a heady mix of pride and confusion (I made this! Wait,  I  made this?). There's also a certain amount of excitement that I can paint whatever auxiliary units I feel like without needing to worry about how they could affect the Third Company's composition. This was a particular thorn when fitting three-man squads ...

So, I mean, hobby progress: I have just wildly increased my Raven Guard tankage by adding two Repulsors to my army, one regular and one spicy.   But that’s not specifically what I brought you here to talk about today.  Let's talk about the downsides of modernisation away from brass. So a little known fact about brass is that it’s naturally antibacterial, so all the old brass doorknobs we used to have were actually really good at preventing the spread of disease…  hang on, sorry, wrong brass rant.  I’m trying to talk about etched brass.   Foregworld etched brass Not-Forgeworld etched brass Back when GW leaned more heavily into non-plastic products and also customisation and conversion was a bigger part of the hobby, Forgeworld used to produce these lovely sheets of acid etched brass that you could cut out and stick on whatever.  Ideally suited for flat surfaces, although depending on the shape sometimes you could also bend them onto e.g. shoulder p...

People have mocked James and his Workshop for producing a surfeit of Space Marine Lieutenants, but I for one was extremely pleased both by the addition of lieutenants, and by the various kits they put out for them. Obviously even the official releases weren't sufficient to cover all the theoretical options, hence our post in August containing, among other thicc characters, rules for Lieutenants in Gravis Armour . The point is, having more options on which kit to buy is pure upside, as far as I'm concerned. As the Cobalt Scions' Third Company nears completion, I have added their second Lieutenant using the modular plastic kit, since Astartes Companies all have two Lieutenants. I have previously produced two other Lieutenants for this army: the Third Company's Antigonus Nerva  in 2021 (where I laughably said I'd completed the army) and the Tenth Company's Andrus Varro  (a conversion of the Lieutenant with combi-weapon to be less Tyraniddy). I wanted to try and con...

Today’s post is about iteration, how satisfying it can be to watch skills improve over time, and grav tanks. We here at the Craftworld Eldar Appreciation Society love grav tanks, yes we do. It’s been thrown about in our little gaming group from time to time that I have a type when it comes to my hobby. I like my characters a little villainous (or if they’re straight up heroes, a little dumb), and I paint a lot of black-and-off-white. Over the years I’ve done black stormtroopers with white lights, white harlequins with black underclothes, black templars, and a whole craftworld eldar army in Ulthwe colours. That last one is the important one for this post, because I’ve actually worked on 3 Ulthwe armies so far. Sort of. I’ve spent my last year or so, on and off, revisiting my eldar army. It started with a rebasing, given I’d begun the army (6 years or so ago) with the fastest basing I could think of: Crackle paint, rocks, and not much else. This changed, partly to reflect the army’s lore...

A brainwashed fearless uber-warrior is not, in general, a promising starting point for a compelling character. Anyone trying to come up with their own Space Marine characters is therefore immediately confronted with pitfalls, and it's all to easy to end up with quite bland or samey characters. Even official characters like Marneus Calgar don't have a personality to speak of (winning is not a personality). In today's post, then, I'm going to talk about some of the things I consider when adding a new character to my Cobalt Scions, a task that grows harder as I add more and more while trying to keep each one distinct. I'll leave you to judge how successful I've been. How Fearless is a Space Marine? Let's start with the titular claim about Space Marines: that they Know No Fear. This is a good line, of course, and we know that they're indoctrinated to endure horrors far beyond that which a baseline human could handle, but it's easy to take an overly rigid...