The Beard Bunker

I find it amusing that it's taken us so long to complete a miniature city building project that it would have been possible to construct a  real building (albeit a small one) in the same time. Ladies and gentlefarts, may I present a project chronology: Christmas 2024: public consultation Sector Imperialis ruins reappear on Made to Order on the GW website, and the terrain-enthused subsection of our gaming group known as Deep Space Nein do something financially responsible. July 2025: planning permission granted A courier drops off some huge boxes at my house. Harvey, Drew, Tom and I consult our calendars looking for dates all four of us can do. We swear a bit. November 2025: main construction Construction of the main buildings is completed . April 2026: detailing The buildings and main sections of rubble are built and primed from plaster, sand, offcuts and plasticard. Tom points out we're going to need more rubble, and I realise I'm going to have to figure that out before o...

In January, Harvey and I decided to have a crack at painting a Tyranid army as a joint project. Today's post is a very simple one: who is it, painting a joint army in this way, what's worked well, and what have we done to keep up the enthusiasm and momentum? This is a follow-up to Harvey's initial post in March , in which he explained the premise behind this project and how they're painted. We primed the first miniatures at the end of January, and after about four and a half months, here's where the swarm is at: Yeah, that's 2,360 points' worth of Tyranids, and since this photo was taken, Harvey's done another 10 Barbgaunts, bringing us to 2,470. We're both slightly taken aback at how successful this has been, but it should be mentioned that Harvey has happened to have a lot of time off work recently, and as a result, he has made twice as much progress as me. Here's how it breaks down: Harvey's bounteous effort My modest glossings It's a ...

As I write this we're a few months away from Warhammer 40,000's eleventh edition. In the Warhammer Community post describing the new edition's approach to terrain , they describe how different match ups will come with recommended battlefield layouts. This was hitherto something limited to Matched Play, but since that distinction is also being ditched in favour of a more unified player experience, it will now be the default setting for all players. Naturally there are now plenty of people thinking about getting some new acrylic or cardstock rectangles to slap down on their game mats. I wish them all the best.

A while back now, Charlie wrote the excellent Fury of the Swarm expansion for 40k. I think it's fair to say it left an impression, because not only have we continued playing it to this day, but I was left with the overwhelming desire to finally do an army I’d always looked at and admired, but never wanted myself. Tyranids. SCREEEEEEE Conception - Why not sooner? Because the line infantry was mid (until they refreshed the gaunts, which helped push me into it because they're just SO GOOD) and I'm very character focused when it comes to an army. I'll have a definite protagonist character through who I view the army and its exploits, and tyranids can't have that. Their whole schtick is the faceless swarm, and that was a waterline hole in how I invest myself in a project. So the new gaunts came out, and I had a reason to want an NPC army that didn't need a strong character, thanks to Charlie. Let's get it. ...And then Charlie and I got talking, and we both reali...

Falling through the heavens in a drop pod is about the most Space Marine thing you can do, besides angrily pointing at something while standing on a rock, or possibly struggling to fit through doors. So last year, when Games Workshop announced they were doing a new drop pod kit that's easier to build, I was pretty excited. I have two of the old ones, which are great once you've done them, but which take a lot of time to build, and suck to paint. The new ones, on the other hand, were a fun puzzle: was it possible, I wondered, to paint them mostly using masking tape and spray primer? It's so few parts, and those parts are so flat, that I wanted to see if it was possible. The answer is yes, but the remaining question is how much effort this truly saves you. Glue is mostly optional Other than one section of one of the five doors, the only parts you need glue for are the optional extras, which are the additional bits of rubble and the Chapter Badges/Aquilas. Once those are glued...

If you're going to create your own sector of Imperial space to situate your games of Warhammer 40K ( and in 2020 we did ), it follows that you would want to fight some one-off battles in it, as well as short campaigns, and some all-out wars. Following on from the Word Bearers' raid on the Lachesis system (which we played through in 2022 and  wrote up on Goonhammer ), everyone's favourite Chaos-worshipping gits finally invaded the system in July of 2024, when we added a persistent warzone . We then caught up with happenings in that warzone in October . This last January, the war ended over one final weekend of butchery. Today's post consolidates all 18 months of the campaign's narrative, followed by my reflections on how well the campaign structure worked. An Overview of the Lachesian War The extract below is the first chapter of The Lachesian War: its Causes, Occurrences and Consequences by Diokles Adrastos, Chief Librarian of the Cobalt Scions. Before I embark upon...

It wasn't immediately obvious that I had a lemon in my hands. The packaging promised me a Space Marine Gladiator tank. Certainly that's what my friends thought they'd bought me for my birthday, and very grateful I was too. And as proven the first time I built one of these things, a Gladiator can also serve as an Impulsor - just don't glue the arse on . With this new lad, I set about building it just the same way. I remembered how easily it had gone together the last time. All was well. Except, of course, it wasn't. Because it was a lemon. The citrusness first emerged when I dry-fitted the hull plates. That's weird , I thought, those are supposed to fit.  And yet they didn't. I was looking at a 1-3mm gap, depending on where you looked. How have I got this so wrong? I wondered. But 'twas not I, oh no sir. This bitch had warped harder than the USS Voyager hijacking a Borg transwarp conduit. Maybe it's just bent , I thought. That's fine, I can bend p...

Life continues to be taxing for many of the Bunkerites, we seem to be hitting a lot of crises that are happening in the mid-life, but not the fun kind.  Nobody has bought themselves a (new) motorbike yet (he says, genuinely considering it since I sold my last one about 6 years ago and I miss it).  Nevertheless, Warhammer remains a beacon of fun and friendship amidst the darkness, bringing us together time and time again for a bit of entertainment and a reminder that things could still be much much worse.  As is our annual tradition , we’re going to look back at what we’ve been up to this year, and maybe some hopes for the future.   Tom 2025 has been much less productive than I’d hoped, but things have begun to look up in the last few months.  The most obvious question to answer, is my Thunderhawk completed, is sadly a no.  I’m nearly there but prioritised other units for the ODF weekend that, by the time you read this, I will have just had. ...