The Beard Bunker

Almost exactly a year ago I finished up my mini Tau force, you can see them all together here:   Operation House Party .  I haven't done anything with them but about a week ago there was a chat amongst our local Nerd Herd (TM) about how to magnetise the weapons on Battlesuits and since I've been magnetising pretty much everything for as long as I've been hobbying we thought it would make a useful post here. This post assumes you have a drill/pin vice suitable for the task, and are familiar with its use. Before I get onto the specifics of Battlesuits, I thought I'd point out the most important aspect in magnetising: polarity.  Get this right and ultimately anything you magnetise will be compatible with any other item you've magnetised.  This has lead to me being extremely silly and onetime had a Terminator running around with the arms from an old box Dreadnought - definitely not narrative and sadly not recorded in an image. These little beauties aren't some horri...

I've had a bit of interest on how I do the forest basing that is on my Tau. In response I've put together a little step by step of what I actually do to get this:    So grab your basing bits and lets get started.  I've grabbed a couple of spare empty bases, just so I can show the method: I start by given them a solid base layer of Stirland Mud. This gives a nice textured surface to work up from. Leave to dry over night: Next up I use Vallejo Thick Mud - European Mud. This is a diffrent colour, more desaturated and has a less consistant texture with little random bits of grass and the like. It all adds to the random, which is what we are after as nature hates straight lines. If I had a model on the base I would also stipple some up on to the feet/hooves/claws/tracks etc just to help blend the model into the base. Do not use your best brushes for this: Once that has dried properly, again I tend to leave this over night, I superglue a few bits of stick, bark, and twig to the...

 ... They ARE the jungle.  In a somewhat Stark contrast to Andy's take on the Tau, my vision of them is rather more utilitarian. I've gone for a very simple scheme indicative of the industrial war machinery of another regime that also believed in the Greater Good*. To add a layer of interest, and because I seem to always want to over compliate everything, I have pushed the boat out with the weathering and basing on these guys.     The main paint scheme is drab green and black. The Green starts with Death World Forest, then a wash/pin wash** of Athonian Camo Shade***, Elysian Green, then finally Ogryn Camo. The Black was Corvus Black everywhere but the deepest of recesses where I left the Choas Black undercoat showing, then highlighted with Eshin Grey and Dawnstone.    Next up was the weathing stage. This was achived by taking a very light colour and a very small brush and gently building up the chipping with tiny dots and stratches. This is time consu...

Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey gubbins effect  - like a cheap soap opera or sitcom  We're heading back 12 years to the summer of 2008, I'm still living in Oulu, Finland, and I'm bored.  Wandering the streets I find two things: Iron Man has just been released in cinemas so I'll be going to watch that. The local news agents has a magazine I remember from when I was a kid - White Dwarf, and amazingly 40K is up to its 5th Edition (I last hobbied in '96 when we were still playing 2nd). Little did my wallet know how expensive one of these discoveries was going to be.... Fade cut back to the present... You see in the intervening years amongst all the changes there had been the introduction of at least one new race, the Tau.  Having just gone to see Iron Man, the obvious connections occurred in my head and an Iron Man themed Tau force was the offspring.  It only took me 12 years to realise...