The Beard Bunker

We shifted to monthly posts in October 2024 amidst what I nebulously referred to as "spectacular real life events" for a number of the Bunker's contributors. The monthly posts let the Bunker maintain a weak pulse, and gave us time to consider what to do with the site going forwards. That thought process is still ongoing, but - for now at least - things have calmed down enough that weekly posting should be manageable. Won't you tell us what happened? Sadly for the curious, I shall remain nebulous the things that happened to my fellow Bunker dwellers. It's not my news to share. For my own part, in the first half of this year, my job has some dramatic developments, then my mother in law unexpectedly died, at which point my job got even more crunchy for a few months. Happily my job's now calmed down again, and we're some months on from the death. Life is sort of normal-adjacent, albeit with heightened emotions. Thoughts on the Beard Bunker's future This we...

Welcome, fellow traveller on the tides of fate, we are looking today at some Rubric Marines dedicated to that trickiest of gods Tzeentch... but just a little bit twisted... I've said before in this august journal of nerdy knowings that I intend to have one of each of what I call the "God Squads" in the army. I've so far got Noise Marines and Plague Marines sorted, and they're pretty easy to fit into the "Mystery Cults" vibe that I had going. The Berserkers I was waiting on for the new kit and I'm glad I did. That leaves just the Rubric Marines of Tzeentch. Huh. How the hell was I going to make them work in the army? The tl;dr of Rubric Marines is that they were all created by Ahriman and are all Thousand Sons. They're literally just animated suits of armour filled with the dusty remains of the former occupant. So I needed something that would mimic the same vibe, but with a Word Bearers twist. Finally, the answer came to me: Necromancy. Yep, a...

In recent times two things have happened. Firstly, but chronologically second, we have gained a new codex for the Thousand Sons. The codex is actually quite good. Positives include more wounds for your Arcana Astartes and the daemon engines gaining some extra shooty points. Negatives include no actual daemons in the book and you can no longer take hordes of minions. Which to me is a downside as I liked the image of a powerful sorcerer kicking about a mass of expendable underlings towards the enemy. Also gone are the stratagems that allow you to mutate models into daemons or spawn. Do not despair, this is now part of the crusade rules. In fairness I think this is probably a good thing, partly because it probably takes longer than a single game turn to mutate, partly it is also fairer for those of us who don't have the spare models kicking about to spontaneously drop in a Daemon Prince because of a lucky roll. Other things include a whole load of new rules for Cabbalistic Rituals, In...

If you are thinking "What the hell is that?" you would be having an appropirate response to seeing the Mutalith Vortex Beast for the first time. The Mutalith Vortex Beast, or Gribbles as I've taken to calling it, is a support unit for the Thousand Sons. It is described in the codex as "an utter abomination of nature. It is a terrifying fusion of monster and magic, a creature mutated beyond all reason by the power of Chaos." Which sounds fun right?

I really wanted to add a Defiler to my Thousand Sons, it is a good thematic fit with what I have already and carries a wide range of weapons options. What I didn't like was the model so much. Specifically the box that made up the main torso. It really doesn't really do it for me. So I decided to be brave and go for the conversion. I started with the Soul Grinder model as the basis of the conversion as the daemon thing fits so well with the rest of the daemon engines I have already. The main thing I needed was to pick the weapons. The battle cannon was a given, adding a Twin Lascannon was an easy pick given the lack of anti-tank else where in the army. The heavy flamers are always a great option. So that decision made I had to work out how I was going to model the weapons to the Soul Grinder body. Raiding my bits box turned up a couple of Lascannon barrels and some heavy flamers. I think they are from a Leman Russ/Deomlisher kit but don't quote me on tha...

Welcome to another edition of Maisey doesn't stick to the damn plan. In this episode Maisey abandons his plans to get the last of his unfinished undead models complete before starting anything new.  Maisey will now stop talking in the third person.  Yep, I totally stopped working on the last of the skeleton units. In fairness I was trying to do a batch of 68 skeletons and a character. Which is a pretty large batch of models (unless you play Skaven). Once I had finished painting the skeletons I took a pause before beginning the basing, which was a fatal mistake.  At some point during this pause someone made the decision to start talking about doing a narrative PVP 40k campaign. This campaign would see the Thousand Sons, Craftworld Iyanden, and the Imperial Guard thrown together in a 'yet to be revealed to the players' situation. So I got a little excited and tore into the box of Kairic Acolytes that I had been saving for later. Kairic Acolytes? Y...

This week I have mostly been painting pink. Lots of pink. So much so that my paint palette looks like Barbie has killed and skinned a Unicorn on it (Unicorns have pink blood right?). This isn't because of some weird gender reveal plot for a baby we don't have (and not planning to have). No, this is because I managed to acquire yet more minions for my growing Tzeentch Chaos army. What self respecting Sorcerer wouldn't have mastered the art of summoning demons out of the warp? Not mine that's for sure. I do have to admit that my paint collection is very limited in the number of pinks it contains. So limited that I didn't have any . Not knowing the paint range very well I simply ordered most of them and set about learning how to paint pink. My first comment on this is that it's hard. Not hard as in technically hard like trying to play Bach on the spoons, but hard like pushing a rock up a hill, repeatedly. I did try a simple basecoat/w...