The Beard Bunker

When I was a kid, Forgeworld was churning out Imperial Guard tank variants and other vehicles in all sorts of delightful flavours.  At the time, I wasn’t collecting Guard, nor did I have the money, but I always looked at them with great envy.  By the time I finally started collecting Guard, many of those kits had become plastic GW models (Baneblade, Valkyrie, Hydra,...) but alas some of them disappeared from the lineup.  My all time top favourite of them, perhaps of any Forgeworld kits, is the Destroyer Tank Hunter.  And now I have one. Ethics Ok, let’s be clear, this is not a Forgeworld original.  I have looked, and I can see on eBay they go for £200-300 painted and I’m pretty sure those are also fake.  I could have converted my own out of a Leman Russ, I’ve seen people do it, but in general you don’t get that unique Destroyer Tank Hunter shape.  Freddy Mercury put it best: “Fat bottomed girls, you make the rockin' world go 'round.” I’ve also seen ple...

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...

I’ve mentioned a few times in previous posts about being back into the Guard in a big way, and I wasn’t kidding.   To recap, I built my guard army originally as some infantry to accompany my Imperial Knights, back when soup was a thing.   Having a core of three infantry squads and two heavy weapon squads (plus a a few characters) gave a sense of scale to the Knights.  But having done the hard part of making a Guard force (the infantry) it seemed rude not to add a few more things so I could field the Guard on their own.  In came three Leman Russes, three Sentinels, and to try and bulk out the non-vehicle section without painting even more guardsmen, a squad of Bullgryns and a squad of Ratlings.  Suddenly I was sitting on 1,500 points. But now, starting to treat it as its own army project, the main issue was... its relative lack of infantry.  Frankly, this was frustrating given how much effort had gone into painting so many men, but Guard really do ...

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 ...

I may have moaned on the Bunker about how much I hate painting Guard infantry.  I have definitely moaned to my fellow Bunkerites about it in person, extensively.  But I worked out a method to paint them moderately quickly, and churned out three infantry squads, a command squad and a couple of heavy weapon squads.  Grudgeingly.  I upped my “infantry” quota with some more interesting Ratlings and Ogryns, although it was pointed out to me that this really doesn't count.  And then the new Caidans came out and they look gorgeous and I love them and…  they’re so much more difficult to paint . I got my way through one command squad to give Captain Founder a much deserved glow-up, and got as far as building and spraying one infantry squad and just burned out, as the layers and layers of Castellan Green I had to apply just burned out my already tenuous enthusiasm.  I think I got as far as painting the green on one dude.  Hobby enthusiasm moved on, and I’ve...

It’s very unusual for me to consider a project “finished”, but this one is.  At least for now.  Whilst some Bearded Bunker dwellers are capable of starting a project, building a modest collection, and then calling it complete, I’ve never been able to do that.  I collect a lot of armies , and after the initial sprint to get them to minimum usable size, they continue on, being added to in fits and starts as inspiration strikes and new models get released.  They vary between 'boxed up and ignored' to 'current burning passion,' depending on the vagaries of the hobby butterfly.  Currently the winds of obsession are blowing the hobby butterfly distinctly Guard-wards, but that is largely due to my most recent success: completing my Knight Lance. Clan Vestrfjall of House Ulfir Armigers L-R: Vapnburtha - Vei Danr, Sverthsegg - Vei Bjartr, Glymja - Vei Asta Questoris L-R: Breithux - Gar Touki, Striiguth - Jafnather Yarl Rúna I previously shared the start of this army , an...